Overview
This guide takes account for combat in FTL: Faster Than Light. Learn in these in-depth sections on how to properly and efficiently survive battles with various foes and their varieties of different space craft. Soon, you’ll be able enough to fight even more efficiently and properly.
Introduction
Battles in FTL: Faster Than Light happen frequently – could be every time you warp through different areas of the star system, or could be every now and then. Fighting efficiently and properly is the key subject to surviving the masses of enemies you have to face throughout the video game. If you cannot fight with ease, then you’ll find those recieved damages piling up until your obliteration.
While, no certain strategy is required to play, it definitely prevents your destruction. Like any other video game, you could just go and fire around the place, just killing enemies, taking chances and risks; but then there’s the smarter and wiser choice – which usually takes you to victory…
This guide will explain the mechanics and tactics that must be adopted and understood to fight properly and survive each battle, one after the other. As battles are frequent and repeated, the damage taken can really pay a toll. So behold, this digital guide – to help you survive the harsh conditions of running a crew and fighting another.
Crew
Your crew in FTL: Faster Than Light is the primary staff in your spacecraft. They run the ship; the shields, the weaponry, the engine and many other stations. Without a crew, there is no way of controlling your ship efficiently enough, if at all. An important structure to surviving battles, is to make sure each and every station is properly run by a single crew member, who can repair and improve the station’s performance.
Some stations do not require crew members to actively remain in it, but some require a crew member to even start. The cockpit is a good example of the required presence from a crew member; to start the FTL drive, a crew member must be stationed at the cockpit at all times, and the drive will not recharge if there is nobody at the helm.
Stationing a member at the cockpit also increases evade – allowing you to increase the chances of dodging enemy attacks; missiles, lasers and so forth. Crew members are important, you have to at least have three to properly run your spacecraft. Any lower, and you’ll find yourself running your crew around the ship, trying to control all stations with very few manpower.
If there are chances to pick up crew members, do not hesitate to pick them up. An exception to gathering more crew members would be when you have more than enough to run the ship, or you’ve exceeded the limit of members. When beginning the game, The Kestrel has a default number of three crew members, a pleasing amount to steadily run the ship.
Crew members not only run the ship, but must also fight themselves. Enemy spacecraft can beam their crew aboard yours, erupting firefights inside the halls of your ship. This can be a problem, as while trying to fight and maintain support of your stations, you also have to send additional crew to combat the intruders.
To counterattack this situation, it is recommended to keep Anti-Piers bots on board, which have a good amount of health and attacks stats and will automatically fight back against any intruders. It is best to quickly take out intruders, as they begin attacking stations; cutting off oxygen or the shielding. Another way to keep enemies off your ship is to damage their teleporters to the point where they’re obsolete, allowing relief from the harrassment.
During firefights, or damage from external attacks, crew members get hurt. Human crew members have one hundred points of health, which is not incredible in contrast to Rockmen, who have one hundred and fifty points of health. Health is vital to your crew members, if their health reaches zero then they will die.
Critical Points
o Keep all crew members at full health at all times.
o Always have at least three crew members on-board.
o Certain races – like Humans – require oxygen.
o All crew members need something to do, even if it’s repairing stations.
Stations
Stations in FTL: Faster Than Light are the rooms in a spacecraft which control certain elements, like shields and life support. Aboard spacecraft, stations are crucial to survival, and it is important to keep them safe from damage, otherwise you will be left obsolete and vulnerable to enemy fire. Some stations are more important than others in terms of combat usefulness.
For example, the weapons station must be kept in good condiiton in order to maximise it’s potential. Once the weapons are out, so are you. This can also be used as a tactic againsts enemies; to focus all weapons on their primary combat stations, like bot control or weapons. This will keep the enemy from firing back, allowing for an easy kill.
Crew members and some bots can fix up stations easily, except this can waste manpower, trying to fix up other stations, leaving certain other ones vulnerable. The cockpit must – at all times – be stationed with a crew member. Without a pilot in the helm, the spacecraft will lose evading chances, not be able to recharge the FTL drive and most importantly, unable to move.
Other important – but not critical – stations include the health stations, which provides the vital power of healing your crew members. Without a health station, there is no efficient way to provide healing to your crew. Other methods include bots, which do not provide the same speed of healing as the health station.
Critical Points
o Keep all stations repaired and healthy at all times.
o It is critical to maintain shields and weapons at all times.
o Crew members present at all stations which require active control.
o EXTINGUISH FIRES! They are a major killer of stations.
o Do not overflood your spacecraft with stations – more stations, more crew members.
Combat
Combat in FTL: Faster Than Light is – from one perspective – nothing more than two spacecraft exchanging shots to one another. While, an in-depth look onto things reveals great strategy to be had. There are certain ways to fight and certain places to aim for, not to just randomly shoot all over the place; this will greatly waste good potential.
A spacecraft’s hull indicates it’s overall condition, and once it reaches zero, it is destroyed. Shooting at empty rooms of an enemy spacecraft damages their hull, and soon results in their destruction. However, shooting at the spacecraft’s stations, has another result. Spacecraft in FTL are controlled by stations, each of these stations control a certain area or ability of the ship; like shields or life support.
You can’t destroy any of these stations in FTL – but, you can disable them, in a way. Shooting at stations result in them recieving damage and working at a lower energy capacity and efficiency. If you can damage a station enough, it’s power levels reduce and it may not be able to use all of it’s functions – if at all.
Stations like the weapons are vulnerable to these attacks. Once hit, it reduces maximum power input, preventing the crew from using more weapons and using energy. This will force the crew to repair the station and if they don’t, then they don’t use it. This is how battles are properly won, by damaging enemy stations and sending their crew scrambling around to repair everything and stay alive.
As explained above, battles should consist of the repetitive destruction of enemy stations, most usefully, the weapons and shields. Once the enemy shields are disabled, they will be vulnerable to all attacks, unless they dodge it. Weapons are also an extremely useful target; once they are disabled, they will not be able to fire a single round back at you, leaving them a slow and powerless death.
Other tactics include the life support systems of the enemy ship; like the oxygen station. Once this station is disabled, the entire enemy crew will suffocate. Be warned though, enemy drone spacecraft do not have oxygen stations, since they’re not organisms, they’re machines. Stations should be the number one target in a fight.
Stations like Drone Control can also be taken out to prevent the enemy bots from harrassing you in the fight, or to disable their Anti-Piers drones so your crew can beam on-board and have a more comfortable firefight. Drones can be annoying, so they are usually best taken out first, to prevent any further harrassment.
Other useful stations to take out are the Sensors. Disabling these stations will disable the enemy’s view of their own spacecraft, as well as yours. This may not be priority in a intense space battle, and reducing the views of un-used rooms will not impact their performance. These stations can be more damaging to human players, rather than AI.
In combat, missiles are used by cannons, lasers are used by laser cannons, ion used by ion cannons and beams are used by.. beams. Most weaponry are used for direct damage, like cannons and laser cannons, while some beams also carry the ability to set stations on fire. Beams are usually intented to damage crew members and stations themselves.
Other weapons like Ion cannons are used like an EMP; to take out the targeted stations. Ion cannons are best used for shields, even if not intended to. When firing an ion blast at the enemy spacecraft, the blast will hit their shield, disabling it for a couple seconds, allowing further hits to be placed onto them.
There are other forms of attacking as well; like drones. Drones are a good way to attack the enemy without doing much yourself, using them in firefights and space battles – models like the Anti-Piers and Anti-Ship. Drones can be used in a variety of ways, including support options as well.
Drones like the Hull Repair and System Repair can be widely used to maintain ship health while conserving your crew to control stations. While these automatic allies are useful, they can all be disabled by simply attacking the Drone Control station, which leaves them widely vulnerable to being disabled – easily.
While fighting against spacecraft usually involve cannons and beams, it can also be done from the inside. Beaming your crew into the enemy’s is a useful form of extermination. Once your crew is on board the enemy spacecraft, you can engage with the opponent in person, killing every one of their crew and leaving the large hulk of ship floating uselessly.
Firing at the enemy does not always mean to constantly pick targets. Using the auto-fire button, you can select your weapons to fire at the exact same target until de-selecting the option. This can help keep the heat of fighting off the player, and allowing you to manage the crew and stations rather to simply pick where to shoot.
Critical Points
o Stations are the important targets – not empty rooms.
o Life support systems are useful for harming the crew – don’t expect much to the ship though.
o Shields are useful targets as well, leaving the enemy vulnerable to any form of attack.
o Disabling weapon stations are extremely effective in leaving your enemy powerless.
o Drone Control stations can easily be disabled, leaving enemy drones useless very easily.
o Beaming onto enemy ships are also useful – but be careful for Anti-Piers and Personnel drones.
o If you’re facing an opponent you can’t outmatch, secure your cockpit and engines and FTL out!
Weapons
Weapons in FTL: Faster Than Light range from missiles, lasers, beams, ion blasters and more. These weapons all have different characteristics and outcomes, like starting fires or disabling power. Different weapons can be used in different situations, like for harming the enemy crew or destroying stations.
Cannons use one missile per shot, which is a limited resource in the video game, meaning that the player must constantly loot for more missiles to use and without them, there is no firing for the cannon. This can be a disadvantage, seeing that the ammunition is limited and should not be used pointlessly. While missiles are – as previously said – limited in ammunition, they are powerful and cause great damage to the hull of the enemy spacecraft.
Laser cannons are weapons that fire blasts of lasers, usually repetitive with three or two lasers. Any laser cannon that fires a single laser is not worth having on-board, since the lasers have low damage and a single shot will be a great waste of potential firepower. Weapons like laser cannons are best used in pairs, to maximise the harrasment of their repeated shots.
More anti-personnel weapons include the beam, coming in different varieties like the pikebeam. Beams fire a straight line of laser across a ship, cutting through the rooms and stations, causing damage among crew members and stations. Some beams have the ability to just solely start fires, which is extremely useful for increasing havoc among the enemy ship.
While beams require the shields to be down, there is another weapon that can do exactly that by itself. Ion blasters fire a blast of ion to power down anything it hits, like stations. While ion blasters can be aimed, they can be just shot anywhere to hit the shields of the enemy, instantly disabling it temporarily. These blasters can be an extremely useful asset.
Weapons in FTL do not use ammunition, excluding the cannon. The only catch among the weapons is a recharge time. Each weapon – after shooting, must be recharged. There is usually a couple seconds time of recharging required per weapon, and some require less time than others. Another thing that all weapons require is power.
Power among a spaceship is ultimately required to use all the stations, like weapons and shields. Without power, weapons cannot be fired, and this can be a major disadvantage and killing blow to the spacecraft, both yours and the enemy’s. Other countermeasures to fill the position of weapons are drones, which can be used as a form of attacking.
Internal Dangers
Aboard spacecraft in FTL: Faster Than Light, there are more dangers than the enemy’s weapons. Results from certain damage to your ship can cause fires to start, or worse, giant gashes in the craft leading to the vacuum of space – rapidly draining oxygen from the room and damaging your crew.
In intense battles, these disasters are not rare and happen frequently. Weapons like certain teleporting explosive charges have abilities to start fires, and these bursts usually cover up the entirety of the room’s space. When these outbreaks happen, it is important to quickly dispatch a crew member to extinguish the fire.
Fires also start by solar flares, which are caused by stars too close to the FTL beacons. These stars are inevitable, as they are present the entire time the player is in the system. The flares are also impossible to stop, not even with shielding. Flames from solar flares usually erupt in a single room somewhere in the ship and this can be random.
If you cannot extinguish the flames fast enough, you are risking the station’s condition. Fires are major killers of rooms, spreading very rapidly and damaging crew members and stations. Sometimes, fires require two or more crew members to get extinguish them, some fires may be too large for a single member to handle.. These fires spread all about the space ship, damaging nearly every room.
To prevent these fires from spreading like the ship was made of pospherous, it is recommended to upgrade the Doors station, increasing the strength and resilience of the doors throughout the spacecraft, increasing the time it takes for intruders to open it up, and the time it takes for fires to spread through it.
Other methods include opening the airlock to suck out the oxygen from the subject room, preventing the fire from burning any longer. However, rooms that are too deep within crew presence are almost impossible to airlock out, since the oxygen is sucked out at a larger level and the crew members are all damaged.
Other dangers also include gashes in the ship, that happen when the enemy strikes a critical hit or an Anti-Piers drone is launched onto your ship. These gashes very rapidly suck out oxygen and must be fixed in order to prevent the major reduction of oxygen supply. Worser conditions for these holes include fires starting around it, increasing major damage to the crew.
Critical Points
o Fires must be extinguished very fast, otherwise they’ll spread rapidly.
o Flames can be put out by opening the airlock – but oxygen is sucked out rapidly.
o Fire outbreaks can also damage stations very rapidly as well.
o Gashes in the hull suck out oxygen in an extreme rate, and must be fixed as well.
o Upgraded doors can reduce the flame spread and oxygen suction.
Fight or Flight
Sometimes, your opponent may appear to be stronger than you thought – facing certain death. While fighting is surviving, there is an alternative solution to walking away from a battle, unscathed of course. The answer would be.. ‘running away’.
While a rear advance may seem cowardice, backing away is a fine solution in preventing your destruction. Of course, there are still difficulties that arise trying to accomplish your transfer. To back out, the FTL drive is required to be charged, and this means that at any time it could be halted.
It is important to keep your engines and a pilot in your cockpit if you want the FTL drive to succeed it’s recharge. There are several factors that determine your survival whilst waiting. One, being the time of wait for recharge, two, being the enemy’s ability to simply damage the cockpit or engine and three, internal dangers and crew health.
Alot of times during a battle, backing away comes to the mind, but with the many chances of the FTL drive never even recharging it can become hard to conduct. If the enemy damages the engine, the FTL drive will not work unless it is fixed, this is also the case for the cockpit, plus there needs to be a member stationed at it.
Other problems are like internal dangers, like fires or other stations damaged. If a fire engulfed your engine station – it’s over. Unless the fire is extinguished, there’s no entering that room, this means double wait times. The stations are not the only ones damaged by fires; your crew members are highly vulnerable to fires, and even can result in deaths.
Death of crew members result in a lower count of staff to run the ship. This means that you may or may not even have the required number of members to spare on fixing the engines or manning the cockpit. The FTL drive is a very simple knock-out target, and even slight damage can send it powering down.
While the paragraphs above can persuade you in thinking it’s a terrible idea to even have the drive on-board, it’s not over. The FTL drive is generous for those advanced ships. If you have the maximised shields, don’t fret. The shields deflect enemy shots and provide you time – plus, there’s no need for manning the weapons.
Other techniques in rendering the enemy obsolete is firing at their weapons systems; they can’t shoot at you while you recharge and beam yourself across the galaxy at the speed of light. There aren’t many terrible outcomes if you want to back out, but in the midst of a ship burning and scuttling crew, you may not haVe the time and manpower to conduct such precautions for engine and cockpit safety.