Overview
A summary of all thing you have to know to unlock different spacecrafts. This very guide helped me much in my own journeys across FTL galaxies.Warning: may contain spoilers.
Introduction
This is a cheatsheet for unlocking different types of vessels. This guide includes only special quests that allow you to unlock certain ships and is to a degree obsolete since Advanced Edition.
In AE, each unique ship can be earned by beating the game on any difficulty with previous ship (look for arrows with ‘V’ on your ship list for order).
Each ship’s layout B can be unlocked by earning any 2 of 3 ship related achievements.
Ships layout C (available in Advanced Mode for every vessel but Lanius and Crystal) will be unlocked after reaching sector 8 on respective layout B ship.
Finally, find four ships (Kestrel doesn’t count) to get Lanius Cruiser, and complete the game on every A and B layout (excluding Lanius) to earn Crystal Cruiser.
Difficulty doesn’t matter when unlocking ships. Sometimes you may get message asserting that “you got a quest, but you have no time for this”. This means that the game failed to place quest. Most likely this happens in the end of sector 7, when there are no free beacons and next sector is Last Stand. For more information on Faster Than Light try the FTL Wiki[ftl.wikia.com].
Kestrel Cruiser
The Kestrel Cruiser is your starter ship, so it is available from the very beginning.
Engi Cruiser
This ship will be unlocked just as you pass to Sector 5. Quite simple.
Federation Cruiser
To find the Federation Cruiser, look for a special sector named Rebel Stronghold. On one of the non-distress beacons you may find the second Rebel Flagship. This one is still under construction and doesn’t represent a real danger. Either destroy it or kill all its crew to win.
Note: prior to AE you just had to win the game.
Stealth Cruiser
This is an advanced Engi vessel (which is honestly not so easy to use). This ship can be unlocked in event only in Engi Homeworlds (this means not in Engi Controlled Sector) on a normal beacon.
- Engi discussion
- Engi crew
You arrive near a small fleet of civilian Engi ships. A simple decryption and translation of their comm frequency tells you that they are having a frantic discussion about something obviously troubling them.
Use blue option 3: Have your Engi crew member contact them.
Two quest markers will be added to your map, one of which is fake and the other is real. You can tell if the marker is real by looking for quotation mark in the text. Introduction message on real quest contains symbol ” at the end. Both beacons have Rebel ships floating around. Be careful if the marker is real (or if you are not sure about it), those ships will attempt to jump away immediately! Your goal is to make it surrender. Ask for information on the stolen technology. Rebel ship on “real” quest marker gives you final quest marker. There is no extra benefit in visiting second quest beacon if you have already found real one.
On the final quest marker you have to fight Mantis ship manned by Rebels. You can win both by destroying the ship or killing its crew. Use dialogue options you get (there will be no choice) and enjoy new ship delivered to Federation base on next run!
- Weapon
- Repair (20 hull units)
Mantis Cruiser
This cruiser, owned in past by Mantis thief KazaaakplethKilik, is good for anyone who enjoys boarding enemy vessels. The event can only occur in Mantis Homeworlds (not Controlled Sector), long-range scanners will detect ship with no enviromental hazards.
- Typical Mantis name KazaaakplethKilik.
- Teleporter
- Medbay 2+
- (optional) Mantis crew – will help you not to miss the event, but unnecessary
You cross paths with a Mantis ship that looks to have had dozens of layers of armor-plating added over what must have been a hundred year career. Its captain is legendary thief KazaaakplethKilik. Your crew look frightened.
Whatever you do, prepare to fight the ship.
Your goal is to kill all the crew (board them, ionize oxygen, burn them with fire weapon, smash with Anti-Bio beam, I think any way works). Then simply use two blue options provided by your systems and cruiser is yours.
- Augment
- Mantis crew member
Rock Cruiser
Guess where you have to go? Exactly, Rock Homeworlds. Long-range scanners show a ship with no environmental hazards.
- Talkative Rockman. Somewhat uncommon.
- (none)
You are immediately messaged by an imposing looking Rock war vessel, “You’re the ship off to ‘save the Federation,’ aren’t you? And you expect to survive with that hunk of junk?”
Answer with either 1 or 2. Rock ship jumps away, quest marker is added to your map.
You arrive at the coordinates given and find yourself dangerously close to an M-class star! The other ship messages you, “Let’s see how long your puny ship can handle this heat! Prepare for a challenge!”
You should let Rockmen successfully escape. They will power the FTL drive immediately, so a heart of the problem is surviving solar flames (just as the message suggests). Nothing wrong in destroying their weapon system if ship’s armament damages your hull, but make sure not to destroy ship, kill crew or damage their bridge or engines.
As ship jumps away another quest marker is added to your map. You finally arrive to Rockman shipyard and are given new ship for free!
- Rock Plating Augment
- Repair (29 hull units)
Zoltan Cruiser
The supershield Zoltan Cruiser is fitted out with can stop even missiles, isn’t that cool? (And Zoltan B is my favourite ship.) You need to encounter an event in Zoltan Homeworlds on a normal beacon. Easy peasy if you know what to do.
- Peaceful Zoltans.
- (none)
An unarmed Zoltan transport vessel is slowly making its way toward the beacon here. They hail: “This is a Zoltan peace envoy. We carry no weapons or shielding and rely on the mercy of others to communicate our message.”
Use option 2: Hear them out. Zoltans give you coordinates of their “brethren”.
Upon arriving to quest marker, attempt to hail them. They will tell you:
“I can’t imagine there’s anything you could say that will save you. The rebellion must destroy those that are still loyal to the obsolete Federation.”
Answer with 1: Perhaps there could be a reconciliation of our ideals without war?
Our ideals are too different to be so easily reconciled. You think this could end any way but war?
And, finally, 2: True progress can only be achieved without bloodshed.
- Weapon
Slug Cruiser
To acquire Slug Cruiser you should look for Slug ships in Slug Home Nebula. LRS will report “Possible Ship Detected”. You need some luck to succeed as finding an actual “unlock” ship is pure random (25 percent to be precise).
- “You have besssted us” thingy when ship surrenders.
- (none)
You receive one of the following messages. Don’t mind them much though, those are standard battle event messages.
- Your sensors are no match for the Slug’s telepathic abilities – a ship you never even saw opens fire from astern!
- The Slug vessel you encounter here has obviously made a big score and is looking to test its new armaments. They picked the wrong ship to attack.
- A Slug passenger ship hails: “Please, your worthy alien highnessesss, we are unarmed and sseeking asssylum.” You approach cautiously, and weapons immediately spring from their hull!
- A Slug ship – a rogue, you suspect – approaches, but when he sees you’re Federation he thinks better of the sneak attack and fires everything he has.
- Direct attacks are not preferred by the Slugs, but of the three you see at this beacon, one has the brass to make a move on your position!
Prepare for the battle. You want the Slugs to surrender, so damage their hull to 3-4 points left. At this point the ship surrenders:
You have besssted us! Will you accept what is in our storeesss in exchange for our livess?
Accept by using 1: Let them live.
Then Slugs either give you resources or offer a prototype weapon. You want to find exactly a vessel with weapon cargo. So, if the ship offered you scrap and fuel, take it and find another one in the nebula. Eventually you will see this:
Take thisss newly developed weapon we’re transporting… They’re not going to be happy we gave it up, that isss for ssure…
Deny with 2: We don’t want the weapon, we want information.
The weapon was Anti-Bio Beam if you’re interested. Quest marker is added to your map.
Yeah, this event is complicated. Before arriving to a quest beacon, make sure you have either:
- Slug crew or
- Sensors 2+
You arrive to discover an impressive cruiser being worked on by a few smaller ships and guarded by an assault ship. The mobile construction platform is slowly slipping into the clouds. You have not yet been noticed.
2: Try to tail them without being noticed.
You slip into the nebula undetected but at this rate you are likely to get lost and lose track of them.
Now use your blue option (either of them if you have both) and prepare to fight pretty weak Slug Interceptor. Warning: the ship will try to escape quickly! Don’t let them leave, either destroy ship or kill enemy crew. Congratulations!
- Augment
Lanius Cruiser
It is a ship specific to Advanced Edition and it has no in-universe quest. You just need to unlock four more ship types in addition to Kestrel, just as the tip suggests.
Crystal Cruiser
Crystal Cruiser is definitely the hardest ship to acquire. Since the AE update it became a bit easier yet still needs a good amount of luck. The only way to achieve it before involved three random events which must happen in specific order. Because of RNG (Random Number GodGenerator) it could take over 100 hours in-game for stars to align nicely… or you might get Crystal ship on your first run.
First of all, you need to find a Crystalline crewmember. Since Advanced Edition there is way that is less prone to random: Layout C of Rock Cruiser starts with a Crystal. Skip to the section titled “Ancient Device” if you have it already.
The alternative, immensely frustrating old-school way is to check distress beacons in any Engi Sectors, any Rock Sectors or Pirate Controlled Sector. The beacon distress where the signal is coming from will show no environmental hazards on Long-Range Scanners.
A ship without life forms within a nearby dense asteroid field is giving off the distress call. Shall we investigate? It could be dangerous.
If you have a Rock ship, use blue option provided by your Rock plating. Otherwise, choose 1: Search for the ship. You have a chance of finding nothing (inflicts some damage on your hull), general goods (scrap and resources) or remains of the Crystalline ship. With Rock Plating there is 100% chance of finding the ship.
You find the decaying remains of some kind of ship coated with ice or crystal. You send some crew aboard to explore. Nearly everything is either destroyed or unidentifiable, but one of the weapons appears salvageable and there’s a strange stasis pod that catches your eye.
Select 2: Grab the stasis chamber. You receive Stasis Chamber as an “augment”.
Now you have to navigate to any Zoltan Sector or any Engi Sector. The event you’re looking for is on normal beacon.
You arrive at a Zoltan research facility. They say they are researching genetic distortion due to stasis sleep and prolonged FTL travel. They ask if your crew has the time to undergo a few scans.
As you have damaged Stasis Pod, use the blue option provided by it: Ask if they can fix this.
You receive a Crystal crew member and a new quest marker.
The destination point is placed in Rock Homeworlds (not Controlled Sector) on a quest beacon.
Getting a Crystal from a stasis pod it isn’t that rare, the most tricky part is finding a Rock sector afterwards. The general strategy would be “look for as many red sectors as possible”.
If you go with the “old” method, after finding Rock Homeworlds things get way easier. Play carefully, don’t joke with giant alien spiders and just get to the quest beacon. If you fly on Rock C, I don’t think the quest beacon will appear (I haven’t had time to thoroughly test AE, sorry), so try checking every normal beacon.
An ancient device is orbiting within the crystal rings of a nearby gas giant. You can’t discern its nature or function, but it seems to have been deactivated for a very long time. Perhaps you can get some scrap from it.
This is it. You need a Crystal crew member at this point, so don’t let your Crystal man die! Use the blue option and navigate through miraclous Hidden Crystal World to the last quest marker, where your final award awaits.
You arrive at the coordinates to find a massive Crystalline cruiser docked at a small repair station…
I wish everyone to make it to this point. Sail to the stars, for a new adventure!