Redshirts: A Guide to FTL’s Races

Overview

A complete guide to the races of FTLA detailed guide to your crew and how to use them! This guide is split into multple sections for easy viewing with tons of visual aids to help make points. It will take you step-by-step through the races, the skills, the training, and the locating of your short lived expendables. Come learn more about the men you are sending into the fire every day.

Introduction

Welcome to FTL: Faster Than Light

This guide is built to help you understand a little bit more about the unsung heroes of this brutal galaxy, your crew! You can’t keep ’em alive, you’ll never find ’em when you need ’em, they die every other jump, but by God you can’t win without ’em!

We will start out with an in depth look at each of the unique races. After that we will explore the functions of your crew and their abilities. Once you have learned how to use them the following section will go into detail on earning Experience and ranking up skills. Then we will close off with a quick bit on how to obtain new crew members while you are outrunning the Rebel Fleet.

Please refer to the Table of Contents on the Side Bar if you ever need to jump to a specific section and click on any images in the guide to expand them for better viewing. Thank you for reading my guide and I hope you learn something today!

Crew Races

This section will go into detail on the specifics of each the seven different races in FTL. This includes their general statistics as well as any special abilities they may have.

The general statistics are:

• Health – The amount of health a race has determines the amount of damage it can sustain beforing dying. The higher the health, the better.
• Movement Speed – How quickly a race moves around the ship. This is a very important stat for stopping invaders or repairing damaged systems.
• Combat Strength – Determines the amount of damage a race deals in melee combat. This is important when it comes to invading the enemy ship or defending your own.
• Repair Speed – A crucial stat that determines how quickly a race fixes damaged systems on your ship or patches up hull breaches. How long it takes to get a system back online is the difference between life and death.

Crew Races – Human

Crew Races – Engi

Crew Races – Mantis

Crew Races – Rockman

Crew Races – Zolton

Crew Races – Slug

Crew Races – Crystal

Using your Crew – Ship Maintenance

The main function of your crew is to assist in the operation of the various Systems and Subsystems on your ship. This is done by placing a crew member inside the same room as the desired system. Once inside that room the crew member will automatically begin operating the system, or manning it.

A system can only be manned by one crew member at a time. Additional crew in a room will not have any impact on the performance of the room’s system. You can visually distinguish which crew member is actively manning the system by looking for the one that appears to be operating a console.

When a crew member is manning a system a small icon will appear above that system on your HUD. This icon changes depending upon the rank of the crew member with that system(see Training Your Crew).

Not all systems can be manned. The list of operable systems is:


SYSTEMS:

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[/b]Piloting is the only system that is required to be manned for your ship to be able to progress. Without a pilot your ship cannot FTL jump between sectors.

See the Training your Crew section for details on the benefits of manning each system.

Your ship is inevitably going to sustain damage during your journey. There are a lot of ways the galaxy has of beating up your ship. When you do finally sustain damage your crew is going to be there to fix things up and get your ship running again.

There are two forms of damage to your ship that your crew can repair:

• System Damage
• Hull Breach

System damage occurs from enemy weapons, boarders, or environmental effects hitting the room where a system is stored. When this occurs the damage will be reflected in your HUD as Red power units in place of the usual Green. A system that is partially disabled will be highlighted Orange on your system while a fully wrecked system will be Red.

Any crew present in a room when it becomes damaged will sustain damage as well. Weapons damage crew at a rate of 15 Health lost per 1 unit of system damage. This means a Heavy Laser Mark I does 2 damage to a system and 30 to your crew.

Crew will begin immediately repairing the systems in their current room without any input from the player. Crew currently manning a system will stop doing so until repairs are finished. This means you lose any benefits they may have provide to that system while they handle repairs.

Repair is done one unit of power at a time and can be tracked by the Yellow progress bar replacing the Red power unit on your HUD. If a crew leaves a room without letting the Yellow progress complete then all repairs will be reset and they will have to start over when they re-enter. Multiple crew can increase the speed of repairs.

Hull breaches are incredibly dangerous. These are massive holes in your ship that are left by powerful enemy weapons and drones. The hull breach will deplete all oxygen from the room rapidly until it is repaired. This means your crew must endure constantly depleting health while attempting to repair a breached room.

Breaches, like fires, must be dealt with before damage to systems can be repaired. Unlike system repairs though, hull breaches can be worked on incrementally. If you begin work on a breach, leave the room, and then re-enter your progress is not lost. This can allow you to heal up at the Medbay between attempts to make sure your crew stays healthy.

At some point your ship is going to catch on fire. This is not an ideal situation, but it is an unavoidable one. This is an incredibly dangerous hazard that can lead to your ruin if not managed properly.

Fires are caused by a large variety of enemy weapons and from Solar Flares. Fires deal constant damage to any system they occupy. This will cause any system to slowly redline power units until it shuts down entirely (it turns Red on your HUD). You can also tell a system is currently on fire by locating the flaming symbol above it on your HUD.

The fire will also damage any crew in the same room, except for Rockman (see Races section). Any crew in the same room as a fire will begin to combat it automatically. They will continue to sustain damage over time while they attempt to extinguish it.

Fire spreads. Fast. It will continue to spread even as your crew struggle against it. It can only be restrained by a Level Two and Level Three Door System. Fire cannot exist without oxygen either. If a room does not have any oxygen left then all fires will suffocate quickly. Properly venting your ship is a key strategy to dealing with rampant infernos. A fire in a contained room will eventually suffocate itself.

Using your Crew – Combat Basics

Crew based combat is a big part of the game, whether or not your Engi crew members like it.

Combat is direct man-to-man confrontations between your crew and the enemy crew. The effectiveness of the various races in combat is determined by their Combat Strength and Health (see Races section). Combat Strength increases a units damage while Health determines the amount of damage they can sustain before death. Combat Strength is modified by a units Experience in the Combat skill(see Training your Crew – Combat) and provide upwards of 20% increased damage. This is a hidden stat when it comes to enemy crew so do not underestimate them during later stages of the game, they could be a lot stronger than they appear.

When a unit hits 0 Health they die. Death is permanent in FTL, so be VERY CAREFUL with your units in combat. When a units health is critical (<30% remaining) their health bar will flash red and you will hear the sound of a heart beat and loud beeping. This is FTL’s way of warning you that a unit is close to death. When you hear the heartbeat it is usually a good idea to pause and figure out which unit is critical.

Combat can happen on either your ship or the enemies (see Invasions and Teleporting). Combat is confined to whichever room the combatants are occupying, meaning you cannot damage or be damaged by units in other rooms.

Enemy crew and friendly crew can occupy the same grid in a room. This allows for a rooms capacity to be doubled for the sack of combat. Units engage in combat with the closest unit to them, prioritizing the enemy sharing a grid with them and then choosing amongst the enemy remaining after that. Use this knowledge to your advantage when fighting the enemy, do not let an Engi get into the same tile with a Mantis unless you want that poor Engi torn to shreds.

Combat is very visually arresting and stressful. It is very easy to focus 100% on your units fighting the enemy and lose focus on the rest of the fight. Take time during a fight (even a one sided clean up) to pause the game and make sure nothing else needs your attention at the moment. It may sound silly, but it is incredibly easy to overlook a fire, hull breaches, fully charged weapons, or damaged systems when you are watching your favorite Rockman fight off a Boarding Drone.

Using your Crew – Invasion and Teleporting

Enemy ships are not your only concern. You will frequently have to combat direct invasion by enemy crew onto your ship. This can be a true test of your crew and your leadership, especially during later stages of your mission.

Enemy crew can enter your ship through three different methods, but each have the same outcome.

The first and most predictable option is a Crew Teleporter system on the enemy ship. You can easily see if the enemy ship has one by looking at the their ship when combat begins. If they have a Crew Teleporter then you can anticipate a boarding party will dock on your ship shortly after combat begins. Destroying or disabling the Teleporter can halt their boarding tactics.

The second means of entry is usually event driven and happens regardless of enemy ship layout or type. Certain story events or sectors will force you to combat a boarding party that enters your ship regardless of whether or not there is an enemy ship present or if there is even a Crew Teleporter for them to use. There is nothing you can do to stop them from boarding your ship.

The third means of entry is a Boarding Drone. This drone is fired as a projectile at your ship and it will land in a random section of your ship. Once it lands it leavs a Hull Breach in that room and begin searching your ship for systems to destroy. Boarding drones are ferocious fighters that have all the Combat Strength of a Mantis and all the Health of a Rockman. However, they can be safely disabled without direct combat by destroying the enemy Drone Control sytem. Boarding drones do not need to breath oxygen and are immune to fires.

Your crew must now assemble to combat the enemy boarding party. See the Races section for a full listing of crew Combat Strength and Health stats. The enemy boarding party will teleport onto a random section of your ship and move towards the closest available system. Once there they attack that system until it is disabled. You can see which rooms are being actively assaulted by looking for the Combat icon above the system on your HUD.

Enemy crew can be delayed (but not stopped) by higher levels in your Door Systems. Level two and three will barricade the enemy in a room until they deal enough damage to break through the door. This can buy you time to mobilize your crew and position them properly.

Be very aware of the racial composition of both your crew and the enemy crew. You will be in for a very bad day if you send an Engi into a fight with a Mantis unassisted. Pause the game, assess the situation, and coordinate your defense properly.

Fight inside your Medbay when possible. The automatic regeneration from your Medbay will counteract the enemy damage and you will easily and safely be able to eliminate the invaders.

Deplete the oxygen in non-vital rooms. The enemy boarders can suffocate just like your crew can. Use this to your advantage and flood the oxygen out of rooms you cannot risk defending and force the enemy to retreat to safer ground. This is a great way to bait the enemy into fighting in your Medbay. Higher level door systems can also lock enemy invaders inside depleted rooms for longer periods.

Are you tired of having the enemy invade YOUR ship? Well it is time to change that!

Boarding an enemy ship is an incredibly powerful, but very risky means of combat. You risk the life and limb of your crew in exchange for greater rewards. Defeating an enemy by killing off their crew and NOT destroying the ship will yield higher rewards than blowing up the ship would otherwise. This is important to a successful mission.

There are two means to invade an enemy ship.

The first and most versatile method is using the Crew Teleporter system. This system comes pre-installed on a few ships in your hangar or can be purchased from stores for 75 scrap. Once purchased you will see the Teleporter occupy a previously empty section of your ship. Most ships allow you to Teleport two crew at a time. A small number of ships come with the very valuable four crew teleporter.

You will need to move your crew onto the Teleporter before they can be sent over to the enemy ship. The Teleporter must also have power going into it or it will not be able to function. Once your crew is in position and the system is powered then you can activate it to send your boarding party to the enemy ship. You can choose which room they teleport to.

Once your crew is on the enemy ship you will need a way to bring them back! Your Teleporter thankfully can do that too, but it must recharge from use. The length of its recharge period depends upon the power invested in the system. To return crew to your ship select the Teleporter and choose a room on the enemy ship. Any of your crew in that room will be teleported back instantly. This means you can teleport back up to four crew even if your ship only has a two man system.

The second means of boarding the enemy ship is with a Boarding Drone. This comes preinstalled on one ship in your hangar but must be bought otherwise. A Drone Control system is also required, which will cost you 80 scrap at a store.

Your crew can disable an enemy ship by either killing the crew as they fight you or disabling system individually. BE CAREFUL! Destroying an enemy system will cause 1 Hull damage to their ship. Do not accidentally destroy the enemy ship with your crew on board.

Boarding an enemy ship is risky. You crew will sustain a lot of damage and risk dying to enemy defenders. You best option to keep your crew safe is a high level Crew Teleporter. The reduced cooldown on the system will allow you to Teleport your crew back before they incur fatal damage.

Do not fire your weapons into rooms occupied by your boarding party. Your safest by not firing at all if you can help it.

If the enemy ship is destroyed or FTL jumps while your crew is on board you will lose your men. BE CAREFUL. Another problem you may run into is having your crew stranded on the enemy ship. This can happen when your Crew Teleporter gets disabled while your only remaining crew are on the enemy ship after you kill them all. When this happens you will get a dialogue prompt explaining that your crew uses an enemy shuttle to return.

Mantis are the elite when it comes to combat damage and can devastate enemy crew. Rockman allow for unique boarding strategies when using Fire based weapons. Crystal crew are very good for boarding parties with their Lockdown ability (see Races section). Use it to disable systems or kill enemy crew before they call for help or retreat to heal.

Do NOT fight the enemy with an active Medbay. Use your own ship to disable the enemy Medbay otherwise your crew will eventually get overwhelmed.

Using your Crew – Event Beacons

Within each Sector are a variety of points you can visit. These points are called Beacons and they are the yellow bricks on the road that is your grand journey. You visit anywhere from 10-20 per Sector and they can hold a seemingly endless amount of misery for your ship.

Most of these beacons will directly affect your ship or result in an outcome completely irrelevant to your crew. Some however, have a direct and lasting impact on your unfortunate crew. Many events will earn you an extra crew member while others will take one from you forever. The trick to events is learning which ones are worth the gamble and which ones are not.

Your safest bet when dealing with Events is to weigh the cost versus the reward. Can you afford to lose a crew member to a rampaging Mantis escaping his pod? If not, then it is probably best to jettison the pod and move on. There are far too many events and outcomes to list here, it would take an entire guide to break them all down. Suffice to say, everything has multiple outcomes and always plan on the worst possible one when making your choices.

Blue Events are your best friend and the reward for having a diverse crew. Various events and quests throughout the game will offer you additional dialogue options based upon the race of your crew. These options frequently (but not always) lead to positive or drastically improved outcomes for events.

Whenever you are given a Blue Option during an event take it!

Training your Crew

Your crew can learn and improve throughout your travels. The various tasks you assign them to and the trouble you will inevitably get into will either serve to kill them or make them stronger. Properly utilizing this training and experience can make all the difference when your mission reaches the finale.

There are six fields of experience for your crew to train in:

You can track your current experience levels by hovering over the Crew Panel on the left hand side of the screen. Hovering over a specific crew member will give you an additional menu where you can examine each specific category.

Each skill relates to a different system or function on your ship. Different skill take longer to master than others therefore it is important to maximize crew training for key areas.

Keep the same crew members dedicated to the same systems as long as possible. Switching your men around needlessly slows down the leveling process and hampers your effectiveness.

Training your Crew – Piloting

While your crew member is manning the Piloting system your ship has an increased percent chance to dodge incoming attacks. This bonus is additive with other increases to dodge chance from other systems or crew. Only the crew member actively manning the system can provide his rank as a bonus.

+1 Experience – Every time your ship successfully dodges an enemy attack. You will see MISS on your screen when you dodge an attack.

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Training your Crew – Engines

While your crew member is manning the Engines system your ship has an increased percent chance to dodge incoming attacks. This bonus is additive with other increases to dodge chance from other systems or crew. Only the crew member actively manning the system can provide his rank as a bonus.

+1 Experience – Every time your ship successfully dodges an enemy attack. You will see MISS on your screen when you dodge an attack.

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Training your crew – Shields

Reduces the recharge time of your shields while your Crew member is actively manning the Shields system. Only the crew member actively manning the system can provide his rank as bonus. This is a very important skill to have at high ranks, especially once your have multiple shield layers.

+1 Experience – Every time an individual layer of your shields recharges while you are in combat with an enemy ship. Asteroids, enemy shots, or simply re-enabling the system will all qualify for experience points but ONLY if you are currently in combat with an enemy ship.

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Training your Crew – Weapons

While your crew member is manning the Weapon Control system your weapons have a reduced recharge time. Getting this skill to max rank can have a drastic effect on your damage output in fights. Only the crew member actively manning the system can provide his rank as bonus.

+1 Experience – Every time one of your weapons fire. The number of shots from an individual weapon do not matter, one full charge is one point of experience. Multiple weapons however do provide experience seperately. The more weapons you have, the faster this will level up.

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Training your Crew – Repair

Increases the speed at which your crew member repairs damaged sysems and hull breaches. This is a powerful skill to have ranks in, but is also very difficult to level up. Since repair speed is determined individually when fixing a system multiple crew repairing a room each benefit from their own unique rank in this skill.

Unlike most skills your crew does not start off with any innate proficiency in this skill. They will not earn any bonuses to repair speed until they hit at least Level 2.

+1 Experience – Every time a crew member repairs a system. The crew member recieves one point of experience per unit of power repaired in a system.

NOTE – Only ONE crew member can earn experience for repairing a system at a time. If four crew are repairing a single system only the crew member that gets in the last stroke will earn the point. There is no easy way to control this and can make leveling this skill difficult to manage.

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Training your Crew – Combat

Increases the combat strength of your crew when engaged in a direct confrontation with the enemy. This skill becomes extremely important in the later stages of the game and has a direct and obvious impact on the survivability of your crew when facing more experienced enemy boarders. A max rank Mantis can tear through an entire ship of novice Engi.

This makes it vital to try and push all of the combat experience you earn onto the same crew if possible. That means letting specific crew members combat enemy invaders or using the same guys to invade the enemy ship each fight. Mantis, Rockman, and Crystal are the best options if available. Do not underestimate the threat of an enemy boarding party of 2+ Mantis. Having experienced crew on deck to fight back is key to your success.

Unlike most skills your crew does not start off with any innate proficiency in this skill. They will not earn any bonuses to combat strength until they hit at least Level 2.

+1 Experience – Every time your crew kills an enemy crew member or disables one unit of power on an enemy system. Only the crew member that deals the killing blow will receive experience. Leveling this skill can feel slow if you are frequently shooting ships out of the sky, but if you are using an active boarding party/Teleporter to invade enemy ships then you will gain experience rapidly.

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Obtaining your Crew

Every ship in your hangar has a predetermined crew. This will consist of 1-4 units and is not restricted by race. Each ship will typically contain at least one racially appropriate crew and then supporting races to balance out the ships design.

These starting units are core to the design and theme of each ship. They are either there to offset deficits in the ships initial systems or as a weakness to balance out strong early power. Be very familiar with the starting crew of your ship and how best to allocate them to starting systems. They are the anchor to a successful mission.

You can purchase additional crew from the various Stores you find throughout the galaxy. Stores do not always contain crew to sell however and the crew they offer is entirely random. Stores sell at most three crew at a time.

Each race has a different scrap value (see Races section). This is important to remember depending on the current status of your ship. If you are in need of strong combat defense against borders then consider investing in the more affordable Mantis rather than an expensive Zoltan.

These Slavers will try to sell you a new crew member for a variable price and will not force you into combat. The crew member you purchase from them will be of a randomly chosen race. You may only purchase one crew member from a slaver at a time.

Kidnappers are far less friendly than their entrepreneurial counterparts. They will only offer you two options, surrender one of your own crew to them or fight their ship in combat. If you choose to surrender then you lose one random member of your crew. If you choose to fight then combat will start.

Both types of Slavers offer you the option to fight them. This is important as most Slavers have the same low health surrender event. If you are successful in fighting the Slaver and get them to low health they will often times offer you a random slave in return for sparing their lives. This slave will be of a randomly chosen race. Because of this it is almost always better to fight a Slaver rather than buy from them or surrender one of your own.

If you manage to eliminate all of the enemy crew from a Slaver ship without destroying it you will sometimes be given an additional event prompt. In this event you find a remaining slave on board and invite them to your ship. This event can either give you a choice between three races or one randomly chosen race.

If you possess a Level Two Crew Teleporter system then you can be prompted with a BLUE event option when facing Salesmen slavers. This event has a high chance to reward you with one new crew member of a random race just prior to initiating combat with the Slaver ship.

You can also discover/lose crew through the many various events and quests scattered throughout the galaxy. As with anything in FTL, there is no guarantee that any given event will even occur during a play session nor is there any guarantee the event will provide you with the appropriate outcome. That said there are often ways to respond to situations and quests that increase the odds that you will leave an area with a new ally on board.

Closing

Thanks a lot for reading my guide!

I hope something along the way helped you out. If not, please leave me a comment letting me know what I can fix or improve. Feedback is really important to helping me edit and improve this document to make it as user friendly and helpful as it can be!

Good luck in FTL!

Version History

2-16-2013

• Guide first posted!

2-20-2013

• New Races Images!
• Typo Corrections