Overview
INTRO:So you just bought FTL and are looking for some help learning how to play. Fantastic, if you’re reading this you’ve come to the right place.First of all let me congratulate you on picking up one of the best game out there for a laughable price. Once you understand the game play of FTL a bit more you’ll quickly become addicted and motivated to learn about the game on your own. The pourpose of that guide is to get you there and keep frustration at bay until then. Here we go!
Chapter 1: Day 1
INTRO:
So you just bought FTL and are looking for some help learning how to play. Fantastic, if you’re reading this you’ve come to the right place.First of all let me congratulate you on picking up one of the best game out there for a laughable price. Once you understand the game play of FTL a bit more you’ll quickly become addicted and motivated to learn about the game on your own. The pourpose of that guide is to get you there and keep frustration at bay until then. Here we go!
WHAT IS FTL:
I’m going to assume you know what FTL is considering you are reading this. If there are requests for me to update this part of the guide maybe I will. Until then…
STOP RIGHT THERE:
There are a few things you should know before you start even your first game of FTL. Here are a few of them…
Beacon pathing: Before you even start go to Options at the main menu and enable “Show beacon paths on hover”. What this does and why it’s really helpful will become apparent soon. Be patient.
Sound: FTL has one of the most beautiful soundtracks out there and I highly recommend you give it a listen. That said, as FTLs gameplay is fairly simple it’s become my absolute favorite game to play with the sound muted and podcasts on in the background. Maybe this will help your enjoyment of it as much as it has mine. To each his own.
Dying: You are going to die a lot and you’re going to need to deal with that. Dying in this game is almost inevitable and you should view each death as a learning experience. As with most rogue-likes FTL is a game where the greatest thing you can unlock to succeed isn’t new weapons or gear but information and tactics.
Difficulty: FTL has the reputation of being one of the harder games out there. Don’t believe the hype. FTL isn’t so much “hard” as it’s unforgiving. Very similar to the caring void of space this game will kill you and your crew immediately and without remorse as soon as you ♥♥♥♥ up. The lesson here is don’t ♥♥♥♥ up. Set the game to EASY and move on. I don’t care if you never play games on EASY, that’s what you should do here. This is because it will be much harder to unlock more ships and layouts on more advanced difficulties and newer players should at least have a ship they enjoy and feel competent with before advancing difficulties.
YOUR FIRST SHIP:
Learn to love the The Kestrel, you’re going to be using it for a while.That said, it’s a really great ship for starting to learn the ropes of FTL. I’m not going to explain the various rooms and systems for now as that seems better suited for a WIKI or something. All of this info is just a google search away and isn’t that important for the moment.
The Kestrel is a great starting ship because it gives you everything you need to do well early while not limiting your potential. You start with the majority of the basic rooms, a solid burst laser (MKII), a missile launcher, and crew of 3 humans. On top of that the physical layout of the ship makes it extremely defensible if you are boarded or have fire break out on board. More on this later.
Crew members who are manning the four major ship sub-systems will gain experience and become better at their jobs. For now I highly recommend you send a crew member to piloting, the engine room, and weapon control. The shield system can also “train” a crew member.
YOUR FIRST FIGHT:
PAUSE IMMEDIATELY. You can pause combat at any time with the SPACE BAR and this will help a lot with early decision making.
You’ll notice that your ships two weapons have 11 and 12 second charge times respectably. What this means is that until you upgrade them you’ll be a sitting duck for the first 11 seconds of every battle. However, these weapons also work VERY well together and can teach you the basics of ship to ship combat.
In most cases the quickest way to take down an enemy ship is to take out it’s shield system and then blow it out of the sky. The easiest way to do this with the Kestrel is to use your missile launcher to target there shield room and burst laser to target their weapon system. That way not only do you damage the enemy ship you are able to avoid them damaging you. The grand flaw in this plan is that missiles don’t grow on trees and if you autofire you’ll be out of ammo quickly. To combat this I recommend you use 1 missile per fight and alternate between targeting weapon systems and shields to keep both down. Using this technique you should be able to clear most fights in the first 2 zones.
That said, when you die almost immediately don’t feel bad. Learn from it and try again!
YOUR FIRST UPGRADES:
In general I try and save up 100 scrap as quickly as I can to upgrade and power a second layer of shields. Through all the other things I’ve tried it seems to make sense that staying alive should be your first priority early.
Secondly I always upgrade blast doors. The ability to use these doors to kill or weaken boarders and put out fires is worth far more than the upgrade costs.
PRO TIPS:
-Remember that you can always sell equiptment that you arn’t using in stores you find. What good are a couple defense drones when you don’t have a drone system and don’t plan on ever buying one.
-Try to exit each sector with the with the enemy fleet directly behind you. The more beacons you’re able to cover the more experience, scrap, random encounters, and quests your able to collect. This is why beacon-pathing and proper fuel management are so important.
-The Scrap Recovery Arm is one of the best items in the game especially if you are able to buy one early. The extra amount of scrap you’re able to net at the end of every combat will go a long way twards fully upgrading your ship.
-In general having scrap for stores is more important than having your ship upgraded. You can upgrade your ship at any time and stores often have the weapons, extra systems, and gear you need to win. Avoid spending all your scrap before jumping to a new zone as you may start close to a store. This particular tip doesn’t really apply to the first zone or two but becomes very important later.
-Slavers are scum but always get to live. Sparing a slaver ship early to gain an additional crew member is almost always a no brainier.
CONCLUSION:
I hope this helps! Good luck and gods speed Captain!
Chapter 2: Why I Love The Torus
CHAPTER 2: WHY I LOVE THE TORUS:
Hey guys, thanks for all the amazing comments I got on chapter 1. FTL is still one of my absolute favorite games and I’m still as hooked as I was when I wrote the first chapter. I thought alot about what I felt knowledgable to write more on so for Chapter 2 I decided on “Why I Love The Torus”, the type-A engi vessel. Thanks for all the support guys, you keep reading and I’ll keep writing, there’s even been some talk about making some youtube videos once the free FTL expansion comes out later this year. We’ll see! With no further adu!
WHAT IS THE TORUS AND WHY DO I LOVE IT:
The Torus is a badass engi starship that starts with a loadout of equiptment perfectly suited for pretty much only one strategy: lock your enemy down with ion weapons and destroy them with drones over time. Having that skillset out the hanger is a wonderful set of limitations to stick with that will guide you through the game fairly easilly. Ontop of that the Torus has my absolute favorite augmentation in the game, Engi Med-Bot Dispersal. Due to the unique make up of the crew (1 human and 2 engi) the Torus is extreamly succeptable to being destroyed by boarders and this augmentation which heals the whole crew no matter what room they are in helps your crew stay at there battlestations and/or in fights longer.
BEFORE YOUR FIRST FIGHT:
Human pilot, engis to engine room and weapons. Nothing special here.
YOUR FIRST FIGHT:
Ion Blast II is one of the best ion weapons in the game and starting with it is huge. With only a 4 second reload time the ion blast II is able to lock down 1 subsystem for the first few sectors. It’s tempting to use this to lock down an enemies shields to destroy them quickly but in my opinion it’s much more powerful to target your enemies weapon systems and simply leave them unable to harm you while you take them apart slowly.
Your early game strategy is simply that: to target the enemy weapon system and let your drones do the work. You can ofcourse try to lock down multiple systems at once but I recommend you focus on keeping yourself alive especially if you’re facing someone with beams or missle weapons.
PRIORITIES:
The first priority I ALWAYS focus on us devoting my first 120 scrap to 2 more levels of shields, 2 more energy bars, and upgraded blast doors. Nothing new here.
Your early to midgame plan with this ship is to keep a nice wallet of scrap and try and hit as many stores as you can to find ion weapons, burst lasers, offensive drones (MK I or II), scrap recovery arms, and especially a drone recovery arms. The drone recovery arm is especially important because you’ll be doing the majority of your damage with drones and if you arn’t able to recover them righting will become very expensive quickly.
Your lategame to final boss priorities will be to get as many shields as possible and upgraded weapons. The stratege you use all game against smaller ships, to lock them down and destroy them with drones while they are unable to attack you much, simply doesnt work against the final bosses 3 forms.
To be honest, the Torus isnt my favorite ship because it’s the easiest ship to beat the game with but it’s my personal favorite to play. The road to victory that has best worked for for me in the past include the following points.
1. If you’re doing things right you should be able to be stockpiling money. Any extra money you have needs to be poured into your shields and engines to dodge attacks. While other ships can get fully geared cheapter the Torus is a cash hog, that’s why scrap recovery arm(s) are so important early.
2. You are going to spend the whole game trying to find and be able to use the most distructive drones you can find. MK I drones (bean or laser) are useful but you REALLY need atleast 1 MK II drone of any type. Again, this is not going to be cheap, MK II drones themself are expensive (roughly 100 scrap if I remember correctly) and need 4 energy to use. To do any ammount of damage at all the the final boss you’re going to need atleast 6 bars worth of energy into the drone subsystem. To do well you’ll the the maximum of 8, there’s a reason the Torus excels there, use it!
3. Again, against other ships you’ll be able to lock out the damage they do by stacking shields but the final bosses damage output (especially in it’s first form) is going to throw a huge wrench in that plan. The only way to get around that is…
A: Stack dodge and cloaking systems to phycically and passivly dodge attacks. Like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss. This mode is hard as hell and has never worked for me but I still consider it possible with the right long charge time weapons.
B: Stack hull repair drones and hull repair arms to try and get as much life back between the final bosses 3 forms as possible to have any chance to surviving all 3 fights. This has worked for me before but is pretty hard to make happen.
B: Bring the attack to the final boss using boarding parties and boarding drones to knock out the 4 super-weapons to the front of the final boss. If you are able to do this in it’s first form the weapon system will not heal between fights. Also, the final boss is destroyed a bit more each round and has it firepower reduced each time you beat it. If you can get a crew teleporter and 2 offensive race crew members (rock or mantis) and / or any number of boarding drones taking the final bosses weapons offline while it’s in it’s first form will cripple it for the next two fights. It’s not easy but it works.
RECAP:
By the end of the fight you’re going to need:
1. A powerful defensive system with as many leves as you can fit into engine and shield systems.
2. A disruptive weapon system made up of ion and burst lasers devoted to keeping your enemies weapon systems offline.
3. A specialization in offensive drones there the skys the limit. Unlike other ships the Torus can get EIGHT levels of drone systems which can host 4 small drones, 2 small drones and a MK II, or 2 MK IIs. Having two MK IIs is truly a beautiful thing to watch.
4. A final boss contingency plan to deal with it’s raw offensive output as mentioned above.
OUTRO:
Coming soon!
Alright so … Im gonna post this for now and play some FTL and take pictures, maybe a Torus run will be up soon. If you have any questions or comments PLEASE ask. Im happt to answer any questions I can and am looking for ideas for more content. Happy flying.