Resistance is Ridiculously Futile



Best FTL advice ever. Not joking.


Faster Than Light.

Just about sums up how fast I was thumped by FTL during my first play-through of this game. Holy smokes did I underestimate both how fun this game was and how tricky it could be. I initially resisted purchasing FTL on Steam, despite the addicting sales that drain our bank accounts during the holiday season. I'm not the greatest multi-tasker, but I do love space-based games even if they're not flight simulators. I blame Master of Orion for sparking my interest in space-based strategy games. However, while MoO oscillates between being a strategic and tactical strategy game, FTL squarely stands in the tactical realm. You can have an idea of where you want to go in each Sector map, but the ominous red wave of the Rebel Fleet might as well be the drum-beat of dread bubbling up from the depths of Khazad-dûm. It pushes you to get the hell out of dodge despite your desire to search every Beacon for things that will hopefully improve your pathetic odds against the end-game challenge. You can't predict what you will run into, what items you can pick up along the way, or how each choice you make will play out. All you can do is hold on for dear life and make the best out of each and every situation. And tucking your tail between your legs, however unpalatable, can be a viable strategy that is the difference between life, death, or a mortally wounded ship that shames you into starting over.

Without further ado, these are the voyages of the Starship Shamrock, piloted by the Captain Cuculainn.

I will admit I started on Easy mode for this foray into FTL. I was warned early and often that this game is for masochists who like to pretend they are Captain Kirk. I like to think I'm neither of those, but dove into this game headfirst nonetheless. The Shamrock embarked on its maiden voyage, boldly running for its life from a fleet that will eat you whole. For a bunch of Rebels, they are an inexorable force to be reckoned with.

I didn't make it past the second sector.

It was rather embarrassing. I had stumbled onto some stores where I bought a a beam weapon and a drone schematic for future use. I made sure I had plenty of missiles and fuel, but I neglected my shields. I bought the first upgrade and was immediately told that my shields wouldn't be actually upgraded until I acquired a shield system upgrade. I took this to mean that I needed to find a store or salvage a ship that would allow me to do this, when all I had to really do was purchase another upgrade. I should really read manuals and play tutorials more often.

My vast array of weapons required significant investments in my power core. In short, I thought I was a glass cannon. Go all out and shoot as quickly as possible. Disable weapons and shields. Profit. In reality, I was a paper mache musket. My first salvo against the first Mantis ship I encountered in the 2nd Sector was uncoordinated. My beam weapon failed to penetrate the shields. The laser cannon dented the shields slightly. The missile completely missed the ship. And my drone was completely useless, as I had not purchased the drone system for my ship yet and couldn't activate it. It was a breath-taking epic fail.

And then, like a cruel joke inspired by Cave Johnson, Mantis men beamed aboard my ship and started hunting my crew. The Mantises started in my Sensor room and before I knew it, the Starship Shamrock was plunged into darkness. I panicked and hit the hotkey to open ALL doors to the ship. My airlocks were already open so I scrambled to close the doors of the rooms my crew were bravely stationed in. I neglected to upgrade my doors, so my attempts to drain most of the ship of air while hindering the movement of the intruders was fanstastically ineffective. I sent the crew to the Medbay for their last stand. The healing quality of the Medbay would hopefully give them a chance to fend off the Mantis bastards.

Or that was my hope until the Mantis ship struck a direct hit on the Medbay, knocking a hole in the hull and simultaneously disabling the Medbay subsystem. My crew was wounded by the direct hit, but they immediately went about fixing the damage to the hull and subsystem. It wasn't enough. The Mantises swarmed the room and it wasn't long before all three original crew members were eaten alive. I like to think that they got severe abdominal cramps from eating poor Captain Cuculainn's flesh. You win this round FTL. My first defeat didn't sting too much, but rare is the game that demands permadeath. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. You're gonna start over and you're gonna like it.

My first strategy was admittedly unbalanced and lacked focus. The idea that a great offense is a good defense is not that simple to implement in this game. If I had upgraded my shields more, I would have sacrificed the weapon purchase. It wouldn't have protected me from being boarded, but perhaps the extra shield would have resisted the weaponry that crippled my Medbay subsystem. My crew may have survived the boarding party and would have been able to resume their duties which would boost my shield recharge rate (Shield room), weapon reload rate (Weapon room), and evasion chance (the Bridge).

I learned from my mistakes and launched the voyage of the Starship Shamrock 2.0, piloted by the pissed-off clone of Captain Cuculainn. I ignored beam weapons and sought to add drones to my arsenal. I stocked up on Anti-Ship drones that could pepper my enemy's shields and hull while I could focus on managing the rest of the ship and emergency situations. I was fortunate enough to acquire a cloaking subsystem which would allow me to temporarily stop my opponent's weapons systems from charging and will greatly increase my evasion chance for the same brief period of time. It's great for dodging the first salvo aimed in your direction and gives you the opportunity to get one extra round of weaponry off before they do. I can't control where my drones aim, but I found that my laser cannons could surgically strike the enemy ship's weapon system when the shields are either knocked out or on the verge of being depleted. From there, I could let my crew fix any damage I've sustained while my drones slowly tear the other ship a new one. I then balance my weapon targets in order to ensure that the enemy weapons and shields stay down. Then came the most excellent victory.

This strategy played out well for several sectors, but I acquired one more system that allowed me to claim sweet sweet vengeance. The Transporter. It contributed toward an achievement for the starting ship, but it also gave me an extra vector of attack should the shields be a bit too much for the drones. I had a boarding party planned. I acquired 2 Rockmen who, while slower moving, pack an extra 50 hp compared to humans. Oh yeah and they're impervious to fire. Great defense against boarders and fires on my ship, and can be used equally well when on the offense. I found myself three-quarters of the way to the final sector when I had a choice. Jump to a "friendly" civilian sector, or the Mantis Homeworld Sector. I let emotion cloud my judgement and steered my hapless ship into the Mantis Homeword. I was hellbent on going bug hunting.

At this point I wasn't doing too shabby. Full crew made up of Humans (No particular skills. Go figure!), Engis (Double repair speed, half combat damage), the aforementioned Rockmen, and even a lone Slug (Provides sight into adjacent rooms when sensors are out and can track enemy crew locations on your ship or theirs). I had my muscle, my skilled system experts, and my snappy repair team. I had 3 layers of shields, a full array of weapons for surgically disabling enemy systems, and a full set of drones for harassing shields and random areas of the ship. I didn't quite have enough power for all systems, but I had a method for prioritizing which systems were powered up at any given time.

It wasn't long before I ran into a Mantis ship that was a dead ringer for the one that had annihilated the Shamrock 1.0. It was on. Vengeance would be mine. I waited for the inevitable boarding party. My ship's doors were fully upgraded and my Rockmen were gonna clobber anything foolish enough to set foot on the good ship Shamrock. The Mantises beamed into the already voided airlock. I admit it, I laughed. They immediately made a bee-line toward the Shield room. I had stationed one of my Rockmen there to assist in repairs along with one of my Engi crewmen. The two Mantis men finally bust through the door, but not before they had sustained significant damage. My 3 crew members in that room wipe the floor with them fairly quickly. The door is repaired automatically and the room regains it's air. I send the injured to the Medbay nearby and jack up the power to speed their recovery. Time to take the fight to them.

While the boarding party was dealt with, the enemy shields were dealing fairly well with my drones. My burst of lasers was enough to pierce the shield and deal 1 or 2 hits to the weapons, keeping them partially out of commission. So far I had not suffered a single hit at all. I directed my Rockmen to the Teleporter room.  The Mantis ship had a Medbay, so I started there to knock it out of commission. Before the Medbay fell, 1 Mantis man entered to defend the room. It was being healed by the Medbay and since my Rockmen can't multitask, they fought the Mantis. The speed of the battle wasn't in my favor, so I redirected my ship's lasers to the Medbay. One salvo knocked the Medbay out, hurt all combatants, and started a fire. Like a honey badger, my Rockmen don't care.

Eyeing the enemy hull health, I cease my drones from their harassment in case they manage to break through the shields. There was a fire raging in their shield room so I wasn't worried about the shields recovering any time soon. I spotted a notification that the enemy ship is charging up their FTL drive. I believe I audibly grunted "Aw hell naw". I shipped my Rockmen from the wreckage of the Medbay to the Engine room. There was no way I was beaming them out, so they had to stop the ship without the support of my ship's lasers. Once they started cracking into the Engines, the warning stated that the charging of their FTL drive was "delayed". Once the Engine room was in shambles, I was satisfied that they weren't going anywhere. The Mantises had put out most fires on the ship and were attempting to fix the Medbay. Not on my watch. The Rockmen shuffled back to the Medbay and dropped the proverbial hammer on the remaining 2 Mantises that happened to be at less than half health from the fires. I get a message that I've salvaged the ship and the reward was definitely higher than I was used to. Higher risk sending crew to a foreign vessel, thus higher reward. I beamed my crew back aboard and continued on my way. Revenge never tasted so sweet.

At this point, I was feeling pretty confident. My second playthrough was chugging along just fine. I had a strategy that seemed to have an answer for anything thrown at me. Asteroid fields, solar flares, nebula ion storms, boarding parties, and even well-armed and well-shielded ships provided minimal resistance. I wasn't sure how bad Sector 8 was going to be, but honestly how hard could it really be? I was on Easy difficulty right? Boy, was I wrong. Wrong wrong wrongity wrong.

I jump into the last Sector and things are different than what I have seen so far. I was on the opposite side of the Sector from an icon that I assumed represented the Rebel Flagship. Some stores and repair Beacons dotted the Sector between us. As I jumped my way over, I noticed that some Beacons were being overtaken by Rebels. I was unwillingly forced to jump into one such Beacon and was punished with a fairly mean-looking Rebel Cruiser. I wisely retreated as soon as my ship's FTL drive was charged. The first time I made such a call. I was one jump from the destination of the Rebel Flagship. After a beer refill I was good to go. Or so I thought.

The encounter begins and I drink in this bastard of a ship. It sported 4 weapon systems, and each one looked like it could take down my ship on their own. It also had every single subsystem. It started by cloaking and I finally got a taste of my own medicine. I observed that the only systems that seemed to be active were the weapons, cloaking, and shields. The crew didn't seem to make an attempt to run to the Teleporter room, so I relaxed a little bit.  I waited until the ship fired their weapons and I hit the cloaking system. I watched the lasers whiz by me as well as 3 missiles that seemed to be each carrying their own payload of the Apocalypse. I would be lying if I said I didn't start to get concerned. The sheer firepower was enough to shift my strategy. Unfortunately, my drones did not seem to be up to the task of taking down the Flagship's shields on their own. I focused my lasers on the shields. If I could knock them out, it'd be easier to disable the weapons as my drones randomly pick apart other areas of the ship. My next attack lands the Shields into the yellow zone. Hurt, but not out of commission. The Flagship's crew immediately sets to work repairing the inconvenient bruise I have apparently inflicted on their vessel.

Then I got rocked. Their next triple missile shot happened to land two hits even though I cloaked while they were en route. Holy mother of space balls. My ship lit up like a Christmas tree. I lost my Medbay (bad) and my O2 subsystem (really bad). Fire. Fire EVERYWHERE. With my O2 generator offline, I couldn't drain air from inhabited rooms to stop fire and expect my crew to walk it off. I paused the battle and figured out that the first thing I had to do was fix the O2 subsystem. I'd be dead soon since my whole ship would become very stuffy very quickly. My shields were holding since the missiles just rip through those like wet paper anyway. I was safe from the lasers and beams for at least one round, but the next round of missiles could very will put me permanently off-balance. I sent my Rockmen to the Teleporter. The Engis to the O2 room. It was a good day to die.

The Rockmen's job was to knock out the triple missile launcher. It was disconnected from the rest of the ship, so I didn't have to worry about other crew members interfering. Once the Engi had fixed the O2 subsystem, I was going to vent the ship to stop all the fires. The Rockmen overwhelm the lone enemy crew member and start disabling the launcher, but not before another round is fired. Crap crap crap crap crap! My cloak recharges just in time and I spam the hotkey. All 3 missiles whiz by and I exhale for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.

The Rockmen finish off the weapon and I beam them back. I send them off to help repair the Medbay with one of the Engis and recover from their mission. My hull has taken some damage but all other systems are good to go. I felt like I was over the hump so I double down on disabling their shields. My cycle of cloaking avoids most of their attacks and my constant barrage of drones and lasers keeps the shields down. I wisely added a missile launcher of my own to the line-up of weaponry but until now I've been very coy in using it. I like to conserve ammo. I ramped it up and let it fly. Direct hit to the shield room and I got my big space boot in the door of this battle. I keep my lasers on the shields just in case the drones don't keep up the pace. My missile launcher is next aimed at the cloaking system, as it is also making life harder for me. What I failed to notice during this tense battle of space chess was that Flagship had been slowly accumulating damage from my mosquito bites. Death by a thousand paper cuts I suppose. Either way, the left (port?) side of the ship breaks off and it zips off as it jumps to another Beacon.

What. The. Hell. (Insert 30 second long barrage of curses here).

Lucky for me, there was a repair Beacon one jump from the Flagship's new location. I quickly zip through to re-engage. Some quote about striking while the iron is hot crossed my mind. Onward to battle! Again!

Without knowing anything about the Flagship battle in advance, the twist of it jumping away was a bit disheartening. It was a worthy foe and I was on the verge of victory. I felt it was safe to assume that the next step would result in the destruction of the right (starboard?) side of the Flagship.

This time around, there would be no cloaking of their ship. There is an FTL god! It was lost in the previous battle along with their ion weapon. But this time they were actually rocking their drones. Both offensively and defensively. Drones are pests. Not easy to take out unless you target the subsystem that controls them. Which I did, cause they hurt. I fired off my first missile into the drone system and temporarily knocked it down a couple pegs. A slight reprieve from the constant drain on my shields. Then my ship got rocked in three places at once. Whaaa.. how the... Oh thank you Mr. Flagship for repairing your triple apocalypse launcher. Just swell.

I paused and planned this one out cause time was becoming precious in this battle. Their crew was busy attempting to repair the drone system, but my missiles were whittling away the crew and keeping the system damaged, but they were making headway. I had to worry about the fires on my ship as well as the fact that some holes in the hull were draining air in my weapon room. My Rockmen were dispatched to take out the guns again and I divided the Engis to repair hull breaches first. The fires were easily contained with strategic movement of crew and removing air. I had to move my weapon specialist and get him some heals at the Medbay. The slightly slower weapon reload time in his absence allowed them to get the drones back up and running. My shields would hold for a bit, but I soon had another problem. They launched a boarding drone which made another nice hole in my hull and it proceeded to move about the ship on a mission of death. Since it's a robot, it doesn't mind the vacuum of space. I was forced to evacuate my crew to the other side of the ship where the Medbay was.

I called back my Rockmen after they stopped the launcher again and sent them to tackle the robot. The two of them handle the robot without too much trouble but before I know it, another boarding drone crashes into my ship. This sucks. This time, its on the same side as the Medbay, so I'm not as worried. It bites the dust and I reorganize my crew to their usual posts and I plot my next move. Take down their shields. Keep drones off my back. Whack every weapon system when I can. Wash, rinse, cloak, repeat. This continued until I finally emerged victorious again. I was at 25% hull. Battered, but not out of the game.

I surely hoped that there was only one more encounter left. I went a little out of my way to hit the last repair station that was available, running like the wind from any battle thrown at me in-between. I was en route to hit the Flagship 1 jump before it would be too late. Do or die time. As Larry the Cable Guy would say: "Git er DONE!"

The Flagship is now looking pretty beat up. No more Cloaking. No more Drones. Down two weapon systems. One would think I had my work cut out for me. That person can suck lemons. The ship was now sporting a fancy Zoltan Shield. Can't teleport in and it is impenetrable for missiles, beams, and lasers. Normally Zoltan Shields don't recharge, but I don't think anyone told this particular ship. I noticed two things unique to this battle. The Flagship can recharge the Zoltan Shield or it can shoot a ton of lasers at you that radiate from their hull. It's reminiscent of The Last Starfighter. Since I had no way to beam in my assault team, I sicced my drones and threw all my weaponry at the shield. I was on the verge of finishing off the shield when it was suddenly recharged. On top of this, the triple launcher was once again repaired and was about to ruin my day. I had neglected to watch for the missile launches and failed to activate my cloak. I paid for this mistake. All three missiles collided with the hull, taking out my shield and weapons in the process. Fantastic. I went into full blown defense mode, but the missiles were followed up with a salvo from the laser cannons and it was good night Irene for the good ship and crew of the Starship Shamrock.

I've felt many emotions when playing tense games. Usually no more than a couple at a time and rage is not normally one of them. That is, until FTL tripped me at the finish line. Rage, shock, anguish, and maniacal laughter all bubbled forth. I've never flipped a table, but I bet it would have felt good at that moment. I'm not a super fantastic gamer. I learn from my mistakes very quickly, but this often gives way to over-confident behavior. I was trying to keep this in check, because if it is one thing that FTL will use against you, it is your confidence. All it takes is a momentary lapse in judgement and you can kiss your chances of winning the game goodbye. This can happen in the 1st Sector as much as it can during the final battle.

Many more Captain Cuculainns have gone on to see attempts at the Flagship and all have failed. Some failures can be chalked up to poor luck, like getting bombarded with missiles that all strike specific rooms and tear holes in the hull at the same time. Or just not finding the right weapons, drones, or systems to supplement my strategy. Other failures were due to my overconfidence. Toying with my enemy's ship rather than snuffing it out when I had the chance. Thinking I had a handle on the situation and switching to a modified strategy that would end the battle faster but made me more vulnerable. Taking chances with my crew members, only to lose them at a non-combat Beacon.

I highly recommend this game. Especially if you have an ego. It will do you well to get your butt whooped at the precise moment that you think you have prevailed. It's as humbling as any experience I've had in gaming. On the surface, the gameplay looks complicated but once you command your way through your first 30 minutes, you'll have a good handle on what you need to do to make sure you have your act together. The learning curve beyond the basics extends to which strategies are more durable over a variety of situations. Beam weapons can deal a healthy does of damage across multiple rooms, but most of them do not penetrate shields, so you need some sort of process to take them down. Transporting a boarding party aboard is great since you can get greater rewards for disabling a ship instead of destroying it, but your away team will probably need some support, whether you beam them back out when they're on the verge of death, or you acquire a healing bomb to blast them back to full health. Like missiles? Better stock up on ordinance. You will go through it quickly if it is your main strategy. And don't forget fuel. The worst way to end the game is to be left adrift in space because you wanted that shiny new weapon instead of filling up the tank. Take it from me. Been there, done that. It sucks and you feel like an epic fool.

This game will make you a better gamer. It will teach you about patience, resource prioritization, risk aversion, and offensive and defensive strategy. Check out FTL now or wait till there is another inevitable Steam sale. You will not regret it. And assuming you're of age, I suggest a hearty brew to go along with it. I had Magic Hat's Heart of Darkness at my side. It seemed appropriate.

Sláinte
-WF

(Image credit: Reddit User: HighnDryPhilly, Imgur link)