The Long Game

[shadowcrust]

Why, thank you

Some time ago I've completed victories with all ships scoring more than 6000 points on FTL AE hard mode, although I'm not the first one with this feat, but possibly the second one. Now I aiming for flawless victories (no hull damage at the time of defeating the last flagship incarnation) with all ships: 24 down (gold border), 4 to go (white border):



I'm not playing a lot anymore, so there's still a chance to snatch that world record from my greedy fingers!

[shadowcrust]

Aaaaand done! All ships with at least one flawless victory on unmodified FTL Hard AE:

[Limfocyt]

This is amazing. So much work to collect it all. Congratz!

[shadowcrust]

Long-awaited updates! Yay! Some more flawless victories (48 in total) and I recently wrapped up the three remaining achievements: Clash of Titans, Ancestry and Coming in for my Pacifism Run.

Clash of Titans took seven dedicated runs with the Bravais, all aptly named Rocky.


Fifteen runs with the Tektite 'Bejeweled' were enough for Ancestry, as can be seen I refrained from renaming my Crystal crew member.


The last achievement was the Pacifism run, and I figured that the Carnelian gave the best chances of both getting the achievement and maybe still winning the run. I got the achievement on the first attempt, but it wasn't a very lucky run (second jump against a ship with Burst Laser Mk II and a Leto missile launcher, which event-disabled my engines to level 1, took 15 damage before being able to jump away; overall, no scrap gained in sector 1 except for selling Crystal Vengeance, bought fuel and upgraded engines to level 3. Sector 4 was slug-controlled, and one ship shot my doors and hit me with a firebomb just before I could jump away; next opponent event-disabled the doors and had a Fire Beam. Soon, the whole ship was alight and I just managed to get to sector 5 before all crew died in a fire or asphyxiated.





First loss since 16 or so victories, all in all 91 of 113 runs victorious in this profile, just a bit over 80% win rate, which is better than it used to be, but down from 100%.

What next?

[Mendel]

What do you mean what next? Isn´t it obvious?

Captain´s edition!

also... congratulations on being the best ftl player. Mightily impressive! I was pleased by being able to win hard mode with all ships at all but this is whole another level of awesome.

[shadowcrust]

I don't know about mods... my fear that they would spoil the game for me is still greater than my curiosity. Also, it would make it difficult to brag about new achievements.

[shadowcrust]

until we explore the limits of the variable storing the score...

An unfortunate incident revealed some clues about the likely limits of the highest high score in FTL. Instead of continuing a game, this screen popped up:



I dreaded that it was a sign of a corrupted profile, and right I was:



All ships, stats and achievements were deleted, replaced by some insanely high session stats. I suspect this number, 32766, is the highest value that can be stored in the respective variables (ships defeated, beacons explored, scrap collected, and crew hired). It is almost 2 to the power of 15 (32768) and is apparently the maximum number of some data types (very close to the maximum value an integer variable can hold, for example).

If the score formula is used (ships defeated x 20, beacons visited x 10, scrap x 1), then it adds up exactly to the 1015746 score displayed above. Although the game was played on hard, the formula used is for easy mode.

Defeating 32766 ships on hard is conceivably possible, that would score 982980 points (30 points each ship). Exploring 32766 beacons is out of the question, as only beacons count towards that number which are not overtaken by rebels. In a very good game, discovering the hidden sector, 130 explored beacons are about the limit, I'd wager, at least I've never seen a higher number for beacons explored. That would add an insane score of 1950 (130x15) towards the total score on hard. Scrap collected would peak at about 3000 on hard, although I've never come very close to this myself (2634 on hard). That's another 4500 points, in total such an extraordinary game would add up to 989430 points, just short of a million. Going over a million points legitimately is impossible, unless 32766 ships defeated was not the maximum value the variable can hold.

[elijahdb]

Y-y... you broke FTL, man. My apologies for your loss, at least you've got screenshots of a lot of stuff.

[shadowcrust]

It's not a big deal, I may just start over once more. I think it was actually more valuable to get some insights into the limits of FTL high scores than to continue playing in the old profile.

[shadowcrust]

Mini-update! It's apparently possible to score more than 3000 scrap on hard with an exceptionally good run. If you find the hidden sector at the far right of the homeworld, and if you score lots of double rewards, you may go even higher than 3000 scrap, let's put the new (pretty safe) hypothetical limits to 4000 scrap and 140 beacons visited. With this, we'd have a new maximum score of 991080 (unless your profile gets corrupted), still short of a million.

Defeating 32766 ships on hard is conceivably possible, that would score 982980 points (30 points each ship). Exploring 32766 beacons is out of the question, as only beacons count towards that number which are not overtaken by rebels. In a very good game, discovering the hidden sector, 130 explored beacons are about the limit, I'd wager, at least I've never seen a higher number for beacons explored. That would add an insane score of 1950 (130x15) towards the total score on hard. Scrap collected would peak at about 3000 on hard, although I've never come very close to this myself (2634 on hard). That's another 4500 points, in total such an extraordinary game would add up to 989430 points, just short of a million. Going over a million points legitimately is impossible, unless 32766 ships defeated was not the maximum value the variable can hold.