Subset Games Forum

Anti Bio Beam because you need less than for actual boarding.

Is there anyone who likes heavy lasers though? They seem like the only weapon without any redeeming quality.

To be totally honest, i just beat the game with 2 Ion Blast II and an Anti-Ship Drone I. They just pound through any shields. The flagship didn't stand a chance.

Its best you use this tactic with the Engi Cruiser A as it is 2/3 the way for this tactic, though watch your drone parts!

KardaKAX wrote:To be totally honest, i just beat the game with 2 Ion Blast II and an Anti-Ship Drone I. They just pound through any shields. The flagship didn't stand a chance.

Its best you use this tactic with the Engi Cruiser A as it is 2/3 the way for this tactic, though watch your drone parts!

Ion Blast II, Ion Bomb/BearchBomb and Halberd Beam are pretty powerfull weapons. Any of those gives the player a great advantage. Of course getting any of those is not going to be so easy. But it helps a lot.

It really depends on what strategy you're going for.

There are three real ways to fight in FTL: Aggro, Boarding, and Stall. Aggro is where you go for a hull kill, Boarding is where you board the ship and kill the crew, and Stall is where you asphyxiate the crew or use the Artillery Beam. The same weapons are clearly not going to be the best for these different tactics.

For Aggro, the clear winner is the Glaive Beam. It needs some support to break heavy shielding, but nothing matches its damage output. Good supporting options for the Glaive are the Ion Blast II (reload rate is fast enough to stack damage and thus break down shields), the Breach Bomb II (drops 4 shields to 2 and delays repair) and perhaps the Pegasus for its reliability against evasion or drones. If you don't have the Glaive, the next best bets are the Anti-Ship Drone and the Halberd Beam.

For Boarding, your weapons' role is to disable the medbay, and as a secondary role to shut down weapons for less risk. Clearly, you don't want to wait until you've battered the shields down to do this, so you're mostly looking at missiles or bombs - the most efficient choices are the Breach Bomb II and the Pegasus Missile. You'll probably also want some sort of laser or beam to cherry-tap AI ships after you've disabled their shields and weapons via boarding, but it doesn't have to be anything fancy.

For Stall, your weapons' role is to disable weapons to minimise damage (less relevant if you have defense drones) and, if you don't have the Artillery Beam, to disable life support for an asphyxiation kill. The clear winners here are the Breach Bomb II and Ion Blast II - the former delays repair via the hull breach, and the latter prevents repair because it's not actually damaged. The Ion Blast II requires some finesse, however (and possibly an Automated Re-loader), to be effective. Two Ion Blasts and an Automated Re-loader can also work.


You'll note that I haven't mentioned the Burst Laser II. It's a good weapon, yes, but at any particular role there's something better - the Ion Blast II is better for cracking shields, the bombs are more reliable for system damage, and the Glaive Beam is better for hull damage. Still, it's a very versatile weapon.

Mataza wrote:Is there anyone who likes heavy lasers though? They seem like the only weapon without any redeeming quality.

I kinda like it, actually. Especially the Heavy Pierce one that come with Rock_B.

It's not that good by itself, nor does it's a better gun than, say, BL2. But when combine it with other guns (like 1x BL2) and fire it last, it work extremely well at not just doing damage to vital system (like the cockpit), but frequently, also crippling it via fire & hull breach.

I use it to kill crews with low HP as well (especially when they're in the medbay). Much easier to use than the Bio-beam!

I will not use them unless i have nothing else. They're very good weapons to quickly crunch the enemy hull, but all to often i need to hit their shields or weapons/drones more. That said, if another weapon can target those i'll use the heavies to help strip shields while targeting empty rooms.

UltraMantis wrote:I will not use them unless i have nothing else. They're very good weapons to quickly crunch the enemy hull, but all to often i need to hit their shields or weapons/drones more. That said, if another weapon can target those i'll use the heavies to help strip shields while targeting empty rooms.

Are you confusing Heavy Lasers (which deal 2 damage to anything besides non-Zoltan shields) with Hull Lasers (which do double damage to empty rooms)?

magic9mushroom wrote:

UltraMantis wrote:I will not use them unless i have nothing else. They're very good weapons to quickly crunch the enemy hull, but all to often i need to hit their shields or weapons/drones more. That said, if another weapon can target those i'll use the heavies to help strip shields while targeting empty rooms.

Are you confusing Heavy Lasers (which deal 2 damage to anything besides non-Zoltan shields) with Hull Lasers (which do double damage to empty rooms)?

Umm... no?

Well, I mean, they're both pretty terrible, but heavy lasers can at least deal significant damage to systems if you can take the shields offline. Hull lasers can't even do that and are thus a poor substitute for beams in the hull-cutter role.

Actually Hull lasers are quite useful because they shoot multiple projectiles. Hull Laser 1 is just a couple of seconds slower than Burst Laser 1, but otherwise equal.
While I never fire Hull Lasers into systemless rooms, they do have a chance to cause hull breaches, which has its own advantages. At least Hull Laser 1 is worth using as substitute for a BL 1.
Never got a hold of a Hull Laser 2 at a spot where i could actually use it, though.