8 Drones!? Flagship Bug or Ulti?

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Mirar
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 9:15 am

8 Drones!? Flagship Bug or Ulti?

Postby Mirar » Tue Sep 18, 2012 9:52 am

First off, extremely fun innovative game mechanics here! I'm surprised at the LACK of bugs tbh!

So on a finally seeming winner Torus (Engi ship) setup, I reached stage 8 without a sweat and extra scrap. Tri drones, full crew (until just before stage 8 actually, engine mechanic died in a careless fire!), 3 weapons, most upgrades... Awesome yeah?

So I chow down the flag ship on our first encounter. Before I even needed to repair or upgrade, I immediately chased after it with confidence.

I chuckled at their futility... Then... I WAS MASS DRONE SWARMED. A total of 8 drones was suddenly attacking my Torus, and took out at least 45% of my hull in one round. Baffled at the horror... I lost hope.

So yeah, I took a screen shot and attached it.
This is a marked one to show it more obviously..
Image
I've fought the flagship many times now, and I have never seen this move, so I HOPE its a bug... Or we're doomed.

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Details on what I was doing that might have caused this:
- They popped up right as I un-paused after giving a series of commands. I do this quite often, which could be part of the problem. I doubt its steam or settings (almost default except alt-tab doesn't stop the game). After 2 volleys, hopelessly I pressed space to pause a couple of times more, and they vanished! Then I tried to repair, but before my guys start repairing, they return again to finish me off.
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Hopefully this doesn't happen often. I'm happy to play again, but I doubt I can ever handle such a sore losing Flag ship who can't admit defeat like this!
alisonwaller
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 5:42 am

Re: 8 Drones!? Flagship Bug or Ulti?

Postby alisonwaller » Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:18 am

It's not a bug, it's the flagship's special move. See:

https://getsatisfaction.com/ftlgame/topics/rebel_flagship_has_10_drones_in_2nd_stage_on_easy

https://getsatisfaction.com/ftlgame/topics/drone_malfunction_on_boss

There is a warning before it happens, allowing you to cloak / bump power to shields and engines. Also, it doesn't last for toooo long!

If you haven't seen it before, you must have been just obliterating him before he got the special move off. Nice!
Mirar
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 9:15 am

Re: 8 Drones!? Flagship Bug or Ulti?

Postby Mirar » Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:35 am

Ah thank you for the info. Guess a cloak is mandatory for the final stage... And now I see what those surge mean! "You're about to die : )"!

2 Rounds of that happened back to back, so one needs to at least upgrade cloak once and hope it doesn't happen again on off-cd.

Interesting...