What augmentations are best?

[bakedlama]

FTL is full of difficult decisions. Here's the one currently in front of me: Should I buy a Reverse Ion Field for 60 scrap, a Shield Charge Booster for 45 scrap, or should I buy neither and save that scrap to upgrade my shields, cloak, teleporter, or weapons?

I'm considering buying one of them because I only have one aug so far, Automated Re-loader. Ignoring all the other things I could upgrade for now, if you had to choose between those two augs which would you prefer? 15% increased shield charge doesn't sound like much, but could be the difference between a beam hitting my ship and bouncing harmlessly off the shields. On the other hand, Reverse Ion Field is a straight-up 20% added dodge chance against certain rather dangerous weapons.

I know that Weapon Pre-igniter is probably the best augmentation you can have, and Scrap Recovery Arm is great if you can get it near the beginning of the game, but what do you do if your current options are a Shield Charge Booster, an Automated Re-loader, and Long-Ranged Scanners?

In the end, I'm going with the Shield Charge Booster. It leaves me with a little scrap left over for repairs and fuel.

[Boo]

Typically I would save the scrap. Extra shields will potentially allow you to grind for fast shield recovery and can make ion weapons useless.

If I had to choose between those two though, I'd get shield recovery.

[Drasha]

I would go with ion personally if I had the choice between the two. 20% chance not to lose a shield bar to some thing you can't effect vs gaining a shield bar that is taken down 15% faster seems like an obvious choice to me. Most of the time vollies when you are getting hit all at once and don't have time to regen are dangerous and in that situation preventing bar loss or lock down for an extended period of time is optimal.

[actionhero112]

Weapon Preigniter is pretty hyped, I'm never all that psyched about it however, because I tend to try and get the crew teleporter to maximize rewards per ship asap, and the igniter doesn't help with that too much. Also it only really helps with long cool down weapons, like the pegasus or glaive beam. An automatic reloader is better for quicker weaponry, and battles that just take longer, like those towards the end sectors, where your weapons can't destroy a ship in 2 barrages.

Automatic Reloader is always good. Sometimes 15% is all you need to get the edge over your opponent and fire before them, also it's far cheaper than the expensive weapon pre igniter. Shield Charge Booster is decent for when you enter an asteroid field, or they have a combat/beam drone. It also just improves your defenses, which means you take less damage, which is great for diminishing your overall repair cost. Drone Recovery Arm is fantastic for deploying pretty much unlimited defense drones, which I love. Scrap Recovery is something I tend to pick up when I see it, just because it pays for itself.

So yeah, I'll buy the Automatic Reloader, Drone Recovery Arm, Shield Charge Booster, Scrap Recovery arm and the Weapon Preigniter (When I have long cool down weapons).

I tend to never get the Ion Field Disrupter, FTL Jammer, Long Range Scanners, FTL Recharge Booster, Adv Navigation, Stealth weapons. I've never lost to Ion weaponry, and 20% isn't substantial enough for the investment. Rather invest in engines instead.

My favorite is probably Engi MediBot Dispersal though. I tend to give the Engi event the 40 scrap and whatever other regents in order to get it, just because it's fantastic for repelling boarders and fixing the ship without worrying about fires and oxygen levels that much.

But to answer your question, the shield charge booster would be my choice, it's cheaper, and I already gave my reason for why I don't like the Ion Disrupter.

[Drasha]

You don't always see the aguments you want making some of them more attractive.

Also don't knock stealth weapons I was skeptical off it but after trying it the effects are amazing with a 3 power stealth and fast firing weapons you get loads of time to just pound on the enemy. With longer cool down 4 power weapons its not as good.

[actionhero112]

Hmm. I think you're correct, I might have been hasty with my judgement of Stealth Weapons. I tend to not get cloaking until late late game (like last sector), so that's probably why I underestimate it so much.

I'll rescind what I said before about it.

[DaemonX]

Pre-Igniter is hyped for a reason - it's by far the best aug in the game, bar none, unless you are playing a Torus in which case it's second best. Drone Recovery is the second best by far, unless playing a Torus, when it becomes the best.

After that, all augs are situational. That said, some augs are seriously underrated.

Scrap Recovery Arm can be very good if you can play for the long game and aren't desperate. A typical victory run will net you ~2000 scrap, so Recovery pays for itself around six times over if you get it early. Weapon loader is great because it can stack with itself, leading to some overpowered combos. Shield generator can make your shields so quick that you basically become immune to beam weapons for the rest of the game.

Adv FTL is slightly less vital now since the 1.02 patch, where you can now see where you're going ahead of time, but it still lets you explore an extra beacon or two per sector if used properly, so pays for itself and can be invaluable if the final boss has bad beacon spawns, letting you hit up a repair shop without losing from flagship jumping.

[Drasha]

Pre-Igniter is hyped for a reason - it's by far the best aug in the game, bar none, unless you are playing a Torus in which case it's second best. Drone Recovery is the second best by far, unless playing a Torus, when it becomes the best.

After that, all augs are situational. That said, some augs are seriously underrated.

Scrap Recovery Arm can be very good if you can play for the long game and aren't desperate. A typical victory run will net you ~2000 scrap, so Recovery pays for itself around six times over if you get it early. Weapon loader is great because it can stack with itself, leading to some overpowered combos. Shield generator can make your shields so quick that you basically become immune to beam weapons for the rest of the game.

Adv FTL is slightly less vital now since the 1.02 patch, where you can now see where you're going ahead of time, but it still lets you explore an extra beacon or two per sector if used properly, so pays for itself and can be invaluable if the final boss has bad beacon spawns, letting you hit up a repair shop without losing from flagship jumping.

I really really want to like FTL there are a lot of cool things you can do with it but they never seem to happen when I pick it up. Intended to use the skipping feature to get extra hops and no maps for it spawn. Try to use it for repair on the boss and they all despawn before I can try it.

[Zaffre]

I've been waiting for an opportunity to use this.

[Drasha]

I was waiting for a cut to a full salvo instantly destroying a lesser ship.