Subset Games Forum

Looking for tips to last longer and get more scrap. I usually upgrade doors right away and then work on shields or maybe weapons depending on my situation. I'm always scrounging just enough scrap to fix my hull and buy missles and some small craft upgrades but have never been able to upgrade a lot or get anything fancy. And then usually I get boarded by three or four aliens that I can't win against and it's all over. Getting frustrating. Wondering what I'm doing wrong.

I think you should upgrade the shields before the doors.

Also, are you pausing the game while you give orders? I know a few players who thought the game was meant to be played without pausing... that's actually the Hard mode.

I recommend watching one or two youtube videos by good players and look at all their dirty tricks.

Here's one I learned recently: You can suffocate the enemy crew. I knew that already before but thought they only take damage like my own guys - that is when there is so little oxygen that the room has that red stripe pattern. But as a matter of fact they suffocate also way before those stripes come up - so I have underutilized this strategy severely up until now.

There's all sorts of tricks you'll pick up by just watching someone good play the game.

Also you shouldn't have lost because of a boarding crew. Even if your doors suck, you can herd those enemies into your med-bay by opening doors and slowly suffocating them. And even if none of that works for one reason or another, just get at least two or three of your guys to fight those four - you have no chance in one go but you can always get your guys back into the med-bay and heal them up and then attack again and again.

The suffocation mechanic should be the same for both the player and the enemy.

You sure it wasn't from other cause? ... Being blown to pieces by missile or bomb, crushed to pulp by a random space debris, evaporated by a direct contact with any of the technicolor plasma projectile, sliced in half by beam of high energy electromagnetic radiation, or burnt alive by an uncontrollable conflagration— are some of the major cause of mortality for any space fairing lifeforms apart from Asphyxia or the more common CQC related cause like brunt force trauma or Incision wound.

Thanks for the info. I should try pausing more. It seems when everything goes to hell it happens quick. Like I'm down to two people and two or three mantis teleport and start going for the engines. And the med bay isn't powered because the energy is going to shields meanwhile the ship is firing and the two crewmen are getting beat up and now my weapons are offline etc.
I'll definitely check some videos out.

Just had another battle. Frustrating. I had six crew, a drone and standard weapons - no extra shields. I had some fire but took care of that with the airlock healed up people and repaired systems. But died died died.

Big problem seemed to be that my weapons just were not causing it much damage. I went for shields but it had a lot and I couldn't take them down plus their ion weapon was disabling my weapons. I could disable their weapons only briefly. I think my big mistake was not watching the hull damage and not just working on repairing the engine to jump out of there.

As long as you learn you will make mistakes. We all make mistakes and have genuine facepalm moments. FTL never gets really easy, but it does become less frustrating.

Crap. I'm doing better on the first map or two now but still getting destroyed on later maps.
I'm upgrading shields early which helps and trying not to use missles.

I've seen some suggestions about needing to avoid damage so you're not spending all money on repairs which makes a ton of sense but I have only once been able to afford a drone and only a couple of times could I add a weapon. Maybe I'll throw money into shields and engines.

And people say boarding parties are easy with airlocks and a medbay but i keep getting killed by 4 mantis that aren't affected by oxygen and the last time they killed my crew while they were regenerating in a medbay so wtf.

Enemy crew seems to have random skills, and Mantis skilled in combat can kill in lvl1 Medbays. With combat skill maxxed out, they can kill even in lvl2 because they deal more damage than the Medbay can heal. This applies to your Mantis as well.

I have a feeling that enemy mantis in the mantis homeworld are tougher than other sector.