Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

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DudeNamedEvan
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Re: Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

Postby DudeNamedEvan » Sun Apr 20, 2014 6:39 pm

I find boarding and mind control compliment each other nicely, because If you mind control a mantis in an enemy ship, it will weaken the mantis an possibly kill the crew they sent to fight him, meaning you get to send the boarding party to finish the job :mrgreen:
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CaptDude
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Re: Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

Postby CaptDude » Fri Apr 25, 2014 8:24 am

After my recent play-through I experimented with hacking quite a bit. I've found it is has an enormous amount of tricks that can be utilized for any ship layout. Some of these tricks are quite devious and, with a boarding party; downright deadly. One of my more favorite methods is to hack the med-bay (I'm kinda evil, I know). With a boarding party in the right spot you can, not only eliminate one of the crew before he can get the door open to the med-bay, but also if you power it down, you deactivate the hack momentarily allowing him to enter... cue wicked smile as you turn it back on. Of course this works even without the boarding party! Another downright evil play is to firebomb the hacked room, not only will this probably kill the crew inside the room, but it will burn up the systems as well. Most of the left-over crew will rush the room, break into it, then get locked inside the torched room. Also you can hack doors to turn their entire security against them, allowing your crew to move through their ship freely, and pick them off one by one. With all that being said, here's my tier-list:

1. Hacking by far. It works in every situation with the right trick. Although defense drones can be trouble, you aren't exactly basing your entire strategy around it, and it's more of an augment to your play-style, so you should be able to deal with that rare nuisance.

2. Boarding. It goes without saying that the rewards are too valuable to pass up, but sometimes you just don't have the crew for it. Still, even with a whole ship of Zoltans, I'd still try and find a way to make it work sometimes.

3. Drones. They are quite situational but the right drone in the right situation can wreak havoc on enemy ships, or keep you alive.

4. Cloaking. I put cloaking low on the list, because it costs an enormous amount, and is only really good to dodge missles. Usually I find upgraded drives, or drones to do that just fine. Lacking it will make the flagship significantly harder, but you should be able to get by and just wrack up an nice stockpile of scrap without it. Don't pass it up if you can afford it, I would just say don't feel like you must have it. However cloaking + hacking will almost guarantee the enemy won't get a shot off.

5. Mind Control. It's fun, no doubt, but it's uses are limited. Probably the most limited of the list, which is why I rank it at the bottom. Still a good skill, and worth getting if you are already loaded up, but I'd pass on it for other more valuable systems.
LostAlone
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Re: Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

Postby LostAlone » Fri Apr 25, 2014 11:51 am

I'm a pragmatist at heart and so if at all possible I will always favour up the systems that I need for my flagship strategy- Teleport, Cloak, Mind Control. Mind Control is more optional, but I find it makes the third phase of the flagship much easier during that first period of the fight between the start and when you drop the zoltan shield.

To me drones are the least welcome subsystem, and I have real problems succeeding with them. Unlike the other support systems it's extremely power and scrap hungry, as well as shop dependent to actually get the drones you need for your strat. I strongly dislike offensive drones even just to bring shields down because it's so hard to sync your weapon fire with them. Defense drones are ok, but they always cost you drone parts while a cloak will let you dodge attacks for free. It also feels like drones have much more limited use against the flagship. Defense drones are great against the missiles and such, and I have won runs where I had Cloak/Tele/Drones because of that, but in that case I badly need a zoltan shield bypass to ensure I can kill the mindcontrol before my crew starts to self destruct.

Hacking is good. It's fine. It's useful in many situations. But I don't find it all that helpful. It's nice to insta-offline medbays and such, but when boarding I always find that I can shoot at a medbay before anyone wants to be using it. Simply by only beaming into two space rooms, you can ensure your boarders are never fighting against more than they can handle, and you can reliably get a kill or two in each 15 second cycle.
Levgre
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Re: Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

Postby Levgre » Fri Apr 25, 2014 1:31 pm

I've now shifted away from hacking, from ranking it 1st to 5th, solely because it is stopped by defense drones. It's not worth it to me if I can't use it in 1 of 3 flagship stages, and perhaps the most dangerous one.

So now my order is

1. Cloaking
2. Mind Control
3. Boarding
4. Drones
5. Hacking

I think one level into Mind Control is very efficient/effective at what it does. The most common ways I use it are

a. Reducing dodge temporarily by mind controlling enemy pilot.
b. Countering mind control used on one of my crew
c. Halting enemy repairs, either starting a brawl or having the repairer attack the system
d. Helping fight off enemy boarders.

As far as drones, I don't find them necessary but they are still cost efficient. If you get a hull repair drone it saves you a lot of scrap verse repairing late game, I usually have lots of extra drones. Defense drone is great in mid sectors against missile pot shots, and can give you a shot at countering enemy hacking by shooting them all down. In some cases combat drones can fit into your offense.

I tend to steer clear of boarding, unless it is a dedicated boarding ship. I find non-boarding strats more consistent on hard difficulty. As a non-boarding ship, I'd rate drones 3rd and boarding 4th.
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Twinge
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Re: Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

Postby Twinge » Sat Apr 26, 2014 9:38 am

hybridfive wrote:Doing this has all the benefits of turning off their dodge, which is sort of like hacking dodge in addition to hacking whatever that room is behind it. So you sometimes double the effectiveness of your hack as well.


Fighting in an enemy's cockpit will have the same exact effect as when you fight enemies in your own cockpit: they will lose the 5(/7/10)% manning bonus but they'll still have normal evasion otherwise.
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stvip
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Re: Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

Postby stvip » Sat Apr 26, 2014 9:54 am

Levgre wrote:I've now shifted away from hacking, from ranking it 1st to 5th, solely because it is stopped by defense drones. It's not worth it to me if I can't use it in 1 of 3 flagship stages, and perhaps the most dangerous one.


It's a Defense II - distract it with other sundry projectiles and your hacking module will slip through. The drone will then proceed to yip, chase its tail around, beg for a scrap cookie treat, and die when the Flagship explodes.
Merudo
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Re: Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

Postby Merudo » Sat Apr 26, 2014 3:37 pm

I find boarding to be sort of a "win more" strategy on Hard.

The issue is that boarders get so much distracted fighting other crew that it's next to impossible for them to take down enemy systems in a reasonable amount of time. Hence, if you are boarding on Hard you NEED to find another way to quickly disable weapons/medbay/clonebays as well as piloting/engine (when the enemy is escaping).

However, if you can take out systems reliably without boarders, you probably don't need boarders in the first place...

Boarding is therefore not really that useful during battle, and really is just a way to earn more scraps with an already effective ship.

The only exception is when "lockdown" abilities are available. In those cases you can teleport into a crucial system, lockdown the room and proceed to destroy the system without interruption. In these cases, you only need your boarders to win. Which is part of the reason why the Crystal B is so overpowered.
project_mercy
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Re: Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

Postby project_mercy » Sat Apr 26, 2014 4:41 pm

Merudo wrote:The only exception is when "lockdown" abilities are available. In those cases you can teleport into a crucial system, lockdown the room and proceed to destroy the system without interruption. In these cases, you only need your boarders to win. Which is part of the reason why the Crystal B is so overpowered.


Hacking locks a room down, though maybe not as well as Crystal Lockdown.
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Twinge
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Re: Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

Postby Twinge » Sat Apr 26, 2014 11:57 pm

stvip wrote:It's a Defense II - distract it with other sundry projectiles and your hacking module will slip through. The drone will then proceed to yip, chase its tail around, beg for a scrap cookie treat, and die when the Flagship explodes.


The Flaghship's drone is a Defense Drone I, not II. That said, hacking can get past it reasonably if you have an excess of drone parts - around 30% (estimate, still need to test) of hacks will get past.
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project_mercy
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Re: Mind Control vs Boarding vs Hacking vs Cloak vs Drones

Postby project_mercy » Sun Apr 27, 2014 12:47 am

Twinge wrote:
stvip wrote:It's a Defense II - distract it with other sundry projectiles and your hacking module will slip through. The drone will then proceed to yip, chase its tail around, beg for a scrap cookie treat, and die when the Flagship explodes.


The Flaghship's drone is a Defense Drone I, not II. That said, hacking can get past it reasonably if you have an excess of drone parts - around 30% (estimate, still need to test) of hacks will get past.


I shot 24 hacking modules at it and none got through. I'm not sure how many you would need, but it would be a lot.

Then again, I also got the achievement for failing 5 evasions in a row in the first volley from the Flagship, so I've accepted my luck is terrible.