Beating the flagship help

[tacoguy339]

I've had FTL on my ipad for a few weeks now, and though it may seem like this would correlate to a low skill level, I have gotten to the flagship a few times. Each time, I lose. The only ships I have unlocked are the Torus and the Nesasio (not counting the Kestrel). Could anyone give me some advice? I would love to unlock another ship.

[stylesrj]

There are plenty of guides and walkthroughs out there.

My best advice? Fly on Easy and use the Red-Tail (Kestrel B).
You can unlock alternative ship types if you go for the achievements. Kestrel is easy enough. Buy all the systems and subsystems (including the backup battery) you can buy and gather a mixed crew.
Tough Little Ship is not something you'd actively pursue. That's more of an opportunity - if you have plenty of scrap and you end up with 1HP, then go for it.

Invest in a teleporter and Hacking. When you fight the Flagship, send two guys into the room with the missile launcher above it (starboard side, close to shield room). Then after that room is dealt with, go after the portside ion launcher (the gun on the very far left)

In fact, try and kill all of the crew except for the guy in the upper left laser. An easy way to do this is to hack the medbay of the Flagship, throw your crew in there, let the Rebels in (power the system down then power it back up) and begin hacking. Hopefully they'll die before they flee or the hack ends.
You may need to buy a Clone Bay.

If you don't know the game too well, write a "shopping list" of sorts.

1) Get Cloaking Device
2) Get a Teleporter
3) Hacking or Mind Control
4) At least two Mantises
5) At least two Zoltans
6) Clone Bay
7) Do whatever it takes to acquire any Burst Laser II's you see in shops. They cost 80 scrap but are worth it.
8) See a Flak I in stores? Get it! More common than the above, does the same damage and is cheaper. Less accurate but you can make it up in volume once you find these lying about.

[tacoguy339]

There are plenty of guides and walkthroughs out there.

My best advice? Fly on Easy and use the Red-Tail (Kestrel B).
You can unlock alternative ship types if you go for the achievements. Kestrel is easy enough. Buy all the systems and subsystems (including the backup battery) you can buy and gather a mixed crew.
Tough Little Ship is not something you'd actively pursue. That's more of an opportunity - if you have plenty of scrap and you end up with 1HP, then go for it.

Invest in a teleporter and Hacking. When you fight the Flagship, send two guys into the room with the missile launcher above it (starboard side, close to shield room). Then after that room is dealt with, go after the portside ion launcher (the gun on the very far left)

In fact, try and kill all of the crew except for the guy in the upper left laser. An easy way to do this is to hack the medbay of the Flagship, throw your crew in there, let the Rebels in (power the system down then power it back up) and begin hacking. Hopefully they'll die before they flee or the hack ends.
You may need to buy a Clone Bay.

If you don't know the game too well, write a "shopping list" of sorts.

1) Get Cloaking Device
2) Get a Teleporter
3) Hacking or Mind Control
4) At least two Mantises
5) At least two Zoltans
6) Clone Bay
7) Do whatever it takes to acquire any Burst Laser II's you see in shops. They cost 80 scrap but are worth it.
8) See a Flak I in stores? Get it! More common than the above, does the same damage and is cheaper. Less accurate but you can make it up in volume once you find these lying about.

Ok, thanks. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with Kestrel-A for the time being, but I got tough little ship (pure chance). The best I have ever done is with the Torus, but Engi are not that good at anything but their role in my ship, and repairing.

[stylesrj]

I still haven't got Tough Little Ship for my PC version. iPad version I had my ship at 2HP, so I dropped a Firebomb in Sensors (dumb move but there were no other systems around to be burned as well. Fire likes to say "Fuck you!" to a lack of oxygen and set one air-filled square on fire before vanishing) and jumped to the store next door for a full repair.

Anyway, should be easy enough to get a United Federation or all the systems then. Cloak, Hacking and Teleporter. Forget Drones. Drones are like Missiles. Useful up until a certain point.

So if you go with the shopping list, you can have 8 crew. You have 2 Mantises and 2 Zoltan.

So for United Federation get these as well:

Human
Engi
Rock
Slug or Lanius (depends on if you find a dreaded Slug nebula or a dreaded Abandoned Sector in your run)

Then after the achievement, dismiss that foolish Human meatsack and replace them with someone better.

By the way if you can get 2 Lanius on your ship, those Mantises are no longer needed. Lanius are better than them at combat due to the fact that they can deplete oxygen in a room and thus deny the enemy access to it if they don't have a medbay..

[tacoguy339]

Recently, I went traveling, so FTL was my best friend! I got the Engi type B and C, as well as types A,B and C for the zoltan ship. I got those all in one day, but that's not the best part. Today, I got the Redtail! Although I lost with it on my first run, It is the most powerful ship I have unlocked. Thanks for the help, beating the flagship should be a breeze now.

[stylesrj]

You're welcome.
The Red-Tail is one of my favourites, up until you unlock the Crystal Cruisers or the Lanius B.

[tacoguy339]

Finally beat it, with the redtail, with 4 burst lazers mark 2. Almost lost, but successfully fired off my last volley and destroyed it. Thanks for the help!

[zeek]

By the way if you can get 2 Lanius on your ship, those Mantises are no longer needed. Lanius are better than them at combat due to the fact that they can deplete oxygen in a room and thus deny the enemy access to it if they don't have a medbay..

That's probably a personal preference thing. I still prefer mantis boarders. Once the oxygen is out of a room and the enemy's health gets low they'll run and then you have to chase them down. Sometimes a different crew member will come to fight you instead. It can make killing enemy crew more difficult IMO. They are awesome against AI ships though.

[stylesrj]

That's probably a personal preference thing. I still prefer mantis boarders. Once the oxygen is out of a room and the enemy's health gets low they'll run and then you have to chase them down. Sometimes a different crew member will come to fight you instead. It can make killing enemy crew more difficult IMO. They are awesome against AI ships though.

But the ships that come with a Lanius boarding team tend to have a Clone Bay while the Mantis ships use medbays. So either way you'll have to send your crew out or let them die and come back to fight a weakened foe.

At least the Lanius provide area denial, especially in the Weapons Room and combined with Mind Control (I like the Lanius B) in the shield room so the stupid AI goes and saves their shields rather than deal with the immediate Lanius threat stopping their FU Missiles from firing