Hardest beggining ship?

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Targetstar
Posts: 37
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:53 pm

Hardest beggining ship?

Postby Targetstar » Sun Sep 23, 2012 6:50 am

well, FTL 1st time i played so fun >< and the funnest thing is when ever, i start to die... its when, im haveing everyone running aroudn everywere, and combats going on multiple times, what is the hardest ship to have?
hborrgg
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 11:46 pm

Re: Hardest beggining ship?

Postby hborrgg » Sun Sep 23, 2012 7:31 am

Pick a stealth ship, fly straight into an astroid field, enjoy.
Kaerius
Posts: 87
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:02 pm

Re: Hardest beggining ship?

Postby Kaerius » Sun Sep 23, 2012 7:44 am

Stealth ship B and Crystal ship B are both rough starters. Stealth B is hosed if anything hits its weapon control before the glaive beam charges up(25s). Crystal ship B has no weapons at all to start with(but is the games best boarding ship), and is hosed by automated enemies before it can get a weapon(well, it can run away, but the scouts that let the fleet know where you are suck).
Gorlom
Posts: 519
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:06 am

Re: Hardest beggining ship?

Postby Gorlom » Sun Sep 23, 2012 8:05 am

Targetstar wrote:well, FTL 1st time i played so fun >< and the funnest thing is when ever, i start to die... its when, im haveing everyone running aroudn everywere, and combats going on multiple times, what is the hardest ship to have?

The ships that least suit your playstyle. All the ships are pretty much balanced and it all comes down to preferences and what you are used to. The stealth ships usually require a completely different playstyle then what players have gotten used to with the kestrel and the engi ship. So many think it's harder when they first start to use it, but once you get used to it many find it to be quite powerful and a fun playstyle.
Zaffre
Posts: 144
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 5:09 pm

Re: Hardest beggining ship?

Postby Zaffre » Sun Sep 23, 2012 1:36 pm

@Kaerius: Crystal crew members take reduced suffocation damage, don't they? I'm fairly certain you could use Crystal crew members to board auto scouts and destroy them from the inside with the Crystalline Ship Type B.
Kaerius
Posts: 87
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:02 pm

Re: Hardest beggining ship?

Postby Kaerius » Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:15 pm

They can yes, but if a boarder deals the deathblow to an automated ship they die, so it's a suicide mission.

So the only time a crystal ship B can beat an automated ship without crew loss before you get a weapon is a) if it's in an asteroid field or b) if you take it down to 1 health with boarding, then get a crystal shard kill(10% chance when your own ship takes hull damage).
Eji1700
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:26 pm

Re: Hardest beggining ship?

Postby Eji1700 » Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:36 pm

Dunno about crystal, but I'd argue Engi B.

Stealth ship B has two in engines so it can at least pretend to run if engines take a hit and upgrading stealth makes most fights easier to surrive, and maybe dodge. Engi B doesn't even get crew to help with it's Ion's abysmal charge time(13 seconds). If the ion misses or gets damaged you're looking at a very long time before your going to be able to do squat. You get a 1 in engine so good luck escaping and your "crew" requires power and can't be micro'd. Its not the weapons hit that usually kills you so much as the weapons hit, followed by the O2 hit, followed by the shield hit, followed by the other weapons hit just as they come back up. Enjoy watching your "crew" fix that in order or losing what minimal dodge/FTL charge you have when you send your pilot to try and fix something important.

Pray you never hit an asteroid field.
Redfoot
Posts: 16
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:50 pm

Re: Hardest beggining ship?

Postby Redfoot » Sun Sep 23, 2012 10:19 pm

The way I look at it, most ships end up being more or less the same by sector 8 with a few changes here and there. You're all going to run a couple of weapons, drones, a few levels of cloaking or a teleporter.. the game really doesn't offer that much customization, the biggest impact of ship differences is early game.

I'd say the least luck dependent are the vanilla ships - kestrel variants, fed cruisers. you start with nice amounts of crew, weapons, defense - it's just a good platform to build up on and spend scrap to specialize as you see fit.

The 'specialized' ships are exactly the opposite, these start with highly specialized items and less firepower and/or defense and it's a race to 'kestrel-ize' your ship before sector 4 or you're in trouble. Even ships that are highly rated like Mantis A/B can hit a bad stride quick vs. automated ships or cloaks (lose boarder crew during cloaking...)

Engi B has to be the worst offender.

My personal favorite is Zoltan B, it's abilities are great to collect scrap early on and are a nice bonus in later sectors.
Gaidren
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:50 am

Re: Hardest beggining ship?

Postby Gaidren » Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:27 am

Engi B and Stealth B both require a lot of luck to get off the ground.
Szyszkojad
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 2:40 pm

Re: Hardest beggining ship?

Postby Szyszkojad » Fri Sep 28, 2012 12:16 am

Redfoot wrote:The way I look at it, most ships end up being more or less the same by sector 8 with a few changes here and there. You're all going to run a couple of weapons, drones, a few levels of cloaking or a teleporter.. the game really doesn't offer that much customization, the biggest impact of ship differences is early game.


I disagree, there are definitely huge differences between my sector 8 ships depending which ship I choose as a starting one. I'm not saying that every ship guarantees unique run but the choice of a ship determines the tactic you have to use, for example there are boarding-centred ships like Mantis cruiser A and B, Crystal Cruiser B or Rock Cruiser B, Weapon-centred ships like federation cruiser, Kestrel, Rock Cruiser A, defence centred ships like Zoltan or Engi etc. Moreover, there are different boarding tactics, different weapon setups and so on. Also, customising your ship differently than it is intended is difficult on easy and borderline impossible on normal unless you have extreme luck.