30 Hours Played and No Ships Unlocked

[Mathias]

I have played for just over 30 hours. I have beaten the boss. I have no ships unlocked except for the Engi Crusier.

I have purposely avoided looking for guides and information on unlocking the ships. Now that I have beaten the boss though, I am a little dissapointed that I do have to turn to guides and information to figure out how to unlock all of these other ships.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that is kinda stinks that after so many hours I didn't unlock even a single ship and now I have to get help to do so. It seems like some of the ships unlocks should have been presented in a different fashion so as to pace the content better.

[SushaBrancaleone]

another way to put it is that you still have something to look forward to in your FTL gameplay.

I didnt use any guides to unlock ships other than for the secret ship and a couple others.

try selecting the blue options in the dialogues, these are activated by having special crew on board (aliens). Following these options (and the relative instructions) usually lead to special rewards and sometimes ships.

some ships require some farming to unlock, so you will need to do research.

The whole idea of FTL is to have that 90's feeling where extra content is provided to those willing to "hunt it down" (ok farm...) and is not gratuitous.

[Aerowind]

If all you have is the Engi Cruiser, then you haven't beaten the boss. You should have the Federation Cruiser if that was true.

That said, I unlocked most of the ships without having to use a guide. Just aim for the homeworlds of the ships you're looking for, usually while having one of them on board.

[Mathias]

Oh the Federation crusier? I beat the boss late last night and didn't check afterwards.

That is good then! Something to look forward to.

[Icehawk78]

Additionally, if you don't want to use spoilers (I'm not sure if you have already or not), I'd recommend looking at the ship selection screen - locked ships give a hint on how to unlock them on the screen, though it *will* be fairly difficult and may require several playthroughs to try out the various options on different events to see what happens.

As a not-very-spoiler-y hint, when searching for new ships, you want to prioritise Homeworld sectors over non-Homeworld sectors.

[Agent_L]

This is the game: unlocking something is just a lucky thing that may or may not happen to you. It's an added bonus, not core functionality.

Or you can read the guides and grind.

[Kestral B]

Save and quit right before jumping to the sector that potentially has the unlock, and back up your profile.

Then if you don't find the quest, you can restore the profile and try that sector again without having to play a whole new game (or potentially several whole new games) just to survive and find that sector again.

If that rubs you the wrong way, then just play on easy whenever you're trying to unlock ships - makes your chance of being able to get somewhere and do the quest successfully on any particular run much higher.

[boa13]

This is the game: unlocking something is just a lucky thing that may or may not happen to you.

It's not just luck. There are in-game hints, and you can progress towards that goal.

[Agent_L]

This is the game: unlocking something is just a lucky thing that may or may not happen to you.

It's not just luck. There are in-game hints, and you can progress towards that goal.

It's luck first.
Species X homeworld sector may or may not be rolled. You can't progress towards it.

Of course, once you're lucky, you can choose to follow the hints or ignore them. But the non-random part is completely dependent on correct sector roll, correct beacon map roll and you choosing proper beacon based on pure luck. (the last part is not RNG, but you are forced to make uneducated guess - which is even more random than RNG)

[boa13]

Agreed on that point, there is a part of luck, but I was able to get the events concerning some species-specific ship quite often over several plays. Those events were not that rare, which alleviates the randomness a bit.