Subset Games Forum

You should really rethink your cloak priority, observato. The ability to dodge the enemy's first missiles lets you take way less damage since if you are playing well there shouldn't be a lot of ships that can take a second shot. Level one cloak happens to be perfectly timed to let you dodge every power surge on the boss. Cloak is well worth the 1 power and 150 scrap.

I hope the OP comes back and reads this thread... lots of good advice.

Another point: Be sure to turn on the option that lets you see which beacons link to each other. IMO it should be on by DEFAULT... you save yourself lots of deadends and "Gah!" trap moments.

My tip to the OP : man up.

The problem with this otherwise great game is not difficulty, but the lack of in game help and thus a really steep learning curve. The OP is a good example -- even after several playthroughs, the new player still does not really understand the game mechanics. And when people don't understand *why* they lose, they get frustrated.

I think it would be prudent to include in game tip system to detect and point out noob mistakes. "Recommended upgrade" would probably be good. For example: "You only have 2 person crew, Blast Doors would be a really good idea" or "Your shields are adequate for now, but you are practically defenseless vs missiles, so you should probably upgrade your engines".

In combat help might be good, something like: "Careful, you have boarders inside enemy ship and your guns are on auto-fire".

.........

afedyuki wrote:The problem with this otherwise great game is not difficulty, but the lack of in game help and thus a really steep learning curve. The OP is a good example -- even after several playthroughs, the new player still does not really understand the game mechanics. And when people don't understand *why* they lose, they get frustrated.

I am not quite sure that tips would help. Most, if not all, of the people with that problem pretty much choose not to think. I don't think any amount of help would make them like the game. At best a tip system would be very rigid and not too helpful due to it not being able to actually think and adapt to each specific situation. A similar solution to that problem is watching videos of other people playing reasonably well. Zzandrio on youtube is the only FTL player I have watched who actually was good at the game.

Even assuming that people will actually read any tips that the game give you**, the 'suggestion' algorithm must be extremely advance and complex in order to actually give out a useful tips because the game does not have a rigid rules like chess. And I didn't even take the 'Human element' into accounts; History has show that, writing any computer program that can give out a 'good' advice that people would actually like at the 'correct' moment, is nigh impossible... Just look at Clippy!

For instance, while a very early lv.2 shied upgrade is a very solid strategy on every ships that start with 1 shield, this is not always the case— I once had an Engi_A run up to half way into sector 3 before I bought a lv.2 shield (or any Engine upgrade) because I spent all my scraps in the shop to buy a Heavy laser MK1, Anti-ship MK2 drone (expensive... ), a Drone recov and a Reloader augment, and all the relevant system upgrades plus enough power to have them all powered at the same time, in a bet that this enormous firepower will allow me to go on despite of my paltry defensive capability, and it did. In fact, I go even further and disable the shield completely in some battle and reroute the power to deploy and additional Anti-ship MK1 drone , which I already got, for even more firepower, it work like a charm.


** In fact, such 'tips' are already in the game; just hover your mouse over any system in the ship's upgrade menu or any items in the weapon menu or in the shop, it's on the right hand side of the screen. People just either don't read them, or don't understand what it's actually mean, neither because that people are too stupid nor the description is too complex and difficult to understand (in fact, it's incredibly simple and very intuitive; there's no math! ), but solely due to the lack of in-game experience... Adding any more tips, however useful, won't solve these problems.

SaltyWaffles, i liked how your post was so easy to read. Very well organized with a well spaced text.

Its a shame that you are not having as much fun with the game as some of us. I hope that changes in the future, since many of the things you say you dislike about the game are not really there.

unless you are very lucky (or starting with a far, far better ship than the Kestrel...which is completely moot, as the sole available ship to start with should not be the most difficult ship to beat the game with, even on the easiest difficulty. Period.).

The Krestal (A or B) is a very balanced ship, making it the perfect starting ship.
Its my second favorite ship (the mantis being the first), at its a ship favored by many players at this forum.
It doesnt start with any disadvantages, comparing to many of the unlockable ships, and it starts with very balanced combo of weapons. Check for some krestal videos on youtube, it might change your prespective.

3) Combat is laughably broken.

Missiles completely bypass shields, deal significant damage to both hull and subsystems, and are only disadvantaged by using a finite ammo source. But the enemies you face have no such restrictions or concerns, and this becomes extremely problematic when combined with..

Yes, the ability to penetrate shields is what makes missiles so useful, but do not forget that they can be countered with a Defense Drone Mark I and high evasion (which you can get from having a good pilot, a well manned engine room, upgraded engines).
You said the the AI didnt had to worry with finite ammo. This isnt true. The AI missiles ammo will run out, and when it does you can turn your defense drone

Well, hey, the only other ship you can relatively easily unlock has a teleporter to start with! Awesome! Wait, what's that? Its crew are all of a species that completely sucks at boarding actions--offense or defense--and finding new crewmembers is at best uncommon, and almost always expensive? Well, fuck.

Observato has already stated this.
The easiest ship with a teleporter you can unlock is the Mantis A.
The Mantis A ship starts with a crew of 4, 3 of which are mantis.
Mantis are, considered by many, the best species for boarding/anti-boarding.
They move faster on mantis ships (thanks to Mantis Pheromones), and do double damage.

Unless you meant the Slug B is the easiest to unlock.
The Slug B Ship starts with a 3 Slugs Crew. Slugs are as tough as Humans in close combat.
They arent as great as Mantis or Rockmen, but they do better than Engis or Zoltans.

Either way they are not as you describe them.

If i saw the game as you do, i wouldnt like it either. I hope you give the game a chance with a different prespective
and end up enjoying as much as i do. If not, maybe this kind of game is not for you.

Try playing any other game you own in iron man mode.
You forbid yourself of loading your savegame if you die and you cannot have multiples savegames.
FTL wont seem so hard after that.

While true in most cases, there are some specific things that are missing:

1) It does not explain anywhere in the game how Zoltan shield really works. I had to spend considerable amount of time researching before I learned that it takes exactly 2 'ticks' of full damage from a beam regardless of the conventional shield level and how many rooms are targeted.

2) Cloak could use better description. Something like: "all weapons (except beams and teleporters) fired while cloak is active reduce the duration".

3) Ion weapons definitely need better in game explanation. How the "lock-down" effect works -- what happens if you hit a system with a conventional weapon before and after it was hit with ion weapon.

4) It is not clear anywhere in bomb's description (unlike missiles) that they ignore shields. It is also not clear that you can't dodge beams.

BKT wrote: ** In fact, such 'tips' are already in the game; just hover your mouse over any system in the ship's upgrade menu or any items in the weapon menu or in the shop, it's on the right hand side of the screen. People just either don't read them, or don't understand what it's actually mean, neither because that people are too stupid nor the description is too complex and difficult to understand (in fact, it's incredibly simple and very intuitive; there's no math! ), but solely due to the lack of in-game experience... Adding any more tips, however useful, won't solve these problems.

afedyuki wrote: 1) It does not explain anywhere in the game how Zoltan shield really works. I had to spend considerable amount of time researching before I learned that it takes exactly 2 'ticks' of full damage from a beam regardless of the conventional shield level and how many rooms are targeted.

Actually a halberd beam takes 2 off 2 times and a glaive beam takes off 3 twice. It does the damage of the beam two times. It is supposed to be pretty secretive technology though IIRC.

2) Cloak could use better description. Something like: "all weapons (except beams and teleporters) fired while cloak is active reduce the duration".

Yes, it really could. Stealth weapons could really use a better one too.

3) Ion weapons definitely need better in game explanation. How the "lock-down" effect works -- what happens if you hit a system with a conventional weapon before and after it was hit with ion weapon.

Currently the only way to understand ion weapons using only ingame as a source is to pay attention to how they affect you. Not very good indeed.

4) It is not clear anywhere in bomb's description (unlike missiles) that they ignore shields. It is also not clear that you can't dodge beams.

It does mention that the bomb actually teleports into the ship which I understood perfectly as being shield bypassing but not zoltan shield bypassing.

The game is really lacking in some ingame explanations. The wiki is pretty good in explaining what things to at least but not everyone wants to or knows to look for a wiki.