Hardest beggining ship?

[actionhero112]

That's just silly. Of course you'll still have to do something to win. You can't win a basketball game by keeping the ball and never making a shot or a fight by just blocking and never throwing a punch yet you can still have a defensive style of play. As long as most of the effort is put into defense, it's considered defensive which in this case it is.

Exactly but what do you call the people in a basketball team that score points, "the offense." You're using your offense to destroy ships, you can't win a game without them, no matter how many players you have on defense. Let me know how your shields, defense drones let you actively destroy ships. The answer is that they can't. You have to use an offensive plan to destroy your opponent. It doesn't matter what that plan is, because every battle plan's ultimate goal in the game destroys ships/kills crews, which means they are all inherently offensive. Shields are just a means to an offensive end, not a defensive one.

My point is that you're not investing in your ship's defenses just to protect yourself. You're doing it to kill crew/destroy ships easier, which is an offensive goal. The goal of the game is not to defend yourself, it's to destroy/kill. And the reason why you invest in your defenses is to accomplish that offensive goal.


@Szyszkojad, Let me ask you a question then. Because you classify the Zoltan ship as "defensive" does that mean it doesn't benefit from a teleporter, an experienced boarding crew, cloak and various weaponry? Does it not benefit from the weapon pre igniter? These things do not fit your rigid classification of the ship, however they do seem to benefit the ship.

Also, Redfoot correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that you meant that all the ships by the end of the game tend to have all the possible systems installed, and generally drones and weapons. Not that all ships have the exact same augmentations, weapons, drones and upgrades.

[Szyszkojad]

Exactly but what do you call the people in a basketball team that score points, "the offense." You're using your offense to destroy ships, you can't win a game without them, no matter how many players you have on defense. Let me know how your shields, defense drones let you actively destroy ships. The answer is that they can't. You have to use an offensive plan to destroy your opponent. It doesn't matter what that plan is, because every battle plan's ultimate goal in the game destroys ships/kills crews, which means they are all inherently offensive. Shields are just a means to an offensive end, not a defensive one.

My point is that you're not investing in your ship's defenses just to protect yourself. You're doing it to kill crew/destroy ships easier, which is an offensive goal. The goal of the game is not to defend yourself, it's to destroy/kill. And the reason why you invest in your defenses is to accomplish that offensive goal.


@Szyszkojad, Let me ask you a question then. Because you classify the Zoltan ship as "defensive" does that mean it doesn't benefit from a teleporter, an experienced boarding crew, cloak and various weaponry? Does it not benefit from the weapon pre igniter? These things do not fit your rigid classification of the ship, however they do seem to benefit the ship.

Also, Redfoot correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that you meant that all the ships by the end of the game tend to have all the possible systems installed, and generally drones and weapons. Not that all ships have the exact same augmentations, weapons, drones and upgrades.

Yes, your goal is to destroy the enemy, but there are several tactics to accomplish this, and stalling the enemy is often beneficial. I also think that the choice of a ship affects more than just the first few sectors because it encourages you to use a specific tactic. The choices you make in the shops you come across are heavily influenced by the starting layout.

I probably shouldn't actually classify Zoltan as a defensive ship since it benefits from destroying the enemy as quickly as possible. It's just seemed natural with that shield . And yes the Zoltan definitely does benefit from the things you listed, but it's the details that matter. You will have a boarding crew but it will be almost definitely a much weaker boarding crew than you would have on Crystal B or Mantis B. Also the weapons you will have will be probably intended for doing as much damage as quickly as possible rather than supporting your boarders.

Well Redfoot complained about there not being enough room for customisation and that in sector 8 it doesn't matter much which ship you pick which I disagreed with. But I do agree that, generally, you will have all systems installed before fighting the boss. I also think that the boss fight would benefit from different layouts, weapons etc. Right now fighting the boss becomes mundane after a while because of how similar the fights are.

[Moosicorn]

Saw a few people saying engi B was bad which is funny because that's the first ship I won with . I think Mantis Ship B is a bad start I bet if you can get lucky in first few sectors it's a really good ship but if you ever find a scout or zoltan your going to have to jump away

[Starbug]

My point is that you're not investing in your ship's defenses just to protect yourself. You're doing it to kill crew/destroy ships easier, which is an offensive goal.

Except that it doesn't. Let me quote yourself for this, in the same post:

Let me know how your shields, defense drones let you actively destroy ships. The answer is that they can't. You have to use an offensive plan to destroy your opponent.

Increasing your shields, or adding defence drones, does not help you kill the enemy ships, at all.
If you couldn't get through their level 3 shields before you got a defence drone, then you still won't be able to after. It does not improve your ability to kill enemy ships.
All it does is help you to NOT DIE. Which is pretty important.

Shields help you to kill enemy ships... by not being dead. That's your argument right?

Don't get me wrong, you definitely need to be alive to do that.
Your ship also needs to be alive to even play the game. The argument is a bit redundant.

Anything that improves your ship's survivability is defensive. Sheilds, engines, defensive drones, system repair drones, and even anti-boarding drones are all Defensive because you cannot use them to attack other ships - they only improve your own survivability, and do not affect anyone else's.

A Defensive ship is one that FOCUSES on Defence, rather than offence.

Take the Torus for example. It starts with an ion gun, which cannot do damage, and only 1 little attack drone. It even has only 3 weapon slots.
However, given enough time, that ion gun can get through any number of shields.
So if you play defensively and turtle up, so that you can survive long engagements, then you can do quite well, even with just that one drone and ion.
See? Its a defensive ship, but still perfectly capable of killing things.

It DOES benefit from all the other things the other ships do, like a teleport or a cloak, but you need a lot more scrap, and luck, to make those play styles work with this ship. A teleport for instance isn't much good if you can't get some strong crew to go with it - Engi's are rubbish at boarding (as are zoltans).
A cloak doesn't help much with a rapid fire weapon such as the ion III - it will bring it out of cloak every time it fires!

Do you get what I'm saying?
This thread is all about which ship is the hardest beginning ship - when you don't have much scrap, and haven't been to many stores - so certain play styles suit certain ships, especially at the start.

Nobody was suggesting that a defensive ship is one that cannot attack. Only you seem to be suggesting that -_-

A Defensive ship ≠ Pacifism run

[LegendarySJ]

That's just silly. Of course you'll still have to do something to win. You can't win a basketball game by keeping the ball and never making a shot or a fight by just blocking and never throwing a punch yet you can still have a defensive style of play. As long as most of the effort is put into defense, it's considered defensive which in this case it is.

Exactly but what do you call the people in a basketball team that score points, "the offense." You're using your offense to destroy ships, you can't win a game without them, no matter how many players you have on defense. Let me know how your shields, defense drones let you actively destroy ships. The answer is that they can't. You have to use an offensive plan to destroy your opponent. It doesn't matter what that plan is, because every battle plan's ultimate goal in the game destroys ships/kills crews, which means they are all inherently offensive. Shields are just a means to an offensive end, not a defensive one.

My point is that you're not investing in your ship's defenses just to protect yourself. You're doing it to kill crew/destroy ships easier, which is an offensive goal. The goal of the game is not to defend yourself, it's to destroy/kill. And the reason why you invest in your defenses is to accomplish that offensive goal.


@Szyszkojad, Let me ask you a question then. Because you classify the Zoltan ship as "defensive" does that mean it doesn't benefit from a teleporter, an experienced boarding crew, cloak and various weaponry? Does it not benefit from the weapon pre igniter? These things do not fit your rigid classification of the ship, however they do seem to benefit the ship.

Also, Redfoot correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that you meant that all the ships by the end of the game tend to have all the possible systems installed, and generally drones and weapons. Not that all ships have the exact same augmentations, weapons, drones and upgrades.

Your basketball analogy works against you. The same players who play offense also play defense, much like your ship in FTL, it must do both. A basketball team whose strength is playing Defense won't score as many points as other teams, but the way they beat you is by wearing you down and not letting you score. In FTL, you could represent this as a ship with high Shields/Evasion/Cloak and using Ion weapons or Defense drones to keep enemy attacks from causing damage. Over time, they will wear down the enemy with a steady stream of attacks while taking little damage.

Compare that to a ship with high damage weapons and a weapon preigniter. The ship will strike the enemy with full force as fast as it can. It will tend to win battles faster, but is more susceptible to damage, especially if some of their attacks miss.

See the difference?

[GDK]

I never bought drone contorl systems.
And yet i beat the game with the kestrel (using 1 laser mk 2 and 2 mk1), and two times with the rock cruiser A (using a lot of missile and an ion weapon for the energy shield the first time, using bombs and the halberd beam the second time).

So yeah there are a lot of different runs possible.

[zarakon]

I guess I would say the "hardest" ships are the ones that require a good amount of luck, even with perfect strategy (on Normal).

I would vote for Stealth A.

Both Stealth ships need to get a shield to avoid getting torn to shreds by beam weapons, but B has the slight advantage of being able to 1-shot most ships early on, with no chance of missing. So B is a bit more predictable. My most recent attempt with A had a few very early fights go very badly just because my dual laser kept dual missing. With B you know exactly how many enemy volleys you're going to have to endure.

What really puts the Stealth ships in a hole is that they are both completely unable to damage the 3-shield ships that start to show up in sector 4 (on Normal) unless you get some additional weapons. So you have this need to get expensive shields early AND new weapons early, while the shield weakness is probably already putting a strain on your funds with unavoidable repair costs.

[icepick]

Aye, I second this analysis.

[GDK]

I guess I would say the "hardest" ships are the ones that require a good amount of luck, even with perfect strategy (on Normal).

I would vote for Stealth A.

Both Stealth ships need to get a shield to avoid getting torn to shreds by beam weapons, but B has the slight advantage of being able to 1-shot most ships early on, with no chance of missing. So B is a bit more predictable. My most recent attempt with A had a few very early fights go very badly just because my dual laser kept dual missing. With B you know exactly how many enemy volleys you're going to have to endure.

What really puts the Stealth ships in a hole is that they are both completely unable to damage the 3-shield ships that start to show up in sector 4 (on Normal) unless you get some additional weapons. So you have this need to get expensive shields early AND new weapons early, while the shield weakness is probably already putting a strain on your funds with unavoidable repair costs.

Stealth B can actually sell it's glaive beam to help getting better less expensive weapons (like 2 burst laser mark 1 or 2 if you got a lot of scrap) that fit the same amount of power.

For stealth A it's actually hard to have a good weapon to fight the boss.

Also am I really the only one who never max the shields (3 is enough to survive) but maxes out the engines and the cloak.

[Kirbypowered]

So I guess I'm not one to say since I've only unlocked three ships and type B for the Engi Cruiser (I have horrible luck, I swear!), but I had the hardest time with the Federation Cruiser. I might of just had bad luck with enemies filling me with missiles and lack of finding weapons, but I always took way too much damage before I could do anything. The Engi type B might honestly be more difficult, but I like it. =P

Regarding the comment about most ships having drones and I think teleporters (?) by the end, in my favourite round with the Federation Cruiser I won with only laser weapons. Had two mark 2 and one mark 1 burst lasers and a mark 1 or 2 heavy laser. Never used a missile or a drone in the whole run. Easiest boss fight yet. Of course, a fully upgraded artillery beam helped.