Subset Games Forum

I sympathise with you OP, I haven't played for as long as you have, and I've only gotten to the the final boss a couple of times, and both times I've limped in just to inevitably run out of missiles.
I think you just need to be able to be smart enough to turn what situations you are in to your advantage, so instead of a 95% loss rate due to RNG you can lower that to around 50% or so.

afedyuki wrote: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.

I was referring to your post about 'tips', i.e. "a recommendation" :

afedyuki wrote: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".

While I do agree that there's not much info in the game about the inner mechanics in details, it's doesn't need to be, and there're many reason why it may not be a good idea to actually have it in the game; don't ask, though, it's... complicate.

The last boss is actually pretty easy its just the game itself is all luck based.

You need burst lasers rank 2. As many as possible if you can get 4 perfect.

Weapon preignitor
Stealth weapons
Random 3rd upgrade doesnt matter. Shield or weapon booster.

Max your shields and stealth system. Drone control for 1 defense drone.

If you can get rank 4 shields great but its not necessary.

Basically just start with all your weapons powered and burst down his shields. Just keep auto firing on his shields until he has none. Tank the laser shots with your shields and save your cloak(which should be rank 3) and activate them right as he fires his missles. This will make all of the missles miss and disable his weapon charge for another 15+ seconds. Stealth weapons makes its o your burst lasers dont disrupt your stealth.

Rinse repeat in all 3 forms. Save cloak to dodge his burst attacks.

Really the core to beating the boss is stealth.

It took me 51 games on easy to win. It was with the Engi ship and I had no idea how I did it except I got a lot of good stuff. After that I won again on easy on game 63 (the big Fed cruiser), Game 64 was another easy win except oops! 2 Boarders died. There is a learning curve but if you pay attention it is very apparent what you need to do to improve.

If I get to sector 8 I have fun.

There are several different ways to fight the final boss and it definitely doesn't require Burst Lasers x4. I've beat him without Lasers in one run, without Missiles in another, without Cloaking/Teleportation in another, with an Ion + one basic laser, etc. All on normal difficulty.

For the record, I just let my 7-year old son try this game. He's watched me play a couple times and started with the Nisos (which he picked because it looked cool) on Easy. He played mostly without using pause, upgrading the ship at random (his first upgrades were Piloting and Doors) and focused his weapons when he remembered to use them on the enemy's weapons. Pretty sure Autofire was on. Sometimes he would take a couple jumps before I would gently remind him he had broken systems. He jumped nearly always straight towards the exit, ran out of fuel at least once that I saw (I didn't watch him the whole time), and STILL made it to one jump away from Sector 6.

I take that to mean that some people need to stop whining and accept the challenge. Easy is a challenge to win, but it's not by any stretch masochistic. SUBSTANTIALLY easier than most of the roguelike genre. If you don't like the challenge, play a different game. You're out at most, what, $10? A movie theater ticket.

Geemanitly, he asked for help, not crap! There is a YouTube podcast on ftl the one by "wolfx073" is the best one i have found. Stick his name in the Google or YouTube search engine and it will help you step by step.

BKT wrote:

SaltyWaffles wrote:3) Combat is laughably broken.

You must be really, really mad... Since no sane people could possibly say this.

Well, there are two of us that are really really mad or insane.
I think it's really poorly done as well.

postman wrote:1) Use PAUSE often. Evaluate what is going on, look at your opponent's ship, plan accordingly. Get hit big? Pause and think of your next move. A no-pause run is an incredible challenge.
2) Ditch autofire. I relied on autofire too much at first. Time your shots to work together.
3) Learn to use your power and carefully reroute it as needed. I turn off Med and sometimes Oxygen when I'm not using them. For example, if you have improved Oxygen, you can usually turn it off during a fight and then boost it up for a quick refill before jumping.

To 3) I want to add that you could also switch between drones, since drone parts are only consumed when the drones are launched. If you spot a missile launch, reroute power from your attack drone to the defense drone, and when the missile is dealt with, route back power to the attack drone. This way I managed to beat the game on normal with the Engi cruiser.

4) Micromanage crews in fights. When the AI boards you, they will escape from any room emptied of oxygen. Use this to force the engagement to your MedBay. The AI is pretty simple, so once it's locked into a fight, it won't try to escape, but fight until death, or if time allow, be teleported back when it's health reach a critical point. When you locked them into a fight in your MedBay, simply close all doors and your rooms will refill with oxygen while you fight. Conversely, the AI prioritize to fight when you board the ship. This mean that boarding can be done posterior to system damage on the enemy ship. Instead of repairs, the AI will send it's crew on a chase after your boarding team. Just run around from room to room to keep the enemy crew distracted long enough for your weapons to further increase the system damage.

In general, I would say that all of these advices deal with micromanagement of your available resources. There not so much macro in the game, as you point out, since you can't be sure wether you will get a certain instore offer to match your desired build, or that the scrap yield will be sufficient to purchase you what you want, or that any unexplored beacons will provide the necessary resource generation at all. Thus the argument goes that you are really pressed to squeeze out an edge of what you already got. That's what make rouge games such a challenge, and so rewarding when you finally beat it.