Subset Games Forum

My heroes growing up were always the problem solvers: Scotty, LaForge, MacGyver, etc. and the best part about FTL is that there are plenty of opportunities to find nonstandard solutions when the need arises. Just thought it would be fun to swap examples.

One of my favorites is the time my doors were offline and I had to use a breech bomb on my own flaming ship to keep my last crewmember from being cooked mid-fight. Medbay was down, so I couldn't depower the O2 and he was already at about 1/3 health. Since I had hull to spare I figured vacuum is vacuum, doors or no. (Okay, "hull to spare" is always an overstatement in FTL, but you get the idea...) Engines were good, so I kept my man at the helm and dropped the breech in the would-be drone bay (Kestrel) as a fire break. Worked like a charm, next hop was a store and I got him a buddy, tout suite.

Any other fun alternative problem-solving tales?

Don't forget about Hannibal Smith!

The first run I had in the Torus (Engi ship, Layout A) went fairly bad at the start. From what I can remember, I had a pair of Mantis boarders. I popped the doors and sent my pair of Engi crewmembers off to the medbay, with my human staying a as pilot. Before the Mantis came to the medbay for the fight, though, they took out the oxygen room. After the boarders were killed, both Engi ran to fix the oxygen.. but they both died in the vacuum.

I moved my pilot into the nearby medbay and for a moment sat and stared sadly. The oxygen was entirely gone, and the only thing keeping my pilot alive was the medbay repairing her suffocating body. The Mantis ship kept pounding mine with its weaponry, and it felt like my pilot was just going to stand and watch helplessly as the ship crumbled around her.

But then inspiration struck me. The FTL drive had been wound up almost three-quarters of the way. The pilot got back into her chair and sat, slowly asphyxiating while the medi-bot dispersal system kept her going. I made a blind jump out of the combat, and luckily it was to a beacon with no following conflict or events. She then healed back to full and began jogging to the oxygen room, repairing it, and jogging back to the medbay to replenish her health, over and over. Eventually the ship was repaired and she went along her merry way.. and thankfully hired a few more crewmembers at the nearest store.

But since I was getting close to sector eight by then, and I felt my ship had no real chance against the Rebel Flagship, I sold some upgrades and weapons to buy a crew teleporter and went for the "blow up the enemy ship while your entire crew is onboard" achievement. =P