Thanks for the experience, YouTubers!

[RAD-82]

I played my first FTL game today, and won. Thanks to 5thHorseman, I got the game a little sooner than I expected.

Screenshots at the end:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... AE3EA7155/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 2FCAF836C/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... BE2EA861A/

I can't really spin a story to make it sound interesting, so I'll just try to list some details.

Sector
2 and 3 - Engi, then Engi Homeworlds
4 and 5 - Rebel
6 and 7 - Civilian and Engi, don't remember which order

Weapons at end - Burst Laser II, Ion Blast, Ion Bomb, Halberd Beam
I bought the Ion Blast
Acquired through events (not in this order): Healing Burst, Burst Laser III, Ion Bomb x2, Heavy Laser x2, Halberd Beam, Hull Smasher Laser, Hull Smasher Laser II

Drones, I think I bought that in Sector 7. I got the no drone achievement due to the late purchase.

Augments
Found Scrap Recovery Arm and Damaged Stasis Pod early in the game, sold scrap arm in sector 8 and got the Crystal guy in sector 6 or 7.
Bought a Weapon Pre-Igniter the second time I saw it in a shop since I didn't have the scrap the first time I saw it. I don't remember when/where. That's right, I got two chances at it.
Received Long Range Scanners after one of the boss phases. That was useless.

Crew
None died, but I dismissed one human and two mantises.
Crystal guy is so good for boarding, made clearing out the crew of the final boss rather easy.

I ran out of fuel a few times, and always encountered rebels when waiting. No ship ever escaped me. Once I got my Crystal guy, my fuel problems disappeared when I started wiping out enemy crews.
Never entered an asteroid or solar beacon, but had one ion storm. I used a blue option to escape that encounter.
I ignored alien spiders about 3 or 4 times. Credit definitely goes to YouTube for that.
Playing is certainly harder than just watching, especially when you're unfamiliar with the controls.

[5thHorseman]

Congrats! Well done on your first win in your first game!

[HeadHunter]

Well done, indeed! I played for about a week before finally winning the game today (and then winning a second time on my first run with the Osprey).

5th Horseman's videos definitely helped me to better understand how to use the systems and equipment in the game, as well as how to effectively navigate through a sector for best results, and what I needed to take down the Boss. If not for that, I'd still be blowing up at the 5-yard line.

[RAD-82]

Second playing session... The Torus I actually like the ship. I just happened to fail with it.

I ran into the alien spider event twice, and I attempted it both times rather than ignore it. I succeeded both times.

I reached sector 4, but never acquired another weapon or drone to supplement my arsenal. I got demolished by a ship with two Burst Laser Mk II. I could have jumped, but I didn't feel very strong, so I stayed and died. No achievements this run.

Restart

I had alien spiders again, and my lucky streak continued. Early on, I suffocated a slug ship that couldn't fix it's oxygen. You know the one...

I arrived at a store, and they had a Hull Smasher Laser II. I thought it would be a bad idea to trade my Ion Blast II in for it, but I did anyways. This delayed my shield upgrade.

I got a second Anti-Ship Drone and a small bomb. Grabbed myself the achievement for not firing a weapon against a one-shield ship.

I was running low on drones, and my Hull Laser was having a harder time with two-shield enemies. Came to a shop and found a drone recovery arm, so I sold the laser weapon to get it.

I've pretty much given up, so I just started running for exits. Fights with two drones took too long, and I was running through my supply of 30+ bombs rather quickly.

Enter Zoltan Homeworlds. After many jumps (at 3 hull ), I finally got the quest for the Zoltan cruiser. New ship unlocked.

Reached sector 7, running from some fights and staying for others. I bought a second small bomb from a shop. I found a station and I searched it. My engine man got sick and didn't make it. Oops.
Right before the exit, or maybe it was the exit, I received my third anti-ship drone. I thought I might actually have a chance now. Silly me... Engi Type B unlocked.

Last sector, I hit 2 repair stations for bombs, then head for the boss. One jump away from the boss, I get in a nasty fight were I loose my drones, shields, and weapons, so I had run away.

I now fight the flagship with half hull rather than full. I try to bomb the shields, but maybe I should've tried the cloak? Doesn't really matter, I get demolished and bombs are running low. The flagship is too big for my three drones to handle.

Screenshots at the end:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... A5A5D86A0/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 2A5CC9E64/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 53DC91544/

Somewhere, I encountered the asteroid event with the Zoltan and Mantis ship. As I recall, they fixed the bug where fighting the Zoltan caused extra asteroids to hit you instead of the enemy. Well, since I was running a lot, I didn't interfere. It seems this option has those extra asteroids. Luckily, my engines were good, so I managed to jump without taking damage.

[RAD-82]

Session Three: The Osprey

Defeated the pirate, Tuco, twice. Must be somebody else with the same name...
I never saw any giant alien spiders this run. That's nice, since I didn't want to risk my crew this time.

Sector 2 and 3 were pirate sectors. Sector 4 was Mantis-controlled. I didn't find any weapons, so I had a maxed artillery beam by either sector 2 or 3. Reached sector 5, a Zoltan-controlled and unlocked the Type B. After giving fuel to some people, they gave me a Halberd beam. I finally have another weapon. This weapon set-up looked like it was going to be similar to my Kestral run, but I ended up with a Heavy Ion instead of a normal Ion Blast. Sector 6 was Mantis-controlled. Sector 7 was Rebel-controlled, and I found an automated ship stuck in vending mode. Don't recall if that helped. I bought an Ion Bomb somewhere, but my ship reactor was maxed, so I never bothered to divert power to it until I was near the end of sector 8.

The last sector turned out to be very good. I feel my telling of this stuff is not.

The augment story: Very first jump got me a Repair Arm, which I sold at the first shop. Received Long-Range Scanners, received Shield Charge Booster, sold shield booster for Automated Re-Loader, bought another shield booster, then in the last sector, I sold the scanners for a second re-loader. Wow! My Heavy Ion can stack itself now. That helped out against some heavily shielded auto-assault ships.

I also bought a drone control in sector 8. It was useless, but I did unnecessarily power up the repair drone after the second phase of the flagship fight. Everything got repaired while it was trying to cross the ship.

Screenshots at the end:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 735ECFC44/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 3A639F66B/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 477AD9AC9/

My screenshots are always at the end, showing off the situation when things ended and providing stats. Eventually, I won't need to show stats. I don't really see much during the actual run that I want to take a screenshot of, although hindsight can suggest otherwise. I also don't plan to post about all of my runs.

[RAD-82]

Session Four: The Adjudicator

My third victory, and like the first one, no hull damage.

Screenshots at the end:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 0513C374B/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 87DFACEBF/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 7CA23F1C8/

The crew: I bought... I mean I "hired" an Engi, found two humans, and hired a Zoltan for an achievement/Type B unlock. I destroyed all slavers, since I didn't feel like I needed more crew. I wanted scrap.

Sector path: I forget. Sectors 2, 4, 5, and 6 were rebel- or pirate-controlled, sector 3 was Engi Homeworlds, where I hired my Engi, but never got a quest for it, and sector 7 was civilian.

Weapons: To supplement my Halberd Beam, I bought an Ion Blast, then received an Ion Blast and Heavy Ion. Then I replaced an Ion Blast with a Hull Smasher Laser that was given to me. I got other weapons, but I sold them. At the sector 8 store, I made a choice to sell my beam and buy a Hull Smasher Laser II. I felt it would be better to concentrate fire rather than try to use the beam.

Augments: I was given Shield Charge Boosters, and I bought a Weapon Pre-Igniter in one of the later red sectors. I passed on buying Long-Range Scanners, and jumped right from that store into an asteroid field. The pre-igniter helped me beam and hull-smash a shieldless Auto-Scout for an achievement.

Bought cloaking and drones in the later sectors, either 6 or 7. I didn't get a defense drone, but I bought an Anti-ship drone at the last store. That was helpful for the flagship.

As seen in the screenshot, my pilot isn't flying because the flagship sent two boarders at my cockpit. There are also two boarders in the drone room when the boss went down. I chose to take my engine, repair, and shield crew in there to fight. Luckily, I didn't get hit when I did that. I had to take one of my shield Zoltans out of the fight so the drone could return from the cockpit, but it only made it to the medbay when the game ended.

Bug: When I activated the Anti-Personnel Drone for the first time, it appeared up in the sensor room. That was slightly beneficial.

[RAD-82]

Session Five: The Kestrel

Why would I play this again when I have three type B ships that I haven't played, plus a type A Engi ship that hasn't won yet? Maybe the screenshots can partly answer that.

Screenshot in the middle:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 609739AEA/

As seen in the screenshot, I made it to a store with some scrap and one point of hull that I had since the previous sector. I got lucky, because I had to dodge a missile. My goal was either this or get six different races. In the end, I only had five races, two of which I hired; a Zoltan and a Rock.

Screenshots at the end:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... F50B42DC8/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 3B822F3BE/

Steven, the Mantis, got a lot of experience doing things that could easily have been done by others. I really wasn't trying to be efficient.

I bought my ion weapons. I really like those. I acquired and sold a Pike Beam and a Glaive Beam, and received a Heavy Laser II in the last sector that I didn't get a chance to sell.

I received an FTL Recharge Booster early in the game, but I sold it when I needed to do the full ship repair. Later, I had a lot of scrap and I purchased an Automated Re-Loader and Stealth Weapons when I bought my cloak. My luck with the drone system purchase improved on this run; I got a defense drone this time.

Sector 6 was the Rock Homeworlds, but no luck finding the quest for the Rock cruiser.

The final battle was flawless once again, except this time I took a hit from a Hermes missile before I could fight the flagship, so I am missing hull points because of that.

The first phase was a little challenging to wipe out the crew, since I didn't have a Crystal guy to trap their people with. I blasted their cloak, so I could keep their shields down with ions. The Hull Smasher Laser was useful for putting breaches in their medbay, giving me a chance to kill their crew. They were down to either two or four hull points when the last one (except laser guy) died.

Phase two started with my defense drone failing to shoot down the boarding drone. It landed in the cockpit. I chose to teleport into the drone bay instead of the missile bay, so it wasn't too bad. My Zoltan was extra power that was just sitting in the medbay, so I moved him down to the shields so I could increase my oxygen. I didn't want to remove my pilot. It was a rather uneventful phase after that.

Only notable thing in phase three was when I shot the last guy with my Burst Laser II and two fires started in his room. He burned to death and the AI took over with three hull points left.

[5thHorseman]

Haha I actually got my "1 hull point" achievement by farming a ship that couldn't hurt me with full shields, so I let him ding away at me with my shields down. Once I got to 1 hull, I upped them back up and killed him, then jumped to the nearby store that I had already seen and repaired.

Of course since then I've had a few true 1-hull sessions, and some of them I've even survived!

[RAD-82]

Session Six: The Dead-Tail <---- Screenshot

It is hard playing a ship with no shields. Early sectors seem easy, but then you are dead. Sure, three of you were dead to begin with (unknown why the fourth living guy is there on a ship with no oxygen ), but now the ship is also dead. There are no YouTube videos of this ship, so I'm sort of playing it blind. It may be similar to the Stealth Cruiser, but it might be too hard right now.

I wasn't really paying too close attention. I ended up with another dead guy during the second run. I don't know where he came from.

This has been some modding practice, though. Learning Superluminal, Slipstream, interior system graphics, and blueprints. Balancing really isn't my thing. I guess secrecy of an unfinished practice build is why I only posted one screenshot this time, just to show that it isn't the Red-Tail.


Edit, a day after session six

Session Seven: The Dead-Tail again, as it was recently released

In the first sector, I acquired enough scrap to buy shields at the end. Then I felt overconfident, and started to try and clear all the overtaken rebel beacons, because this is a powerful early game ship. About a third of the way through, I encountered a ship with two Burst Laser I weapons and good evasion. I took more damage than I would have preferred and abandoned my quest, thus losing about two to three fuel heading to the exit instead of completing my loop around the map.

I got real lucky on this run. I didn't buy a single weapon, and I received the Hull Smasher Laser II before I needed the upgrade, so things got a bit easy for me.

Sector 2 was Mantis-controlled, sector 3 was Zoltan Homeworlds, sector 4 was Rock-controlled, and sectors 5-7 were all civilian. Sector 7 had a lot of nebula beacons that actually had ships, so I assume that accounts for my high score.

Screenshots at the end:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 0978FD103/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... AEC607EFD/

I replaced all of my original heavy lasers and had my nice ion combo going.
I took the flagship screenshot a little earlier this time, since it was pretty much over.

I should go back to vanilla ships now.

[RAD-82]

Session Eight: The Vortex

My very first jump landed my near a sun, against an AI ship that had the exact same weapons as me. When it fired the Heavy Ion, I dropped my shields, and it hit my weapons.

Later, I bought another Heavy Laser at a store, thus neglecting my shields, but now I didn't need to wait for my Heavy Ion to charge, so I could smack enemy weapons sooner. Then someone gave me a Hull Smasher Laser II, so I put the ion into storage. Then I receive a Burst Laser III, but it can't breach or start fires, so I didn't switch it in despite the extra shots.

Somewhere, I picked up a Mantis and another Engi, but then when I tried to side with a Rebel, he killed the new Engi.

Sector 3 was Mantis Homeworlds. At the first shop I found, I sold my extra weapons and got a teleporter and upgraded it and my medbay. I never found the ship quest. However, my two guys managed to acquire the Trusty Auto-Pilot achievement. Given my weapons and crew, it may have been difficult to complete the quest had I found it.

Sector 4 thru 6 was red, green, red, but I only remember that one was Engi-controlled. In these sectors, I acquired a Zoltan, hired a Zoltan, then acquired another Zoltan and two humans. I don't remember if my second Mantis came at the end of 6 or later. I also swapped weapons for Ion Blast II and Ion Blast at a store. It slowed my shield penetration since I was left with one damaging weapon, but I felt it was necessary. I helped an Engi at the end of a sector, and I acquired an Engi Med-bot Dispersal augment from them. Received a Shield Charge Booster somewhere. I really don't try to remember a lot of this, so that's why my story telling isn't very good. I'm not going to interrupt my run to record details.

I acquired a few repair drones, but those sold for minor scrap. I did receive two other drones (see screenshot to see what they are) that were quite nice, although I used them sparingly until I was near the end.

Sector 7 was Slug Home Nebula, but I didn't get a quest. I avoided boarding so I could try for surrenders, but only one slug ship surrendered and they gave me useless fuel. I did fight a slug ship that kept dodging things, plus they had a medbay and cloaking, so I wasn't going to try and board them. I did beat them eventually.

The final fight with the flagship:
I went into battle with two points of hull damage. After the taking no damage during the first two phases, I repaired with the Hull Repair drone, then continued to take no damage in the final phase. I believe in the first phase, it got two missile barrages off, but the cloak wasn't available for the second one. It was nice to see the word miss appear three times.

In phase one, I couldn't quite take care of their crew with boarders, but I did finish the phase with three guys trying to fix the cloak, plus another one was headed into there. I don't think I saw that fourth guy in the next phase.

Phase two, their boarding drone landed in my teleporter, but that didn't cause my too much trouble. I finished off the main crew with little trouble.

Phase three, I teleported into their shields instead of the missile bay when the super shield dropped. It's possible that those three missile misses occurred in this phase instead of the first phase, but my memory is bad. Due to my cloak in the first phase, it might have been possible for my two mantis to take out their gunner and the system before another barrage. I know they can take out the missiles in the second phase without them firing once.

An easy fight provides me with a flawless win again with my first Vortex run.

Screenshots at the end:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 725BD8349/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 13334293C/