Subset Games Forum

As the title says. After getting wiped for about 10th time in the first two sectors I'm wondering whether I'm just on a bad luck streak, or if I'm missing some critical trick here...

My combat tactic from the start is wait for enemy weapons to fire then go stealth and pray nothing hits the weapon room until glaive is charged.

My scrap spending strategy is try to hoard 50 scrap then get lvl3 stealth, which would make me take less random hits. But I've alredy died so many times before reaching that mark that it's not even funny. Basically:

1. Enemy ship has fast firing or beam weapon? You might be screwed.
2. Enemy weapons have different firing rates? You might be screwed.
3. Enemy has drones? You're screwed.
4. Zoltan ship? Oh boy you're so screwed.
5. None of the above? Pray that a stray shot doesn't hit your weapons or you're screwed anyway.

One strategy I was considering was dumping the early scrap into engines for better FTL charge time and evasion, but it doesn't really seem like it will make that much difference. Another thing I considered was avoiding nodes with enemy ships altogether until I get the 50 scrap for lvl3 stealth, but that doesn't seem too feasible either. What is your experience?

EDIT: I am aware about the neat trick against the Zoltan Energy bomber layout, mentioned in this thread http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3468. Helpful but not applicable to all zoltan layouts unfotunatelly.

You'll be needing this

Im a fan of these ships, but sometimes I have indeed to reboot from sucky sector 1 encounters. Peprsonally I always save money to get.that first shield at first. But if you need more protection, remember that offense is the best defense: add weapon energy so you can shoot a missile to their shields, then glaive them to kingdom come.

Finally got a lucky start tonight and finished the game with this horrible ship. Never again .

embair wrote:Finally got a lucky start tonight and finished the game with this horrible ship. Never again .

Did you get a Pre-Ignitor from event?

UberFubarius wrote:Did you get a Pre-Ignitor from event?

Haha, not that lucky. The main turning point was when I got hermes missile from an event in sector 1. That worked great to deal with the otherwise unwinnable encounters - the missile had faster charge time (what hasn't) and could function even with a damaged weapon room, so it got me through the more deadly early encounters. Later I got ion bomb, and from there it was cakewalk.

If I have lv3 cloak and run into enemies with attack drones, I'd wait for around 6 seconds before entering stealth. They can put a few rounds into you before your glaive beam is ready anyway. This way at least you won't let them take out a near-full charge.

embair wrote:

UberFubarius wrote:Did you get a Pre-Ignitor from event?

Haha, not that lucky. The main turning point was when I got hermes missile from an event in sector 1. That worked great to deal with the otherwise unwinnable encounters - the missile had faster charge time (what hasn't) and could function even with a damaged weapon room, so it got me through the more deadly early encounters. Later I got ion bomb, and from there it was cakewalk.

I wish you luck on getting a pre-ignitor from event with stealth ship B.
It was... glorious.
Pre sector, 3, and a few in 4, anything that's not a zoltan shield ship > Pause, carefully line up beam for max damage. Unpause = I WIN button.