Faster Than Light

[CountArach]

This game is just incredible.

In my first game (on easy) I got up to the Rebel Flagship but I didn't have anywhere near the weapons I needed to even touch the thing and my only hope was to teleport a character on board to try to take down their oxygen. That failed and so it was just a matter of waiting while my systems went offline and my ship was destroyed.

[CountArach]

Okay so just had to share this moment...

I encountered some border patrol agents in a Zoltan sector and things escalated to a fight, which would normally be okay except that they landed three crew members onto my ship. I only had three at the time and 2 of them were Engi with their 50% combat penalty. They landed in my air lock and in the room next to it so I had the bright idea of openning my air lock and trying to destroy them through a lack of oxygen. I openned up a few doors and followed their path, which as it happened took them to my oxygen supply centre. They destroyed that then came after my shields, where I had all three of my crew ready to fight them. The lack of oxygen had brought them all down to about 60% health and thanks to the fact that the Engi ship comes equipped with auto-healing in all rooms my guys won. The problem was now that I was down to about 30% oxygen on ship, and had to move through some 0% oxygen rooms to get to my oxygen supply so that I could repair it. I also didn't have time to heal because then my guys would have died. I sent one out to fix it but he was too injured from the fight so he didn't get very far before he was down to about 10% health, so I moved him into a 'safe' room that still had some oxygen. Then I rushed both my human and my Engi to the oxygen room. The Engi one died and only my human pilot survived with about 10% health remaining. The oxygen was so low that it was hurting them, but the system came online just in time to help give them enough air to survive.

So basically from now on I'm going to consider getting air lock doors, which would have made my plan work much better. I also bought a system repair droid son afterwards.

[naut]

Okay so just had to share this moment...

I encountered some border patrol agents in a Zoltan sector and things escalated to a fight, which would normally be okay except that they landed three crew members onto my ship. I only had three at the time and 2 of them were Engi with their 50% combat penalty. They landed in my air lock and in the room next to it so I had the bright idea of openning my air lock and trying to destroy them through a lack of oxygen. I openned up a few doors and followed their path, which as it happened took them to my oxygen supply centre. They destroyed that then came after my shields, where I had all three of my crew ready to fight them. The lack of oxygen had brought them all down to about 60% health and thanks to the fact that the Engi ship comes equipped with auto-healing in all rooms my guys won. The problem was now that I was down to about 30% oxygen on ship, and had to move through some 0% oxygen rooms to get to my oxygen supply so that I could repair it. I also didn't have time to heal because then my guys would have died. I sent one out to fix it but he was too injured from the fight so he didn't get very far before he was down to about 10% health, so I moved him into a 'safe' room that still had some oxygen. Then I rushed both my human and my Engi to the oxygen room. The Engi one died and only my human pilot survived with about 10% health remaining. The oxygen was so low that it was hurting them, but the system came online just in time to help give them enough air to survive.

So basically from now on I'm going to consider getting air lock doors, which would have made my plan work much better. I also bought a system repair droid son afterwards.

There's an achievement for doing the same to an enemy, beat them via suffocation.

[Voigtkampf]

Review by our fair Lady Froggy.

[Sir Moody]

Well I was in on the Kickstarter for this game so I have been playing for a while - even then I have only beaten it twice...

If you want to beat the Flagship you basically have 2 main avenues:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Teleporters and Missiles/Bombs - or better still both!

The Flagship is a dangerous opponent due to its shields and missile weapon - if you don't have any missiles/bombs or a teleporter to bypass the shields and destroy its missile launcher you will be demolished very quickly - since the weapons are self contained once they are out and the crew inside dead the fights get a lot easier

Stage one is the easiest stage if you have enough Missiles/Bombs - simply ignore the shields and target their weapons.

Stage two is the toughest - if you have a cloaking device make sure you use it when the flagship activates its power-surge since you will be quickly flooded by drones - as before you need to get the missile weapon down fast - and the Ion cannon should also be a high priority or beam drones will eat you alive...

Stage three is slightly harder than the first but by now you should have killed most the crew and since it only has 2 weapons left it is a lot easier to "tank" the damage output - simply target the weapons and then you only have to tank the occasional "super weapon" attack

surviving the encounter requires at least 3 shields and a strong crew

while I have heard you can do it without missiles but I really don't see how - you really need at least one launcher to take out the weapons fast or bad things happen very fast... during stage 2 you really need at least one mantis or rock (or have the Engi healing subsystem) as well since a boarding drone is generally one of the flagships weapons of choice... of course level 3 doors can help with that

my favourite ship for the fight is the Federation Cruiser... unfortunately to unlock it you need to first beat the flagship

I am still trying to unlock the Slug Cruiser, Mantis cruiser and Crystal cruiser - they are so difficult to unlock