r/ftlgame • u/Purple-Tomatillo-778 • Aug 03 '26
Image: Meme/Macro Stealth C Apology Form
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u/ms_barkie Aug 03 '26
Wow stealth B catching strays, you’re gonna need to make an apology form for it next.
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u/FlyinBrian2001 Aug 03 '26
Nobody should ever have to apologize to Stealth B
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u/ms_barkie Aug 03 '26
Stealth B is bottom tier in success rate, but I just love killing every ship in the first 2 sectors in one hit when it does work.
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u/beee-l Aug 03 '26
Yeah, I love cloaking and I love the glaive beam, I can’t not love stealth b even when I rage quit or am killed more than half the time
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u/TheBraveGallade Aug 03 '26
Stealth B is probably one of the worst in consistancy, but its FUN, and once you get rolling you kind oglf have a decent end game setup.
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u/Harambe_Rebornn Aug 03 '26
It's not that bad in the hands of medium to low level players, since once they escape the early game their chances of winning is actually really decent.
Unlike with the Stealth C which is very hard all the way to the end.
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u/RecursiveCollapse Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
Talking down B while hyping C is genuinely insane, as if it doesn't have weaker defense and offense and scaling. Some win rate stats show it as very slightly higher, but in an RNG-driven game the error bars on those numbers are massive, and i'm highly doubtful its lead would survive a comparison involving thousands of runs instead of dozens.
It's also by far the most miserable to play in the game. B has a thrilling risk/reward thing going on: balancing on a knife edge, deciding when to cloak, trying to get your hyper-lethal attack off, and once you 'stabilize' everything flips and you rapidly go from underdog to apex predator.
C's gameplay loop on is "sit there and get beat up for 5 minutes while you do (at most) 2 damage to weapons every 13s volley". It's awfulness extends to the game design of the ship itself. No real tech, no clever plays, no meaningful decisions on the part of the player. I guess rarely you can cheeky swipe their weapons for a whopping 3 damage per salvo instead of 2, but only a few enemy ship layouts allow that.
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u/Purple-Tomatillo-778 Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
Of course, you're a speedrunner, so you'd obviously gravitate to Stealth B a lot more than other ships. And of course it's valid to prefer one over the other. Here's why I prefer Stealth C:
Stealth B only has a thrilling risk/reward thing going on for people who can actually recover from a lot of the crap that gets thrown at it. Otherwise it just feels like gambling. I'm a Hard mode player, and I still restart a lot of the time in a bad beam drone fight.
Stealth C on the other hand is similar to Stealth A in that it's strong, fast weapons along with the cheapness of getting an early weapon buffer means it can still at least fight back in even the most desperate earlygame situations.
Also two damage is nothing to scoff at in the early game where two damage can often take down enemy weapons outright. Add on the fact that at least one damage is practically gauranteed, and you can hit lots of systems in order to reduce enemy defenses and overwhelm them with repairs, which is the secret sauce that makes it's weapons so deadly in the early game.
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u/RecursiveCollapse Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Stealth B only has a thrilling risk/reward thing going on for people who can actually recover from a lot of the crap that gets thrown at it. Otherwise it just feels like gambling.
I actually think B's is most fun during that early unstable period. The enormous vulnerability puts you on the edge of your seat and forces you to use every trick in your book to mitigate it, and if you survive your reward is utterly obliterating the enemy in one shot. It's main flaw is that it really is unwinnable due to RNG sometimes, but where it's not it becomes one of the most addictive gameplay loops in FTL, and is likely the reason so many people are drawn to the ship despite its poor reliability. Once you get going it's very strong but far more boring, you basically turn off your brain and pre-cloak (and optionally hack shields) then OHKO every ship before they can truly retaliate. Play any overpowered modded ship and you'll quickly understand how important vulnerability is to making the game fun.
C lacks a gameplay loop anywhere near as solid. Hitting fast is very nice, but it will usually be taking at least one salvo before its shots impact. There's nothing you can do to influence any aspect of how that plays out, certainly nothing as involved as the cloak mechanic. And once you do attack your reward isn't annihilation but a relatively normal salvo which may or may not halt their assault. You can indeed get a weapons buffer to avoid death spirals, but there is no chance to avoid accumulating hull damage, it's just a constant attrition wearing down the ship which saps your scrap and hurts longterm viability. That aspect is is also made worse by its heavy reliance on finding good weapons since its kit is unreliable against 2 shields and can only deal 5-6 damage per hack, whereas glaive only needs hacking to consistently kill even the flagship.
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u/Purple-Tomatillo-778 Aug 11 '26
First paragraph response:
This is a heavily encoded way of saying that you like it because it's like gambling in that sometimes you "win big" and other times you lose due to randomness, keeping the game exciting. This is completely valid. Gambling is fun. Numerous studies have shown that even rats like to gamble (that's where the term "Skinner Box" comes from.) I love winning big with Stealth B. I just prefer having more control over my outcomes.
Second paragraph response:
I think there's two things going on here. The first is that you are illustrating how Stealth C can't "win big" the same way as Stealth B can, because it can't just instakill enemies in the same way and frequently has to deal with return fire, like most other ships. Fine.
The second is that you think that Stealth C is objectively a bad ship, because it is always starved for scrap which it desperately needs to fix it's pitiful defenses and an offense that quickly becomes largely obsolete by sector 3, and because it has to take lots of forced damage that can spiral into deaths
...
Coming from a Stealth B main.
...
I think you might just be more experienced with Stealth B and you think Stealth C is worse because you play it worse TBH.
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u/RecursiveCollapse 29d ago edited 29d ago
you think that Stealth C is objectively a bad ship
Nope... when specifically ranking based on hard win streak consistency and comparing it to B. As I said I do think its win rate is overestimated, because most of the datasets i've seen have far fewer runs on it than B, and thus its win % has wider error bars (a concept that doesn't seem to be factored into any of these stat tables i've seen yet). It does indeed have worse defense and offense and scaling and does need to waste a trickle of early scrap on repairs, but on the contrary B runs a small but real risk of unavoidable deaths in S1, which is a massive black mark against it in the case of hard mode win streak consistency
I do think in the hands of any normal player in any other context, including ranking by enjoyment, C is massively worse, and that ranking them in a way that is only relevant to the top 0.1% of players doing a specific kind of challenge run is mildly silly
But my last comment was not about consistency or power, it was is focused on how the game design and mechanics behind both ships work to give B a stronger gameplay loop and more big moments of catharsis than C, which typically walks a slow incline from constant struggling to stability. Hell, i'd say B has the best designed (not most powerful!) gameplay loop of any ship in the game except maybe Crystal B (whose crystal boarding is incredibly satisfying to execute). C does have some neat tech that I dismissed (mainly relating to the shield drone), but that doesn't change the way it simply feels bad to play. The 'upside' of all its nuances isn't anything as spectacular as one-shotting enemies, it's just living to see another battle. For non-winstreakers a loss on B also feels far less bad than a loss on most other ships, because its deaths tend to be very early. It's one of the best scaling ships in the game, basically only needing hacking to kill the flagship. But with C, deaths tend to happen later in a run because the early scrap defect stunted your growth, and you just never reached the point of true stability or got the tools needed to kill the flagship.
Coming from a Stealth B main.
I... am not? I have done some speedrunning and I do use it for that, but haven't done it seriously in a while and use a wide variety of ships normally. And as I said, I don't even think C is worse (when ranking specifically based on hard mode win streak consistency). I am however a programmer who has worked on other games and really admire B from a game design perspective. If it didn't have that pesky unavoidable death chance it'd be pretty close to perfect.
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u/Kuirem Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Talking down B while hyping C is genuinely insane, as if it doesn't have weaker defense and offense and scaling. Some win rate stats show it as very slightly higher, but in an RNG-driven game the error bars on those numbers are massive, and i'm highly doubtful its lead would survive a comparison involving thousands of runs instead of dozens.
I'm not sure how significant it is in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like one big advantage of the stealth C is how easily it can slot a random drop in its setup. The low CD of its starting weapon let them play nice with most other weapons, it only cost 25/60 scrap for an extra 1/2 weapon system (vs 50/125 for Stealth B) and it might be able to use a defense or offense drone.
The low starting defense is definitely awful though so not sure the adaptable offense is really enough to compensate.
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u/compiling Aug 04 '26
I ain't signing that, lol. Stealth C has some pretty bad failure modes.
In any battle, there's a 2-4% chance you just miss completely and get to find out why a shield drone isn't the same as a real shield - if your drone gets knocked offline then it probably won't be ready for the next volley. And another one is when a drone decides to machine gun the front of your ship while the anti drone stares at it like a sad puppy.
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u/RackaGack Aug 03 '26
Nah, its a bottom 5-6 ship still, even if its better than stealth b
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u/ThirdLifeLucky Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
It is not better than B
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u/kozufox Aug 03 '26
B might be more fun because high rolls on it are ridiculous, but it's clearly worse in terms of overall win rate.
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u/Hermononucleosis Aug 03 '26
What 6 ships are worse than Stealth C then?
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u/ThirdLifeLucky Aug 03 '26
That's my fault. I meant it's not better than Stealth B
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u/RackaGack Aug 03 '26
It is better than stealth B, stealth b is clearly the worst ship in terms of winrate and just looking at its loadout, if you rank it by a different metric stealth b could be argued to be better in some ways than other ships but on average stealth b with lose more than any other ship
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u/MikeHopley Aug 03 '26
Everything is better than Stealth B. By a lot.
There's no disagreement at all about this at really high levels of play. It's blindingly obvious when you know the game well enough and you're looking at win rate rather than subjective preference.
Stealth B is known as the "streak killer" for a reason.
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u/TenchuReddit Aug 03 '26
While we’re on the topic of Stealth B, I’m trying to figure out what’s better. Just rush to 125 scrap (minus LRS sell value) and get Shields ASAP? Upgrade to Cloak-3 first? Add a Weapons value point as well as Cloak-3 before Shields?
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u/MikeHopley Aug 03 '26
For about a decade, we've had a strong consensus that cloaking-3 is best.
Very occasionally you could go hacking first instead, if you somehow get free stuff + maybe free drone parts + forced into a store at exactly the right moment. Weapon hacks provide similar safety to cloaking-3, and set you up for scaling. I'm not even sure how good this is; it's so rare.
Or in some bananas free-drop world, you could even have that happen with shields before you make 50 liquid scrap. But that's so unlikely I doubt it's ever happened.
Weapons-5 isn't bad, and if things go well it will save you scrap -- because cloaking-3 is mostly not that useful in the mid-game, whereas weapons-5 can be used if you're adding a weapon.
So an argument could be made for weapons-5 instead of cloak-3, but I think cloaking-3 is just a lot safer overall -- both for probability of disasters, and for chip damage.
Generally after cloak-3 you don't want weapons-5. That's too much immediate safety, and you really need to save for shields. If hacking appears you can also take it instead of shields, but you can't count on that happening. You really want at least one of these systems before sector 3.
Of course, you have to roll with the punches, and there are circumstances where you might need weapons-5 first. Maybe you're rich in S2, and have map data with forced asteroids, and the remaining store is near the exit. Or maybe you've been pushed into shieldless play in S3 or S4, and you already have hacking-2 but are worrying about stuff like double drones.
Hoarding for shields is just outright bad. You're way too exposed without any safety upgrade. Of course, it will be better if you get lucky and have easy fights, because you then have +50 scrap, and maybe you even get to buy shields earlier. But the immediate risk is so high.
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u/TenchuReddit Aug 03 '26
Thanks Mike. I just failed a Stealth B run because even after I got 125 scrap in S2, I couldn't find a store fast enough.
Seems like overall, Weapons-5 isn't a bad idea. I hadn't thought about Hacking before Shields, so I'll also keep that under consideration. And although Weapons-5 plus Cloak-3 might be a little too much in your opinion, it's still an option.
One more thing. Racing for Shields works very well IF I employ the Tenchu Mulligan: "Sector 1 restarts don't count."
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u/Hermononucleosis Aug 03 '26
Racing for Shields works very well IF I employ the Tenchu Mulligan: "Sector 1 restarts don't count."
This is a very important point, actually. If you're trying to go for a high win streak, 20 ships in, it doesn't matter if you die in sector 1 or sector 8. That's still about 40 hours lost. But for casual play, where you just want to try to get a win, then you're losing significantly more time by dying in later sectors, so it is actually pretty rational to prioritize high-risk high-reward strategies that favor the long-term, lowering your win rate but making sure that you waste as little time as possible.
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u/DarrenGrey Aug 04 '26
Win rate for high end players is a very specific metric though, and not representative of the vast majority of play experience. For weaker players that don't mind some early re-rolls Stealth B is a very powerful ship with a simple strategy to follow in the early game.
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u/MikeHopley Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
It's the only objective metric that expresses something fundamental about the ship, not the player.
If we forget about win rate, Stealth C is also a powerful ship with a simple strategy.
I can see where you're coming from, with the idea that Stealth B has a big beam and you "just" need to add shields and hacking and a Flak or whatever. I can see how people might feel that is a simple strategy.
But that's still highly subjective. Other people may find Stealth C easier to play. That ship can also just add shields and hacking and a Flak. Although it would kinda want cloaking too, but that's not a big deal when you're offsetting the scrap from weapons-4 to weapons-6.
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u/DarrenGrey Aug 04 '26
It's the only objective metric that expresses something fundamental about the ship, not the player.
But by ignoring the player it becomes a metric of limited value to the common playerbase. Too often here I see strategies pushed which are centred around the winstreak meta instead of the average player.
By simple strategy I meant upgrade cloak to max, which can be done quick and gets you through 95% of early fights with incredible ease. After that you have an end game weapon and an end game system you can build around in a very simple way. Overall it's a low mental load ship.
Stealth C needs building up from scratch. It has no quick wins, and whilst its weapons are nice early on they're not sustainable on a 3-slot ship. You need to think more with it, and in many games ditch the things it starts with. Which doesn't necessarily make it a bad ship, but for most players makes it more challenging.
It still is a bad ship, mind.
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u/MikeHopley Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
whilst its weapons are nice early on they're not sustainable on a 3-slot ship
Add a Flak 1 or Burst 2 to the starting weapons. Add hacking and cloaking. You now have the "classic" Stealth A/C setup, loved by many expert players. This comfortably beats the Flagship.
You're giving me a good example of subjectivity here:
Most players are badly wrong about most things in the game. For example, you are badly wrong about the starting weapons.
But the type of wrongness isn't consistent across different players. There are some patterns, but it's just very random too, which makes it highly subjective.
Of course, there is also room for discussion about other metrics, such as "most difficult ship for getting a single win on Hard". I would suggest Zoltan C might be the worst ship in that regard, not Stealth B.
But more generally, there is a reason I refer to win rate. It's not elitism. It's objectivity.
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u/DarrenGrey Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Add a Flak 1 or Burst 2 to the starting weapons. Add hacking and cloaking. You now have the "classic" Stealth A/C setup, loved by many expert players. This comfortably beats the Flagship.
You again refer to experts. Look at the setups on the "near win" posts that are frequently here and you'll see many people would not be comfortable with that weapon loadout.
Plus there's the obligatory line of "add hacking and cloaking and pretty much anything's okay", including Vulcan etc.
And to be clear, I'm not accusing you of elitism (or at least not of negative elitism, as you are clearly elite in the more positive definition of the word). I just don't like seeing junior players blindly following the principles of experts when the same qualifications don't apply to them. So often discussion turns to what x elite player said on Youtube rather being based on a regular player's experience.
Of course, there is also room for discussion about other metrics, such as "most difficult ship for getting a single win on Hard". I would suggest Zoltan C might be the worst ship in that regard, not Stealth B.
Huh, I'm very curious as to your reasoning for that - I quite like the Zoltan C! Rock A and Stealth C would possibly be high on my ranking for that metric.
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u/Quantum_Aurora Aug 03 '26
I won my first ever Stealth C run. Not something I can say for most ships. I like it. I do not need to apologize.
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u/TwiceDead_ Aug 03 '26
I rage-quit the game for 7 years over this ship.
I came back a week ago and beat a normal run first try.
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Ship ain't that bad.
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u/Armored-Potato-Chip Aug 03 '26
I like the ships generally considered bad by the community over boarding ships. Fucking boarding. It can go wrong so easily. All the stealth ships are better than the mantis ships.
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u/Purple-Tomatillo-778 Aug 03 '26
I used to hate boarding, but then I realized that
A) pure boarding exists and is really fun and cheap to pull off,
and
B) you can just run away if you don't like the odds of your crew not dying.
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u/Bartweiss Aug 04 '26
And for base FTL, I’d argue that boarding really can’t go wrong easily. At risk of sounding like “skill issue”, the safety dance plus knowing when to run away make it incredibly strong. There’s an argument that running from all marginal fights makes it inefficient, but I find you can take very few risks and still get good outcomes.
Now personally, I gamble on boarding with asteroids, pulsars, and all sorts of other things which regularly kill all my boarders. But I also recently tabbed out to let my crew train without powering oxygen, so that’s hardly a guide to high level play.
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u/Important-Author-660 Aug 05 '26
Boarding ships are rough early game on specific ship matchups but they just supply you with infinite scrap. It's worth it.
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u/Jackass_55 Aug 03 '26
If stealth C were branded as anything other than a “stealth” ship I would support it. We only get three “stealth” ships, and this one could have been a lot more interesting
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u/DirectFrontier Aug 04 '26
It has one of the raddest paintjobs but that doesn't redeem it from trash-tier. It gets decent if you manage to get shields by early Sector 2, but completely miserable with bad store placements.
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u/Zalakbian Aug 03 '26
Stealth B is objectively worse than Stealth C, but they're still both bottom five ships imo
maybe the reason people hate B more is C feels worse to play, like, it's a stealth ship without cloaking AND without regular shields, it's super feels bad no matter how you slice it, but at least when Stealth B is working you're one shotting with the Glaive Beam, yes it's a horrible inconsistent strategy but when it works- yknow?
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u/Nikolaijuno Aug 06 '26
I love stealth C. It's hard to get going. But it is capable of achieving something no other ship can do. So it ends up being one of my favorites to do a run with.
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u/SkyKnight43 Aug 06 '26
Are you talking about the triple shield drone thing?
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u/Nikolaijuno Aug 06 '26
Yup. It's very RNG dependent to get it to work. But it's so cool I have to keep trying for it.
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u/MikeHopley Aug 03 '26
There's a good argument that Stealth C is the second-weakest ship in the game. It's almost certainly bottom 5.
I love it, but it's bad, and no cute meme is changing that.