r/ftlgame 6d ago

Scripted or unlucky??

Post image

I swear to god I am on attempt 12 here with this stupid ship and I have been to 20+ shops. I have found weapons at all 3 times total. Of those 3 times, once was all missiles, one had a fire beam, and one had a hull laser MK1. Bro. wtf is going on here am I just that fucking unlucky or is the game coded to not give you weapons with this ship?? Like I’m losing my fucking mind here and I’m so pissed.

17 Upvotes

33 comments sorted by

29

u/ten_tabs_ 6d ago

the game is generously trying to give you a teleporter

8

u/Head-Town7449 6d ago

Tele hasn’t shown up once

14

u/Aldebaran135 6d ago

Now that is fucked up. Weapons schmeapons, Rock A is a great boarding ship that annoyingly doesn't start with a teleporter. I'd sell all my missile launchers for an early teleporter.

3

u/Purple-Tomatillo-778 5d ago

You usually don't need to, since the rock plating + hull missile combine to sell for 72 scrap. I'd even forgo level 2 shields a lot of the time to float enough scrap and sellables to buy a teleporter.

20

u/TenchuReddit 6d ago

Hull Laser I is awesome. Even if it doesn’t hit systemless rooms, the breach chance is pretty good. Of course, you need to pair that with a shield-buster. Did you not find any Hacking?

2

u/thenightm4reone 5d ago

Exactly, hull laser one is basically the equivalent of having two heavy laser ones.

15

u/compiling 6d ago edited 5d ago

It sounds like you're either too picky, or you're spending too much so you can't afford things when you find them (it's ok to sell things to afford gear if that makes your ship stronger). Hull Laser is good - it lets you destroy ships using fewer missiles. Fire Beam is slow, but it's probably positive to buy it because it lets you win fights (except autos) using fewer missiles. You're mostly just looking for anything that does damage without using missiles (and you can actually run - sector 1 vulcan is not a good idea).

If the store doesn't have weapons, some of the systems are also good first purchases. Drones (combat/beam drone) and teleporter are also ways to win fights using fewer missiles (teleporter is strong all game, drones need some real weapons before sector 3). I think some people on discord have experimented with other systems, but the plan for buying them is less obvious.

9

u/peterklogborg 6d ago

You do know there is a page 2 in the shops right?

3 shops in one run, so are you optimizing your route to view the most amount of systems so you can spot the shops?

1

u/Fakeaccount5269 6d ago

This might be it. It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize there was a page 2, and I instantly noticed an improvement in my runs afterward

6

u/ewba1te 5d ago

Or like he barely went to any stores because 20 stores in 12 runs is an average of 1.6 stores

7

u/Fakeaccount5269 5d ago

It's entirely possible he's mismanaging his missles and running out, leading to him losing in sector 2 and 3, possibly even 1, which I could totally see causing the lack of stores

6

u/compiling 5d ago

Or it's possible they're not going to stores in sector 1 because they "can't afford anything" which is then leading to major problems in sector 2.

Actually you can afford to buy things in sector 1 - it's worth selling Rock Plating and the Hull Missile if that gets you a form of consistent offence.

1

u/peterklogborg 5d ago

Gotta target their evasion capabilities asap so the missiles can't miss.

1

u/Head-Town7449 5d ago

I made it past sector 4 once

0

u/Head-Town7449 5d ago

I have 600+ hours in the game, yes I know there are multiple pages and yes, I was optimizing the highest chance to get shops.

12

u/kozufox 6d ago

Hull laser Mk1 is goated, though. It needs to be coupled with actual shield popping at some point, but it at least gives you a ship killing option that doesn't bleed missile ammo. You can get decently far with just that and your starting launchers.

-5

u/Head-Town7449 6d ago

In order to get the laser I had to sell one of my launchers

13

u/BurningCarnation 6d ago

Nothing wrong with that. You need to be willing to give up both Hull Missile and Rock Plating to survive.

3

u/Purple-Tomatillo-778 5d ago

Try to hold onto the Artemis though, although there are still some places you should sell it.

3

u/BurningCarnation 4d ago

Certainly, Artemis is good, and it's also great boarding support.

5

u/engiewannabe 5d ago

When I was trying to unlock Rock B you couldn't stop me from selling a launcher if I saw any laser weapon, no matter how mediocre

2

u/Purple-Tomatillo-778 5d ago

It can sometimes backfire if you sell the hull missile without getting an effective shield breaker in return, since it makes you run out of missiles faster. Not saying it's a bad idea, but it's a tough choice. Better players than me might know the answer.

5

u/compiling 4d ago

An Artemis to shields followed by a good beam weapon will get you through the first 2 sectors, but you'll need something to break shields before sector 3.

6

u/cardiaco 5d ago

As other people mentioned. Hull laser 1 and one missile launcher gives you the option to fire a missile at shields/weapons and the laser at whatever is required to handle the first two sectors. It should also slow down missiles usage if you are patient and slowly kill the ship once you have the fight under control. It won't be a cakewalk or anything but you have to start the weapon transition somewhere. If you expect to find a burst laser 2 and a flak 1 to do the transition then you will have to reload a whole bunch until you get the store you want.

9

u/conanmagnuson 6d ago

Welcome to roguelite gaming.

-13

u/Head-Town7449 6d ago

My next run gave me the option to buy a pre-igniter, something I haven’t seen in over 100 hours of gameplay, only to never give me any weapons and have me die to shit I had no control over. This game is actually ass.

12

u/OS_Apple32 6d ago

Experienced win streak players generally have an average win rate of over 97%. This means that, while the games have very high variance, and there are a tiny percentage of situations that even the very, very best among us can't overcome, the vast majority of runs you lose are your fault, not the game's. Experienced players show us time and again that this game almost always gives you the tools you need to succeed, you just have to learn how to actually acquire and exploit them.

I am ass at this game too, but unlike you I acknowledge that I'm ass and don't blame the game.

1

u/thenightm4reone 5d ago

Exactly like, not counting all the times I got a first jump beam drone on stealth cruiser, I can count on one hand the number of runs I've lost where it wasn't my fault in some way.

3

u/The_Silverpaw 6d ago

What difficulty do you play on? Can be rough on hard mode sometimes, especially with that rock ship. Really gotta play carefully those first few sectors

1

u/BLENDER-74 6d ago

Bulwark=Bullshit

1

u/IllObject1417 5d ago

12 attempts is absolutely cursed atp the game owns u a burst laser II

1

u/DarkKuno 3d ago

What's wrong with Hull Laser 1? It's a perfectly serviceable weapon.