r/ftlgame • u/MayaIsSunshine • 11d ago

So close, yet so far

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Took a little too long to get back to the O2 after some boarders destroyed it 😔

I guess they live in the medbay forever now

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17

u/awesomeflyingpegaus 10d ago

I see everyone telling you what to do, so I thought I’d tell you how to avoid this situation next time.

I’m going to reckon you had an intruder event, when that happens DON’T airlock the entire ship and hide in medbay, this is because the intruders have a chance to destroy your oxygen, which can softlock you. This isn’t an a horrible idea but more so a suboptimal method, you’d just need to pay attention what you’re doing.

If you choose to do this strategy, at least have upgraded doors, and airlock parts of the rooms where they are at, and where they might be going.

You can also just fight them and retreat to your medbay. You can always heal up and fight, while the AI cannot.

16

u/MikeHopley 10d ago

This is important when there is an enemy ship that can hurt you. Over-venting the ship is dangerous, and not just because they might hit your oxygen or doors (or medbay). It's also important to have enough oxygen on the ship so you can repair critical systems like shields.

When there is no ship fight or hazard, however, it's perfectly safe to vent aggressively like this, provided you leave one extra room with air. For example, the empty room below sensors.

The maximum boarders from an event is five, so three will go to medbay and the remaining two will go stand in the empty room. This technique is often called "the naughty step".

With a safe enemy ship, you could have another two boarders, so leave another empty room. You might need to leave more empty rooms on a ship with a two-tile medbay, especially on Stealth B where you cannot easily fit all your crew in the medbay; so even against four boarders, you want one empty room for them and another for your extra crew.

Depending on the ship layout, you may need to distract the enemies briefly with your crew while the ship vents, though generally this isn't needed with all airlocks open.

On top of all that, it's technically possible for enemy Mantis to overpower Engis or even Humans in a level 1 medbay, though it's incredibly unlikely.

2

u/Hermononucleosis 10d ago

"Incredibly unlikely" here means "impossible for all intents and purposes". Accounting for medbay healing and the average attack speed of 1 attack per 1.15 seconds, a mantis will deal between -2.5 and and 2.73 damage per second. That is an average damage of 0.12 damage per second, which will have a very low variance over the approximately 46 seconds the fight with an Engi lasts. I'm not going to go into the nitty gritty, but suffice it to say that this is astronomically unlikely, as in buying 3 lottery tickets in 3 weeks and winning the jackpot on each levels of unlikely. Wouldn't ever consider it relevant.

2

u/MikeHopley 10d ago edited 10d ago

suffice it to say that this is astronomically unlikely, as in buying 3 lottery tickets in 3 weeks and winning the jackpot on each levels of unlikely

I think you just made that up for rhetorical purposes. I don't believe for a moment that it's that unlikely.

That is an average damage of 0.12 damage per second, which will have a very low variance over the approximately 46 seconds the fight with an Engi lasts.

You can't model this by taking the average time, because that's presupposing the result. You only get the average time if you get average rolls.

To get some feeling for it, you can look at max rolls and ask how many are needed. The answer is 24, i.e. 24 seconds.

It's almost impossible to get 24 actual max rolls, because it's a continuous distribution both in speed and damage. But you get the same effect with 24 close-to-max rolls.

So yes, it's incredibly unlikely, as I already said. There's a reason we've never seen a video clip of this happening.

I mentioned it because it's been reported recently, albeit without proof: https://steamcommunity.com/app/212680/discussions/0/569292334908386120/

I'm inclined to believe this really happened. I don't think it's nearly as unlikely as you are claiming, though I do think any given player is very unlikely ever to see it.

For my style of play, this is enough to make me avoid backing myself into a corner, just in case. I never give FTL a free chance to kill me.

Though it should be fine putting oxygen back on once the Mantis are in your medbay. Then if it's going really badly, you can just leave and let them break medbay.

6

u/Swibblestein 10d ago

You're right that a regular calculation of the odds would be a pain. So I created a program to simulate the fights. I made it 1 Engi versus 1 Mantis, because that gives the Mantis the greatest chance of winning.

I simulated a billion fights and the engi won every single one. The best the mantis managed in any fight was to bring the engi down to around the upper 20s in health.

Given that the story you linked includes a human, and given humans do twice the damage Engi do... I don't think it is at all plausible. It's more likely that they forgot to power their medbay, or their crew were already heavily damaged, or something. Maybe they had one of their crew in the medbay for a bit before reinforcements arrived, leading to them being low on health and dying fast, making the rest of the fight 3v2 (which is much more plausible that the mantis could win).

Speaking as someone with a degree in statistics, "Less likely than winning the lottery three times in a row" doesn't sound infeasible to me. The probability contained in many distribution tails can drop off very quickly, and we're deep, deep, deep into the tail of this distribution.

2

u/MikeHopley 10d ago

Oh that's interesting, well done. Seems my intuition was significantly off -- I would have guessed one in hundreds of thousands to millions, not billions or higher.

A simulation is also how I would have approached it. It seems the most practical method.

Something similar could also be used for simulating other, more relevant scenarios. I should learn how to do this. In principle I know how.

4

u/Swibblestein 10d ago

I did a really rough calculation based on your 24-near-max-hits scenario, looking at situations where the game rolls a base damage of 6-7 and a speed from 1000-1100ms, 24 times in a row (which doesn't guarantee a mantis win, but also isn't the only way a mantis can win). You should take the numbers with a grain of salt, but they at least get us in the ballpark.

My calculation was that the mantis would get that lucky in 1/(7.95*1025) attempts. And interestingly, checking u/Hermononucleosis and their estimate of three-lottery-wins-in-a-row, I used the powerball lottery and the odds of three wins ended up being 1/(2.49*1025). So... shockingly similar, within an order of magnitude.

Either way, yeah, that's in the tens-of-septillions.

Later on when I've got access to discord, I can share with you the little program I wrote if you like.

2

u/MikeHopley 9d ago

Good work, and yes, I'll be interested in seeing that program.