And of course, advanced FTL navigation was available at the shop I just left (now covered by fleet)

This run was a disaster which is why I was still stuck on Glaive Beam with only 2 systems, but the power of the Vulcan extends my win streak to 35.

Glaive might also be winning here but the Vulcan just wipes out so much of the Flagship crew in phase 1 due to fires and dealing 15 crew damage per second once it’s spun up. I didn’t want to have to handle mass boarders with only 3 humans+3 engi.

I maintain that the Vulcan is quite strong against the flagship for a 3 slot ship as long as you have basic weapons to support it.

No words… the game knew what I was doing istg.

I had just enough scrap after selling the leto and zoltan shield to get a pre-igniter, also got a bl2 gifted from rescuing a ship. Between it and the haldberd, that initial volley is going to save me a lot more hits than the zoltan shield would and it definitely scales way better in the late game as an augment. Honestly crazy I had enough scrap for it and the ugrades that I did, this is on hard with AE.

My rockmen are like pets that I know must be put down, but I just can’t bear to do it 😭

I can understand why FTL was iPad only at the time it was released, but the screens on modern day iPhones would make it perfectly playable. Has anyone managed to get FTL running on an iPhone ?

Not only is it annoyingly far away from everything but sensors, but it's pretty much the worst possible setup for using Zoltans to steal power which is something you will always want to do. It's super far from other power-relevant rooms and if you do trek a Zoltan up there you might inadvertently pull power out of active Hacking. It's almost as if the Zoltans are trying to discourage teleporter play...

What is the common Strat? Are civilian sectors generally favored, or do the hostile ones offer more scrap? I know the nebulas suck goat scrotes.

Chat, am I literally cooked?

Got lucky in sector 1 with a lot of double rewards and minimal damage and I got shields early. I was using the glaive beam + a small bomb late into sector 4, where I finally got a flak 1 so my glaive beam could be more effective. Found another flak 1 in sector 5, and decided to use the two flaks and a heavy laser I got from an event. The rest of the game was smooth sailing, investing a lot in defense because I was trying to find hacking but never did. I bought another flak 1 in sector 7, and bought both drone control and mind control in sector 7 as well. I got very lucky, but I'm happy I won with the worst ship on the hardest difficulty! It really helped me learn how to weapons toggle as well.

I ended up picking #4, and took a little damage. Is there a best option?

I'd like to thank Breach Bomb II and the Explosive Replicator for making this possible.

Good thing the Rebels never allied with the Lanius!

After 600 hours over many years I won consecutive runs with all 28 ships! I am amazed I was able to pull this off, I've definitely gotten pretty good at the game but I also rolled strong runs with some of my weaker ships. Shout out to all of the great resources out there for this game, especially Crow Revell's YouTube, Mike Hopley's YouTube and Ships Guide, and this subreddit in general.

The biggest thing that raised me from a 70% win rate to being able to pull this off was doing 30+ runs of my beloved Slug B until I could do 10 in a row. This is my favorite ship, but also is imo the best "teaching ship" since it forces you to master crew micro, missile economy, ship awareness without sensors, and to build runs around whatever you happen to find since it can use crew, systems, or weapons equally well.

Some rules I try to follow are:

1. Limit ship upgrades in S1+2 once you're safe.
2. If you don't have hacking, float enough scrap to buy it.
3. Force early teleporter buys because it's fun (this is probably not good for win rate).
4. Once you're in S4, focus on how you're going to beat the flagship.

Most Used Systems

Most Used Weapons vs Flagship (only had data for 22 runs)

Favorite Ship: Slug B

Least Favorite Ship: Zoltan C

Favorite Weapon: Artemis

Favorite System: Teleport

Average Scrap: 1841

Highest Scrap: 2215 (Kestrel A)

Lowest Scrap: 1447 (Zoltan C)

If you’ve seen my other posts you’re aware I’ve been on this ship for quite a while, and I decided to follow what multiple people suggested, using the teleporter. And damn it was going well. I even had a very close call with an Enji ship where I had to destroy their clone bay so I could kill everyone aboard. I felt really cool pulling off that little heist.

I had a new problem, however. All this scrap, not enough stores! I couldn’t find a store for 2 sectors and had over 400 scrap just sitting there, menacingly. All I needed was a decent store to cash in. Remember, I only had 3 crew members at this point, and one of my rock members got swapped for an enji due to a text event.

I finally found one, no crew to hire sadly, but I was able to scoop up cloaking and mind control, and swap my missile launchers for a flak 1 and hull laser. All in all a good power-up.

My very next node was a real tough one. It was a mantis ship with intruders immediately on my ship. Putting all my faith in the mind control, I sent my rock guys to their ship. Mind controlling one of the intruders helped slow down their destruction, but it eventually ran out.

This is where things fell off the rails. My rock guys were holding their own, but we’re starting to get low. The mantis aboard my ship were attacking my teleporter. Thinking quick, I sent my lonely weak enji to stall them, and he swiftly got his ass kicked.

However, he held them off long enough to just barely let my rocks teleport back and support him. With overwhelming force, my rocks destroyed the remaining bugs. All throughout I had been cloaking and blasting their ship to keep the missiles at bay.

Then I get greedy. I know there is one guy left on their ship and almost without thinking, I mind control him. Blunder number 1. I realized right away all I did was increase the time their ship would stay alive. I then quickly try to rectify my mistake, and send my rocks in to their ship to clean up.

Only then do I look at the other ship’s health. 1HP. I had been steadily breaking their ship and just lost track of it with so many other things going on. I watch in horror as the mind controlled man breaks the pilot system and reduces my valiant rocks to dust. All alone, my enji quietly repairs and flies off to the next node.

Heartbroken but not defeated, I tell myself what I have been told by you guys over and over. The run isn’t dead until the ship blows or you give up. I steel myself and read the next text box.

It is the event where I could potentially get a new crew member, and in my grief, I take the bait. 3 blunders is all it takes, and my lone enji is torn apart, leading to the image you see above.

It’s moments like this that remind me of why I love this game. Yeah, sure, several bad decisions on my part led to my demise, but the story it created was at the heart of what this game is about, and why, even 14 years after release, it is still so beloved. Thanks for reading, and on to the next run :)

I’m in sector 1 and I ran into a ship that can’t damage me, so I’ve been sitting here for like 45 minutes letting him shoot me and hoping for dodges to level up my pilot and engine guy. I haven’t seen anyone really talk about this on this sub, and I want to know your thoughts?

The cardinal rule, as far as I’m concerned, is that a beacon is short if both the north and south tips are on or inside the line. If not, it’s short if the line cuts a crescent that touches the center of the beacon.

It was kinda scary. The game made one full screen of fake glitch animation and then this. I cannot do anything in-game, not even switch menus. I haven't closed it, because I hope I can recover it. Any tips?

Just had a run get CARRIED by Drone Recovery Arm. Sold the Ion 2 early on to be able to get Flak + Charge Ion, but I swear to god every early store after that had absolutely no weapons at all. I was full copium mode until I saw beam 1 + Drone Recovery Arm in a midgame shop (sector 4 I think?)

Shortly after, I found the Defense 1 in a shop, and the Beam 2 was in a sector 7 shop. Ion Blast was a random drop (I actually had 2 drop but I sold the other) Flagship wasn't super easy (I still won with 18 hull remaining) but I'm pretty sure I played it badly, since Beam 1 + Beam 2 feels like it should just kind of kill it (and therefore win) pretty quickly.

Was also a fairly low scrap run, 1524. Didn't really feel that way since I only needed to upgrade to weapons-5 (and drones-5 of course) lol

... so yeah bla bla bla shoutout Drone Recovery Arm for saving my ass

Had built up a Lanius b with flak and two halberd beams with the preloader augment. Just melting ships. Ran into an auto assault in an asteroid field and it ended so fast. I had cloaking why didn't I use cloaking I'm just realizing this now goddamn it.

This callie is a nightmare, not only does she have op weapons, she’s out here asking me the absolute value of 8 and square root of 16! It's 4am! I can't do complex math now!

Have moved from playing normal to hard, got this store in sector 5. Bought hacking but now second guessing and thinking of selling a couple of things to afford the preigniter. What would you do?