FTL: Faster Than Light

[BaneTheBrawler]

I could have sworn we had a thread for this, but Search says no, so I guess not.

Advanced Edition came out on Thursday. It's digital bath salts.

Below is a copy paste directly form the site.
v. 1.5.4
This list is not comprehensive. It was not kept in great detail over the development, but still captures the vast majority of polish changes and content additions provided.
Polish / Modifications -- Considered general improvements that apply to both Vanilla and Advanced Edition versions of the game.
Weapon Depower Delay - After removing or losing power a weapon will quickly lose its charge over time rather than immediately lose all charge.
Additional Music: Ben Prunty has added four new tracks, one of which is only heard within the Advanced Edition Lanius sector.
New Events: New event scattered throughout the game, some penned by Planescape writer Chris Avellone.
Additional manning options: Doors and sensors can be manned to provide a +1 level boost to the system. Systems redesigned to 4 levels of power instead of the previous 3. Sensors at level 3 show the player the cooldowns of enemy weapons, while sensors at level 4 show the power bars.
Store Tabs: Stores can now have an additional tab, often increasing the amount of equipment/crew sold by 50-100%.
Human change: Humans are 10% faster at learning skills
Zoltan change: Zoltan explode on death, causing damage to nearby enemies
Boss redesign: The Flagship and the player start a couple jumps from the base. If the flagship gets to the base, it is not instant gameover. The player has a countdown to fight it back.
Save & Quit anywhere: Mid-battle or even mid-event, you can save & quit whenever. Closing the game in other means (the window X) also saves the game.
Crash Recovery: You will be able to continue a game after a crash, usually at one jump prior to the crash. Ideally this is never actually needed.
Reward boxes: New reward boxes show resource changes, weapon/drone visuals, and any gained (or lost) crew Crew colors: Crew sprites now have multiple colors available.
Rename mid game: Rename any crewmember from the Crew Manifest screen
Shield recharge bar: Explicitly shows the recharge time on your shields
Random ship button: Select a random ship from the hangar.
Drone Re-construction: If a drone is destroyed, there is a cooldown before it can be used again -- preventing enemy from spamming boarder drones
Drone Auto-Destruct: Battle drones left on the player ship after a fight will self-destruct, no longer creating an annoying obstacle to destroy.
Saving Crew Positions: Hot keys and on screen buttons available to save and restore crew stations.
Federation Ship’s Cloaking: Federation Cruiser can obtain the cloaking system (or any other systems, up to the now standard limit of 8)
Enemy pirate layouts: Pirate ships have completely new layouts for every enemy ship.
Minor tuning / balance: Changes to enemy AI, event rewards, stalemate prevention etc.
Minor UI changes: “In Danger” message on Ship button when unavailable and other small modifications to make the game more user friendly
Additional Content - Only present when the Advanced Edition content toggle is enabled within the player hangar.
Four new systems:
Hacking: Launch a hacking drone to periodically disrupt an enemy system -- unique effect for every system.
Mind Control: Temporarily turn an enemy into an ally
Clone Bay (Replaces Medbay when purchased): Crew are cloned on death, losing some skill progress. Can't heal mid battle, but micro-heal on every jump.
Backup Battery: Provides temporary power Weapon Stun - Many weapons have a chance to stun crew that they hit in advanced mode
Enemy ship variations: Every enemy ship now has alternate system distribution, many of which take advantage of the new systems mentioned above.
The Lanius: New alien that is not hurt by low o2 and drains o2 from the room its in New sector with entirely new events, new music track, and two new enemy ships (the Lanius ships) New player ships: Type C layouts for the 8 base player ships, plus an entirely new Lanius cruiser with its own alternate layout and achievements.
New Weapons:
Laser Chainguns: Every time it fires, its cooldown decreases.
Ion Chaingun: Every time it fires, its damage increases.
Flak Guns: Less accurate, more potential for damage (Area targeting)
Charge Guns: Can charge multiple times, adding more projectiles every time it charges
Repair Bomb: Fully repairs the system its fired at
Stun Weaponry: Minor ion damage along with guaranteed stun of enemy crew
New Drones:
Ion Intruder: Boards enemy ship and ions systems randomly
Shield Drone: Charges a green energy shield to defend the player
* Anti-Drone Drone: Shoots down enemy drones attacking the ship New Beam Drones: A fire beam drone, and an advanced version of the standard Beam Drone
New Environments:
Anti-Ship Battery: Attacks the player ship, enemy ship, or both depending on the event. Present at every rebel fleet location.
Pulsar: Ionizes any ship’s shields and possibly other random systems
New Augments:
Lifeform Scanner: Detects the location of life forms, even when sensors are down.
Zoltan Shield Bypass: Allows teleporting and mind controlling through Super Shields
Defense Drone Scrambler: Completely disrupt any targeting by enemy defense drones
Backup DNA Storage: Crew won’t be lost if they die when the cloning bay is off.
Battery Charge Booster: Backup battery’s lock time is halved.
Emergency Respirators: Crew take half damage from low o2.
Fire Suppression: Automatically put out fires throughout the ship
Explosive Replicator: Missile based weapons have a 50 percent chance of not using a missile
Distraction Buoys: Leaves a false signal at sector start to delay rebels 1 jump
Hacking Stun: Adds a stun effect to the hacking activated power
Bug/Misc Fixes:
Enemy ships are much less likely to have 2 of the same drone.
No more comma differences between the text of the marooned slug (sorry /u/Twinge).
Alternate blue choices to unlock the Mantis Cruiser
Ion Bomb cooldown increased to 21 from 18
Automated Re-loader benefit decreased to 10% from 15%.
Added an animation when fires get put out.
Hull damage / bonus repairs from events will not mysteriously remain at visited locations.
Fixed: Enemy boarders going on 'space walks' with strange pathing
Reverse Ion Field and Drone Reactor Augments fixed to display their correct values
Cloak meter correctly resets when jumping cloaked out of combat
Rockmen AI will no longer be 'scared' of fire, preventing repairs.
Can now re-map options button without causing options screen to open
Shields only provide skill boost if an enemy is present
Restored defense drone drift after power off
Enemies will no longer power their missile weapons if they don't have missiles
Fixed: Repair progress would reset in some specific circumstances when taking damage
Fixed: Repair progress could reset when the system was limited by nebula/event
Jumping away from the boss mid-explosion won't reset progress
Fixed: Ion lock rendering bug when you had locked systems adjacent to eachother
Rebel locations will continue to have enemy ships even after you've cleared them
Flagship will have the proper weapon visuals during its destruction
Zoltan energy is preserved correctly after loading a game
System order preserved in ship hangar screen
No longer plays oxygen loss sound effect when breaching empty rooms
Shields should properly repower in all situations after damage/ion effects
Store no longer auto-opens on reload
Systems will properly repower after limits imposed by events disappear
Minor text fixes
Minor rendering bug fixes
Bombs can no longer miss when targeting yourself
Enemy boarding drones are destroyed when the enemy ship is defeated
Maps will no longer have disconnected beacons, everything will be accessible
Additional price changes on weapons and equipment for balancing
And finally: bonus, never seen before, new bugs added with all of this new content!

It's fucking amazing. Loads of new weapons and drones. Clone bay and hacking are fantastic. Haven't tried mind control, but I'm sure it's bitchin too. Haven't tried any of the new ships or the new races, as I'm still trying to unlock the crystal cruiser.

[djzombie]

had never heard of it before, looks cool

[BaneTheBrawler]

oh man. yeah you gotta pick it up. WAAAAAAY worth it. especially with the Enhanced Edition. You can toggle the new content on or off, so you won't miss out on the old experience.

[Julian]

Fuck this game > still havent been able to beat it

[Salodin]

To make it easier, build a team that can teleport to the final bosses weapons to disable them. Makes it a lot more manageable.

[Lurking Badger]

If you have drones, get defense drones, they can shoot down incoming missiles and boarding drones.

[Jaybar]

Start in easy and unlock new ships via missions - unless you are a masochist for difficulty.

You could do it on any difficulty but you get more parts on easy to buy the different crew races and upgrade your ship so you can trigger special events.

[BaneTheBrawler]

pretty much what everyone else has said.

Easy is hard, normal is difficult, and i dont even want to think about hard.

Defense drones are da best, though I don't think defense II or more than one defense I is worth it, because the IIs will sometimes shoot at lasers when there are missiles incoming even though you have enough shields to block the lasers, and if you have more than one defense drone they'll target the same shit and one will be useless. they added a new type of drone, though: Shield drone. 3 power, periodically puts a small zoltan shield around your ship. It should complement the Defense I very nicely. I haven't tried it, though, because I've been playing the rock cruiser/trying to get crystal cruiser and having a really hard time of it. RNG gods hate me. i get fucked at every turn.

also boarding is beast mode. get some Rock or Mantis, get Hacking. Beam into medbay, wait for them to come at you. Launch hacking drone, lock them in, and MELT THEM ALL MUAHAHAHA. when you hack it, Medbay damages instead of healing. A fully upgraded hack can pretty much kill a human in one go. I think. It's close. Anyway, I always take out that fucking triple missile launcher first. fuck that thing. Once that's done, I take out the Ion and then the Laser. Then I begin my assault on the central crew (beam guy is useless). Once the central crew is dead, I go smash up the shields, then the helm, then beam out and let my shitty lasers do the rest. I started fighting the boss with 5 health 2 drone parts and 4 missiles just now; made it to the first laser burst in the third phase before I died. No repairs, because as I said, the RNG gods hate me.

[Mazmaz]

Why is there no fucking save in this fucking game

[BaneTheBrawler]

there is. but it's like pokemon; you only get one. and you can't reload from a previous save.

[Athas]

Winner don't save scum.

[BaneTheBrawler]

jesus, RNG gods hate me so much. But, by sheer patience, I finally overcame them just enough to unlock some stuff. I unlocked layout B for the rock cruiser pretty early on, but could not seem to thrive with it. I finally got to sector 8 with it today, unlocking Rock C. Now all I need to do is get to Rock Homeworlds with Rock C to unlock the Crystal Cruiser and the third Rock achievement. Then I can use whatever ship I feel like because I won't need to worry about bullshit quest chains and missed opportunities to get achievements.

[Mazmaz]

Speaking of which, how do I check achievements? Cause I sure as shit don't see it on Steam.

[BaneTheBrawler]

in-game, from the main menu, go to Stats. It'll have your ship 'cheevs and universal cheevs plus all your high scores there.

[synistar]

Despite only beating it on easy (yea I still kinda suck) but consistently getting to sector 8, I can give these tips.

1) Maximize your jumps in each sector. Get as much scrap as possible.
2) Prioritize disabling weapons/or drone control (depends on what the threat is) of what you're fighting. Preventing damage way more important than dealing damage and disabling shields...
3) Except for the sector 8 flagship fight. Sometimes based on what your loadout is, you may need to dps race the flagship, especially on phase 3. Go yolo on it since the longer you fight it, the harder it may be to control the situation.
4) Good augments to get Long Range Scanner, Drone Recovery Arm, and Scrap Recovery arm. The first will help you plot out a safer route through the sectors. The 2nd makes drones your friend. The 3rd is more delicious scrap.
5)If you get boarded, pause, send crew to the medical bay, vent out the rest of your ship (or if some cases, the part of the ship with the boarding crew, leaving some compartments with air). Enemies will go to areas with oxygen. Fighting in the med bay powered means you win the fight.
6) Defense Drone I is probably the best drone in the game. Stops missiles, which is #1 damage threat in the game. If you find a shop with drone control + defense drone I, take the opportunity to open it up. It's worth it.

[BaneTheBrawler]

what synistar said. vanilla, i typically rocked a defense drone and a system repair drone. Enhanced Edition, I like the Defense drone and the Anti-drone drone. Low power cost for a HUGE boost to survivability.

also, for Enhanced, your system selection gets more important, as you can no longer just buy them all. I like the clone bay, hacking, and teleporter. Plus the usual drones/shields/engines/weapons. For manned ships, I typically target the oxygen system. Wait for weapons to charge. Hack the oxygen. Drain it. Then blow it up with weapons. Enemy crew will burst in, and by the time they get it repaired your hacking will be off cooldown, so you can drain oxygen and then blow it up again. Rinse repeat until enemy crew is dead. Bombs are great for this. Even Ion bombs; the 4 damage should last long enough to go off cooldown, and it's useful for other stuff. For the boss, I HIGHLY recommend getting the teleporter. You can teleport a 2-man boarding team into each weapon bay (I start with the missiles) and take out the crewman and weapons; as long as you leave one crewman alive, the ship has no way to repair the weapons. The oxygen strategy works here, but again you really don't want the AI to take over so it's not a good idea. However... if you have bombs, you can get through the shields, and once you've done that you can keep them down and pick away at it with whatever weapon you have handy. Phase 3 is going to suck, though. Cloak is nice to dodge the laser bombardment, but with a fully skilled crew, decent engines, and 4 shields you should be able to avoid enough damage to take out the flagship first.

I'd suggest getting defense drone mk 2, but I actually really dislike them. They don't prioritize missiles over lasers, so if you have a laser and a missile incoming, and 4 shields, it will shoot whichever comes into range first, which is almost always the laser. Then the missile gets through. Even though your shields could have shrugged off the laser no problem. Really annoying.

[BaneTheBrawler]

fucking finally got the crystal cruiser. bypassed the stupid quest by unlocking Rock C first, then picking up a long range scanner and jumping to ordinary beacons in the rock homeworlds.