| Order of Operations Prevails!

You have two different Halberds, and each is treated individually, me thinks.  If you had ONE mega Halberd, we'll call it a Guisarme-Guisarme-Awl-Pike-Fauchard, then I think you could call it 4 damage.  As it stands, I think it's:

Number of Halberds * {Number of rooms * [(2 damage) - (1 * active shields)]}

Then Rockmen's damage resistance if/then statements and then a whole 'negative results = 0' statement somewhere....

Either way, the Halberd is my weapon of choice.  I have tried to move away from any dependence on missiles because the cost of upkeep (ammunition) is just too much and depends on regular visits to stores.  I am bouncing between 1 mega-ion cannon and the Halberd as a baseline, with any other weapons as gravy, OR a crap ton of multiple fire lasers with the Halberd once the shields are dropped - I'm leaning towards liking the latter a bit more.

I've also explored teleporting crew to wreak havoc, and I like it!  I think it distracts the crew enough so they don't repair their shield/weapon systems fast enough and lets me continue to rain down hell.  Just don't get the bright idea of teleporting your crew to a drone, because I discovered AFTER the fact that the drones don't use O2 and my crew can't hold their breath long enough for the teleporters to recharge and bring them home...

PS I had to teach Chrome that 'teleporters', 'fauchard', and 'guisarme' are words.  I thought that Google had enough nerd-cred to bake those right into the spell-checker, but I guess not.  Jocks.

| Fun with math (order of operations)

Yeah, so.. I figured I'd try out a fun build with as many Halberd / Pike Beams as I could bolt on and power up. By some stroke of luck I managed to find THREE Halberd Beams. Got 2 powered, was just about to get the 3rd powered. What I found with two of these things powered was that firing on a ship with a single shield often meant it got cut into pieces on the first volley (cue madman laughter here).

I *ALSO* learned that the halberd doesn't bring down shields, only the ablative shielding on some ships.

Here's the really unfortunate math (fun with order of operations):

If you have 2 x Halberds firing (puting out 2 damage each per each room hit in the strike) versus 2 shields (absorbing 2 damage), the game doesn't treat that as:

[4 damage x number of rooms] - 2 damage absorbed.

Further, it doesn't even treat it as:

[4 damage - 2 damage absorbed] x number of rooms.

What the game actually does is:

[2 damage - 2 damage absorbed] x 2 x whatever (if rooms are even an issue here).

So, basically.. you get absolutely zero damage out of two Halberds firing simultaneously because the shield absorbs 100% of their output.

My initial giddy elation at creating the ultimate death machine was ended quickly when I did no damage in 3 volleys and found myself getting destroyed by a nasty boarding party (my crew were mostly noodle-armed Zoltans). HMS Botswana was blown to smithereens by fucking boarding drones. I think I could solve for the 2-shield layer issue somewhat with an ion bomb or cannon but even then, that's not gonna do me any good later on in the game against 3 and 4 shield-layered ships.

=(

| Top score for me right now is

The one and only HMS Schweaty, at 3779. Was close to beating the second of the final battles. I found that having the cloaking ability was, literally, a life saver. I can't even imagine how ridiculous the next battle might be. Maybe God himself coming on screen and flicking your spaceship off the page with a Simpson's avi of the "AH HA!" kid.

lol

| FTL "ah hah" moment for me

When up against opponents with shields, don't set your weapons to auto-fire when ready. Let them all power up to green, hit pause. Then select the slowest traveling weapon (missiles), launch that, repause. Then select the lasers, fire those. Select the beam weapon of your choice, get the aiming reticule clicked to anchor it, stretch the firing line but don't click to set it. Unpause, wait for the lasers to reach the edge of the screen, then click on second anchor point for the beam weapon and it will all hit at the same time.

ABSOLUTE AND TOTAL DESTRUCTION.

I was wiping fighters, frigates and cruisers with three and four shields with this methodology in about 3 shots. Absolutely nasty cheese.

I was on the, eh, "second" fight with the Boss and got cocky. Didn't concentrate on bringing the shields down first and went for the... module in question too early. Unfortunately, that meant that my attack to disable the module didn't go well. Worse, I got turned into swiss cheese quite rapidly. :(

I really thought the HMS Schweaty was going to win it for me.

I think my ideal setup now would be two of the 5-shot lasers and a 1-bar quick missile for sneaking in a pre-shot on their shields. That would be 4 bars for each of the 5 shot cannons and 1 bar for the missile battery, for the max of 9.

Alternative would be 2x3-shot cannons and a Halberd Beam. Nasty. Even with some misses, the 6 shots from the cannons should be enough to overwhelm the shield and then the beam weapon would cut into the ship something fierce in that second or two before they recharge.

| Wipeout is rad.

I skipped Easy and went straight to hard(err... normal!) So far, my best score is 973! Sector 4. I think the most dudes I've ever had was 6. In the hangar screen, rename the ship and leave it blank - good little easter egg there.

There's a free Xbla game that's basically "Wipeout with your avatars" - fun little time waster.  Doritos Crash Course.

| Welcome to The FTL Team

Highest score on Easy: 3520

Without giving away any spoilers, I'll just say that the final boss is a ridiculous son of a bitch with a lot of trixie tricks up it's massive sleeve.

'Easy' my ass.

| WIPEOUT!

Haha, yes! Me and the kiddos laugh hysterically at that show. There are very few compelling reasons to keep "TV" and that show is one of them, although I have to imagine you can watch it online somewhere, no?

We've been toying with the idea of going to no TV whatsoever. I just don't know. There's a lot of content stream-able on Netflix or Hulu or whatever these days and you don't have to pay $75-125 a month for the privilege of doing so.

| Good tips (sweet tits)

I'd also add that your FIRST and IMMEDIATE priority has to be getting a 2-layered shield up and running.

It isn't often, but there are times when you should sell off items at a store/vendor site to purchase a powerful weapon / buff. In particular, if you run across the pre-charge buff that allows you to pre-power as many weapons as you like before jumping to light speed. It's usually around 110 quid, so I try to keep above 100 in cash on hand as I move around star systems (after the first two systems which are more or less spent in a frenzy to upgrade the ship). The Pegasus missile system (shoots two missiles at a time) is HUGE for getting past enemies with a defense drone.

Your crew will specialize if you leave them in one station while you battle... and you will receive very powerful buffs for them as you progress through the game. In particular, the pilot and engine rooms, weapons, and shields.

Be aware of your crew members' strengths and weaknesses. Some are great at support, some are awesome at fighting. As Eric said, don't be afraid to let boarders wreak a little bit of havoc while they're on your ship. I like to rotate crews in and out of the fight to wear them down. It helps a LOT if you vent the bad guys' compartment to space and weaken them or outright kill them.

Dont take anyone for granted. I've been killed by average enemies many times now because I didn't max-out my attack to solidify the upperhand (at least early on in the fight). If you can get enough fire on target to destroy their shields and weapons systems, just keep pounding them. If they don't have enough weapons to hurt you (enemies without missile systems are a prime example). Target their shield system and keep pounding it until they blow up.

Things I'm curious to try out: If you kill a crew / capture a space ship mostly intact, do you get a scrap / systems bonus on your salvage attempt? I dunno. I need to practice fighting with the teleporter. I haven't really done that at all.

Regarding the final boss level (SPOILER ALERT): Yeah, that's a bitch. I've only been there twice so far. I think there are multiple fights with the final boss. The first one I now think is pretty easy. Basically take down the shield generator and then pound away on weapons control, keep going back and forth. The second one (after you blow one "wing" off) is where things got hairy for me. He sends out a SWARM of drones to attack you and it swiss-cheesed my ride badly. I think this is where I either need overwhelming firepower to neutralize the drone control room immediately, or need to get good with the teleporter so I can send in crew to disable it. Then, I have no idea what's next. Will probably take a failed attempt or two at the next scene (or for however many there are?). One thing is for sure, beating the "EASY" level is a bitch. I can't imagine making it to the end on Normal, lol.

I can't shake the feeling that there's something fundamentally missing in my FTL skillset that would make "Easy" EASY and "Normal" just sort of a challenge. I dunno.

| Questioning My Values

Because we cut cable like two years ago I had no idea this show existed until I stumbled across the iOS game.  I'm rethinking the whole 'no TV' thing...

Wipeout

Yes. I have been laughing hysterically.  I know you will too, Enron.

And again

| All I learned I learned from Star Trek, er, FTL

 - I too grant mercy 90% of the time, unless the Rebel "scum" are working me over in the final, or next to final, system.  Then I go for the kill if I can, simply because I know that there is NO WAY I will be able to get satisfaction from attacking the final capital ship as that fight has been an absolute joke the first 3 times I have made it to the end.

 - Fires: Rockmen are impervious to fire, so send them in to put the fires out, or open the doors to space and that room to suffocate the fire.  Sure, your O2 levels drop, but that way you can sort of forget about the fires and keep fighting.

 - Boarding parties:  If possible, vent the ship and gently direct the assaulting scum to fight you in the medical bay.  Sometimes they will run toward your other rooms, but I always abandon them to try and corral the bastards into the medbay.  Your crew cannot be killed (in my experience) while fighting while being healed in the medbay.  Hopefully your ship can withstand the pounding it takes while you abandon all systems mid-fight...

 - Lasers rule: You draw a little line with a laser across enemy rooms, and to do damage you only need a tiny bit of the line to touch a room, NOT the icon of the system in the room. That means you can usually hit 4 rooms, sometimes only 3, and each room takes 1 or 2 hull damage AND system damage... nice.

 - Crew: The different races you can have as crew will occasionally grant you different blue colored responses to some RPG interactions and will often allow quests to begin.  It pays to have a varied crew.  And it pays to have A LOT of crew....

 - No matter how badass you think you are (and I REALLY thought I was last night) all it takes is one ship, one bad combination of disasters to reduce your 8 crewed, 3 shielded WITH a super alien soaking shield, rad weaponed, cloaked ship to a scattered mess of metal and bio material....

Great write-ups.  DCC and Ffftl..

Curse you all and my non-existent will and especially Steam.  All this talk of  gaming pushed me to a game buying binge.  It didn't help that I took a few vacation days off and had too much time to get into trouble.  Plus buying games in the middle of the night in your underwear is the pinnacle of our civilization.

So I got Dreadball.  That scare tactic of limited supplies set me on buy, buy, buy mode.  Brilliant marketing!

I also got Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2 aaand FTL...

I'm enjoying Borderlands 2 so far.  Playing a jerk sniper.

Torchlight 2 is also fun.  A lot more generous with the magic items than Diablo.  Play fuels the crack addict brain center much better.  Plus pets!  They have a bunch, eight I think.

So, FTL has been brutal to me.  My first crew burned to death by the second jump.  Are these ships made of cardboard?  That fire spread right quick!  The last game I got three sectors? out before being blasted to bits by a customs ship.  A customs ship!  That never happens in Star Trek.

Speaking of Star Trek.  I've been playing the game like that.  So I'm the good guy and always spare a ship when they surrender.  Do you get better loot if you just blast them like Han Solo?

Great writeups! I won't lie, I got misty-eyed at the sad fate of the Yeehaw! TEXAS. As for the Xactioners, it just goes to show: leave the team, pay the price.

I am looking forward to Friday! Not just for the usual reasons, but also because the iWife will return from her business trip. Been a long week. Been fun spending more time than usual with the kid, not as fun having to leave work early to get to daycare everyday and be tired all the time.

Off to shoot some stuff and grab guns!

| I no haz stealth ship

But did unlock the Rock Cruiser (can you smell what I'm cookin'?).. and the shield guys. Can remember their names. Shield one is awesome until you get boarded and then it's very very bad. The Rock Cruiser is crazy fun, comes standard with two powerful missile launchers that obliterate opponents... until you run out of ammo or run into a ship with defense drones, lol. I think the best equipment I've seen so far is the Pegasus 2-shot missile system, the 5-shot pulse laser and the fire cannon. Total destruction. The best add on item has to be the one that pre-charges all your weapons before a battle. Holy shit that first barrage before they can do anything about it is just murder.

| Stealth ship

Just wait until all you FTLers get the stealth ship unlocked.  It is a whole new level of helplessness and ineptitude.... no shield to start, two weak lasers, and super quick duration cloaking with like a 25 second recharge = instadeath against anything with a shield, a drone, and actually any other armament at all.  I have lost three games in a row to the first ship I came up against in normal mode.

It's horrible...

| Dreadball - $348k - 10 days to do

PS, they have limited the 'Striker!" level (which is the one of everything, plus full teams, plus bonus minis up the wazoo, etc.) to 249 more backers at the time of this message.

Just a friendly reminder to those who were on the fence...