FTL is really fun and addictive, but the biggest problems are the luck factor and the Rebel Flagship.
This game bases too much on luck. Luck for events, luck for encounters, and an immense amount of luck to get access to one of the best ships in the game, the Crystal Cruiser
The Rebel Flagship is a giant "Fuck You" to anyone who does most playstyles. The stages further cement this thing.
Want to play a playstyle with lasers and beams? First stage tells you to fuck off with triple shields and all 4 super-weapons dealing immense system damage to your ship.
Want to play a playstyle with rockets and other things? Second stage tells you to fuck off by using lots of drones, with constant "Power Surges" which brings even more drones. A defense drone of mark 1 or 2 fucks up all of your attempts to use a rocket on the Flagship. Even worse are the boarder drones, which tells you "fuck you" for not getting into constant crew fights and have max-skilled combat crew.
The Third Stage is an almighty "fuck you" that punishes you for not fully upgrading engines, reactor and not having a max-skilled pilot...by having constant power surges which either brings the Zoltan shield back or shoots EIGHT FUCKING LASERS
On top of all that, the Rebel Flagship has unfair advantages, such as being able to only use ONE energy point for each drone it has, or having unlimited resources for rockets and drones.
And for the cherry on the cake, if you somehow manage to kill off all of the crew, you get an angry AI that quickly repairs all of the systems at once, making the battle even more difficult than it is.
The game would be much more enjoyable if it wasn't that dependant on luck and if it didn't discourage you of going through certain playstyles.
>>343271094
the more you play the more you realize it is not actually that dependant on luck.
its about damage control and making the best out of a bad situation.
working around the shit that happens to you and maximizing effectiveness.
just keep at it. once youve gotten a better feel for the game youll slap your hand in your face for doing really stupid rookie mistakes.
suffering is part of the exprience OP.
also theres mods.
like a shit ton of em.
so many youd laught at yourself right now if you thought the base game was hard.
The luck thing is legit, as it can ruin a run by giving you some bad RNG, but the rebel flagship is doing exactly what it's supposed to according to your description.
It has those multiple forms to test how good you are at adapting your strategy, and if you have variety in your weapons. You need to be able to fight around its strengths and exploit it's weaknesses.
>>343271094
git gud
>>343271902
Adding onto this, the saving grace for people like you OP is that the flagship is predictable. No matter what difficulty or run you're going, you know what to expect. so you can do better each time. He's there as a static final exam, it shouldn;t be hard to learn how to beat him.
The game would be better as a free-roam type game without the silly end boss.
>>343272142
there's a mod for that, it's pretty rough around the edges but it does the job.
>>343272336
>>343271760
You keep mentioning mods. You got a link for them?
>>343272601
Also intrested my pc recently died so I have taken to a very old laptop I was disappointed to learn it couldn't play mount and blade but runs kotor just fine.
The flagship is hard until you realize all you need is evasion cranked up/cloaking for the superweapon/missiles. If you didn't enter with some form of shieldbuster then you deserve to get fucked
The only hard part about it is the fucking Zoltan shield drone. Fuck that
>>343271094
I always felt the point of FTL was rolling with the punches. You don't know what's going to happen.
Some of you guys are just man children and shouldn't focus so much contempt into such a great game.
>>343271094
You have no idea about game design. Pls stop.
I have 243 hours in FTl.
Winning is not about luck in FTL, winning is about decision making and planning. If your run is dependent on luck, you have made a mistake.
There is a guy on twitch who streamed himself on hard beating the game with every ship, with every layout, in a row and he did not lose once.
Another guy on twitch has a 48 game hard mode win streak.
>>343274890
Yeah... Op has no idea about game design...
Just make playthroughs dependent on a finite number of dice rolls and disqualify 90% of builds from completing the game.... good design... really makes me think...
>>343275045
How often have you made it to the flagship?
On what difficulty?
Let me help you not be such a fucking whiny casual shitter baby. We can work this out together
>>343274973
Does he also teach you how to git gud? Because I sure as hell have no idea how to beat the game when the RNG decides to consistently fuck me over and it'd be nice to know.
>>343271094
>>343272124
And then you can play with random flagships you know nothing about...
As stated, you can try a specialized strategy, but the flagship is good everywhere and has a few weaknesses. It's a much more sensible design than a super-specialized boss that would crumple against another specialized strategy.
Here you can validate a specific strategy by overpassing the common counter (drones vs missiles).
There's nothing wrong with the flagship really.
>>343275557
I'm sure there are guides to help you win out there
But I think experimenting and learning the game on your own is more fun than getting spoiled and winning by no merit of your own
You shouldn't worry about losing
It's just a game after all
>>343275557
Tell me what's fucking you over
>>343271094
>And for the cherry on the cake, if you somehow manage to kill off all of the crew, you get an angry AI that quickly repairs all of the systems at once, making the battle even more difficult than it is.
This so fucking much, that was pure fucking bullshit.
>>343271094
My only issue with the flagship is that it's pretty much mandatory to have max shields and cloak to survive every phase
>>343276731
That's because without the crew the flagship would just be helpless. You have to go out of your way to kill all the crew and it's extremely easy to just leave one or two guys left alive.
>>343276884
I've beat it with three shield and no cloak on hard.
>>343276731
Do you mean that you have a boarding ship with no ability to defeats drones during the game ?
Because it just transforms the flagship into a big drone, all you have to do really is keep the boarding party in the shields part and shoot the ship to death.
If you're a bit savvy, you just let one person either in the laser section or roaming around in hard, he can't do much and you'll destroy the ship before that.
I mean, it's a nasty surprise ONCE, but afterwards there's nothing really hard with this.
>>343274973
>Iserlohn
>>343276731
>>343276981
I find that killing all the crew except the dude in the laser room works the best. You want to disable the missiles ASAP.
>>343277276
On hard the weapon rooms are connected to the main part of the ship and the crew will replace the missle guy as you kill him
>>343277334
Oh. I only ever played on normal because I'm a massive scrub. Ignore my advice
>>343271094
I love FTL to death and I have a lot of hours in it but the flagship is really obnoxious
I've been playing on hard and I really like how the Flagship is always a pretty tough fucking battle
However it annoys me a bit losing runs just because of how it's designed
>oops didn't find cloaking in stores the last several sectors? Looks like you probably lost sorry
It pretty much makes every ship play the same late game and that's kinda lame
>>343276981
>That's because without the crew the flagship would just be helpless.
>>343277004
>I mean, it's a nasty surprise ONCE, but afterwards there's nothing really hard with this.
Thats the point, I was going for the kill all the crew by way of oxygen deprival, which you can do with all of the ships you encounter in the game. There is no indication prior to doing it that the flagship will go automatic at which point youre fucked if thats the strategy you ware going for and your ship build was tailored to it. You have to build up your ship in one of several specific ways if you want a reliable chance against the flagship, Im with OP on this one and some things that you can do throughout the game dont work on it. I would be fine if the automatic mode kicked in to prolong the fight but it would be easier to fight. Like OP said the fight is much harder when it activates so you just dont do it when you know about it.
I only managed to beat the game by getting that laser cannon that shoots faster and faster, and that laser beam that shreds through shields. Still lost a bunch of crew members.
>>343277682
There's no indication the flagship will have three phases, have drone surges, have a recharging zoltan shield, mass board your ship etc. Reacting to the situation is the core of the game.
The flagship switching to the drone ship does not make it impossible. It just changes up the battle a little. It's not unfair.
>>343277682
Thing is, ultimately, the flagship is predictable, you just don't know first-hand how many things he has. You could say the exact thing about the flagship having multiple forms, there is no way to guess it. There is no way to guess he can do overload attacks, there is no way to know he can do is drone overload without drone parts, there is no way to know he can recharge its super-shield.
The flagship keep doing things no other ships can do, but ultimately, it's all about understanding it better and better, the whole game is about knowing what can kill you and what are the common weaknesses. The thing is you pretty much have to start over at the flagship has it requires another mindset, but it's the same process as the rest of the game really.
>>343277596
if you have max level engines you don't really need cloaking
>>343277963
It becomes a lot more difficult without cloaking
I've beaten the Flagship on hard without cloaking plenty of times but it just feels a lot harder
>>343278096
Beating flagship without hacking is far worse
heh.....easy......
psssh.... hard isn't hard kid.....
>>343278126
Uh depends on your strategy really, I never ever take hacking, thinks it's shit, but jumps on cloaking everytime I can.
I probably don't know how to use the hacking and don't care to know, that didn't prevent me to win hard ae, it's all about personal strategy.
>>343278250
Hacking is easily the single most powerful system. You can instantly disable any ship's full 4 shields and then blast them with the first charged volley of your weapons.
>>343278212
>pilot about to die
>guy in sensor room is going to die
The only chances that ship would survive is if the mantis and door system guy go to the bridge and using the other crewmembers to extinguish sensor room and stay at the hacking system in case the fire spreads from lack of person manning the door sub-system.
>ftl is a hard game
loving every laugh
I only play on Normal because it suffers from the same thing all Roguelike hard modes do, it just bumps the RNG into maximum overdrive.
>>343271094
>luck
>luck
>luck
You're playing a roguelike. What the fuck were you expecting?
>>343278894
>>343278937
I am triggered
>>343274973
41 hours
mostly played on easy because I'm a pussy afraid of failure
>>343278212
>putting out fires manually
>not just draining them of oxygen by opening the airlock
>>343278438
No it's really not, it requires a drone part, it requires the opponent not to have a defense drone, it needs to be at least level 2 to be somehow useful.
Compare to the cloaking, it needs nothing but the expensive first cost, cloaking allow you to evade the first volley, makes you protected against missiles and such, allow you to charge sometimes twice for every of their volleys.
I mean, I don't like hacking so I'm totally subjective, but saying it's "easily the most powerful system" is wrong. The very fact that not everyone like it should show this.
