Actually one thing that bothers me about this game is that you don't seem to get any special reward for killing the flagship. Which means that at the moment, my high-score board is half-full of ships that got to the flagship, but didn't kill it. For some reason I've gotten higher scores without a victory than with a victory more often than not.

It's good that the game actually indicates whether the run was a victory or not, but I still find it a bit absurd that a run that didn't win can get a higher score than one that did.

AFAIK there's no score attached to beating the flagship. It only counts scrap collected / ships defeated and things like that. The 'payment' of beating it is to 'win' the run in itself, of course, mainly. But ye - it could do so much more with the end-screen. Very few games get that right though. The civilisation series probably a bit of an exception - I always loved seeing, at the end, how the world map changed over the course of the game.

With FTL it'd be great if it'd save the configuration of the ship - take a snapshot on winning, so to speak, so you could see how that ship on each run turned out. Could easily be done in-game, just a save file with a text string summarising load out, that it can load and then render that particular ship. And / or an event log, of sorts. Noticeable events; crew members lost / gained; and what their skill levels where, and the like.

I agree 100% with this. Always thought it would be great to have an "honour roll" attached to each score, allowing one to list all the crew you lost (and gained), together with their race and skills. Showing the final loadout would definitely be sweet as well. For noticeable events, maybe mention if certain ships got unlocked via an event (e.g. discovering the Mantis cruiser etc). A brief list of the ships/types destroyed (plus their controlling race, or if they were pirates etc) would be the icing on the cake.

Wow. That was close. Without cloak, hacking, drone control mark II (only I), no teleport, no mind control, bombs and no ion. And: only 5 crew members!

Osprey, easy (AE), 3944 points...

Artillery Beam is f*ck*ng AWESOME!

Well it looks like you managed to find lots of things to spend your scrap on! Which once more proves that it's possible to win with whatever the game throws at you! :)

Come to think of it, I'm not sure when the last time was that I actually had a fully-upgraded engine. It could have well been this very ship back before AE was out - as back then you couldn't install cloak on it (I think cloak simply wouldn't appear in any shops with either the Osprey or the Nisos).

BTW the Defense I is generally considered better than the Defense II since it only shoots missiles and boarding/hacking drones - and you have shields for the other stuff. Personally I hate the Defense II and will typically sell it, unless I'm flying a ship that has no shields...

I agree the arty beam is cool. Incidentally I often forget to turn the artillery beam off while boarding using the A/B versions - typically ending with the ship being destroyed and me losing two boarders! So it could have been a blessing in disguise that you didn't get a teleporter... ;)

I'm not as crazy about the "artillery flak" in the C variant though, since it's basically just a flak II from what I can tell (in that it fires 7 flak projectiles, which hit like normal flak, and when fully upgraded is only slightly faster than Flak II. Unless I'm missing something...??

Which is a shame as the C variant is actually pretty good fun early on, with its teleporter and flak combo. If nothing else it's at least amusing to fire flak at a ship as you're boarding it.

To add to that - The Flak II can fire faster than the artillery if you have someone manning your weapons system, and it can use the Weapon Pre-Igniter augmentation. It also uses 1 less unit of power than the fully upgraded artillery.

Alternatively, a pair of Flak I's use up 4 power and fire 6 projectiles - but twice as fast as the Flak II or Artillery.

That's right... Sadly, it was only on easy. :-) I should try to beat the game on normal now... A lot of people like the Defense I more, but I prefer the Defense II.

You'll find the experience much more satisfying, believe me. IMO easy is there to learn the mechanics, but the game is meant to be played on Normal for full enjoyment (or possibly hard now? Or is that for die-hards and masochists? :)).

To each their own I guess. That's another thing I love about this game - the amount of options (especially in AE) is so massive that everyone can have their own prefs/styles (naturally shaped somewhat by chosen ship and random factors).

REALLY?!

It's already auto-firing, can't be aimed (though with flak that probably doesn't matter that much), and I suspected that it would fire slower compared to a manned Flak II (but I still hoped to be proven wrong on that count) - and on top of that I completely forgot about potential augmentations which it of course cannot use!!

I was so hoping someone was going to totally prove me completely wrong and come out with some facts that show that the Flak II is actually awesome.

Dang.

So, I have to ask - what's the good of it? The only advantage I can see is that you effectively get a "free" Flak II - albeit a slightly slower-firing one that uses more power, or an even slower-firing one that uses even less power - in addition to the potential standard max arsenal (4 guns, 8 energy).

I guess it does start with a teleporter, a clone bay, and some weak but explosive crew members. I bet this ship was designed with input from Zapp Brannigan. Or some middle manager whose contempt for his crew is inversely proportional to his knowledge of the relative effectiveness of FTL weaponry.

I don't have time to read all the responses (at the moment), but you put it well! I just got done with a game (i.e., got my but kicked, on easy). And like you said, then there are days that I make it to the flagship. Not that I win, but at least I make it that far once in a while. Okay... like... twice.

But still, I see where you are coming from.

I really have to add to my above post... While I absolutely admit that there is something extremely addictive about the game, I just got done play a few rounds, and I do have to voice my agreement again - this game is too random, to the point of frustration.

Like I said, I admit that it is addictive and at times fun, but the *bam* your ship is gone even though you were really powerful thing gets old. I enjoy rogue likes just fine (and I admit I haven't played that many, but the few I have I enjoy thoroughly), but this one strips you of your progress too quickly.

I was actually thinking there should be a 'super easy' mode that makes the game a *tad* more predictable.

The game is not about random luck and misfortune, it just requires a notably higher player efficiency than most other games. You can not do things without having a clear idea WHY you are doing it. You can randomly jump to new points in a star system, not caring how soon you are going to end up at the exit, OR you can map everything out the moment you arrive in the system and make a plan A, knowing exactly where you intend to go to visit the maximum number of places in the system while being ready to alter the plan as opportunities and emergencies come about. Guess which strategy will help you win and which one will often be the reason you get overpowered eventually.

It is stuff like this that decides which player wins and which ones will die over and over again, not what loot and encounters you are randomly given. If you do not master the game mechanics and learn how to make every decision the most efficient one, you WILL die and the randomness is the least of your problems. You may have screwed up and doomed yourself by sector 3 but you won't actually die until sector 5 where your lack of efficiency has put you at such a disadvantage a chance encounter will appear massively overpowered.

Learn to analyse your failures. If you reach conclusions like "the game threw a difficult enemy at me" or "I was never given the tools I needed by the random number generator", you have no idea what you are doing while playing this game.

Remember that the aim is to get to the mothership alive, while trying to be as powerful as possible by that point.

So there are times where the enemy just happens to have a loadout that kicks your ass? And you've gotten lots of scrap and just used it to buy awesome gear and fit your ship out? Well there are a few options:

1) Are you SURE you have made the right decisions up to this point? I'm talking where you spend your scrap - what weapons you buy, what systems you buy, what you upgrade? Remember that this, as you and others rightly say, is partially based on luck: where the shops are, what they sell. But also remember it's ultimately up to you and your choices, including how well you've gone up to then (although this last point is partially also down to luck, but not completely).

2) If 1) is not true, or even if it is - the fact could well be that your current setup isn't perfect for the current enemy. So, you need to get... creative. I won't go into it here - there are other posts that detail strategy already - but in summary: abuse pause, adjust your power constantly (e.g. when a missile heads towards you, shift power from life support and other systems (maybe even shields) to engines unless you have defense drone(s)), adjust your crew positions whenever something changes (fire, system damage, enemy boarders), adjust your doors/oxygen the same way, time your weapons fire for maximum effect, target the enemy systems for maximum effect (or minimise the biggest threat to you first - this could mean shooting engines before weapons if he keeps dodging your shots), use boarders judiciously (if you have them) as winning a ship intact greatly increases rewards.

If you do all of those things (and possibly more), so that your ship fights PERFECTLY, it's possible to beat more powerful/balanced enemies. It's sometimes not easy, but it's certainly possible - most of the time...

3) OK if the above didn't work (either due to lack of skill or due to the enemy happening to sneak a massive missile straight past your defense drone where it took out your massive mega super weapon of choice one micro-second before you were about to unleash hell on them), and things are going downhill fast (e.g. even with your damage control micro-managed things are still not going well), then it might be time to jam lots of power into the engines and hope they charge fast enough to GTFO with minimal damage.

Remember too that winning a battle with lots of hull damage - especially in the earlier sectors where the rewards are so crappy - might not be worth it. It's sometimes better to cut your losses and move on (and sometimes come back to that sector to finish the job if you're upgraded and it's convenient!).

That's just the way the game is supposed to be. This is especially true if you start with one of the more specialised ships, e.g. the Mantis ships. I've often had to go a number of sectors skipping fights because I encountered drone after drone and couldn't do anything about them - or conversely kicking ass for 5 sectors only to encounter that one crazy ship that totally counters what I have. Retreat sucks, but dying sucks more...

Thanks. This was helpful. I actually go for shields and pilot/helm before I even think to go to engines. Actually, I don't even go for engine upgrades 9 times out of 10.

My usual approach is to upgrade shields, and have a weapon load out that allows for several attacks while not constantly needing to be replenished (i.e. 2 to 3 laser weapons instead of a missile in there somewhere).

Also, I don't really use drones at all (same reason as the missiles - I would rather have the scrap for power/system upgrades and fuel).

I generally use the 'Kestral' or the Federation ship, lately I have grown to like the pay outs you get when a ship 'surrenders'.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

I have made it to the mother ship... three times now? So an average of once out of every eleven games, on easy no less. And only once have I made it to round two. And then I got creamed.

Once again, thanks for the input :)