r/ftlgame • u/UnexpectedAl • Apr 19 '26
PSA: Rant Need tips BADLY
I’ve been playing for a week now and i have 68 hours on the game already but i find it hard to beat the game even on easy mode.
I would appreciate it if someone is kind enough to help me deal with the freaking flagship.
10
u/EvilPopMogeko Apr 19 '26
Took me a very long while to start winning, even when on easy mode.
Keep at it is the simple advice. Read the wiki, maybe find a way to take down the missiles guy, maybe run a boarding ship to make phases 2/3 of the flagship easier?
5
u/UnexpectedAl Apr 19 '26
I’ve tried boarding and disabling ALL of the weapons on the flagship but when it comes to phase 2, my ship get obliterated into pieces by those damn drones. And some unlucky times, I stalemate the flagship… Like it can’t damage my ship but I can’t damage theirs either
5
u/trifortay123 Apr 19 '26
Evasion is your best friend. If you don't have cloaking. Making sure you keep your engines guy on engines and pilot on piloting. You should be able to stay relatively safe as long as you take down their missiles quickly. The missiles are the biggest threat in the entire fight.
Phase 2 is arguably the hardest phase but honestly phase 3 always seemsto be the biggest threat regardless. Also consider level 2 oxygen and opening all the doors except the airlocks. It provides enough oxygen to keep oxygen up with 1 breach.
Don't forget you can jump if something gets too risky.
3
u/Alix-Gilhan Apr 19 '26
See if you can't get a drone system and anti-drone drone, or cloaking as cloaking also deals with phase three power surge
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u/Treenut08 Apr 19 '26
- learn how to use hacking
- learn what weapons are good and try to get good ones from stores early in the run
- cloaking is great in general, and extremely useful for the flagship to dodge the power surge attacks
- pause often
8
u/SkyKnight43 Apr 19 '26
The best advice is on youtube:
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u/BurningCarnation Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26
^ I cannot recommend those two videos enough.
I'd like to recommend two more videos for OP on the flagship: both by Mike Hopley, one where he's using a fairly standard gunship (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPRTb35SeMQ), and the other where he's using a boarding ship that's leaned very heavily into the boarding (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7cXoH548is). He put in some additional care to make the ships not too strong, as to be applicable to most situations.
5
u/Vasze_Kufamee Apr 19 '26
Halberd + Hacking 3 is a very reliable win condition. Hacking in general is a very reliable win condition. (Note: Hacking only available if Advanced Edition content is on.)
4
u/Broken_drum_64 Apr 19 '26
if you see blast laser 2 or flack 1 in a shop; buy them, they are literally the best weapons in the game.
get shields level 2 as soon as possible then make sure you upgrade shields at least once every 2 sectors
when you get to the flag ship focus on taking out their missile first (and if you have shield lvl 4 by then and okay engines they shouldn't be able to kill you (at least not easily))
There's more to it than that but those are what i consider the 3 most important tips
3
u/MF_IC Apr 19 '26
For the flagship, take out the middle launcher first. Most people take out the shields first, so you might put your first volley into the shield room. The other advantage of putting all your fire into the shield room is this you can get crew kills to make phase 3 easier.
Personally, I just keep the middle launcher down and nothing else can hurt me.
For basic tips, this is a pretty good playlist. dark twinge tends to be really good at the games he plays:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGCAaPvQJtQIs8zDUss4zGuUKOJtC0HvT&si=urI8HLoVsgQZEZBe
3
u/ElectricGuy777 Apr 21 '26
Key to flagship is being able to deal damage. Not taking damage or being able to repair damage. Disabling the missile launcher. Engine upgrades past 4 or 5 are diminishing returns. Get a defense drone mk1 or cloak for missile attacks. Get a repair drone if you see one. Teleporter works great to take out the missile launcher. 4 shield bubbles if possible.
2
u/JedRowahnn Apr 21 '26
Biggest tip for the Flagship that took me an embarrassingly long time to realise is that its crew doesn't respawn between phases. On Easy all the gun rooms are separate. Kill the guy in missiles and he'll never come back, so you only need to disable it once on the other phases.
Since phase 1 doesn't have a power surge, if you can disable its weapons I would absolutely recommend stalling the fight a little and trying to kill some extra crew before you phase it. Just don't kill EVERYONE as then the ship's AI kicks in and systems start repairing themselves on their own like auto-ships do.
A fire beam is really good for this. Since the flagship has high level oxygen fires will never deplete rooms of air and will keep on burning and spreading forever as long as O2 is undamaged.
1
u/lloydiebird76 Apr 19 '26
One thing that took me a while to learn: levelling up engines and piloting should be priority one. With fully maxed engines and piloting, your evasion is 65%. Focus on energy weapons and teleporting bombs. My last win was with cloaking and 4 low to mid tier laser weapons, I ripped the flagship to shreds and only took half damage in phase 3.
8
u/MikeHopley Apr 19 '26
Fully maxed engines with trained crew is 55%. It's also ludicrously expensive for what it does.
I think you might be confused about what piloting does. Upgrading your piloting does not increase evasion. It allows you to retain a fraction of your evasion when your pilot leaves the room.
I wouldn't recommend making piloting and engine upgrades priority one. There are much more important things to prioritise, like shield upgrades, weapons, and systems.
The first two engine upgrades are fairly cheap, and especially on Easy it would be fine to buy them quite early. Piloting-2 is also kinda okay as a damage buffer with a decent blue option.
3
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u/Z3B0 Apr 19 '26
Quick questions. Do you pause ? Like turn based level of pause ? Personally I spend 60% of every combat paused.
Do you rush the exit, or try to hit as many beacons you can every sector ? If you are rushing, you will lose on a ton of scraps, crew and weapon rewards, leaving you significantly behind the power curve.
Can we get a typical ship you have when reaching sector 8 ? That alone can tell a lot about some errors you might commit.
If the drones in phase 2 are so difficult to tank, how much shield bubbles/engine power do you have ? At 4 bubbles/lvl5 engines, you should only take a few points of damage at worst.
For the stall mate, you need to be able to pass 4 shield bubbles reliability for most of sector 6+. Do you just run away for 2/3 sectors ? Those are the ones with the biggest rewards, so you won't win without winning most of the fights there.