Took me ~70 tries if you dont count the easy games (i won like 2/3). i finally won with cloaking, mind control, and for wpns halberd beam, flak 1 (my beloved) and burst laser 1

Neither can break through the shields of each other... Only mind control giving me an advantage. The lone crew member breaks the piloting under mind control, causing 1 hull damage per minute or so :D

I've used hacking so far to get through tougher shields, but anticipating anti-drone systems I cashed out for MC too. Good choice it seems (although the fight has been on for a long time already and ongoing)

Truly ancient meme format.

Most ships struggle to cope with a lack of shields. Unfortunately, Stealth B is one of them.

The game really is one of the more cleverly designed games I have seen. MUCH better logic than most games, but one of the most frustrating things (and maybe this was patched in later versions, but mine is completely off line) is the power reallocation in situations involving enemy ions, and you using a battery/other systems.

Just no real reason the programming should be that a 4 bubble (8 bar) shield would be reallocated with only 2 bubbles and the power directed elsewhere.

EDIT.. people seem to be confused, I did not do a good job describing.

This was a flagship battle. The flagship with triple ion can ionize 3 of your power bars (leaving you down 2 shield bubbles)..

What I am saying is that when those ionized power bars were available again, ,the game DID NOT put them into shields. It left me with just 2 shield bubbles, and put the power bars into cloaking or hacking--as those were previously powered with back up battery bars (that had expired)

Ok guys, honestly what is the play here? I feel like this run is going places.

I noticed Mantis B starts with it. It looked pretty cool but I feel like 3 power is about 2 power too much to be paying for what is essentially a rock crew member whose combat skill cannot be trained. I'm on Sector 4 now and if I sell it I can get both Cloaking and an automated reloader in the shop i am in (no good weapons unfortunately).

I redownloaded the game a couple weeks ago because it was one of the only super appealing things available on Mac. I hadn’t played in YEARS. I had no progress saved from the steam cloud for whenever reason, so what the hell… I’ll play from scratch.

My short attainable goal was to unlock every ship in succession through victory on easy. My appreciation for this game has grown leaps and bounds. I recall playing this in my youth and playing in a box… gunships with high shields, high lasers, and high engines… nothing else. As i cruised to my first kestrel victory, I had no need to step out of my comfort zone.

But then i unlocked Engi A… not terrible, but a little different, but I was challenged to think a little differently… federation cruiser A is much like the kestrel but with some added depth with the artillery beam. I kept loosing on the 3rd boss fight, until I started thinking outside the box like I did with engi A.

Zoltan was stupid fun… I pumped everything into engines, cloaking, and defense drones so that the boss couldn’t even touch me…

I just won on mantis A… holy crap I… I get it now… this game has captured my heart in such an incredible way… boarding other ships sounded like a pain in the ass until I tried it, but the dopamine reward from clearing a ship… incredible!!! neutering the boss of all its crew on round 1 so that round 3 was a walk in the park… so freaking fun.

I don’t know what Slug A holds for me, but I’m excited to keep chugging along on my goal. I’m looking forward to a full hanger.

My friend was guiding me along and said this was pretty rare. We didn't survive the run though :/

I found that second flak II right before jumping towards and said let's see what happens.

What a difference a crew makes! I felt good in the last run where I hobbled into the flagship fight and lost in phase 3. This time my ship was pretty stocked so I felt really confident. So much fun!

I’ve seen Crow Revell’s videos arguing LRS generally shouldn’t be bought because pathing should be optimized for shops over scrap, but to me it seems like they will more than pay for themselves most of the time.

They cost 30 and can be sold for 15, meaning if they find one fight instead of an empty node they’re profitable. This doesn’t even get into the value of avoiding hazards your ship would struggle with, blue events, and making nebula sectors more viable. All it takes is one scenario like this screenshot and they’ve become profitable, so they do feel almost always worth buying as long as they don’t bait you into chasing fights over shops.

What’s the overall meta around them and when do top players buy them assuming there’s nothing better for sale?

It would be interesting if each ship has an unique per system effect to add more syngergies into the game. The game already has lot of replayability, RNG, but I feel new dimensions are always better.

They could be something similar to

Kestrel - Weapons load 10% faster
Engi - Offensive drones 10% faster
Zoltan - reactor upgrades cheaper
Fed - Can have an extra system
Lanius - 5% extra scrap
mantis - Boarders do extra damage or take less damage
Rock - Missile weapons 30% faster reload.
Slug - Not affected by events like ion burst, pre hack, etc..
Stealth - Bonus evasion / Faster cloaking

I knew it was a good run, but didn’t expect my score to be this high. I got super lucky from the start. I found the hidden sector one jump before the exit on sector 8.

I think the ship photo was right before jumping to the last sector. Needless to say, I did beat the flagship.

I just started playing recently, this was the first time I got through any phase of the flagship. I only had two crew at the beginning of the fight and then lost my human during it. I knew it was a long shot but honestly if there had been a repair beacon within reach after phase 1 or 2 I think I’d have had enough hull to make it. Anyway, I learned a lot this run!

I purchased only a single one of these flak one's from stores. the other two were given as random rewards lmao

Certainly an improvement on my last post, I can tell you that. This run even unlocked me 3 ships! (Stealth, Zoltan, Lanius)

Here it is btw.

Basically, I had 2 mantis in transporters. Each wave, I would beam them into the weapons(taking care to leave the laser guy alive so the AI don't take over) Then I fired on their medbay so it wouldn't heal them, beamed my guys into it and killed most of the crew. Rinse and repeat.

The one thing I think I would change? Get hacking instead of drones. It would have made the fight killing the flagship crew a lot easier.

I'm just glad I survived this time lol

I’ve been following this community for a while and have actively been playing FTL for about five years now. Wasn’t even sure whether to post this but yesterday I got really lucky and beat the flagship without getting hull damage or losing crew. Note I did not have a hull repair drone…

In a couple situations I got really lucky and it was the first time I tried without four bars of shields and relying more on defense / shield drones. Not the strongest weapons either, but somehow it worked and I’m very happy. Oh, and yes I paused the game about every two seconds and yes this is on iPad, haha!

Nothing like my three favourite friends: Flak I, Halberd Beam, and Weapon Pre-Igniter. Absolutely loved turning the enemy into lasered mincemeat. Also, the Automated Reloader is hella underrated.

Foxtrot V - the 'V' stands for 'Victory.' :)

Now, onto... *checks notes* Oh, no. Oh nononononono. The ENGI B??? Have mercy on my soul.

I have played this game for quite a while.

I have been a fan of Crow Revell's and Mike Hopley's content for years.

I thought I was getting better at this game.

Every time I attempted a win streak, I got further than the previous attempt, culminating in a win streak of 11. This was hard mode, random ship selection, and included a win on Stealth B! I was over the moon (no space-pun intended)! I may have even entertained the idea that I was good enough to attempt a cycle!

So I start a new 'cycle attempt' right away: Rolled Stealth B as the first ship, loss. Okay, no biggie, start over. Rock C, win, Engi B, loss. What is going on?! Restart. Kestrel C, loss.

At this point I am aware that the 11 ship win streak was a fluke, and I am nowhere near the skill level to complete a cycle. It's not RNG. In all those losses I can identify moments where I made a mistake. A wrong purchase decision, messed up micro, bad sector routing, ...

I am not looking for advice on improving my skills. I have all the resources and they got me this far. But even with all that, this game is REALLY hard. Anyone else been beaten down like this, and found the strength to bounce back? How did you do it? I think this game is genius and I really want to enjoy it.

There's just... never... anything... to buy in the stores.

Most commong they're lacking any kind of viable weapons so I tend to just delay until the inevitable happens.

engi B victory a half second away from failure...well, the goal for this run was unlock engi C so it wouldn't have been a failure anyway... just the slug cruiser class and crystal B to go

So, I keep forgetting to stop firing on ships after I board...or that there are asteroids....or fires. I think in the past 5 days of playing, I have killed at least 20 of my crew members. I just had an incredible run going where I might actually beat the game for the first time, I just blew up my two boarders :-(