Let's Play FTL: Faster Than Light!

The Other One! (Engi controlled)

Before I discovered the Dismiss button, I figured the only way to free up crewspace was to kill someone. So I ordered a human to an empty room and opened up the airlocks. While watching him suffocate I thought to myself, "There's got a be a better way than this".

I also vote for Slug Nebula.

This is wonderful.

You already knew the better way.

I don't see why you actually have to throw them out the airlock. You can just leave them with the freed-slave ship, or in the shop waiting for a hitch-hike home, or something like that. You're less likely to end up facing down vindictive relatives, that way, and it also increases the possibility for spin-offs when you come to sit down and make a film out of your spectacular victory (or just as spectacular defeat).

Incidentally, you've let the hull get rather damaged. Is there any reason you aren't repairing it?

Looks like the Slug Nebula has it! Though I am only going to get to it tomorrow or the next day, you can still bus in voters to rig this thing.

But that wouldn't be pointlessly cruel at all.

A good question! Some amount of hull damage is unavoidable, and normally you're going to want to stay high enough not to get wiped out by a tough fight. However, at this point the Heart of Gold has a cloaking device, free use of its defense drone, three layers of shields, and a good array of weapons - I'm not really expecting to take damage much if at all before sector 8 (I don't think we took any in the most recent sector). Some events will repair for free, including one or more we're guaranteed to get before said sector's difficulties. Which means repairing is going to just waste money we can waste on other things! If we do run into trouble, I might repair back up to this level, but things should be fairly smooth for the time being.

I always just figured you were selling the excess crew members to get low prices on the new ones, like trading in your old car.

Nope, sentients lose basically all of their resale value as soon as you take them out of the packaging.

I've got a big (big!) interview this friday, but I'll be back on this as soon as possible. Sorry!

SECTOR 6 - SLUG CONTROLLED NEBULA

Welcome back! We're closing in on the end of the line - only a few sectors left. But before we jump in to more nebula, let's take stock of the ship.



Here's what the Heart of Gold is looking like at the moment. Quite solid, though the weapons system has been lagging a bit behind. For the moment, I'll just grab the sensor upgrade for Reasons.



Here's our valiant crew. Some are well-trained, we've got a solid boarding team, some engis in case of emergency, and a zoltan for battery power. Not bad!



And here's our loadout and cargo bay. A nice array of lasers, a missile and bomb for backup, a defense drone (which we can use for free with our recovery arm), and free healing throughout the ship.

All in all, looking pretty good. We have good boarders, pretty solid weaponry, and a good defensive array - we're not taking damage from anyone with fewer than two missiles or four lasers, and probably not even then.



So let's do it to it. You should have a pretty good idea what slug nebulas are like - lots of gas, electric storms, tricky slug hackers, that sort of thing.



- Deepspace (Explore) -





You'll recall this quest is one we got by interrogating a damaged slug ship in the last sector. We passed up a cool weapon for these coordinates, so let's make sure we don't screw this up.

In particular, we don't want to go in guns blazing. They'll know this territory, so we have to be careful. Let's tail them stealthily.



Here's why we upgraded those sensors. A slug crewmember would also give us a blue option, but since I kicked ours off, we have to use sensors.







- Deepspace (Battle) -

Okay! So we have to take out this ship before they manage to escape. If we hadn't used a blue option, we'd have had to fight a different ship, with much less interesting rewards.



They're not particularly threatening. We focus fire on the piloting system to disable their FTL drive, so they can't escape. We could also target the engines, and we would do that as well if we were in for a longer battle, but generally piloting systems are at a lower level than engine systems, so that's what you go for if you're trying to knock FTL offline.

Anyway, our megamen will make short work of the crew. Slugs are as weak as humans, so stronger races will fare well - the only thing to keep in mind is that often they'll have quite a few crewmembers, so you can still be overwhelmed.



Nice! We've stolen yet another experimental cruiser. This one is pretty handy - it starts with an Anti-Bio Beam, so you can get to work on killing crew in sector 1. It also has no sensors, but compensates with slug crew. Also, you get a unique augment that repairs hull breaches automatically.

For our current run, however, we just get some scrap and an FTL Recharge Booster. That's pretty straightforward, it increases the rate at which our FTL drive charges. Probably not going to be doing a whole lot of running, so it's destined to be vendor trash.



Whoops. A bit rusty, I guess. Luckily, the game is nice enough to warn you if you try to make an FTL jump when you have crewmembers on the enemy ship.











They scurry around for a while, and try to put out their burning medical supplies, but eventually succumb.







First, let's dump this Booster.



Ooh. These are nice. A straight 10% boost to scrap is really good, and it pays for itself pretty quickly in the late game. Especially if you can sell it near the end.

I feel like grabbing this Breach Bomb. Could be handy.

Also... there's another Scrap Recovery Arm. These things stack! I believe the percentage boost in scrap gain is additive - that is, we'll be getting 120% of the usual scrap rewards. So let's pick it up! But first we need to make some extra room:



It's sad to see you go, Medi-Bot Dispersal Augmentation, but it's for the greater good.



Ooh. Looks like they've got a fire bomb - I'm definitely targeting their weapons immediately.



I'm using the cloak to delay their weapons, but I think I should have waited until the bomb was about to teleport - they won't fire it while you're cloaked, but if you cloak just as they fire, I believe you can benefit from the boosted evasion.



Anyway, they manage to get one shot off with the fire bomb, but they miss. Huzzah!



And the crew goes down before they pull off a second shot.



Notice the discrepancy between the amount of scrap it says I gained and the amount I actually gained. That's the Scrap Recovery Arms in action!



Speaking of our excess scrap, let's upgrade a little. We have some spare energy, so we'll improve engines and weapons - extra evasion is always nice, and the improved weapons system will allow us to use a bomb or missile alongside our laser array.





Plasma storms are much less troublesome if you don't have to worry about powering weapons and defenses. Which we don't, because we have solid defenses and a teleporter.



Hm.



HMM. A new rock crewmember would be nice. But who's expendable?

Unfortunately, this new addition would mean five boarders - so we're axing the weakest link there, which is Trillian. I can't suffocate her in-game, so we can just pretend.



Also, I buy the Trillian Memorial Reactor Upgrade.





We have two different blue options, each of which offers a chance to escape without a fight. So we take neither.



It might be a good idea to evade if we weren't so well-equipped, but for the Heart of Gold...











...it'd just be turning down free scrap.





These guys bring up a important point. It's wise to let your O2 regenerate completely whenever you can, especially in a slug-heavy sector, so you have more leeway when dealing with situations like this.



Luckily they can't get through our shields / drone combo, so we quickly blast their shields and medbay with missiles and lasers.

Allowing us to hunt down the crew before our oxygen runs out.

If it got really dire, there are a few other things I could have done - specifically, I'd toss people in the medbay, maybe teleport someone over to the enemy ship.



I upgrade the cloaking device. There are some situations where it's worse to have the thing on a higher power setting, but for the post part it's just an extra five seconds of invulnerability while my boarders go to town.



Hell, make it an extra ten seconds.





Do you really even have to ask?





Looking at the sector layout and the encroaching rebels, this may seem like a mistake, but in actuality it's a carefully-calculated gambit, with a pretty good reward for relatively little risk. You'll see.





MORE crew? Okay...



Ooh. Tough choice. Zoltan are especially useful when you run into the hard cap on reactor size, but everyone on the ship is either a combat powerhouse or a highly-trained specialist.





... Sorry, Ford. His training gave us slightly lower weapon charge times, but the extra bar of energy is just too useful. Hopefully Rebekah will be able to figure things out. (Again, you just have to pretend that Ford is suffocating.)











Another pushover! Free scrap and experience.



Time to max out the shields. I may need the extra layer before long.





This place is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. So, we're not going.







A slightly tougher nut to crack, but we've got our free drone online, the boarders in vacuum, and weapons hot.

This is getting a bit ridiculous. The rebels are going to find us just by the trail of corpses shoved out the airlock.



They were a human or something. It's insulting that they'd even offer to join.



So, yes, the exit beacon is going to be taken by the rebels. But since we took the long way around, we got to hit a few extra beacons, which is nice, and I think we can take the rebel ship guarding the exit. But I'm getting ahead of myself.











Now, we're about to hit what could be an actually tough fight. So let's dump some of that extra scrap into boosting our engines and weapons just a little more.



Let's do this.





O-kay. They've got two missiles, some kind of bomb, and lasers. I'm hoping that the missiles are desynchronized enough that the drone will be able to get them both, but I can't count on it. Plus, we can't do anything about the bomb except hope it misses and clean up if it doesn't. Those shields, weapons, and medbay mean I have a few different targets before this thing is over.



The plan is to weather the storm with a cloak, charge all weapons, disable shields with the missile and weapons with the ion bomb, then blast the weapons system with lasers while it's offline and defenses are down. Boarding isn't necessary, we're only getting one fuel out of this no matter what.









That worked well! With the weapons down, we can focus fire on the shield system, to improve our damage and keep them from recovering.









VICTORY!





You heard the narrator. There's one more choice left to make, one more sector of steamrolling enemy ships before the Final Sector. Which will it be: the Uncharted Nebula, full of swirling clouds and electrical storms, or the Rebel Controlled Sector, a penultimate bastion of enemy resistance?

Uncharted Nebulas are usually quite safe and very boring.

Rebel Controlled Sectors have no lack of hostile or dangerous encounters.

Clearly you must take on the Rebels ahead of schedule.

Nebulaaaaaaaaaa

I like the sound of an Uncharted Nebula. Who knows what exotic alien technologies there might be out there?

Rebel controlled sector.

We can see the rebels later, lets go visit this nebula first.

Go kick some rebel butt.

Also fix your damn hull.

Vote Count:

Uncharted Nebula: 3
Mightyblue
Teaspoon
Son of Sinistar

Rebel Controlled Sector: 3
Kalir
Gerad
Olli T

Fix the Damn Hull: 2
Olli T
ais523

n hours remain in Day 1


It's a tight race. Watch out for rebels votebombing us at the last minute.

What is with you people and hulls? I'm just neglecting basic safety precautions because of an inflated sense of my own power, nay, invincibility, what could that possibly go wrong?

nebula and hull fixing!

I vote Nebula and comeuppance.

I have to think: what would Kirk do?

Fix the hull?
Uncharted Nebula
Bed a slug girl.

Sounds like the Nebula has it. And if it's really that important to you, I'll see about grabbing a few more hp along the way. (But I will never get my comeuppance! You hear me? No comeuppance!!)

Slugs, like all non-human sentient species, do not have genders. But that won't stop a captain devoted to the Kirk Prime Directive.

I think it's time to show Johnny Reb the what-for.

Edit: noooooooooo

Man, if I've got the scrap to spare, I never leave a shop with under 50% hull.

Sorry, Johnny Neb won out over Johnny Reb. But don't think the rebels are going to get off easy.

As for all you sick hull fetishists, I'll compromise: I'll spend a few spare scrap on getting a couple of hull points back, like you want, but I'll also maintain my perfect aegis of invulnerability and take zero damage, like I want. Okay?

With that out of the way, let's continue on to:



SECTOR 7 - UNCHARTED NEBULA

- Wasteland (Explore) -

Hull aside, we're running a little low on fuel. Here's the thing with fuel - we need it to make FTL jumps between beacons. If we run out, we just sit at a beacon while the rebel fleet gets closer and closer. We can also turn on our distress beacon, which will increase the chances of someone happening by with fuel to either trade to us or fail to defend from us.

Luckily, we have a few jumps left, fuel is cheap, and we won't need much - just enough to get to the exit.





This, though? This is just a waste.



As an aside, the current plan is to head "south" and towards the exit. If we find more fuel, we can make a loop (of a size dependent on the amount of fuel we secure) north and around to the quest beacon before we leave for Sector 8. If we don't find fuel and end up in a bad situation, it'll at least minimize the amount of distance we have to hobble to escape. That's not likely though, we'll probably find a store or a ship with fuel before long.



This is another one of those situations where you can use a special advantage to take a blue option and screw yourself out of some life-saving supplies. We're going to attack, of course.



- Wasteland (Battle) -

They have a few lasers, nothing to worry about. But, they also have a drone system, which can sometimes cause trouble. We can see they have a defense drone, which isn't going to do much of anything - we weren't going to use missiles anyway. However, they could have a Boarding Drone or an Antipersonnel Drone, either of which could be trouble.

Boarding Drones fire off like missiles, breach the target ship and then start killing crew. They're about equivalent to a rock boarder, but they also create a hull breach and don't require oxygen (or feel emotions), so you might end up fighting them in a crucial system room without air. On the other hand, defense drones shoot them down, so I'll keep an eye out for a launch and otherwise won't worry about it.

Antipersonnel Drones are similar, but live on their home ship, treat the drone system room as a medbay, and attack boarders. These guys are troublesome because they're stronger than typical rebel crew and they mean I have to worry about disabling two different medbays.

Neither of these things are a huge threat, but they're something to watch out for.



Aaaaand it turns out they just had repair drones. Repair drones can also be irritating, but I've stationed some trained killers in the way - these drones can't attack and have low health, so my boarding crew will make short work of them.





A nice stockpile of fuel arrives, right on schedule.







So, here we are. The augmentations aren't anything worth looking at (I already have a drone arm, and I'm pretty sure that's my old beat-up FTL booster anyway), but there are a few other transactions I'm interested in.



I've bought out all their fuel, just to be safe. That should be plenty for this sector.

I've also, at the insistence of a few backseat captains, repaired the hull by a few points.



Oh, and one more thing. This is a tough choice, but...



... we're going to have to perform an "Inactive Blacksmith Procedure" (the origins of this term have been lost to time).











It's better this way.



Specifically, it's better because I'll have an extra bar of reactor power to work with, and Giles only needs a few dodges (15 per level!) to level up the engine skill back to Marvin's level! Capital!

Uh oh!



Check out the systems at the bottom of the screen - this is always a good first step when you get boarded in a nebula. We can see that there are intruders in the Drone and Door system rooms. If you have boarders in non-system rooms, you'll have to watch your doors instead - either opening or flashing red when hit - to see where they are.



For some reason they mostly headed for the medbay. I was happy to meet them there and enjoy free healing while we fought.







We didn't get much out of that beacon, but our away team has gained a few more xp, which is always nice.





I'd find this more believable if my crew didn't consist of an emotionless cyborg, a ruthless murderbug, three transcendent beings of energy, and three stalwart creatures made of stone.





Interesting! We have the option of using our sweet weapon system to bypass a fight.



In an atypical move, I actually accept the bribe. Perhaps I was just trying to ensure I definitely had enough fuel to screw around in this sector as long as possible.









This doesn't look like a big deal.





Here we can see that irritating evasion stat at work.



Of course, I've forgotten completely about their charging FTL drive.





Too late, I realize my mistake and start firing on the piloting system. But it's sufficiently advanced that I don't take it offline entirely, and...







BUP. Oh well, I'll be more vigilant next time.

We'll have to take a slightly shorter detour, but it shouldn't be an issue.



Can't find a single good song on the radio, even. Ensign! Bring me my copy of Strange Days!





Ugh. I shoulda upgraded my piloting ages ago. As it is, I definitely don't want to take the chance of losing a random crewmember, so I'm going to skip this obvious trap.





These guys again. Can't they take a hint?



Some combination of the disappointing beacons we've hit recently, the insultingly small "bribe", and it being clearly the better choice make me reject the offer.



Now that's a ship! A whole bunch of lasers, teleporting bombs, and probably a hold full of mantis waiting to teleport over here and make my crew's innards into outards. Good times.

(Note that this ship is pretty big and powerful for a smuggler trying to avoid notice. Generally, the more the game talks about a ship trying to avoid conflict, the more powerful it is. Especially if they say a ship isn't outfitted for combat, what they mean is it's outfitted for war.)



First things first. Let's get our systems back online from that plasma storm.



They teleport into my weapons room, so I shuffle folks around so they're attacking trained murderers instead of fragile zoltans. The zoltan doesn't really have anything else to do, though, and its attacks are as powerful as anyone else's, so it sticks around taking potshots.

My own boarders are doing all right over there, but I'll keep an eye on them - the second away team will take a while to get over there because of the current distraction.

Also, remember what I was saying about teleporting bombs earlier? You can see just below my ship that they fired as I was cloaking (or, rather, vice versa), and the teleporter was way off target. Luckily / unfortunately, this doesn't apply to crew teleporters.



Momentum's in my favor at this point. They're not going to be able to recover from that bombardment of their weapons system, and it's left me once again invincible.



Another level up! Nice.



I accidentally teleport over only Arthur as backup. Slow Rockmans can be rather a hassle at times.



But it's not important, the crew was on its last legs anyway. The scrap reward is only 2 higher than their bribe, but I also get a system repair drone! Maybe I'll keep it around, just in case.







A much more normal fight, save for the addition of an attack drone and a beam drone. These things have only weak weapons, but they can be dangerous in large groups or when paired with weaponry that can disable shields.



Also note that at this point it's a perfectly legitimate strategy to send boarders onto airless ships!

Scratch one bogey.





Time to deal with that quest.



Hm. This situation is complicated - do we side with the (untrustworthy) slug, or go for the cache ourselves?



Let's attack the pirate, but we'll keep a close eye on our temporary ally.



Ooh, two missiles. Another ship that could, hypothetically, damage me. Except that it won't, because of the cloak / drone combo, but I appreciate the effort.



They send over a boarding team - see the doors in the back of the ship? - but a little vacuum will soften them up and my backup away team can deal with it.



One of the missiles is offline. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.



I call back the boarding team to heal, and also to let me demonstrate the next part of this quest:



Yep, the lawless profiteers from a species known for its untrustworthiness and excellent backstabbing form are trying to steal our hard-earned scrap. Let's deal with them.



They give up without a fight. Okay, quest over!



Hm. The rebels are just barely going to beat us to the exit. But it's going to take them one more jump before they hit that other beacon next to it. So we might as well check it out before we head for the final sector.

No way we're letting them live.

Anyway, you know the drill:

















Their cowardly crew gives us a bit of a runaround at the end there.

Now, before we face the rebels guarding the exit beacon...





Remember this? I'll be replacing my Artemis Missile with this Heavy Laser Mark II for the time being. That brings our laser volley to six 1-damage shots and two 2-damage shots. Very good for bringing shields down and wrecking unshielded systems. Particularly when we don't have to worry about killing our own crew, like when we're battling rebel ships that have overtaken beacons.



Now let's try it out.



Those poor fools.





The heavy laser really does a number on their weapon system.



And their shield system.





And their unshielded hull.











Yes, let's move on, shall we?



This is it. Time to make your final choice:

The Last Stand