Guess Who Just Beat FTL For The First Time?

<<--Crack open the champaign.

Actually in all honesty it is my second time, first one caught on recording though, and it was after 4 absolutely awful runs prior.

It was also on easy, I didn't earn a new ship for it because it was the Red-Tail (except Kestrel Type C which looks like exotic ****), and I didn't really "borrow" the strategy from the internet despite watching a couple of videos nor did I do some obscure cheat or roundabout secret.

I literally just got efficient weapons and a good jumpstart to their use and hammered 9 points of damage into 4 points of not-shield, and just destroyed the shield room over and over with 9 points of damage every 15 seconds. Being chainlasers, after 3 volleys it was more like every 6 seconds. Just straight filling the DAMAGE bucket up as fast as possible with the fastest DPS faucet in the house.

Who else nerdgasm'd when they first beat FTL?

I beat it on normal.
Zoltan cruiser imba.

Pffft. I stopped playing it because it was too easy.

#getgud
#getonmylvl

I only beat it twice...

I have a 2% win ratio! (on Hard )
Yeah, out of 400 rounds or so, probably more. That game is kinda addictive... I still need to unlock that darn Crystal cruiser (and the slug).

Idk if you played on AE, but they made a easier roundabout way to do it in the dev release version of the game unmodified. The Type C ships they added, the Rock Cruiser is a pain in the *** to get Type B, but if you get Type B you take it to the Final Sector and it unlocks Type C, Type C includes a single crystal crewmember aboard, go to any Rock Homework with him, and he will automatically update you to the quest marker.

It basically skips steps 1 of finding the stasis pod and 2 of having the pod examined by Zolton Research Station. You just skip to 3 of finding the ancient device quest marker.

It has some good mods for it, Captain's Edition it is called. Pretty much a total lore-tact expansion for FTL, graphic expansion too, pretty immersive and junk.

Yes, I did read the grey text, but Im'a try it just because "endless" mode is like each sector can be played indefinitely, like multiple sector 1s, and costs for weapons and upgrades are 6x more, but you can choose when to advance to sector 2, so you can pick as many fights or whatever until you are satisfied with your current ship strength, before moving on and sharpening it further. Theoretically, with enough patience, you should have almost a guranteed winning ship against the flagship.

Then, there are mods for flagship randomization, where the flagship can have a random build of systems, drones, weapons, and special abilities, and you get a brief description of it's weapons and systems in your "vital message to bring to federation headquarters" that you read at game start. It isn't technically stronger, but can be much more unpredictable, and ofc in endless mode the games last long, longer than hell if you wish, and it's generally easier technically depending on how long you prepare compared to regular 8 sector run where you run out of resources and time to prepare and have to fight it with whatever ship you end up having.

Ah, I did not know that. I do have A,B,C for every ship that I've unlocked (well, the ones with a C in the first place), but I like hard, so if I am going to unlock the crystal ship, it's going to be through the quest. Oh the agony of finding the stasis pod, getting the crystal guy and then getting blown up while the next sector is rock. Argh, so close! But the harder the victory, the bigger the nerdgasm, right?

I finished that quest and have the ship

Every FTL fanatic boasts at least doing the Ancestry quest correctly once. I still haven't personally neither. I have gotten a crystal guy once. That is the crazy thing though, getting the stasis pod is fair enough, 20 percent odds, more than the odds of half of the ship unlock quests. Then, getting it to a zolton research station LATER in the game, especially originally in release edition, was 4% because you had to find a Zolton sector after pirate/rock worlds. It is now about 15% on to your 20% since you can find stasis pod in pirate/engi/rock and research station also in engi/zolton/civilian. But even after that, you have to have a Rock Homeworld LATE in the game, which is often generated in a system map 1/40 maps on top of the 4-15% odds prior. That is a lot of games of maybes.

However, besides the side-unlock by using the already provided crystal crew in Rock Type C, you can be disingenuous about it and save-load repeatedly before checking "next sector" at the end of a sector you just aquired the crystal crew at, until the game rolls you a Rock Homeworld in a red sector. Since it rolls sectors whenever it is opened to move to next sector.

Honestly, the odds are comparable to "rolling double 3's on a pair of dice, 3 times in a row", except a game of FTL lasts a lot longer than a single dice roll where you can retry if you fail. Which is why it is so ridiculous.

I think you missed the part where I said I've already played at least 400 rounds. It's probably more, but can't check right now.
And to be fair, the Zoltan research station also lives in Engi space and doesn't even need to be a home world. It's the not-dying part that I find hardest.


And @cola_colin : Casual "normal" player, pfft!

I think what keeps me from playing much more than the 50 or so hours I played is that the game feels so damn random. You can be a great shape and then suddenly you happen to run into a beacon close to a sun with a rock ship attacking you. Bam, you might survive but the damages are so massive you've basically no chance anymore to get through.

As my grandmother-in-law says: "Them's the breaks".

But get your engines to at least level 5 as soon as possible so you can escape those kind of situations (sometimes). When I have upgraded engines, I often just let the exit beacon get overrun so I can grab those extra beacons for some extra scrap. Not to mention all the nice missile dodging that come with engines.

And, yeah, it is random. I think you are literally beating the odds in this game. It also works the other way around though. Jumping from beacon to beacon with just 1 hull left and bam, free (or cheap) hull repair.

"oh a flag cannon thingy is floating in space, how nice"...
in that run I died to the mothership because I didn't realize in the fight vs the 2nd stage my O2 generation broke. I won vs the 2nd stage, it warped away and then I realized my crew has only a few more seconds to live...

It was actually only in zoltan worlds in release edition. Advanced Edition patch added sectors you can find the research station in. From zolton to zolton engi and civilian. You still need an early rock/pirate to get a stasis pod, and a fairly early zolton/engi sector for the research station. Then you just need one of sector 7-8 hostile red sectors to end up being rock homeworlds once you arrive.

It basically went from astronomically low odds, to really low odds. Right now, the really low odds are mediocre decently possible, so I am optimistic that you can do it

Hmm I thought it was added in the advanced edition. Took me maybe a few runs to get it. Didn't realize that is so damn rare.

It was already in there before advanced edition for sure. I remember wanting the crystal cruiser when normal was as high as the difficulty would go.

As for it being so difficult to get, it's entirely possible we are just really bad at it.

Well it's statistically rare for the "events" to end up all 3 happening together though is the point.

And I am saying, Pre-AE, it was only 2 sectors to find the Stasis Pod, and 2 sectors to find the research station in, and it was rare to find the stasis pod early in the game, and then the zolton area early in the game, although zolton areas are more common early game in the code.

Post-AE, it is 3 sectors to find the stasis pod now I believe, and 3 sectors to find the research station in as well. The main problem though, is that makes it statistically easier, but the odds of finding a rock homeworld torwards the end of the sector map is about 1 in 5 games.

So basically, you can grind for it, playing 1 sector games until you find sector maps with only red sectors in the end and beginning and only green sectors in the middle, and only play up to the 3rd sector looking for the stasis pod as any later is impractical. But pre-AE, it was impractical to get a sector map that even had the odds given the specific sectors you had to find in order.

Pirate sectors didn't always spawn in a sector map at all, especially in the first sectors, and zolton didn't always spawn at sector 2-4. Post-AE, you can find pirate or rock or mantis, and then find zolton or engi or civilian. Basically ANY red or ANY green that isn't rebel or abandoned.

Besides that, I am bad as well. I think if I had sector maps with odds of getting it when I first started playing, I likely squandered the opportunity because I went the fastest path from beginning to end, only later learning you should basically dance at the edge of the rebel's jump and zigzag because it collects more scrap let alone more unique collection events.

My issue is that the game got old fast. Roguelikes usually hold me in for quite some time, FTL didn't.

Fun while it lasted though.

Not until I get every ship, every achievement and a victory with every ship (A, B, and C) on hard.
This might take a while.

Also, I only just today became aware that this exists:

(Five of those in total now)

Fanfiction/Parody/Abridged exists for everything on the internet. Honestly, I feel that they are harder to do, but are probably a step up in the Youtube Rank. I probably can't be a successful let's player on my own. I, however, probably can make a successful Abridged series with much more hard work than a let's player, and not even profit, but get a huge subscriber base for it. Then, I can probably do some Let's Plays too, and get a lot of residual viewers.

Also, it's funny I beat FTL the day that NASA thinks it may have stumbled onto FTL travel...
http://www.epictimes.com/2015/04/nasa-may-have-accidentally-discovered-faster-than-light-travel/

Pfft, old news! This has been being researched for a least a few months now. Also, from what I've read up on it, the propulsion is so small they're worried that it isn't actually real amd is just a measurement error.