Ah, now I see what I got wrong; I mixed the two up. Thought halberd was the 4-power one. I guess I’ve been underestimating it either way (thought it was decent but nothing special). Same with breach bombs.
Like I said in my original post, easy would just let you develop bad habits that are unproductive. On normal, you don’t have that slack, and you have to learn to make progress. I started on normal and I had no previous experience with the genre. I thought that difficulty level balanced learning game mechanics and mastering them perfectly well.
My strategy (works pretty well on normal difficulty) is to prioritize in the following order - crew/crew/crew/no seriously, crew are the most important/engines/shields/cloaking/only enough weapons to break thru the transporter-blocking enemy shields.
Basically, I value a rockman or mantis crewman over any weapon. Reason being that transporting crew don’t miss. With a full crew you can blast the shit out of anything, and if your transporters are upgraded even once, you can even bust a few systems on a drone before the lack of atmosphere chokes you. Once your crew are wreaking havoc on their ship, even the crappiest weapons can pick off their critical systems with impunity.
Thanks guys, I’ll put your advice into practice.
You’re crazy. There really aren’t “tactics that don’t really work” on Normal that work on easy; FTL is really self limiting like that. Even if you get 1 BILLLLION scrap, you can only upgrade stuff so much, and stores don’t have infinite numbers of missiles or anything for you to spend the stuff on. I learned how to play on Easy, and graduated to Normal after winning and never regretted the time spent on Easy.
Ignore this guy. Play on Easy. Learn how things work.
The two most valuable tips, IMHO are:
#1) Clump your weapons fire. Wait for all your lasers to charge, then pause, target them all, and let them all fire at once.
#1b) The only weapons you want to leave on Autofire are Ion Blasters, Ion Blast 2 (Which is AWESOME), Chain Ion after it’s run out of charges, and uh… well, the Vulcan. Otherwise, do not autofire unless it’s like, a ship that can’t possibly hurt you that you are just whittling down.
#1c) To use beams, follow the directions in 1 and 1b, but wait until the moment your opponent’s shields drop, then pause, aim your beam to hit as many rooms as possible, unpause and watch the carnage. Pike and Halberd beams are the best ones, overall, though Mini is nice for a while and Glaive can be made to work to great effect, but requires a more specific setup.
#2) Target the enemy’s weapon systems first if at all possible.
I honestly had no idea the Halberd beam could go through a level of shield. I probably would have actually won the boss fight on my last run if I knew that.
With regards to “Targeting an enemy’s weapons system” it should be borne in mind that an enemy’s primary weapon system might be drone control; Engi ships, especially, are drone-heavy, and therefore drone control should be attacked first. If you’re using a missile weapon this can be a bit frustrating if they have a defense drone.
Other than that the only tip I have is this; get the weapon preignitor if at all possible. Sell stuff to get it. It comes up rarely but is an AWESOME upgrade, and confers an enormous advantage as you not only get first shot, but your weapons are all coordinated at the same time for that critical first shot. Weapon preignition tilts every battle in your favour by a really, really big amount.
Easy mode doesn’t just give you more scrap, it also generates easier enemies. By definition easier enemies would let you survive longer with bad habits than normal mode, and increases the time it takes you to wean yourself off them. I think the whole point of roguelikes is learning by failing, and that since the game is designed and balanced for normal mode(the developers have said normal mode is how they intend the game to be played), I think the optimal learning by failing happens at normal mode. As I said, I started with normal, and found I never regretted the time spent dying. It’s ok if your method was different, but my approach is hardly ‘crazy’.
I dunno; I don’t find that hardly any ships have heavy offensive drone capability, so usually the weapon system is the weapon system. Lots of ships have a lot of drones, but usually they take the form of like, one or two offensive drones (usually at least one of which is beam), one or two defensive drones, and a bunch of onboard stuff.
I disagree with this. The weapon pre-ignitor is nice, but it’s absolutely not worth the 120 scrap in most ship configurations. If you’re running a “slew of lasers” buildout, or using an Ion Blaster 2, for example, it’s practically a waste of an aug slot. If you’re using some sort of heavy beam, or some of the heavier standard weapons (Burst Laser 3, Flak 2) then it can be worth it (Weapon Preignitor, Glaive Beam and Flak 2 would be hilarious.). But I wouldn’t put this one in a “sell stuff to buy it” status. In fact, pretty much the only aug that I think is worth really cutting into stuff to buy is the Scrap Collection arm, and even that only relatively early (Still buy it if at all possible later, but don’t sell anything important to do so.)
It depends what your weapon system is, but yeah the pre-igniter makes slow-ass murderweapons a lot more usable.
I personally swear by Burst Laser IIs and Ion Blasts (and now Flak Is) so I don’t usually go out of my way to secure it as they’re already pretty fast ; but if a couple of Burst IIIs, a Glaive beam and a Breach missile should fall into your lap for one reason or another a WPI would be a solid investment. It’s basically a second cloak as far as unloading first and seizing the initiative goes.
Well:
A) My approach clearly works, so your advice that you’re somehow crippling yourself by playing on easy is wrong.
B) You haven’t actually tried the other approach, so you don’t actually know.
Even easier opponents won’t cause any “bad habits”; They may not lead to the development of good ones, but that’s okay because it allows you to focus your learnig on the basics. Working on “good habits” for later can come…later, once you understand how the game WORKS.
Honestly, I think the fact that no one else in this thread agrees with you speaks for itself.
I would qualify this statement. Not all weapons work well with a preignitor and it’s a very rare and pricey augment. For example, some of the advanced mode weapons that build up shots as they charge will only be preignited to a single charge, rather than their full complement. Also, if you have a bunch of burst lasers that only take 9-11 seconds to charge, a preignitor is great, but it’s less critical than when you have weapons that take upwards of 12 seconds to charge. However, if you have a bunch of higher level weapons, the preignitor is utterly fantastic. It really is worth getting in nearly every scenario, but its price makes it worth considering carefully depending on your loadout and other system options (e.g. Cloak, Drone Control, etc.).
Also: Burst Laser Mk II is amazing. Buy one whenever you can. It costs two power (same as Burst Mk I), but fires three shots instead of two and charges in 11 seconds (I think). Most of the times I’ve utterly demolished the flagship where when I had two or three Burst Mk IIs.
Another thing to note is that it sometimes makes sense to buy an extra level for a system even if you can’t use it right away. Having an extra power level (even if unpowered), acts as a buffer for system damage. This is especially important for shields or weapons, as it can be catastrophic when a single point of damage knocks out a shield level or depowers a long-charge weapon.
Avoid helping people with the giant spiders, fires, or exploring asteroid fields unless you have a blue option or a Clone Bay. There’s a high chance of losing a crew member, which can bump you from “easily winning” to “dead in the water.”
Another vote for “beat it on Easy and then move on to Normal if you want.” There really are a lot of things to learn and Easy does a fine job teaching them. Especially taking on the flagship, which is so unlike the rest of the game that it’s quite a shock to deal with until you figure out the best strategies.
Asteroid fields don’t seem to kill my guys, but giant spiders is a near-guaranteed “lose a guy” moment.
Also anything to do with plague or sickness. Stay away without a blue option.
I’ve lost too many crew in the “explore the asteroid field” events to do it without a Clone Bay or a blue option. Heck, even looking into the Eye can cost you a crew member (not sure if Clone Bay protects in that case), but I often do it anyway since the effect is fairly rare.
Yeah, the plague or sickness events are another reason to upgrade your Medbay to level 2 ASAP (automatic blue option for several events that yield scrap, items, or crew). Another thing to note is that there’s an “explore the abandoned ship or space station” event that frequently results in a crew member getting sick and dying (and Clone Bay does NOT protect against diseased crew).
Is the Scrap Collection Arm really that great? I thought it was only good if you got it early on (by Sector 2), to maximize the benefit. Sure, there are some blue options it unlocks, but you have to earn 500 scrap for it to pay for itself, which usually takes two or three sectors to do on Normal.
You’re making poor arguments now. Everything you say is just as valid for me to say. You haven’t tried the ‘other approach’ either, and my approach also clearly works, since I’ve done it, as I’m sure thousands of others have. And so you don’t know that you’re NOT crippling yourself by playing on easy, since you don’t have the counterfactual. I also don’t agree that ‘Learning the basics’ will take multiple playthroughs on easy to accomplish. Someone who has made it to the rebel flagship has learnt the basics already.
The method I suggest is counterintuitive, so I’m not surprised no one is agreeing with me. But given the genre and the game balancing, I contend that my advice is perfectly valid.
I pretty much always try to disable missile systems first. If I’m facing the flagship, I send my boarding crew to attack the missile room first (third weapon room from the left.)
Dude, who the hell are you to tell me if I like a game? I’ve been playing this lovely, awful, brilliant, frustrating, repetitive, fantastic game for a year - mostly on easy.
Er, I’m saying if you don’t enjoy the process of learning through dying, the game is not for you. Your post indicates that you would be in complete agreement with that sentiment. ETA: In other words, I’m not saying you shouldn’t play on easy, or if you play on easy you don’t enjoy the game, or something like that. I’m saying that switching to normal mode is a good way to get better at the game. And the earlier you do it, the better.
I didn’t enjoy the process of learning through dying. I enjoyed guessing correctly the first time and crushing all before me with ease. The parts where I died were the parts I didn’t like.
Ok, then(I amend my statement to) playing on normal is not for you 
I still die early quite regularly, especially with the shitty starting ships.