FTL - Faster than Light

[Grey]

I always manage to lose my scrap right before the shop which contains something important (read cloaking). This is a habit I need to purge to get better.

This is one of the issues I really like in Hard mode - the gamble between spending scrap on upgrades now vs saving for a shop is much harder. On Normal you normally get plenty of scrap to upgrade and buy what you want *and* have some left for fuel and repairs. Hard mode makes everything tighter.

The worst part is that iPad (my way of supporting free expansion) port doesn't have ships unlocked and I refuse to play on anything other than hard so I can't unlock ships as I have other priorities :/ first world problems, ugh.

Heh, I have the same issue - I want to unlock the new things but Hard mode makes the unlocks much harder! I found out my unlock of the crystal cruiser on my laptop (and many victories on it too) hasn't transferred over to my desktop Took ages to get that fecking cruiser!

[Stingray1]

They should not allow you to play with ships that you unlocked in an easier mode or earlier version. I refuse(d).

P.S. I count time after shooting to time my lasers, once you have the timing they work nicely together.

[GordonOverkill]

They should not allow you to play with ships that you unlocked in an easier mode or version. I refuse(d).

That's not really a problem. I have just deleted my old achivements and started with a completely new game, where I will not play any other difficulty but "hard". Guess that's exactly the effect that you want, isn't it?

[Stingray1]

Yes, that is exactly what I did(do).

[_Ln_]

They should not allow you to play with ships that you unlocked in an easier mode or earlier version. I refuse(d).

P.S. I count time after shooting to time my lasers, once you have the timing they work nicely together.

The issue is the size of the ships for mantis huge-ass ships that start to pop up later (4-crew med bay) the timing is different because flak travels really slow so difference in shield frames causes things to go wrong. I tried to remember the exact portion of the burst laser charge left as an indicator, but when you have to fight off boarders and your weapons are no longer manned, this also screws everything over.

The worst game was when I had BL 1, BL 2, Flak 2 and ion bomb (one of the most efficient things I can dream of) and I had to time 10s flak with slow moving projectiles, 11s BL 1 and 12s BL 2. One hell of a thing to do. I still managed to die to a boss with that rig, because of awful target room management.

2Grey:
I don't know how I am going to unlock the crystal cruiser now. So far it's like, oh the abandoned crystal ship, screw the stasis pod I need that 10 scrap badly! Hard mode ftw.

[Stingray1]

I'm surprised you don't have the crystal ship through the alternative unlock method yet. How many type A and B ships haven't you had victory with then?

[GordonOverkill]

Haha, I found out why I didn't get any new stuff! Didn't know I have to activate it x-D Tried another run and got a beating in sector 4. Holy crap, that's really hard! I think you have to consider much more closely which fights to fight and when to flee.

[KyoShinda]

----I saved up a little bit of scrap at the beginning of the game and got the backup battery which I used as an excuse to upgrade quickly. Was heavily abusing that and always taking energy out of oxygen to power 3 extra engines or an ion intruder. I guess the backup battery is also really nice if your battles are short and your next power bar upgrade is expensive.

----The ion intruder and power shield drones are iffy, I usually get them if I can't get a defense drone although I do like how the power shield drone stacks up the power shield, so if you had good dodge you could use that against someone using cloaking. The ion intruder is good if you don't have 3 enemies kicking it in the shins and it targets one of the major systems.

I always manage to lose my scrap right before the shop which contains something important (read cloaking). This is a habit I need to purge to get better.

What happens to me is, I've been starting to save for shops to buy weapons, usually go to a shop with ~80 scrap and then they only start selling drones and systems I don't need.

[GordonOverkill]

Wahuuuu, got my first victory on hard! The boss is a beast, goddamn x-D My Kestrel was down to three hull points in the end, half my rooms were burning and half my systems destroyed. The weapons of victory were two burst lasers mk.2, two chain lasers, 4 shields, 6 engines and the hacking device (which bloody rocks!). No stealth, no drones (actually got the drone device but never found a defensive drone). I had a scrap recovery arm during large parts of the game (sold it in sector 7), but that was the only augmentation that I got at all.

And this is how I finished off the boss:

Hacking tool against the cockpit, thus deactivate his whole defence and fire ten lasers into his weapons. Every second volley without hacking and with everything aimed at the missiles. Against the second phase hacking didn't work at all, but luckily I learned a little from my first run and just hit everything against his shields to finish him off as quickly as possible. Worked really well!

An amazing event that I never saw before was:

The second boss ship! Had to fight it in sector 4 or 5, which was one hell of a tough fight, too!

Funny fact by the way, I got a whole lot less points than during my first run (which I lost).

[Stingray1]

Well done Gordon.

Damn, I suck at this game. Just lost against the boss again in the Swallow(Kestrel C) this time. Flak mk1, dual laser, fire beam, small bomb, defense drone mk1, cloak, full shields and engines.
Screw fire beams, I'm selling them next time I find it. Had 3xscrap recovery from about sector 5, still didn't make me beat the boss.

Think I should try to play with hacking and/or mind control a bit haven't yet or teleporting, haven't even owned that in Advanced.