Some FTL tips

So I just beat FTL, on probably my 12th run, on Easy, using The Kestrel. I am now full of ideas on why I succeeded, and what made this run different from the previous 11 for me. There are no spoilers in this article (unless you count “enemies tend to use strategy X near the endgame” as a spoiler). Some of these tips are probably only valid when you’re flying The Kestrel (Engi, for example, is totally different strategically).

My FTL tips

Note: on 1/2/2012 I added an addendum by Jonathan Mills. Click here to skip to the addendum.

Take risks early, play conservatively later. This is probably true of all roguelikes. If there’s a possibility of a huge payoff at a high risk, go ahead and take it in Sector 1 or 2. I’m talking things like investigating seemingly abandoned stations, basically any story event where you send your crew off-ship and/or allow someone else to board. If it pays off, great. If you lose a crew member… just restart! You didn’t lose much progress. Conversely, toward the endgame you probably shouldn’t be doing risky story events (by that time, you should be upgraded enough that maybe 50% of story events give you a “blue” option anyway, so just take that). Once I’m past Sector 5, I never send my crew into story situations that I know (from past experience) have a chance of being fatal.

Get a big crew as fast as you can. If you aren’t leaving Sector 1 or 2 with four crew members, and Sector 3 with five crew members, you’re not doing well. By the time you’re on Sector 6 you ought to have at least six crew. You might ask what these crew members are good for beyond the first four, since they can’t man a station. Well:

Redundancy. If a critical crew member dies, you can replace them.

If a critical crew member dies, you can replace them. Repair. Repair is really important — if you have two extra crew members, even the worst hull breach will get fixed pretty quickly. If you have an Engi crew member, make them one of your repair floaters for even faster repair.

Repair is really important — if you have two extra crew members, even the worst hull breach will get fixed pretty quickly. If you have an Engi crew member, make them one of your repair floaters for even faster repair. Idling in non-manned system rooms. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost because the Oxygen Room was damaged, breached, and on fire — and when the O2 room is losing oxygen, it’s almost impossible to repair. By idling a crew member there, the moment the room gets hit, that crew member is working to repair it. Same goes with all the other unmanned system rooms.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost because the Oxygen Room was damaged, breached, and on fire — and when the O2 room is losing oxygen, it’s almost impossible to repair. By idling a crew member there, the moment the room gets hit, that crew member is working to repair it. Same goes with all the other unmanned system rooms. Dealing with intruders. Ideally you’ll never have to move your shields/engine/weapons/pilot when you’re boarded. Extra crew makes that a reality.

Encountering slavers? Buy a slave. I used to make the mistake of killing slavers on sight. Sometimes this results in them offering surrender, in which case they give you an extra crew member. Excellent! But other times they don’t surrender, and you blow them up and get some scrap/fuel. The thing is, especially in the early game, every crew member you can pick up is really valuable. Far more valuable than any scrap you could get. Also more valuable than the amount of scrap the slavers are willing to sell you a crew member for. Also more valuable than your petty morals. If you encounter a slaver, especially in the early game, and can afford it: buy a slave. Otherwise, attack them for a chance of them surrendering and accept the surrender in exchange for a new crew member. Blowing up the slave ship should be considered a fail state if you currently have fewer than six crew members.

Name your starting crew functionally. I always call my initial Kestrel crew Pilot, Shields, and Weapons. I find it helpful later on when I don’t have to remember who is on what station.

Linger as long as you can in early sectors. This is where the game is easiest, so take your time. Go hang out in nebulae to buy yourself time. You should be practically dawdling in Sector 1. Just gather stuff. Gather crew. Gather scrap. Gather gear.

Don’t upgrade unless you have to. If you find yourself with 80 scrap you might be tempted to immediately spend that to upgrade your ship’s systems. But if you’re currently doing okay in combat, you should hold off and continue to gather scrap until you find a store. Once you’re there, you’ll have plenty of money to spend on, say, an expensive new weapon. The worst thing is when you find a store with something cool that you can’t buy. So hoard your scrap a little if you can.

Don’t have a single combat strategy. It’s easy to get cocky early in the game. You figure out an easy way to kill any ship in Sectors 1-3. Maybe you focus your fire on the shields, and once those are fully damaged, you hit the weapons system, and they’re sitting ducks. This will not work in later sectors. You should be gathering a diverse array of weapons and drones (yes drones, on the Kestrel, they’re important). Ideally you have a “turtle” defensive configuration and an all-out attack configuration. This might involve diverting power from your O2 or Med systems once you’re safe enough to go into attack mode. That’s okay, because O2 and Med only matter when you’re under attack and doing poorly. So the first part of the battle should be focused on making sure you don’t die, and slowly chipping away at the enemy shield system. The moment their shields are red, then it’s a good idea to switch on your more powerful weapons.

Take advantage of weapon timing. Auto-fire is great, but if you have an ion cannon that takes 14 seconds to charge and a burst laser that takes 13 seconds to charge, the laser is always going to hit before the ions. I usually keep the ion cannon on autofire, and then let burst laser charge. So the ion cannon fires first, then you manually target and fire the already-charged burst laser. Tweaking things manually like this can really turn the tide of battle.

Blast doors are important in the late game. Ships will try and board you all the time. Fully upgraded blast doors mean that they teleport in… and then they’re stuck in that room for a long time. This give you time to either flush them out of oxygen, or line up a bunch of people to send in at once and mess them up good. Blast doors also contain fires. I can’t stress how useful these are in the late game.

In the final sector, don’t necessarily go straight for the Flagship. Take some time and hit up a star system. You’ll enter combat but honestly if you’re equipped properly to take on the Flagship, these ships shouldn’t be a huge problem — and when you defeat them, you usually get a bunch of supplies and sometimes hull repair. This means that when you fight the flagship you’ll have so many drone parts and missiles that you won’t even be paying attention to how many are left.

In the end, I have no idea what a good build for a Kestrel looks like. But here’s the one I beat the game with. I had maxed out my reactor.

ADDENDUM, by Jonathan Mills

My friend Jonathan Mills has provided the following update to my little strategy guide. He’s logged about 25 hours of time in FTL and has a lot of interesting things to say, so here you go: