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Momplestiltskin
Jan 15, 2014

Got any extra firstborns?
Boss Fight Mode Engage: Test Your Might

Episode Six is now live.

"With a Mind Control Cherry on Top" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNhkAn2GYfg

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PotatoManJack
Nov 9, 2009

Momplestiltskin posted:

Boss Fight Mode Engage: Test Your Might

Episode Six is now live.

"With a Mind Control Cherry on Top" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNhkAn2GYfg

Yeah, I tested out Mind Control last night in my run, and found it to be excellent. You can usually end up taking out at least a crew member with it, and generally can delay / hinder their ability to repair systems efficiently. It also means you can negate enemy mind control or make boarding attempts much less threatening.

Overall, I really like it as an added tool.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012
I never knew the boss ran away like that.

What a dick move.

Bip Roberts
Mar 29, 2005
I like using mind control on the pilot right before I launch a laser salvo to remove the evasion bonus.

Veloxyll
May 3, 2011

Fuck you say?!

He took my Teleporter when I defeated it last night.

It was kind of brutal.

Yapping Eevee
Nov 12, 2011

STAND TOGETHER.
FIGHT WITH HONOR.
RESTORE BALANCE.

Eevees play for free.
Running away? Come back here, you coward! I want to hit you with more lasers! :black101:

Mind Control is a glorious thing, and something I very much approve of.

JT Jag
Aug 30, 2009

#1 Jaguars Sunk Cost Fallacy-Haver
Having a teleporter and mind control on the same ship is actually sickening. You can empty an entire enemy ship in 10 seconds flat if you do it right. I had a runthrough with the Mantis B ship where I got both of them that I probably could have beaten the boss with if I weren't so bad at this game on anything but Easy.

Veloxyll
May 3, 2011

Fuck you say?!

Even without being in a Mantis ship, it's great. MC some chump, beam in your murderteam. Profit.

ie the opposite of drones early on when you're in the stealth ship.

My poor beautiful stealth ship.

First Tube
Apr 25, 2010

From this day on I'd have to fight these forces of darkness and deal with the burden of day to day admin.

Dusseldorf posted:

I like using mind control on the pilot right before I launch a laser salvo to remove the evasion bonus.

I haven't played advanced edition yet, but this seems like the best use of mind control.

Momplestiltskin
Jan 15, 2014

Got any extra firstborns?

First Tube posted:

I haven't played advanced edition yet, but this seems like the best use of mind control.

It's a really good use. I want to experiment more. I think for most ships this is true, but later in the game, and especially the boss, they still have decent dodge without a pilot. Still, very effective way to use it.

generally I prefer
Apr 17, 2006

I've put about 20-some odd hours into the game and I've never beaten the boss (not even on Easy), so I look forward to how you get through the rest of the battle. I think perhaps trying to get more loot in the last sector might be something I should do more often?

Sloober
Apr 1, 2011

Guitar_Hero posted:

I've put about 20-some odd hours into the game and I've never beaten the boss (not even on Easy), so I look forward to how you get through the rest of the battle. I think perhaps trying to get more loot in the last sector might be something I should do more often?

You should by optimizing the number of nodes you explore as much as possible, since the more you look around the better odds of finding good stuff and scrap.

My biggest newbie mistake on getting the game was not upgrading engines. That evasion is a lifesaver for the flagship.

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
While I don't have any experience with the advanced edition, what most people do wrong in FTL basically falls into two categories: they go through the systems way too fast and they don't use the more advanced abilities on the ships. You won't beat the boss with lasers and missiles; you need to utilize stuff like boarding, shutting down subsystems or just focusing your weapons on killing the crew.
Cloaking is really the best way to deal with the rebel flagship, just not having it reduces your chances severely.

generally I prefer
Apr 17, 2006

I've never used cloaking a ton, though I gave it a try after Momple mentioned it was useful early in one of the videos, and got a lot further with the boss than I had previously. My main problem is always the third stage, but I won't go into details as we haven't got there yet.

Sloober
Apr 1, 2011
You don't really need cloaking, it can help but around 90% of my flagship kills have been without it.

There are enough tools and choices to make that you can mitigate most of the things that cause trouble, and honestly evasion is one huge thing you want a lot of since it drastically reduces the danger to pretty much everything.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Sloober posted:

You should by optimizing the number of nodes you explore as much as possible, since the more you look around the better odds of finding good stuff and scrap.

My biggest newbie mistake on getting the game was not upgrading engines. That evasion is a lifesaver for the flagship.

That becomes an issue if you start running low on fuel though. I sometimes get really unlucky and get no fuel from a bunch of fights and end up stranded.

Momplestiltskin
Jan 15, 2014

Got any extra firstborns?

ViggyNash posted:

That becomes an issue if you start running low on fuel though. I sometimes get really unlucky and get no fuel from a bunch of fights and end up stranded.

It certainly happens, but that can happen even if you jump to the next sector too. This is one of the many reasons I prefer to get a teleporter and just take out crew every time. You will often get huge amounts of fuel from boarding. I completed a test run on our Lanius ship last night where I managed to get a teleporter in sector 1, and I never once purchased fuel, ended the game with about 36 fuel. Of course, sometimes even with boarding you are still unlucky. It's not the end of the world to run out, but it's often very very bad.

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Momplestiltskin posted:

It certainly happens, but that can happen even if you jump to the next sector too. This is one of the many reasons I prefer to get a teleporter and just take out crew every time. You will often get huge amounts of fuel from boarding. I completed a test run on our Lanius ship last night where I managed to get a teleporter in sector 1, and I never once purchased fuel, ended the game with about 36 fuel. Of course, sometimes even with boarding you are still unlucky. It's not the end of the world to run out, but it's often very very bad.
The teleporter with the Lanius is ridiculous. You fire off the hacking drone to the area you want to attack and then teleport the crew. The hacking drone delays the crew to the point where by the time they get in your Lanius have sucked the air dry of air.

Momplestiltskin posted:

It's a really good use. I want to experiment more. I think for most ships this is true, but later in the game, and especially the boss, they still have decent dodge without a pilot. Still, very effective way to use it.
I want to try this out sometime because it sounds ridiculous but apparently you can teleport mind controlled enemies off their ship and if they don't have a teleporter they are stuck there.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Apr 10, 2014

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012


The safest galaxy in existence. I can't decide between the Engi sector or the Engi sector.

Sloober
Apr 1, 2011

Momplestiltskin posted:

It certainly happens, but that can happen even if you jump to the next sector too. This is one of the many reasons I prefer to get a teleporter and just take out crew every time. You will often get huge amounts of fuel from boarding. I completed a test run on our Lanius ship last night where I managed to get a teleporter in sector 1, and I never once purchased fuel, ended the game with about 36 fuel. Of course, sometimes even with boarding you are still unlucky. It's not the end of the world to run out, but it's often very very bad.

Ya, if you run out of fuel it's just the RNG not being particularly friendly. The rewards far, far outweight the risks, and if you were running out of fuel exploring everything you would probably have also run out of fuel making a straight shot to the exit every sector as well.

Momplestiltskin
Jan 15, 2014

Got any extra firstborns?

ViggyNash posted:



The safest galaxy in existence. I can't decide between the Engi sector or the Engi sector.

Holy poo poo, I have over 150 hours in FTL and I've never once seen anything close to that. Not a single hostile sector. Jesus that is insane.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012
Unfortunately I was soon boarded by 4 mantis while the ship bombarded me with missiles. The map lied.

e:VV What game is that?

ViggyNash fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Apr 10, 2014

Momplestiltskin
Jan 15, 2014

Got any extra firstborns?

ViggyNash posted:

Unfortunately I was soon boarded by 4 mantis while the ship bombarded me with missiles. The map lied.

The FTL Gods were not smiling upon you.

Xom thinks this is hilarious!


e: The above game is Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. Xom is the God of Chaos. If you worship him, he usually thinks it's hilarious when you die, and he's often the reason you die.

Momplestiltskin fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Apr 10, 2014

PotatoManJack
Nov 9, 2009

Momplestiltskin posted:

The FTL Gods were not smiling upon you.

Xom thinks this is hilarious!


e: The above game is Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. Xom is the God of Chaos. If you worship him, he usually thinks it's hilarious when you die, and he's often the reason you die.

Not to get too far off track, but as an example, Xom will sometimes make the weapon you are using come to life and attack you because it's funny.

On the flip side, he'll reward you with amazing stuff if you do something like blindly chugging a potion of mutation because to him, that's really funny, and he likes laughing.

Momplestiltskin
Jan 15, 2014

Got any extra firstborns?
Episode Seven "Automated for Your Pleasure" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e4Get1Eluk is now live!

Renegret
May 26, 2007

THANK YOU FOR CALLING HELP DOG, INC.

YOUR POSITION IN THE QUEUE IS *pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt*


Cat Army Sworn Enemy
*sigh*

This LP got me playing again as I've never beaten it.

Had a very, very promising run and was doing well against the final boss until this happened...

(linked because it's phase 2)

http://imgur.com/YSWfW1F

One careless mistake timed with a hit on my doors, all my dudes suffocated to death in a matter of seconds.

Mr. Maxwell actually managed to survive that one, but he ended up blown up with the ship a few seconds later. What a terrible way to die, stranded in the O2 room with no way out. Honestly that little mistake isn't what killed me, I was pretty much dead before it happened. Engine room caught fire and I had nobody available to safely put it out so I decided to vent it, and shortly afterwards a separate attack put my O2 room on fire. I knew I didn't have enough Oxygen left to let the fire vent, so I opened the doors to let the air distribute and whoops forgot to close the blast doors. I'm not confident, with the state of my crew, I would've been able to get the fire out and O2 repaired before I ran out of Oxygen anyway.

Some day I'll beat this game. This is only my second time reaching the final boss and I was doing much better against him than the first time. That Flak II was perfect for getting through any shield.


e: Welp, time to watch someone who doesn't suck at this game make an embarrassment of me.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012
He jumped again? This being the first time I've seen anything past the first stage, that would have pissed me off if I found out myself.

PotatoManJack
Nov 9, 2009

ViggyNash posted:

He jumped again? This being the first time I've seen anything past the first stage, that would have pissed me off if I found out myself.

Yeah, I remember the first time I beat the first stage of the boss fight... then ran into the second phase and got super pissed. Then I beat the second stage... only to have him JUMP AGAIN and nearly punched my computer.

Still makes it all the more satisfying when you finally beat him for good.

e: I just wanted to mention something as well about the boss fight. As Momp is showing, taking out those isolated weapons rooms is really key to winning the boss fight, and especially the missile room. There are 3 ways to do this (1 new one thanks to advanced) that are really worth noting to players who have trouble with this fight

1. Boarding - sending 2 team members into the room to take out the weapon is probably the easiest way, and once the dude in there is dead, he doesn't come back.

2. Bomb / Fire Bomb - these ignore shields and while they don't damage the HP of the ship, they are amazing at taking out the system. A fire bomb which ignites one of those rooms has a very good chance of taking out the weapon and the crew member inside. Bombs are generally crappy weapons, except for this instance, and a lot of times I will keep one in storage just for the boss fight.

3. Mind Control - as you've seen in this battle, using mind control to keep a system dead is fantastic.

Once a couple of those systems go offline, the boss fight gets much more managable.

PotatoManJack fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Apr 11, 2014

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
Also, for those thinking of being clever and using boarding to kill all the crew on the flagship, be aware that it has a backup plan in case you do this. I'll let Momplestiltskin show it off if he/she wants to.

Also, this thread got me to fire up the game again and yep, it's still horrible for my blood pressure. I got about 75% of the way through the first sector and ran into an ion storm with a rebel ship armed with an attack drone and a laser. Naturally the ion storm mostly took out my shields and/or weapons while not bothering to touch the rebel's weapons or drones. I'm sure if I'd toughed it out I would have won eventually, but instead I just quit. I'll let someone else deal with playing this game, thanks.

Momplestiltskin
Jan 15, 2014

Got any extra firstborns?

Renegret posted:

*sigh*

This LP got me playing again as I've never beaten it.

Had a very, very promising run and was doing well against the final boss until this happened...

(linked because it's phase 2)

http://imgur.com/YSWfW1F

One careless mistake timed with a hit on my doors, all my dudes suffocated to death in a matter of seconds.

Mr. Maxwell actually managed to survive that one, but he ended up blown up with the ship a few seconds later. What a terrible way to die, stranded in the O2 room with no way out. Honestly that little mistake isn't what killed me, I was pretty much dead before it happened. Engine room caught fire and I had nobody available to safely put it out so I decided to vent it, and shortly afterwards a separate attack put my O2 room on fire. I knew I didn't have enough Oxygen left to let the fire vent, so I opened the doors to let the air distribute and whoops forgot to close the blast doors. I'm not confident, with the state of my crew, I would've been able to get the fire out and O2 repaired before I ran out of Oxygen anyway.

Some day I'll beat this game. This is only my second time reaching the final boss and I was doing much better against him than the first time. That Flak II was perfect for getting through any shield.


e: Welp, time to watch someone who doesn't suck at this game make an embarrassment of me.

Ouch. You are not alone in making that mistake. I have accidentally vented my entire ship more times than I'd care to admit.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

PotatoManJack posted:

Yeah, I remember the first time I beat the first stage of the boss fight... then ran into the second phase and got super pissed. Then I beat the second stage... only to have him JUMP AGAIN and nearly punched my computer.

Still makes it all the more satisfying when you finally beat him for good.

e: I just wanted to mention something as well about the boss fight. As Momp is showing, taking out those isolated weapons rooms is really key to winning the boss fight, and especially the missile room. There are 3 ways to do this (1 new one thanks to advanced) that are really worth noting to players who have trouble with this fight

1. Boarding - sending 2 team members into the room to take out the weapon is probably the easiest way, and once the dude in there is dead, he doesn't come back.

2. Bomb / Fire Bomb - these ignore shields and while they don't damage the HP of the ship, they are amazing at taking out the system. A fire bomb which ignites one of those rooms has a very good chance of taking out the weapon and the crew member inside. Bombs are generally crappy weapons, except for this instance, and a lot of times I will keep one in storage just for the boss fight.

3. Mind Control - as you've seen in this battle, using mind control to keep a system dead is fantastic.

Once a couple of those systems go offline, the boss fight gets much more managable.

I want to see how useful a maxed out hacking drone is to accomplish that. It's an (almost. if not shot down at first) guaranteed disable for 10 seconds at a time. And even if you don't use it directly on a weapon room, using it on the shields as you fire a barrage would be a great way to take a weapon down, maybe permanently.

I just realized it, but missiles in the hands of the AI is rather overpowered, especially that 3 missile launcher. They effectively get unlimited missiles, so they can fire as many as they want, but we can't since we're limited to whatever we've managed to pick up/buy along the way. That said, if someone were to stockpile missiles and hold onto a decent missile launcher but not use any until the boss fight, it would be a pretty neat way to (maybe) trivialize the boss.

First Tube
Apr 25, 2010

From this day on I'd have to fight these forces of darkness and deal with the burden of day to day admin.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I'll let Momplestiltskin show it off if he/she wants to.


Are you not watching the videos or something? :psyduck:

This LP is definitely going to make me start playing again. Can't wait to try advanced edition out this weekend.

Inadequately
Oct 9, 2012

ViggyNash posted:

I want to see how useful a maxed out hacking drone is to accomplish that. It's an (almost. if not shot down at first) guaranteed disable for 10 seconds at a time. And even if you don't use it directly on a weapon room, using it on the shields as you fire a barrage would be a great way to take a weapon down, maybe permanently.

I just realized it, but missiles in the hands of the AI is rather overpowered, especially that 3 missile launcher. They effectively get unlimited missiles, so they can fire as many as they want, but we can't since we're limited to whatever we've managed to pick up/buy along the way. That said, if someone were to stockpile missiles and hold onto a decent missile launcher but not use any until the boss fight, it would be a pretty neat way to (maybe) trivialize the boss.

Tried it once or twice with a pretty big stockpile, it's not that great. The boss has far more evasion than a huge lumbering thing like that should have, and missiles don't reload all that quickly. And of course, it's practically impossible to slip one past the drone in phase two. Boarding trivializes the fight much faster.

StarFyter
Oct 10, 2012

First Tube posted:

Are you not watching the videos or something? :psyduck:

This LP is definitely going to make me start playing again. Can't wait to try advanced edition out this weekend.

Hey now, just because her voice is very manly-sounding doesn't mean she's a man. I'm only joking of course

I'm really tempted to play the game some more as well, it's been a while since my last time.

Veloxyll
May 3, 2011

Fuck you say?!

Inadequately posted:

Tried it once or twice with a pretty big stockpile, it's not that great. The boss has far more evasion than a huge lumbering thing like that should have, and missiles don't reload all that quickly. And of course, it's practically impossible to slip one past the drone in phase two. Boarding trivializes the fight much faster.

Heavy Ion and Charged Ion are also good for the fight.

Sad that all I had otherwise was a Burst Laser II. I was at max power and was 1 power short of being able to run my pike beam.

Boarding and Cloaking are two of the best things for the boss fight though.

Though earlier that run I'd had double Pike beams. I spent every jump I had them for making Xs on enemy ships.

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."
Turns out you need you can teleport the same guy you kept on mind controlling in the boss ship out of the room if you have the teleporter.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Apr 11, 2014

Crepuscule Adepte
Feb 21, 2008

Why is my hair purple? It's from the blood of everyone that lost a bet against me.
I... suspect the reason why that guy died was because he was mind-controlled at the time, and counted as a player unit. And as we all know, player units die when they leave the same system as you.

This is actually how I managed to mess up when I finally beat it the second form of the boss: "Wait, why am I still on auto-fire? My boarders are still on there!"


I... I am not good at this game. I just managed my first win on Easy yesterday thanks to this LP.

Veloxyll
May 3, 2011

Fuck you say?!

Crepuscule Adepte posted:

I... suspect the reason why that guy died was because he was mind-controlled at the time, and counted as a player unit. And as we all know, player units die when they leave the same system as you.

This is actually how I managed to mess up when I finally beat it the second form of the boss: "Wait, why am I still on auto-fire? My boarders are still on there!"


I... I am not good at this game. I just managed my first win on Easy yesterday thanks to this LP.

Cloning helps with that! When you lose guys, even through the ship jumping out, they revive!

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

First Tube posted:

Are you not watching the videos or something? :psyduck:

Er, uh, I just wanted to leave open the possibility that they're trans? :supaburn:

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Yapping Eevee
Nov 12, 2011

STAND TOGETHER.
FIGHT WITH HONOR.
RESTORE BALANCE.

Eevees play for free.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Er, uh, I just wanted to leave open the possibility that they're trans? :supaburn:

Nice attempt at a save there, TMA. :golfclap: Maybe borrow some of Tuck's WIS boosting gear next time. :mmmhmm:

Also, that flagship is really trying hard to salvage this situation... I'm curious what the last-ditch effort will be.

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