The Trials and Tribulations of Daddy Ship, an FTL Review
In the PC game, FTL, you’re on the run from the Rebel Fleet (bad guys), crossing the galaxy, interacting with pirates and civilians, being tracked and attacked by rebel ships, upgrading and customizing your ship, and doing what you can to not die — just so you know, you’re going to die repeatedly. Might as well accept that now. The challenge: you’ve got a lot of universe to cross and you’re on a time crunch. Move too slowly, and the Rebels will catch up with you and blast your crew into tiny little space chunks.
This is the star log of Daddy Ship, a name given by our test subject, Jason Bellaconis, for our particular adventure on FTL. Mothership was blown up, as well as Motherships II through VII. So we went on to Daddy Ship because the roman numerals were starting to get a little ridiculous. He also chose the Voltan Cruiser (from amongst a plethora of options) for this run because…reasons. The following adventure is Jason’s story:
So we start flying through space, and the first Warp Beacon we go to hits us with our first mission.
I agree to help because I am a kind and noble soul, and they give us a quest marker on the other side of this star map.
We turn the Daddy Ship that direction, and along the way are intercepted by an unmanned Rebel scout ship. Thankfully they have no shields, but they can still do some damage if you aren’t careful. Damage is cumulative — you have to find a shop to repair your hull, and sometimes you can go a long time between shops. We blow the automated Rebel drone to bits with our Halberd Beam, which is a pretty good beam. Die Rebel Scum! You’ll find that that is really fun to say. Go on, try saying it without a little bit of satisfaction flowing through you. You CAN’T.
Here’s the run down on the weapons. You have your beams, which slice across ships and rooms, doing more damage the more rooms they cut through. There are a variety of beams, some make huge shallow slices, other make deeper but shorter cuts. Shields are the hard counter to beams though, so if you want to use them against a shielded ship, you’ve got to take out their shields first.
How to take out the shields? Well, you can use lasers to pound your way through (lasers being the good all-round weapon), or you can use missiles to target their shield systems (missiles bypass shields completely), and then use your beams to cut them up while they scramble to repair their shields. But missiles are slow to fire and can be shot down with defensive drones, and then you’re faced with the risk of running out of said missiles before you can stop somewhere to replace them.
If you’re fighting a guy with good defensive drones maybe you want some ion weapons. These do no hull damage, but they DO interfere temporarily with systems. If he’s got some crazy weapon or shield or teleport pads you want disabled, ION HIM (in the appropriate system). You can also skip primary weapons altogether and just build a drone army, or boarding parties, or any kind of thing you want – lots of choices here. THIS guy is going weapons though — beams and missiles and maybe an ion weapon if I can find a good one. Fingers crossed.
Oh right! We’re also in a meteor field! Sounds fun…only it’s not. We have a hull breach!
Send in your guys, repair the breach, and hope they don’t suffocate in the now oxygen-free environs of your ship. See the pink rooms? That means they’re having an oxygen deficiency. When they’re pink and red striped, they have NO oxygen. Take a gander at my ship when its oxygen system is taken out — it’s bad. Really bad.
Youv’e got to send some guys into the zero-oxygen rooms to get to the broken oxygen system, and repair it. Hold your breath fellas….
*Lets tension build*
…..
And release! They lived, and we go on to explore a nubula! And what’s this?
We follow! And lose them in the clouds. Speaking of Nubula clouds, how’s this place look?
A little foggy? Nubula can be scary places. Sensors don’t work here, so we have no idea what’s happening around us, and occasionally there are storms here that wreak havok with our ship’s reactor, sucking away precious power we could use for shields or engines or weapons. Which is bad. As we bumble our way through the clouds, look who we bump into! A Mantis Interceptor!
The Mantis are an aggressive species that excel in boarding tactics – they tend to teleport aboard and cut your crew into tiny little bite-sized pieces. They also do a great deal more damage and move a lot faster than any other race. Normally I would engage them, but with my three puny little Voltan crew (who can power systems just by being in a room! Which is awesome! But who are terribad at combat, which is…terri…bad…), I will happily not engage. And Sweet Glory of Glories, a shop has appeared at the next beacon and we have scrap to spend!
I’m going to sell my little Leto Missile Launcher and buy the Flak Cannon Mark II. The Leto shoots a single low-yield missile which is ok, but the Flak Cannon is pretty badass. Sprays a giant cloud of jagged metal at an enemy ship ripping shields and doing hefty hull damage. Think of it like the Spaceship Shotgun. And lookie here.
Free stuff is great — go to some coordinates given to me by some lovely civilians I saved from some pirates in the last sector, and get a free attack drone and a nice haul of scrap. More battles, more struggle, more upgrades, more power! And then an interesting fight happens.
An enemy pirate that lured me in with a fake distress beacon wants to surrender…they’ll pay me to not blow them up. What would YOU do? Let them pay you off so they can live to prey on further space travelers? Or blow them up and collect scrap from the wreckage of their ship? Well, I did what I did and you’ll have to pay me to know the truth. But look, more pirates!
The blue option tends to be the better one on most occasions, and it’s available to me because I have a beam weapon installed and powered. I cut these pirates out, and they reward me with a hefty chunk of scrap that I use to upgrade my ship a little – MORE POWER!
And onward through the sector!
Now I dont’ want to spoil anything for you guys, so I’ll try and wrap this up here. I continued onwards through the sector, eventually reaching The Last Stand (que dramatic music).
At this point, my ship has more weapons and drones, more crew, improved subsystems….and I was feeling pretty good about myself. My powerful Voltan Cruiser was a straight up killa’, yo. Word to ya mutha’ and such. (Sorry) But it wasn’t enough. The Rebel Fleet destroyed me. My door control subsystems were hacked, locking my crew into rooms that were full of fire. Ken and Mara were roasted alive. Tee Lek tried to repair a tear in the hull, but succumbed when the air ran out. Shields got taken down, then weapons, and then…..only the silence of deep space. But I did unlock a new ship on this playthrough – I’ll give it a try, see how I do.
Progress Update: I died. Again. So did Daddy Ships III through VI. But Daddy Ship VII? Oh, he was victorious! Sweet, sweet victory! Mwahahahaa, I am the Lord of All Space. Suck it, Rebel Scum!
The Author
