Do encounters play out the same every time?

[Mountain Man]

Just curious if there is any random variation in the outcome of various encounters. For instance, you come across a damaged space station, but when you try and rescue survivors, the station explodes, damages your ship, and kills everybody on the station. Does this happen every single time, or is there a random chance that the outcome is more favorable? Or is it dependent on you having certain equipment?

[{FKB} Kame]

If you don't have any blue options then the outcome is random, usually out of good, neutral, and bad outcomes.

If you have a blue option (based on equipment/crew) then you're USUALLY guaranteed a good outcome.

[Pentregarth]

Depends on the encounter, really...in some, the result is always random (the monolith or giant alien spiders, for example), some others are always negative unless you have certain equipment /crew (the one with pirates stuck in an asteroid belt, for example).

If you're into metagaming, the FTL wiki has some pretty extensive info about all of the encounters ;-)

[Mazey]

Originally posted by Pentregarth:

some others are always negative unless you have certain equipment /crew (the one with pirates stuck in an asteroid belt, for example).

That's not always negative without a blue option.

[Mountain Man]

Good to know. Thanks for the feedback. I was hoping it wasn't a case that you could memorize the outcome of every encounter.

What would be awesome is there was a mission editor to infinitely expand the game.

[Pentregarth]

Originally posted by Mazey:

Originally posted by Pentregarth:

some others are always negative unless you have certain equipment /crew (the one with pirates stuck in an asteroid belt, for example).

That's not always negative without a blue option.

Really? Without a beam weapon all I ever got was that their ship explodes while I try to get them out, giving me some scrap and damage...

[Mazey]

Originally posted by Pentregarth:

Originally posted by Mazey:

Originally posted by Pentregarth:

some others are always negative unless you have certain equipment /crew (the one with pirates stuck in an asteroid belt, for example).

That's not always negative without a blue option.

Really? Without a beam weapon all I ever got was that their ship explodes while I try to get them out, giving me some scrap and damage...

That is the most likely, but sometimes you free them with the weapon blast and they reward you and you take no damage.

[A Tabby, A Cat]

Random, unless you get blue optionis

[Michael]

Every choice has set of results which are chosen randomly. Blue options might be the same, but the good result is heavily favored

[Mawkish]

Originally posted by Pentregarth:

Originally posted by Mazey:

Originally posted by Pentregarth:

some others are always negative unless you have certain equipment /crew (the one with pirates stuck in an asteroid belt, for example).

That's not always negative without a blue option.

Really? Without a beam weapon all I ever got was that their ship explodes while I try to get them out, giving me some scrap and damage...

If you have a teleporter, you can beam them onto the ship. They wont be as happy since they don't have a ship anymore, but will sometimes have the captain join your crew.