Know Your Ship: Guide to using Kestrel Class

Getting the most out of the Kestrel Class Cruisers - A.K.A. How not to die from being dull

Golden Rule - Plan for the Flagship

When it comes to planning for your upgrades and what to do with your ship – Always keep the Flagship in mind. That’s the beast you’re ultimately going to have to fight, and beat – And whilst there are many viable combinations for your craft, some are better geared for the final fight

There’s already a superb guide written by This…IS…BACON! (“The Big One: How to Fight the Rebel Flagship”) for the fight with the flagship. The only thing to point out is that, since the expansion, there 2 more nasty idiosyncrasies to beware of:

1. In the first phase, we now have the addition of a Hacking Module. This is the one to beware of. It can potentially unleash complete havoc if you’re not prepared for it. It’s not worth heading into this fight hoping that it will latch onto one of your less-important systems. Basically you either need a hacking module of your own, or a decent collection of bombs/missiles that can take it down quickly and keep it offline. Needless to say, the former tends to be more reliable – So I tend to aim for the Hacking Drone

2. In the third phase, they have a Mind Control Room. Though a pain, you can tend to wait it out, so generally won’t need specialist counters. But if you have mind control of your own, that’s perfect. Only thing to beware of is to let it inflict mind control and then teleport. Last thing you want is your boarding party blasting each other’s innards onto the Flagship with no chance to fetch them back

The only thing not mentioned in that guide: The “leave one person alive” – I personally prefer the dude in the Laser Weapons Room (2nd from the left). This lets you gut the rest of the ship of its crew – Giving you free reign in all 3 phases to knock out all of the key systems without them being repaired

[Type A] Kestrel

The Kestrel is the default starting ship for FTL, and to be frank, an excellent all-rounder. What it lacks in fancy subsystems and crew, it makes up for with a decent array of weapons. It’s got a solid layout and there’s plenty of scope to deck it out with the systems of your choice

Getting Started

3 human crew isn’t anything fancy… so it’s a good idea to keep an eye out for other members early on. You won’t get very many blue-text events otherwise, and you’ll want more of a range of skills as you progress. At least 1 Engi and 2 Boarding Crew are a good call here

The rooms are laid out well – But the front of the ship is vulnerable. The airlocks are located at the back and sides (I sound like an air stewardess here) so venting anything at the front requires you to also vent either your medbay or shields – a far from ideal scenario. Once you get more crew, stationing rock/engi in the doors/sensors rooms will give you more coverage. If you find you have to keep evacuating your pilot, blast doors and the auto-pilot upgrade might be a good investment too

A question of weaponry

By far the biggest advantage of the Kestrel is its weapons! It comes with a Burst Laser Mk II and an Artemis Missile Launcher, making for probably one of the best starting combos in the game – so much so that it’s not uncommon to still have both weapons by the time you get to the flagship. It can generally get you through the first handful of sectors alone, freeing up vital scrap to invest elsewhere

The loading times of both weapons aid greatly to the general tactic: Missile the shields first then burst laser the weapons/engines (whatever is the greater threat). That said, you need to be quite economical with your missiles (it’s very easy to go through several in one fight – especially if you go toe-to-toe against 3 shields early on), so if your shields can hack it: Stick to the burst laser alone and only pelt a missile or 2 if the enemy shields are 2 or greater, are looking to flee or have something nasty (like a missile of their own) aiming at you

It’s a good idea to keep an eye out for a weapon or 2 to break your solid dependency on the Artemis. Ion/Laser/Flak compliment very well… if you get a 2nd Burst Laser Mk II… well… you’re basically a flying machine gun of death

Blank Slate

I like the Kestrel. It lacks gaping weaknesses, so there’s little pressure in the early sectors. This lets you save up plenty of scrap for cool stuff in stores. But don’t get complacent... Whilst the ship is cool, you’ll need a good assortment of crew, weapons and other systems to really survive and have an edge in later sectors. It’s easy to lose where your ship is too “all-rounder” for its own good – And basically lacks any sort of kick

You can afford to be picky though. So don’t skimp on crap. Keep an eye out for a crew teleporter, boarding crew (Mantis and/or Rock) and a decent weapon

Whilst you’ll want to upgrade your shields and engines too… the above generally come first. Remember, the ship can get upgraded at any time – But systems and such only come from stores (though you can sometimes get really lucky and obtain crew/weapons from fights) so prioritise the above

What to aim for

- +3 Crew (x2 Boarders: Mantis / Rock)
- +1 Weapon to compliment the Burst Laser (+2 if you want to replace the Artemis)
- Crew Teleporter
- Hacking Module
- [Optional] Mind Control

Personally, where the weapons are quite decent and unlikely to require huge additional input, you might as well go all-out on boarding. You get more scrap, an advantage against the flagship and an alternative tactic against the 3-shielded gits with defence drones that you’re likely to run into



Mind Control is completely optional, so by all means, swap it if you have other preferred tactics. But remember you’ll need a counter-hacking tactic if you want to swap out the Hacking Module

If possible, aim for a Mantis Crew unless you get your grubby mitts on reconstructive teleport. The only reason I say this is that the medbay is a looooong walk from the teleporter room, and it can be quite dull watching rockmen shuffle around your ship between fights. But if you can only get rocks, it’s still workable… just have a something like a Rubix cube you can solve in the time…

[Type B] Red-Tail

Another excellent all-rounder. Whilst its weapons aren’t flashy, they do the job and you start with a cool assortment of 4 crew

Basic Lasers? Pfft…

It’s easy to be fooled into thinking that the Red-Tail is flimsy compared to its brother. After all, the Kestrel can match 3 of its weapons with just 1… and for less power. Plus you don’t have missiles. But looks are deceiving: The Red-Tail’s weapons are an excellent starting point that can shred early ships. The trick lies in firing all 4 at the same time



‘Autofire’ is a brilliant aid to use with this ship. Micromanaging 4 guns is a pain – But with it enabled, just aim all 4 and simply re-direct them as and when you need to. Providing they’re kept powered, they’ll always fire as 1

The cool advantage with 4 weapons is that you can target 4 places. Unless you need to crack a specific system (like shields if they have 2 or more, weapons if they have missiles or engines if they try to flee) strafe the shots about and damage everything – It’ll make it harder for the enemy crew to repair (don’t you just hate focussing everything on one system only to have the enemy repair it in the face of your volleys of gunfire?)

The inevitable weapons upgrade

Much as the quad-laser can be entertaining… you’ll need to upgrade them at some point

Luckily it’s easier to swap in/out weapons. If you stumble upon say, flak or a Burst Laser Mk II – You can pull out 2 of the basic lasers and practically install your new weapon for free. This is useful early on when scrap is scarce

Crew - Now we’re talking!

Check out the crew! Not only do you get 4 this time, 1 is a Zoltan and 1 is a Mantis. Immediately you can have the 4 main bases covered (That’s pilot, shields, weapons, engines) and half of a boarding crew right off the bat.

The rooms are laid out well too, with plenty of airlocks if you need to vent the place. The pilot’s seat is a little isolated and is a bit of a walk from the medbay, but a room of blast doors can help you guard it against fire/boarders

What to aim for

- +2 Crew (x1 Boarder: Mantis / Rock)
- All Basic Lasers replaced by stronger weapons
- Crew Teleporter
- Hacking Module
- [Optional] Mind Control

Whatever worked for the Kestrel, you can use here. The only real difference is that you might spend a little more in weapons, but less on getting cool crew

Considering you start with a mantis, and the Crew Teleporter sits very close to the medbay, this ship is just begging for a boarding crew!

[Type C] Swallow

The Swallow (lol) is perhaps the trickiest of the Kestrel Cruisers to use. The ship is ok, but the weapons are pretty crummy, so you’ll need to put scrap to one side early on in order to get something decent installed

Getting Started

We’re back to 3 crew again – But this time 1 is a Lainus. It’s a quirky addition, but unless you can get a 2nd one, isn’t ideal for boarding. However, it makes for a very good pilot. Where it drains the oxygen from the room, it’ll help cover you against boarding crews and fires (a real threat at the front of the ship where the airlocks are over 6 rooms away) – Better still, crack open the doors and that’s your sensors and blast door room also vented

The layout is pretty shoddy though, with the front of the ship practically begging ‘set me on fire!’ - You also really want one of your crew to take a blowtorch and make a doorway between the weapons and shields room. As such, Engi/Mantis are a good call here for running about reacting to boarders/repairs

Pea-shooter

The weapons are quirky and cheap. You get a dual laser and an ion stunner. Whilst not amazing, they only use 1 power each so no harm to keep hold of. Obviously your first fights rely on you ioning the shields and pelting the ship with lasers. Be aware, both have the same recharge – but the ion travels slower, meaning that it will hit last if both fire simultaneously (not what you want). So it’s a good idea to flick on ‘Autofire’ and, at the start of the fight, power down the dual lasers for a second or 2. If you time it right, you’ll sync them into a setup where the ion stunner will hit the shields in time for the dual laser to do something useful



Needless to say, your primary goal is to find more weapons that can actually trash a ship. Just be aware with the ion stunner that, if you have boarders, they will get stunned too – So avoid fights in the shield room: If your ion hits a shield (even if you aimed it at another room) it will stun everyone there

Where’s mah Medbay!?

Unlike the other ships – The Type C variant comes with a Clone Bay installed instead of a Medbay. Whilst it doesn’t heal your crew (albeit a small amount passively each time you jump) – It will automatically revive any that die. This is immediately reassuring, as you can be more adventurous with text-events. If one of your guys cop it to giant spiders… big deal, create another one!

A key thing to note if you’ve never used them before: It must be powered in order to revive. If not powered or offline, any dead crew will start dying – And you really don’t have long to get it back online (5 seconds maybe?) – So if a shot knocks it offline, make sure it’s repaired before you actually need it. This is mitigated, however, if you get a DNA Back-up Augmentation. Very, very useful if you want to keep the Clone bay

The other thing to beware of is that each time a crew dies - they will lose a small bit of exp they might picked up. This can make it hard to keep a well-trained team – But, of course, losing talented crew to a stupid mistake (which I still find grudgingly common) is now countered

If you don’t like it, don’t worry. You can buy a Medbay at a store (50 scrap) and it will replace it. There’s no right or wrong choice here: Play it entirely on your style

What to aim for

- +3 Crew (x2 Boarders: Mantis / Rock or x1 Lainus)
- Decent Laser/Flak Weaponry
- Crew Teleporter
- Hacking Module
- [Optional] Mind Control

The Swallow is a bit harder to start out, so you’ll want to hold out some scrap to start bringing in better weaponry early (as you’ll notice the weakness sooner). Once you have more of a bite, from either cool weapons or a Crew Teleporter – You can relax and get back to investing in your shields and engines

By and large, the same tactics for the Kestrel will work well here. The catch is that you’ll be spending more on weapons, so other systems might be compromised in the process. So skip the 3rd system if needs be and just go for the Crew Teleporter and Hacking Drone – It’s not worth compromising your shields, engines or weapons for

Thoughts and Suggestions

Anything I've missed?

Anything you'd like more detail or explanations on?

Disagree with any of the above and want to challenge me to a duel with Super Soakers whilst dressed as Slugs?

Give me a shout! There's plenty more to come, so any changes and suggestions are welcome. The awesome ones shall be implemented and full credit will be given to the delightful owner

Happy gaming!

Links to the other Class Guides

Hungry for more? Fear not - The other ship classes are catered for! Just follow the links below:

- Engi Class
- Federation Class
- Zoltan Class
- Mantis Class
- Slug Class
- Rock Class
- Stealth Class
- Lanius Class
- Crystal Class

[TheGandalf]

I'm maybe thinking that this guy enjoys boarding the enemy ship as a strategy.

[ReadyandRaiding]

I'm starting to think this guy might like boarding parties

[twitch.tv/lordopies]

Lol no worries thanks for looking, i did as well but wasn't sure if you had it liked or favorited, and ill look into to it love your guides thanks man!

[Happiness Officer]

Damn... It's either gone or changed name (both title and author).

If it helps, I cover the flagship specifically in the 'Crystal Class' guide (linked at the bottom of this one). But dang, it seems I'll need to re-arrange that first bit. Thanks for the heads-up, LordOPies!

[Happiness Officer]

That's a great question actually. I recall looking for it some time ago to actually link it in the article, but weirdly couldn't find it. Let me give it another try!

[twitch.tv/lordopies]

dont know if youll answer but if you do can you link the guide you mention on the plan for flagship, would like to give it a read

[Happiness Officer]

Thank you so much Iluszachane - I really appreciate it and glad you found it useful. Hope you managed to slam those last handful of achievements (speaking of which, I should really snag those myself...)

Thank you for swinging by!

[Iluszachane]

These guides are seriously fantastic dude, great job. You managed to squeeze in a ton of high-quality nuances and important points while still effectively covering the basics of the game. Anyone who either wants to get into this game for the first time, or who has been playing it for years and came back to nail some of the achievements (i.e. myself) is going to be able to make great use of these. I've wanted to make guides for this game for a while now, and you kind of convinced me I didn't need to!

[R4-D10]

hey i was wondering, do you have any guides on unlocking the variants? i have only one achievement for it so far (the "though little ship" achievement) so i was wondering if you could add a bit about achievements in this guide

[B52 stealth bomber]

Why target the engines? targetting the piloting does the same thing (destroying evasion) but faster.