Know Your Ship: Guide to using Crystal Class

Getting the most out of the Crystal Class Cruisers - A.K.A. How not to die from too much awesome

[Type A] Bravais

If you unlock this ship, congratulations! This is your reward for being awesome (or just exceptionally lucky) – This Behemoth will pummel most ships into space dust and laugh obnoxiously as it does so

Dere be gold in them thar people

Bonus #1 – You get to start with 2 Crystalmen on your ship (in addition to 2 humans). Think of these guys as super-humans. For a slight reduction in speed, you get increased health, increased resistance to asphyxiation and a Crystal Lockdown power, which basically freezes out the room they’re in: Not allowing anyone to enter or leave for a short duration. Very cool!

In terms of placement, you definitely want to keep one on weapons. It’s a bit tucked away from the rest of the ship, so the ability to lockdown the room from intruders whilst the rest of your crew mobilise will be valuable indeed. (Remember to only use lockdown to stop intruders getting in – If they’re in already, don’t use it. You won’t be able to flee otherwise)

Unless you wish to use them for boarding – The second makes a very good pilot. This leaves a human on the shields (which normally takes longer to level up in) and engines


Hop on board

If you manage to get an early drop on boarding, these guys can make for a curious boarding duo – But you must use them as a pair (or with a Mantis). Despite the increased health, these guys will lose a straight 1v1 fight against Rock or Mantis: So the trick is to use the Lockdown power to keep your enemies apart. Jump into a room then get one to lock it down before reinforcements arrive. This gives you a delightful 2v1 setup that will beat most foes. You’ll then want to chain the 2nd lockdown just as the first is about to wear off (and your happy enemies about to bash their way in) – This should be enough to secure a victory or a few kills

The only other option is to use 1, but team it with a Mantis. This lets you capitalise on the Mantis’ stronger attack during the single Lockdown. Teaming with anything else will still likely have you retreating if you come up against a predominantly Mantis or Rock crew

Truth be told – If possible, you’re generally better off going for a standard boarding combo (Rock/Mantis) and just using the Crystalmen for stronger defences on board your ship. But by all means, use it until you get the proper crew on board

Scratching the paint work is the least of your worries

Bonus #2 – Crystal Weapons! You’ll quickly see why these babies are awesome. They function like a Dual Laser and Heavy Laser… but bypass 1 layer of shields. In other words for the first sector or so, your enemies are basically flying naked (don’t picture it though, some things you can’t unsee). Needless to say, don’t waste a shot on shields – Just trash everything else. Aim one at the Pilot’s Seat and the other at the weapons. One volley should see the enemy ship reduced to the lethality of a woodlouse

2 shields (even 3 at a stretch) aren’t a huge issue either. The trick is to fire the Crystal Burst (the two-shot one) first, and then follow with the Heavy Crystal. You’ll want the weaker crystal being used on the shields – So the heavy one can put a great big dent into whatever it touches

Seriously, weapons are unlikely to be an issue until mid-game. So be picky about any new ones!

The only thing to beware of is that Crystal fragments count as missiles when it comes to Defence Drones – So they’ll get shot down. As such, fire the Crystal Burst first again – So the weaker shard takes the hit

Sleeping Giant Snail

The big downside with the Bravais, however, is the slow charge-up of its weapons. They take 13-15 seconds to charge, so the enemy will always get the first shot. Your biggest threat with this ship is to get taken down by pure attrition. Most ships on their own will unlikely be a threat… but their damage will stack up. All you need is a chain of several fights with no chance to repair between them, and you’re in trouble. So don’t get cocky – Keep a close eye on your hull

As such, use the scrap saved from weapons to invest heavily in your shields and engines early on. You also might want to consider getting a Drone Room (+Defence Drone when it’s included free at stores) to keep missiles off your back. You’ll be a magnet for a lot of shots, so you’ll need to be able to take them

I shall swear vengeance!

This ship has one last trick up its sleeve: The Crystal Vengeance add-on. Basically when your hull takes a hit, there’s a 10% chance that a fragment will fly off (acting as a 1-damage Crystal shot) and aim for the enemy ship

Truth be told, this is more of a gimmick than anything useful. 10% is very rare, and you’ll need too much damage going into your hull to really be able to rely on it. It’ll be rare in later fights to have it do anything useful too, as it’ll be very unlikely to get past the shields. Worst, you don’t really want random shards flying at the enemy ship if you have boarders trashing it! The good news is that it sells for a nice 40 scrap – So ditch it if you get boarding or see something shiny

What to Aim for

- +2 Crew (x1-2 Boarders / x1 Engi)
- +1-2 Additional Weapons
- Crew Teleporter
- Hacking Module
- [Optional] Drone Control / Cloaking

With weapons dealt with for the first bulk of the game, you have plenty of freedom to buy cool stuff and bolster your defences early on (saving on repairs in the long run). Boarding is, as always, a very good call here – Particularly as the Crystal Weapons are good for picking off Med/Clone Bays

This ship kicks butt – Enjoy it!

[Type B] Carnelian

Whilst it comes with a few more weaknesses than the Bravais (well, ships it can’t even take on) this beast has the potential to be diabolically powerful. It’s all-out boarding here – Take ‘em down!

Stomp Stomp

Where the Bravais pounded enemy ships into dust with its superior weaponry, the Carnelian involves hopping on board and pounding the enemy themselves into dust. Not as explosive, but just as satisfying

This time you get a crack team of 3 Crystalmen. They’re near impossible to replace, so take good care of them! Luckily the MedBay is right next to the teleporter, which… I don’t know if you’ve noticed, is a 4-person porta!

Yes, you are certainly free to send all 3 Crystalmen in, and are actively encouraged to do so in many cases

Lockdown Magic

Your Crystalmen are tough, but not tough enough to take on Mantis/Rock in a fair 1-on-1 – So the trick is to never fight fair! The secret to success with this ship lies in the careful use of the Crystal Lockdown power. If you recall, it will block everyone from entering/leaving for its duration

On its own, the lockdown will stop enemy reinforcements breaking in for a while… but if you can chain another as the previous one wears off – You can largely cut off a room long enough to shred anyone and any system inside it. The correct moment to trigger the next Lockdown is when the first looks like tiny, round pebbles (see screenshot)

Always trigger it in good time. It doesn’t block the room instantly and takes like half a second to seal it off (enough for an enemy to run in if you left it too late)

When you jump into the likes of Shields or Weapons, your team will easily overpower anyone trapped inside the room. But you don’t always need to use Lockdown to take out crew – You can use it to give you an uninterrupted opportunity to take down systems, particularly Clone or MedBays. Suddenly these once-annoying rooms are actually quite easy to counter now

As an added trick, once you get weapons (beams are great for this) – You can target the rooms just outside the one with Lockdown. The enemy will be sat there bashing the doors in – Giving you an open shot to soften them up a bit!

Room for 1 more?

The advantage of the Lockdown and 4-man teleporter means you can actually pick fights in larger 2v2 rooms too. As such, the only real question you need to ask is… Which room do I hate more? As the aggressor, you pretty much have free reign to take down whatever one you like – The enemy always keeps their crew separate, so you always have the advantage of outnumbering anyone when you Lockdown

If you pick a 2v2 room – You’ll generally want all 3 of your Crystalmen for this. But even if you target a smaller 2v1 room, you can still use all 3 (if you beam them in, the 3rd person will be beamed into the nearest neighbouring room). Whilst 2 will attack the room, the 3rd on the outside can still use their Lockdown to stop enemies breaking in. Better still (this plays upon a slightly poor AI) – If you time their Lockdown as an enemy is running through their room, the enemy will still try and break down the doors – Leaving your spare Crystalman to just happily shoot them without taking any hits!

Of course, the trio is also very handy when you’re facing predominantly Mantis/Rock crew, as you can tag-team the enemies if 1 starts running low on health (remember: always play safe with these guys)

The Basilisk Effect

Much like the Mantis Type B – The big catch with a Boarding-only setup is that you are completely helpless against Drones, Lanius or Zoltan ships. As such, you need a weapon… anything will do! You only really need it for these ships: The Crystal Boarding tends to be good enough to single-handedly win everything else. Just grab a toy you can make do with. Once you possess one, this takes a huge amount of pressure off. Though still avoid ‘Abandoned Sectors’ where possible

That said: Crystalmen are resistant to asphyxiation, so they can comfortably hop aboard Drone ships and pull it apart, even with the Teleporter on Level 1. Of course, you still need the weapon to actually finish the ship off! As such, get them to pull down the shields and leave the rest to your weapon

One big mistake to avoid (I painfully did this) – Do not beam 3 of your Crystalmen into a Droneship… Not unless you are very brave, have an upgraded teleporter or one of your guys did something really annoying like eating the leftover lasagne you had in the fridge. Whilst your 4-Man Teleporter can beam all 3 in – The 2v1 rooms mean that you can only beam out 2 at a time

Yes, I forgot this. Yes, I lost one of my Crystalmen. Yes, I head-butted my desk

Meanwhile… back on the ship

With all this gallivanting, you might wonder what’s left to defend your ship. Impressively, this ship gives you cloaking right off the bat! That plus the shields means that very few hits should find their way into your hull. Just play it like the Stealth Cruisers: Cloak as soon as the most dangerous shot is en route

If you can easily overpower the enemy ship and they’re packing heavy weaponry (like missiles), you’re certainly free to leave one guy behind to pilot (helping maximise evasion during cloaking) – But then again, you can always just gang up on the weapons room and tear it down if they’re that threatening!

But that said: Picking up permanent ship crew is an excellent idea. Particularly for the pilot’s seat and engines. You’ll also want to boost the shields and engines early on. In fact, if you still lack a pilot, put some scrap into the Auto-Pilot! Once you get those down, very little should be able to scratch your ship before you offline the weapons

Additionally, for only 25 scrap it’s a good call to boost your Sensors so that you can see the enemy ship too. Knowing what enemies you’ll be facing on board is invaluable – particularly the ability to see who’s running to intercept you (and when to hit ‘Lockdown’)

What to Aim for

- +3 Crew (x1 Engi)
- A set of weapons (x2 Decent Hull Damaging x1 Support/Bomb is a reliable build)
- Hacking Module
- [Optional] More boarders!

With cloaking and a Teleporter already in place – You only have room for 1 more, which is safest as the Hacking Module

Once you’re rolling, very little should be able to stop you. So long as you don’t get cocky and send your Crystalmen into an unwinnable situation, you shouldn’t face too many issues. As such, upgrading the Teleporter is a very good call in case your guys get into trouble. Keep a steely eye out for a Reconstructive Teleport too!

Once you have a decent weapon, you actually might as well go all-out on boarding and find a 4th team-mate for your trio (Mantis / Rock) – Kinda like the Musketeers, but without the cool hats

That said, don’t forget that you need powerful weapons to actually win the game – So always be on the lookout and keep some scrap to one side for them. But so long as you have a basic weapon for Drones/Zoltan ships, you can afford to be quite picky

Edit: There is a way!

As pointed out by a few of the commenters (points and cookies to Nebhead and DrewD00D for getting there first) - There is a way to fetch your Crystal guys back with the Carnelian if they get stuck on a drone ship (and by 'stuck', I mean you teleported them in there, you cruel, heartless fiend)

As explained by Nebhead: (I shall update with pictures shortly)

1) Pause the game.

2) Tell the Crystal crew member in the top of the Shield room (the one facing down / south etc) to move into the Engine room.

3) Tell the Crystal crew member in the Engine room to move into the Shield room

4) Unpause the game, and wait for the Engine room crew member to move into the Shields room

5) Upon entering the Shields room, immediately pause the game.

6) Check to see if the first crew member is still inside the Shield room, and recall your boarders to get all 3 back. If not, restart from #1

The Flagship: ...and you are?

It’s not over until the fat lady sings…

Sadly, with the distinct shortage of overweight alien women, you have to settle with blowing up the Rebel Flagship instead. Yeah, sorry about that... No one said this game was easy

Giving credit where it’s due – This section wouldn’t have existed without a superb flagship guide by This…IS…BACON! (“The Big One: How to Fight the Rebel Flagship”) – It’s 5 stars for a reason – And also where I first learned how to face this bad boy. Since the expansion, however, there are now new dangers to beware of, but also new ways of cracking this

Know Your Enemy

The Flagship packs a lot of unpleasant surprises. The first one being that you actually have to fight it 3 times. Yeah, first time I faced it I started doing a little jig as I just about beat Phase 1 – Only to see it fly off and tell me that I have to do a little bit more. Sadly though, destruction of the ship doesn’t make it weaker – It’s clearly powered by those Japanese RPG bosses who somehow get stronger the more you rip their arms off and beat them with it (revealing their ‘final form’ or something…)

Note that between fights, all ship damage you inflicted will be repaired (including damaged systems, breaches and fires) – But the good news at least is that any crew you kill will stay dead

About that though… try not to kill them all. If you do, you’ll be greeted with an unwelcome message telling you that the ship’s AI has decided to take over. Big deal? It will be when you see it self-repairing everything you do to it

Bloody hell… what big guns you have!

All the better to trash you with!



One of the regular fixtures of the Flagship are its weapons rooms. They’re pretty damn lethal, but good news: You might spot that all 4 of them are actually isolated from the rest of the ship. Manned only by a single human – This means that if you kill the crew inside (they can’t run to heal) then you can take the room down… permanently! From left-to-right, you’re facing:

1. Triple-shot Ion
2. Triple-shot Heavy Laser
3. Triple-shot Missile Launcher (this one is the worst)
4. Halberd Beam

Bear in mind that once you complete Phase 1, Room 1 will snap off, and Room 4 will go at the end of Phase 2 (don’t be too thrilled though – the flagship will find worse ways to kill you)

The Flagship: The 3 Phases

Phase 1

What to look out for:

- 4 Weapons Rooms
- Hacking
- Cloaking
- Doors

What to Target:

- Weapon Rooms 3, 1 and 4 (in that order)
- Hacking
- MedBay
- Crew

Rundown:

The key with Phase 1 is to use it as a setup phase. In reality, it’s not actually that difficult – Once you silence some of the weapons: You’re actually untouchable. As such you’ll want to use this chance to try and kill the ship’s crew – This will make the following phases exceptionally easier, as you’ll basically be allowed to trash the ship and not have any of it repaired

What about the AI? That’s where weapons room 2 comes in. Keep this guy alive. The triple heavy laser isn’t a huge threat on its own, and it’s better to keep this guy tucked away (unable to do anything) and gut the rest of the ship instead

This phase is made tricky slightly with the Cloaking and Hacking. The cloaking will constantly disrupt your assault, buying the enemy time to repair what damage you inflict upon them. You also need to be careful of it if you have boarders, as they’ll be unreachable when cloaked… so you don’t want them being cut off and overrun by Rebel soldiers

The Hacking is the nasty one though. 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 Module

Note on Hard Difficulty: Playing in ‘Hard’ adds a vicious addition to this fight. Weapons rooms 2 and 3 are connected to the rest of the ship! As such, you can no longer take out the Rocket Room in isolation, and neither can you leave the Heavy Laser guy to his own devices. You’re really up against it here

In general, you’re better off biting the bullet and just killing everyone (leave the ones in the outer weapons rooms though) – Sure the AI will take over in Phase 3, but at least you can run around the ship unhindered. Breach or Fire bombs will also be invaluable here if you have them, as both will help keep any system offline for good (fires will keep the damage rolling, and rooms can’t be repaired when breached)

Phase 2

What to look out for:

- Anti-Ship Drones
- Boarding Drone
- Defence Drone
- “Power Surge” – Swarm of Drones

What to Target:

- Weapon Rooms 3
- Drone Room
- Weapons Room 4 (If you really need to)

Rundown:

Good news – You no longer have to put up with cloaking! The destruction of the left section has also taken down the Ion Weapon and Doors room too. The bad news is that a Drone Room is now up and running on the Flagship. You’ll have Anti-Ship drones circling your ship, a Defence Drone around theirs and worse… A Boarding Drone with your name on it

Needless to say, the Drone Room is a huge target here (after the Rocket Room though) as a Boarding Drone running amok your ship will be painful (not to mention inconvenient). If you played Phase 1 correctly though, you should be free to take down this rooms with no resistance

There’s one nasty surprise waiting for you though… Brace yourself when you see a ‘Power Surge’ Warning – You are about to have a ton of Anti-ship drones swarm your ship and shoot the hell out of it. You’ll want full power in your shields and engines to weather this out. If you have cloaking, then now’s the perfect time to use it!

Note, the ‘Power Surge’ drones are not powered by the Drone Control room… so knocking it out won’t save you from them

By the way, if you didn’t manage to kill all of the crew in Phase 1 – Upgrade your Blast Doors as much as possible... Trust me

Phase 3

What to look out for:

- Zoltan Shield
- Mind Control
- Crew Boarding
- “Power Surge” – A volley of around 8 Heavy Laser Shots
- “Power Surge” – Recharging Zoltan Shield

What to Target:

- That damn Rocket Room!
- Mind Control

Rundown:

This is it! The Drone Room and Halberd Beam is gone. Now they’re throwing everything at you

The first bugger is the huge Zoltan Shield. Unless you have the Zoltan Shield Bypass augmentation – You’ll have to smash your way through it before you can do anything. In this time, the Rocket Room will not be hesitating to unleash as many volleys as possible at you – So sit tight and keep everything firing

You’ll also have your crew being Mind Controlled too. This is particularly nasty if it’s your boarders, as you really don’t want them turning on each other – Especially in somewhere like the Rocket Room, where there’s nowhere to run. As such, wait until a crew member is possessed before you beam in. You’ll definitely want this on the hit-list after you deal with the Rocket Room

If the enemy crew is alive, they also teleport en masse onto your ship to try and kill your crew. But if you played Phase 1 correctly, this will be a non-existent problem. If not, keep your boarders on your ship, vent where possible and have someone man the Blast Doors if you can

The ‘Power Surges’ here a particularly nasty though. The standard attack unleashes a volley of around 8 Heavy Lasers at your ship. Your shields and engines must be up to scratch here – Otherwise your ship will be well and truly shredded. This is another good time to use cloaking if you have it

Alternatively, it will sometimes regenerate the Zoltan Shield again – Beware your boarders don’t get trapped. Pull them back if you’re worried and see the warning sign

Quite frankly, don’t hold back with this phase. Unleash everything you have. Speed is key here, as the considerable amount of shots and weaponry will take down your ship eventually: So it’s all about kicking the flagship down first. Keep an eye on your systems and good luck

The Flagship: Tactics

Ok, so now that we know what we’re dealing with… Here’s a few tactics I picked up along the way that really helped make this fight considerably easier

The Joy of Boarding

Whilst it’s not vital… Boarding makes this fight several times easier. The key bonus is that you can attack the weapon’s rooms directly. It’s easy to gang up on the crew, so won’t take long to clear down the weapons in Phase 1. From then on in, you can hop in and silence those rooms at the start of each fight


Always go for the Rocket Room first – That one is easily the most lethal. From left-to-right, you generally want to attack 3 (Rockets), 1 (Ion) and 4 (Beam). Leave Room 2 (Lasers) as this is the guy you’ll want left alive



Killing the Crew – Hacking on MedBay

With the weapons silenced – Kick back, dig in and prepare yourself to try and take down the Flagship’s Crew. If you have a Hacking Module and didn’t need to use it on the enemy’s Hacking Room (i.e. it latched onto somewhere you weren’t too fussed with, like doors) then this task has been made considerably easier. Hack the MedBay

If it’s Level 3 – You’ll basically kill enemy stuck in the MedBay (if they stay in that long). It’s a simple routine:

- Power down the Hacking (so the enemy can pass through the doors)

- Beam your guys into the MedBay – Drawing an audience

- Once the enemies are in: Power up the Hacking and wipe them out

Beam your guys out and repeat when everything’s charged up again. Once the ship’s crew is gone – Feel free to run around and tear up the place (just leave the Oxygen running for the Laser Guy)

Killing the Crew – Hacking on Hacking

If you had to use your Hacking Module on the enemy’s own Hacking Room, or it’s low-level… don’t despair – You can actually still wipe out the crew with clever use of the Blast Doors! The trick is that the Hacking Room is in a rather useful position…

- Power down your Hacking (so the enemy can pass through)

- Beam your guys into the little room just left of the Hacking Room

- Once the enemy has rushed to take you on – Power up the Hacking module (even 1 bar will do) to bring the Blast Doors down

You’ll notice you have now cut this crew off from the MedBay – And simultaneously blocked other guys from rushing in to replace them! With any luck, your guys should be able to finish off the 2 retreating rebels before they break through. Beam your guys out of there and power down the Hacking Module (returning the doors to normal). Rinse and repeat


Killing the Crew – No Hacking

If you don’t have Hacking, however… then your job is a little bit tricker. Unfortunately you just have to sit back and plain old out-think them. The MedBay is Level 3 so will heal the enemy crew stupidly quickly. As such you’ll generally need to use your weapons here alongside your boarding crew, to stand any sort of chance – Whether it’s nuking the MedBay and trying to hold a fight in there, or fighting in a small room on one side of the ship (Door room is good) and trying to use your weapons to pick off crew as they flee. A good one is to time your weapons to hit the MedBay as the rebel runs into it – Hopefully killing them but also weakening the MedBay as well

Unfortunately, neither is an easy feat: The Flagship’s cloaking will frequently block your shots and disrupt your assault. You also need to be careful that it doesn’t trap your guys either – So always play safe and time your raids immediately after the cloaking has worn off. You have plenty of time so plan carefully

One trick you can pull, if you really get stuck and have Mind Control… Power it to just 1 bar and take over an enemy. At this point, use your teleporter to beam them aboard your ship. Wait for the Mind Control to wear off and shred them. It’s slow – But if you need the job done, it’ll do

The only thing to watch here: If you’re using your weapons, keep an eye on the Flagship’s health. If you accidentally finish Phase 1 with your guys still on the ship – It’ll jump away and you’ll lose them both

Once you clear the ship – You have free reign! You can comfortably waltz up to the enemy shields and pick them apart with your boarders. All of the nasty systems in the subsequent phases can get taken down by your boarders with no hassle whatsoever too

Any Fire Bombs?

Fire Bombs are fiddly weapons at the best of times… But with a completely empty Flagship, there’s actually nothing to stop them destroying everything. So if you have them, abuse them – They will do the majority of the legwork for you. Whilst your boarders are in the Rocket Room – Target Fire Bombs at the Shields, Drone Room (Phase 2) and Mind Control (Phase 3). Left to its own devices – It will basically melt everything and leave the ship completely helpless to your weapons

This is particularly good if you trigger the ship’s AI (a likelihood on ‘Hard’) – As a raging fire will quickly dismantle any system which is trying to self-repair

Truly, this weapon is easily the most powerful one if you can get to this situation

No Boarding?

If you don’t have a crew teleporter – Then truth be told, you’re really up against it. You are basically in a race to out-gun the Flagship… No mean feat as it tends to have considerably more firepower than you

Quite frankly – Screw the fancy tactics. If you have to out-gun the flagship, you have to be fast. It will ultimately win a war of attrition with its ridiculous amount of attacks – So victory is about hitting it hard and fast. Truth be told, I’ve only ever beaten it once with pure firepower (my boarding crew died embarrassingly when I hopped them aboard a Drone Ship in the fight literally just before, and it cloaked before I could retrieve them) – But for reference: I had a Flak II, Halberd Beam, Small Bomb, Zoltan Shield Bypass and Weapon Pre-Igniter. And that gave me a good chance

Flak is a life-saver here, with its ability to shred shields quickly. You’ll definitely want to be packing some if you’re going to duke it out with weapons – as the shields will be the main problem. There’s also a really useful path you can make with the Halberd Beam (or most other beams for that matter) which will hit the Pilot’s Seat, Shields and Rocket Room all in one go! Very handy to shut the key players down



Whatever tactic to use… if you destroy the Flagship: Congratulations. Kick back and take a breather – You’ve earned it

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 game of Who-can-die-first-in-FTL?

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

Links to the other Class Guides

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

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

Final Thoughts

Back on the 1st June, I decided to write down tactics for each FTL Ship on a whim

3 months, 71 pages, 33,000 words and 220 Images later... We have what I hope can count as a thorough Steam Guide to the many brilliant (and sometimes evil) ships we've been graced with

It's been a lot of fun writing this, and I daresay a slight obsession. As such, my heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who left kind words, encouragement and offered their respective ideas and tactics. It was your positive feedback which really drove me to see this compendium through to completion during some of the harder slogs and Writer's Block. I really appreciate the support and thank you all

Thank you also to those before me who have written superb guides. (Mittsies, This...IS...BACON!, Pelandes, FireDragon and daniu -TLG-, I'm looking at you guys) - Your works were the benchmark I had to meet

A special shout goes out to Ifitmovesnukeit, for providing a lot of laughs during playthroughs and, in particular, enlightening me to the wonderful joy of naming your ship after the way you died in the last game - Giving light to many strange and wonderful vessels

Thank you for reading, thank you for following. Now get out there and game on!

Best regards,
Happiness Officer

[Happiness Officer]

I think we disagree less than you think, Tobus_Frogus. I only advocate counter-hacking when you actually need to. My ideal is to go for the medbay to speed up clearing the ship... by which point you can casually ask your boarders to take down the shields permanently.

For hard difficulty though, the shields sound like a solid idea - As the rocket room being repaired definitely adds a time pressure that isn't present on earlier difficulties, so being able to isolate it and speed up shots against the ship will be valuable (and by that point players would be skilled enough to juggle boarding/shooting without killing their own boarders). I'll give that a try when I pick this back up - thank you!

[Tobus_Frogus]

I will definitely have to disagree on your Hacking tip- unless the Flagship hacks your shields and you cannot reset the Hack by jumping away and back, you should *never* counter-hack.
Hacking the missile room (only on hard) or shields is almost always the best play, especially if you want to board the flagship.
Hacking the Shields has the obvious Perk of *Hacking Shields for Weapons*,
but having the Blast doors on such a Huge room lets you have control over the most important ship rooms.
You can Trap the
-Pilot
-Shields dude
and Keep all other crew Members from interfering while you tag-team the Piloting/Shields crew.

If You're playing on hard, you can also in effect isolate the two weapons rooms.

[Happiness Officer]

Ah! Ahoy, good to see you!

Alas I'm not available for collabs... BUT! Please give me a shout when you're done as I'd love to give it a read!

[Dr Whom]

Hey, Love your guides - especially your Darkest Dungeon guide.

You commented positively on my FTL guide a long time ago, but that was before I knew how prolific and talented you were!

I'm working on another (fluffy) guide to Rimworld, but looking through your games collection you don't appear to own it.

Would it interest you to collaborate on a guide for it anyway? I was thinking you might contribute in your unique style (I.E technical and user-friendly) while I bolt on my walkthrough/short story style to it?

Let me know what you think! I've added you as a friend to make communication easier.

[Happiness Officer]

Holy moly... Thank you so much Casinocaster! That is incredibly moving. I'm especially thrilled to hear that you continued to pull in your own experiences and judgement as you worked your way through these, as my hope with these guides is to lay out blueprints to get people over the initial hurdles but ultimately let them savour the crafting of their own masterpieces... and, well, your depiction of just that means a lot. Thank you!

And if you play as thoughtfully as you write, then I have no doubt your achievements were well-earned and a masterpiece.

[Casinocaster]

Also - I lol'd at the mantis joke

[Casinocaster]

I like to think of people like you whenever I read about that time the official choice for Time's Person of the Year in 2006 was "you", as in the average internet user who generates content for others. You (and the other guide creators that you quote) didn't have to make this so helpful , and yet here you are, improving the experience of so many people who may otherwise quit it at the most frictional, inaccessible moments of the game. You guys make the internet beautiful.

Thank you!

[Casinocaster]

After having played with every ship (and nearly every type) and having unlocked the last achievement for the Crystal Class, I felt like I needed to come here and express my thanks with some sort of detail.

I have been following your guides for the past month: after I learnt how to play and got my own idea of what were strong, consistent strategies in the game, I started reading your guides and basically deconstructed everything I thought I knew. Most importantly, I learnt not to follow everything you proposed blindly but to analyze what was working and why, and to apply collected reasoning to every step of my runs. It has been an immense pleasure and an amazing complement whether on PC or mobile. Your texts are EXCEPTIONALLY well written, the structure is clean and straight to the point, and the visual presentation is really neat.

(cont.)

[Tubegerm]

now don't get me wrong, hacking is still extremely useful, and it's great to have it as a backup in case you get a streak of bad luck. but hacking the medbay/shields depending on if you're using a boarding strategy or not, is too valuable to warrant making counter hacking my first choice for dealing with a problematic hack. it's much better to first manipulate the odds in your favor, then only use hacking to counter the enemy's hacking as an absolute last resort.

[Tubegerm]

regarding the flagship's hacking, there's an extremely effective strategy to counter it that works more often than not no matter what your setup looks like. if the flagship hacks something vital that you absolutely cannot afford to lose like your shields, just jump away and jump back. the hacking module will be destroyed when you jump away and the flagship will pick a random room to hack again. you'll pretty much always be able to re-roll like this at least once, and depending on the sector layout, sometimes more than once. furthermore, even just level 2 oxygen will outpace level 3 hacking on oxygen, so if you purchase that upgrade just before fighting the flagship for only 25 scrap, you can turn an unwinable hack into and irrelevant one, to further tip the odds in your favor.
(cont.)