We’ve talked about how to automate your game in part 1, how to build a bot with python with the sushi go tutorial in part 2 and the problem I’ve encountered in part 1 and 2 that I’ve fixed. Today, It’s a summary of what I’ve done (task and feature) to automate the game and make it more fun.

Side note, doing all this made the game much more fun to play since most of the boring stuff was automated or semi-automated.

The 12 automated tasks that made the game fun again… almost.

1-Upgrade all the tech (weapon, armor & valor)

I’ve already explained it in part 2. The reason I did this is because it was a pain to go in each city each 3 building and upgrading this should be automatic.

2- Upgrade resources fields

This is the main reason I’ve wanted to make a bot is to automate building new cities. I made a dumb cycle that check each resource field starting by the food field and going through all the resources.

This give funny situation where wood and iron are barely developed and farm and stone already have a lv 10. But the basic were enough to be useful.

3-Upgrade building

This one cover every building except warehouse and granary because these 2 are not accessible via the menu next to your ruler face.

4-Market place

I’ve already talked about this one in part 3. Go check my second problem.

5-Check if your in game

I’ve already talked about this one in part 3. Go check my first problem.

6- create a build list and use it to upgrade and send resources (Do point 1 to 4 all at once)

I’ve already talked about this one in part 3. Go check my third problem. Basically I’ve save the build in a file and when the bot is looking to upgrade building or resource, the build file tell him where to start. What is missing is a way to remember where he was the last time so he doesn’t always start at the same place, next game I guess.

7- City loop: loop all your cities with the point 6

Once you got a way to upgrade building, resources and tech for each city I’ve implemented a loop that do those 3 task for all your account city. Saving you precious time.

8-Attacking Captain with heroes

This is a great way to get experience so I made a loop that click on the captain until the captcha show up. When the captcha show up I usually enter it and the bot start again for the next ten heroes.

9-Amassing training point

Like previous point but with troop to get training point

10-Attacking a elite guard

This one is a bit harder, since it need to loop the map, everything else after is just checking if there an elite guard and attacking him like we do for the training point. The risk here is that we lose real troops when we do that, So its more semi-automated.

11-finding 15f

this one was on of the last I’ve done. I was tired of clicking on the map to find the 15f, so I made a task to click on the map and check the the type or terrain. It’s save the value in a shelve and add it to the map bookmark.

12-level up heroes

TKO is so  well design game UI wise (puke), it takes so many clicks to level up a hero that if you have many heroes it can take awhile. So the goal was to automate leveling the heroes on the heroes screen.

What I wanted to do next

I wanted to manage plundering, take care of the special event. From there I could probably run by it self. My ultimate goal would have been to manage war with it, that would require a way to read actual value on the screen. I could be done but by reading pixel by pixel or by having a proxy that gets the date from TKO when it send to it server and process information from it.

I hope you liked that series of post on how I’ve automated my playing experience. If you like it, drop me a email and I might do a bot for other games too.

You guys seem to like dating sim after the success of my how to get the hidden girl in honey pop post.

I’ve found Crush Crush, a Idle game that goes in that vein, no match 3 and no saucy NSFW stuff though.

One bright sunny day, you were out doing your grocery, minding you own business you know. You were distracted by a bird and crashed in to a girl. The poor thing was taken to the hospital. You now have to pay here bill and win out her heart.

In Crush Crush you meet all the girl in disastrous way, hence the crush but you get crush by their beauty so you engage a great journey to amend your wrong and win their heart.

How to play

“If you could just drool a little less, you might actually be pleasant company” -Cassie

You clumsy thing, you managed to crush into 7 girls in an awkward and unsexy way. From beating her high score on her favorite game, to running into her or making her fall with all her cake mix all over the floor (and her 🙂 ), you really don’t know how to get make a good presentation do you.

You need to atone your wrong doing and make them like you, to do that you need to meet the requirement to go to the next level of the relationship. Requirement depend on each girl, they range from affection (heart), have cash in the bank, gift, having a certain expertise in a hobbies, going on a particular date with her or having a particular job.

“Player one used seduction. Result super effective. Mio Fainted.” -Mio

Affection (Heart) is the easiest to obtain, you can atone (which change name depending on the relationship level with the girl), just click on her (it’s give + 1 each time), give a gift or go on date with here. If your have a good level of her favorite hobby she will grow in affection naturally.

Getting cash

Cash is actually pretty easy for the requirement they have. First you need a job, you can have multiple job and each job level up over time, becoming more lucrative. Job are unlock by meeting a certain hobbies requirement and they use a designated time slot. With cash you pay for gift and date 🙂

Hobbies

Hobbies appear usually when you get a girl to a certain level of affection and she either have a hobby level requirement or she want you to be a certain job that have a hobby you don’t have yet. Each hobbies need to use 3 time slot for you to practice them and level them up. They are actually the pain in this game because they take forever to level up.

Time slot

You time is devised in time slot which you can either use to practice hobby, work or go on date.

They are unlock when you get achievement, when you get the girls to their next affection level or by spending diamonds.

Diamond

Are obtain by getting the girls to their next affection level and getting achievement. You can use diamond to accelerate various thing, like skipping 30 min, a day, getting more time slot buying gift.

Restarting

You start at the normal x1 time but you can restart to play at a faster time which depends on how many achievements you have. You keep all your time slot and diamond and get an extra boost in time. Really useful when those hobbies start to take days.

The speed upgrade applies to everything, job, hobbies, date time, atone/flirt cool down, etc.

“I remain in constant anticipation that you will want to perform explorative research on me” -Fumi

My take

The game is fun but the waiting get annoying real fast, luckily you can pay for a speed boost or restart with a bonus speed multiplier. With all that, the hobbies take forever to get to a high level. Just so you know getting the wizard job will take like a trillion years even with the best stuff. Still I recommend trying it out and since it’s still in development they will probably fix that issues at some point.

So hot stuff! What are you waiting for give crush crush some love and try it out.

Play Crush Crush NOW !

Crusader Kings II, or CK2 for the fan, is a medieval political intrigue simulation. Like galactic civilization from my previous post, it’s a 4x (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate), but instead of managing a space civilization, you’re a noble from the middle age, you can chose to be the lowly noble or the King of France. The beauty of it is that when you die you play the heir of your primary title. Which mean that even if you get killed in combat or assassinated you get to play your heir and can revenge your father or make amends and marry his oldest daughter then assassinate his only son so your heir gets their kingdom.

The game is a sandbox which means there no specific goal but there an underlying one, is to increase your dynasty influence. Your goal can be start a lowly count in Ireland and become the said king of Ireland or play the Byzantine empire and plot the reestablish the Roman Empire.

Like I said before the death of your character doesn’t mean its game over, you get to play your heir (as long its from your House) which can be your eldest son, an elected heir by your vassal or the eldest relative depending on your succession law.

The depth of the game come from all the scheming that can goes unnoticed and then blew right under your nose. A powerful duke married his son to the only daughter of another duke, which you only realized when he died and his grandson has both duchy with 80% of your troops and he doesn’t like you. You are at war with a lowly count only to find out he married his daughter to a prince of the holy roman empire and now there 30k on the shore of whales. You can assassinate that imbecile son so your genius son might get the throne.

The historical period and character are reproduced astonishingly well. From the important historical character like Offa or William and the name and place of counties and duchy or the bubonic plague of the Late Middle Ages, as you can see the immersion is total.

There so much to say about the game the play style, the way each religion and region can be played differently, the mod (there an excellent Game of throne and elder scroll one).

The game might be a little expensive with all the mod but grab it on sale on steam and you should be fine.

More info:

CK2 Official Site

I wasn’t really active gaming wise in 2015, having a kids take a bit of a toll on everything. But I manage to play some new games, most of them came out before 2015 but I want to showcase them for you anyway.

Galactic civilization II

GC II is a space strategy game set in the 23rd century, when multiple alien civilizations, including Terrans, scramble to conquer the galaxy, planet by planet, by force, diplomacy, influence (culture), or technology.

GC2 is an old game from 2006 but I bought it for next to nothing in a steam sale in 2014 when Galactic civilization 3 came out. I love those kind of simulate the world kind of game like Civilization, Romance of three kingdoms (the SNES one), Master of Orion.

This game looked like a good knock off master of Orion, a game I played awhile ago that really liked.

The game is notable for its artificial intelligence, which is challenging without being given resources and abilities not available to the player, as is common in the majority of strategy games. The game like civ and other game of that genre, you build your galactic civilization from the instant it’s got the engine to do interstellar travel and you build it from there. There 4 primary axis to build around, military, economic, science and culture.

From there you try to create alliance and exchange resources, technologies with other civ or threaten them with your mighty military power. They are multiple way to win the game like a military victory is when all other nations are wiped out, a science victory is when you got to a specific tech that makes you win the game. A cultural victory is when your influence in the galaxy is more than 75% for a certain time, there are other mean that you can win to like by ascending to be a divine being (not sure) or by a diplomatic victory. 

With 35 hours played, which is about 2-3 play through depending of the size of the map and the difficulty. I did all the most of the way to win, It’s pretty cool when you’re building huge ship to attack other planet.

Hearthstone

That game need no presentation but allow me to tell my how I jumped in the bandwagon. I joined late on this one, but some of my old friends I used to play magic with convinced me to give it a try. And I was actually quite surprised by it. It’s seem well balanced enough if you have enough cards, it seems well designed enough that old card from the first editions are still playable.

The quest mechanic allows players to gain gold and buy pack or adventure even if they don’t have money, making it possible to rise even if you don’t spend a dime. In the Arena you just need to pay 100 gold or 1.99 and from there only luck and your deck building skill will allow you to progress since you build the card from what they give you and not all card are equal.

The brawl is another great way to get card, they sometime give you a deck and you play on equal terms against other players. The first win in brawl will give you a free pack.

However it’s get frustrating quickly if you don’t have all the card or at least not a lot of rare one. You get hit the face by the god damns $%*@ Dr.Boom every time, talk about op or you get one shot by a rogue because they got that rare card that cost 0 and reduce the cost of another spell.

And like on all ladder once you rank high enough it seem that you only win 50% of your game.

Ironclad Tactic

The game takes place in an alternate history at the onset of the American Civil War where robot-like "ironclad" machines are used alongside human troops by both sides in the war. The game incorporates elements of collectible card games, whereby the player constructs a deck of cards earned from previous matches for the deployment, outfitting, and tactics of human and ironclad tropes to achieve specific victory conditions. The game features single player and co-operative multiplayer campaign modes as well as skirmishes between two players.

Another steam sale with my money well spent, I haven’t played that much this one but I really like the concept. The alternate history where you have mech in the civil war it’s actually pretty neat. The collectible part is well balance has well. The way the story is told is through a comic style between each battle. This game is definitely worth a try.

And my favorite game I’ve played in 2015 was … see the answer in next post.

Advanced Mastery

Have Hacking, Mind Control and the Battery active at once.

The easiest achievement of the three, you need to have hacking, mind control and the battery installed on your ship and active. By active it’s mean that you need more than just having the 3 system, you need to use them all at the same time. That not really a problem, just don’t be surprise that you don’t get the achievement when you buy the last missing one.

This achievement can only be miss if you’ve already installed all other systems and you don’t have room for the missing system.  It’s kind of hard to miss since both layout start with at least one of them (Kruos starts with Hacking &  The Shrike starts with Mind Control) and the battery is a subsystem so you should always have room for it.

Scrap Hoarder

Have at least 600 scrap in your ship storage.

Lanius are known for their love of scrap and this achievement show for it. You simply need to have only 600 of scrap in total. It must be unused scrap so it’s not has easy has it sound. The best way to achieve this achievement is on the easy difficulty because you get more scrap. Another nice augment you can add to increase your scrap receives it’s the Scrap Recovery Arm. Try boarding ship and clear the crew instead of destroying them since it’s give better reward.

If you are near the amount needed, you can liquefy your entire inventory until you have enough to reach the 600 scrap for the achievement. You can sell weapon, drone and augment to try to get to the magical amount.

Once you got this achievement, there is no valid reason to hold onto your scrap excepts maybe have the hell of a challenge for the later stage, so you could use your scrap with no consequence.

Loss of Cabin Pressure

Get to sector 8 without your ship’s net oxygen levels exceeding 20 percent (starts after the first jump).

To achieve this you need to shoot down your oxygen to 20% or lower right at the beginning. If you have more than 20% after the first jump, you won’t get the achievement.

The probably easiest way to do this achievement is to shut down the O2 system and let the non Lanius crew die or respawn indefinitely with the clone bay. The other way is to open all the door and leave the air un the pilot cabin. The risk with this strategy is that if a ship hack one of your room it will close the door and let the air in again, potentially raising in over 20% or even worst a hacking drone can hack your door system and very quickly bring your oxygen level above 20%.

The game is winnable with 2 Lanius just stay away of event that might kill off your crew and the clone bay can’t resurrect them.

Note that there is currently a bug and this achievement cannot be achieve if you save the game and come back to it.

The Lanius cruiser is a ship only available in the advanced edition, it’s actually really simple to unlock compare to most ship. You receive it once you unlock 4 ships other than The Kestrel. 

Layout A

Unlock

Unlock 4 ships (Excluding The Kestrel) to unlock this ship.

• Default name: Kruos
• Starting Crew: 1 Human, 2 Lanius
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Emergency Respirators
• Starting Weapons:
  • Chain Burst Laser
  • Ion Stunner
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 3 Missiles
  • 9 Drone parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)
• Clone Bay
• Hacking

With 2 Lanius crew and one human, you can basically vent all air from the ship except where you human crew is and set yourself for one of the Lanius achievement. The starting weapon are the chain burst laser and the ion stunner, try to fire them together for maximum efficiency. It has hacking too but in the early sector you should use it in case where you know it’s going to be a hard fights like against those pesky anti-ship drone with ion.
Getting better weapon and teleportation is key, the starting weapon will have a hard time against ship with more shield. Teleportation is a great had to any ship with a Lanius crew member, with hacking you can hack O2 and then warp your 2 lanius there to finish the job. Hacking will protect the room giving your Lanius enough time to drain all O2 and to destroy the system. After that, since the O2 system is down, each time your lanius will step into a room it’s will quickly run out of oxygen making the other crew more vulnerable.

Try to avoid Abandoned sectors as they detract from your major advantage: not needing oxygen, but the blue options can often be worth it.

Layout B

Unlock

Earning two of the three Lanius Cruiser achievements will unlock Layout B.

Its name is a reference the real-life bird known for impaling its prey on thorns, the which is also the namesake of the Lanius themselves.

• Default name: The Shrike
• Starting Crew: 1 Engi, 2 Lanius
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Emergency Respirators
• Starting Weapons:
  • Advanced Flak (special upgraded version, uses 1 less power, has a 2 second cooldown reduction)
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)
• Two Man Teleporter
• Clone Bay
• Mind Control

Your starting crew is similar to the previous layout, 2 Lanius and 1 Engi, the Engi will do the same work the human was doing in the previous layout. However this layout got mind control and a teleport which make it the perfect boarding ship. With mind control you can control an annoying enemy crew and let your Lanius finish the job. Use your advanced flask to clear out weapon or prevent the ship from running by taking out the piloting system. The only problem with that tactic is that after most fight your Lanius will be injured and you don’t start in many ways to heal them except waiting a few jumps or letting them die. The Reconstructive Teleportation augment is a must have in that case or get the healing bomb weapon. You can always change the clone bay for a med bay too. Focus on getting 2 Shield Layers early and hire additional crew members to man your other systems. Picking up a cloaking device is also a good Idea. You don’t need a lot of weapons to use effectively this ship but to beat the Rebel Flagship you either need bombs and missiles to disable their medbay or enough lasers to pierce their shields and attack the medbay once the medbay is down, and all the crew (except the one manning the laser) is dead Its easy going from there.

Is it warm in here?

Have your crew kill a burning enemy on their ship while using the Rock Cruiser.

To earn this achievement the enemy killed must be standing still and not running to another tile when they are killed. Because of that, this achievement is really hard because enemies crew tend to run away from the room with fire when they have low hp.

I personally gained this achievement by killing a Rockman in a burning room. It is much easier than the other races, since they do not flee from fire at low HP anymore as of the advanced edition. Note that all other races will flee from a burning room at low HP like mindless monkey, regardless of whether there’s pizza (or boarders) in it or not.

They are another way to achieve this achievement, one of the easiest one is when fighting the Rebel Flagship (aka the Boss), ignite one of the weapon room where they can’t run and teleport a Rockman there. They can’t neither run or extinguish the fire, this will cook them in rather good pizza.

Another option is by locking the doors via hacking or lockdown (via Crystal crew or lock bomb) Keep them inside and warp your crew (preferably a Rockman) there to unlock the achievement while they are cooking inside the room unable to flee. Be careful though crystal crew are NOT fire immune.

This achievement can also be earned by a mind controlled enemy crew member killing a burning crewmate on-board their own ship.

Defense Drones Don’t Do D’anything!

While using the Rock Cruiser, destroy an enemy ship which has a defense drone deployed using only missiles.

Another hard achievement, because you need to only use missiles during the whole battle, so hear me right on this NO OTHER WEAPON except for missiles can be used during the battle, regardless of whether or not they do damage.

If you fire Hacking or drone YOU WON’T get this achievement, ONLY MISSILES.

Note:

Crystal weapons count as missiles (they are considered projectiles and not lasers), and so they can be used to obtain the achievement.

Damage from asteroids and fire will not invalidate earning the achievement.

If you forgot what I said and fire a Hacking module or a laser weapon but the defense drone shoots them all down you can still get the achievement. (only if they don’t hit the ship shield or hull)

The enemy ship’s defense drone does not have to be active at when the ship is destroyed to earn the achievement, rather it just has to have one deployed at some point during the fight.

This achievement cannot be earned in the final boss fight, because the Rebel Flagship‘s because the second phase fight (where the drone is deployed) does not end in the ship’s destruction.

I don’t know if teleporting prevent this achievement, you can always try it and teleport on the ship to take out drone control and then let the missiles finish the job.

How to beat it:

Easy way, get the a Defense Scrambler augment and fire only missiles the whole fight and you’re good to go.

Hard way, you don’t have the Defense Scrambler augment, fire 2 missiles at the same time and aim for the drone system. The first missile will be taken down but the second one will probably go through taking down their drone allowing your next missiles volley to wreck havoc their ship. Not that swarm missile can be a great weapon to had to your arsenal to complete this achievement.

Ancestry

Find the secret sector with the Rock Cruiser.

Probably the hardest ship achievement in the game because it’s require you to complete 2 quest and be in the right sector (rock homeworld) to be able to go the the crystal homeworld.

Luckily, you can use the Rock Cruiser type C in the Advanced Edition which starts with a single Crystal aboard the ship. This allow you to skip the 2 first event.

This achievement is so hard that I haven’t been able to achieve it yet, but here some info I’ve got from the wiki and link to the wiki to succeed this achievement.

From the wiki:

To get to the secret sector (Hidden Crystal Worlds), the player must first encounter the Dense Asteroid Field Distress Call event and acquire the Damaged Stasis Pod. Then, arrival at a Zoltan Research Facility which will give a blue event option asking the Zoltan if they can fix it. Once the pod is fixed, a Crystal will be revitalized and join the ship’s crew. If they are kept alive and theAncient Device is encountered in the Rock Homeworlds, another blue event option will be shown where they can reactivate the device, thereby teleporting the ship into the secret sector.

A significant amount of luck is required to unlock this achievement.

Here a quick summary of how to obtain the Crystal ship

• Obtain the Damaged Stasis Pod augment – In Pirate Controlled Sector, Engi Controlled Sector/Homeworlds, and Rock Controlled Sector/Homeworlds
  • Occurs at a Normal Distress Beacon
  • Choose to
    1. Search for the Ship or (Rock Plating) Make a thorough search for the ship without fear of stray asteroids
    2. Then Grab the stasis chamber
• Talk to the Zoltans at the Zoltan Research Facility – In Engi Controlled Sector/Homeworlds and Zoltan Controlled Sector/Homeworlds
  • Occurs at a Normal Beacon
  • Choose to
    1. (Damaged Stasis Pod) Ask if they can fix this
• Find the Ancient Device – In Rock Homeworlds
  • Occurs at a Normal Beacon (NOTE: As of v.1.03.3, the Ancient Device event occurs at a Quest Beacon instead of a Normal Beacon).
  • Choose to
    1. (Crystal Crew) Reactivate it
• Go to the Hidden Crystal Worlds Marker
  • Occurs at a Quest Beacon

More at http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Ancestry

Space game are a hot commodity so I though bringing some space title

Cosmonautica

I’ve talked awhile ago about Cosmonautica, Pewpewchewchew made a nice video to show you the game play.

Related:

Let’s play Cosmonautica

Battlefront Mars

You want to feel like Elon Musk but don’t have the time nor the money to build spaceship to get to mars and colonize it. You’re in luck Battlefront Mars on Facebook let you build a Mars colony and harvest the planet resources. You need to defend your colonist from invaders and pirates to so you cannot just harvest the planet. Gameplay in Battlefront Mars focuses on the collection of to resources iron and water because you know that the only thing you need in a space colony. Harvesters gather water and iron continuously over time and with these resources are used to accomplish most tasks within the game. This includes everything from recruiting new military units to upgrading and building additional structures on the base. You can receive extra water and iron by finishing mission or destroying enemies base.

New unit can be build by building certain building (like in Starcraft) like the academy. Your military unit will help you defend against the invaders or attack and destroy their base. Has player level up the game unlock more mission and allow multiplayer (PvP) combat. The PvP look a bit likes clash of clan, spy the village then if you attack it you are warp there.

These facebook game are not my cup of tea, you have to wait to stuff to complete or use the premium currency (gold) there in app purchase, the units are hard to move but at least they can move automatically. With 10k monthly user you should be able to get some decent PvP action.

Battlefront Mars is available to play for free on Facebook.

Related:

Battlefront Mars: Build a Base and Command an Army on Facebook

Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager

The game is coming out soon on iPad and Android tablets on October 31st. I didn’t had any luck with a early access but the folk at Pocket gamer gave a excellent review so you can get the full review there.

The game come with a Space Race plot set in the cold war you got to go to the moon before the Russian. There also a sandbox mode where you just play without the political pressure.

Related:

Official site

Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager (Pocketgamer)

The rock cruiser is probably one of the hardest to get it’s achievement. However it’s a great ship and it’s actually the first ship I managed to beat the game with (in easy mode). Rock plating is pretty useful and the Rockman are pretty good at everything except running. The make the best pilot, they make great fighters due to their high health, they great at repairing stuff and clearing out fire thanks fire immunity.

Layout A

Unlock

See the Rock war vessel encounter.

Alternatively, defeat The Rebel Flagship with the Slug cruiser.

• Default name: Bulwark
• Starting Crew: 3 Rockmen
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Rock Plating
• Starting Weapons:
  • Artemis Missile
  • Hull Missile
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 28 Missiles
  • 0 Drone parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

The main problem with this ship is that your weapon all use missiles, you will have no problem clearing ship in the initial since your missiles ignore shield, there’s rarely any defense drone and they all have low evasion. However your missiles supply will drain like crazy so try to take advantage of the 4 damage hull missile when firing on a empty system. Get a weapon that don’t require ammo has soon has possible or crew teleportation can be a good alternative, shoot down there weapon system then teleport to finish the job. This ship is probably the best to achieve the Defense Drones Don’t Do D’anything! achievement.

Layout B

Unlock : Earning two of the three Rock Cruiser achievements will unlock Layout B.

• Default name: Shivan
• Starting Crew: 4 Rockmen
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Rock Plating
• Starting Weapons:
  • Heavy Pierce Laser Mk. I
  • Fire Bomb
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 18 Missiles
  • 0 Drone Parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

The Shivan (Rock Cruiser Layout B) starts without a door system, requiring 60 scrap to install. It is the only ship which does not have external doors, preventing any sections from being vented to space except via a hull breach. If in advanced edition, Lanius crew can be used to suck air out of rooms, even if they are not in that room, also the Fire Suppression augment works wonders as it helps put out fires.

This ship is a great boarding ship because it’s has firebomb and your crew (rockman) are immune to fire, it’s make it easy to blast a room then warp in your crew to finish the job in the fire. If your enemies aren’t rock man, they will take damage from the fire while you fight them, as well as the system in the room. Systems cannot be repaired if they are on fire, and fires cannot be put out if your crew is there. Medbay should be your first priority, weapon or piloting second depending if they are trying to flee.

The name "Shivan" combined with the color scheme of Layout B is a reference to an alien race of the same name in the game Descent: Freespace.

Layout C

Unlock

Reaching sector 8 with the Rock Cruiser B with Advanced Mode enabled will unlock layout C

• Default name: Tektite
• Starting Crew: 2 Rockmen, 1 Crystal
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Rock Plating
• Starting Weapons:
  • Swarm
  • Heavy Crystal Mark I
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 15 Missiles
  • 0 Drone Parts
• Clone Bay
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

This layout start with great weapon and a Crystal crewmember. The Heavy Crystal and the Swarm missiles will make early sectors quite easy, as the crystal mark ignore level 1 shield and swarm will help you take out any extra shield. You should probably focus on your defense first before trying to get new weapon. The greatest asset of the ship is the crystal crewmember, it will help you unlock the crystal cruiser skipping the need to do 2 extra quest before finding the crystal sector. Crystal man are great at taking care of boarder and boarding other ship with it’s lockdown ability preventing enemy crew from leaving the room and other from entering it. I had paired him with a Mantis with great result, even on the final ship. Pairing him with a Lanius can make great synergy too.

At first I hated this ship but after a play through I actually liked it, I managed to get 2 achievements and kill the boss (easy difficulty) the first time I’ve played it. We will talk about the achievement in a next post but now let’s talk about how to play each layout.

Layout A

Unlock

See the Slug Home Nebula Surrender random event.

Alternatively, defeat The Rebel Flagship with the Mantis Cruiser.

• Default name: Man of War
• Starting Crew: 2 Slug
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Slug Repair Gel
• Starting Weapons:
  • Anti-Bio Beam
  • Breach Bomb I
  • Dual Lasers
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 15 Missiles
  • 0 Drone parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

What I didn’t like about that ship was the starting weapon I had a hard time of making the Anti-Bio Beam work, I sometime ended up destroying the ship before killing the crew. But when it’s work you get extra scrap and sometime you might even receive a extra crew or weapon. The beam take 2 shot kill most crew member, 3 if the member is a Rockman or Crystal.

Note that there are no sensors aboard this ship. But since Slugs can see the rooms they are adjacent to, and the locations of enemies onboard their vessel it’s shouldn’t be a problem compare to the Mantis cruiser layout A.

As for the flagship: board the missiles, hack the shields, mind control the pilot, to nullify their dodge chance, and the crew members can’t do anything about it, since hacking disables their doors, thus it’ll take time for them to get another pilot. Be sure to also take down their shields with something like a breach bomb, which will their ship rendered useless ,(this also works for difficult mode, so you’ll slow them from repairing the missiles/lasers)

Layout B

Unlock

Earning two of the three Slug Cruiser achievements will unlock Layout B.

• Default name: The Stormwalker
• Starting Crew: 3 Slug
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Slug Repair Gel
• Starting Weapons:
  • Healing Bomb
  • Artemis Missile
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 25 Missiles
  • 0 Drone parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

The Stormwalker (Slug Cruiser Layout B) starts with a teleporter but lacks a medbay, resulting in reliance on the Healing Burst to heal crew members at the beginning. Grabbing either reconstructive teleport [LINK] or a Med bay will help you save on those precious missile. (Considering that the starting weapon only use missile, no beam, no laser…)

Like the initial Slug Cruiser, the layout B still lack sensor. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem though because your slug crew will be able to see boarders and the life form on the ship.

Side note: the layout of this ship allows you to remove oxygen from most of it, making boarders less of a problem.

I’ve really hit the mark with this ship, I was lucky enough to get a med bay really quickly (saving on those missile) and I’ve went through an abandoned sector and managed to grab two Lanius. And the rest is history. Considering that on this ship it’s pretty easy to clear the O2 from it because there so many door, you asphyxiate boarders really quickly and your Lanius force them to fight instead of trying to go through the door. Boarding is a charm, two Lanius quickly drain a room of oxygen, forcing enemy crew to leave the room, combine with the healing burst, your Lanius shouldn’t have any problem. For the final boss I had installed cloaking and Drone (a defense drone to block the hacking and a combat drone). Hacking can be good too, you can hack the med bay and send your Lanius there.

Layout C

Unlock

Reaching sector 8 with the Slug Cruiser B on any difficulty with Advanced Edition Content enabled will unlock layout C.

• Starting crew: 3 Slug
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Slug Repair Gel
• Starting Weapons:
  • Chain Burst Laser
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 1 Missiles
  • 15 Drone parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

The Ariolimax starts with Hacking and Mind Control, making it effective at disrupting an enemy ship. As a side note, be aware that its Medbay only has one space, should you choose to replace the Cloning bay with it (don’t do it it’s a bad idea…) It’s start with a great gun too, the Chain Burst Laser can be pretty efficient even early 2 shield should be a problem, hacking will help you there.

Using the combination of the hacking on the oxygen system and mind control on the crew trying to repair it. You can kill a whole ship by asphyxiation, and get better reward (you really need them in normal & hard).

Starting with a level 2 Doors subsystem and a Mind Control, this ship is quite strong against early boarding parties. Be careful, though, as Mind-controlled enemies can pass through your doors just as if they were friends!

You can upgrade this ship in many ways, Drones and Beam Weapons work really well with hacking, as Hacking help you remove enemy shields. Burst laser can go well too with hacking since you can hack the engine or shield and blast the ship with your laser.

Bombs have great synergy to help drain/deny Oxygen from your foes, drop a bomb on oxygen and lock it with hacking and they are done. Teleporting can be a great addition especially if you can get your hand on some Lanius, combine with mind control and hacking, teleporting a Lanius on the ship will accelerates the de-oxygenation process. Teleporting work with other race to because of mind control giving you an extra member on the enemy ship to fight with you and hacking can help you lock a room, preventing the enemy from escaping or entering.

The only problem is its  low shield & low engine at the beginning, everything will it you. Missile weapons are a pain, beam weapon with decent ion or laser can be a problem too. Drone can be very annoying too.