We are doing a series of posts on FTL and  we hope you like them. If you want us to do more of this let us know in the comment or by mail at jack at onlinesgamestips.com

Master of Patience – Use only the Artillery Beam to destroy an enemy ship while taking no hull damage.

This achievement is the easiest to get of the three. Just upgrade your shield to level 2 and when you fight a ship not using missile just wait for the artillery beam to do is job. You can even go grab a coffee if you want while your ship finish the enemies ship with the artillery beam

Diplomatic Immunity – While using the Federation Cruiser, use your crew in four special blue events by sector 5.

Honestly this achievement is so hard to get. I’ll be brief and link to you a table in the wiki that show you all the event per alien species which will allow you to try to plan for this event.

The description of this achievement is rather vague, it is important that only blue event choices that arise as a result of having particular alien crew members aboard count towards this achievement – thus other blue event choices (for having specific system upgrades, augments, or weapons) do not count. Note that even if the event says “by sector 5” it’s actually, before entering sector 6, so the very last place you could conceivably get your final blue option in is the exit beacon for sector 5.

To increase your chance of receiving this achievement you get a Long-Ranged Scanners augment has soon has you can. Why ? Because the majority of blue event options for crew will be found within normal or distress beacons it will save you time to choose a beacon more likely to have a event. Another important point, it’s really important to diversify your crew, the layout A is probably the best for that part since its start with 4 different race. Zoltan are mostly found in Zoltan controlled world , Lanius can be a nice find to in the abandon sector and slug can be hired in their home nebula. You can get new members from slaver ship or by boarding and killing all the crew, you might find survivor that will join you in that case.

Has for the event per say here are the link to the list of all possible event per race: http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Diplomatic_Immunity

Artillery Mastery – Get to sector 5 with the Federation Cruiser without upgrading your weapons system.

This achievement is actually not to hard to get. Upgrade a the artillery beam, shield, engine and try to supplement your ship with cloaking, hacking or Drone control with a defense drone. The last three is to dodge those nasty missiles. Just wait for your Artillery beam to take care of the rest. The layout  A can be a good ship to get that achievement since the Burst laser II can really help. You can’t upgrade your weapon but nothing prevent you from buying weapon either. Some bomb can be very useful to blast an annoying system (shield then switch to burst laser or blast the pilot or engine so they won’t be able to run away)

We are doing a series of posts on FTL and  we hope you like them. If you want us to do more of this let us know in the comment or by mail at jack at onlinesgamestips.com

The Federation Cruisers are the only ships with the Artillery Beam.

The Artillery Beam’s path follows a specific algorithm. It finds the centers of two rooms and forms a path between them, with no limit on the length between them. It bypasses all shields and does one damage to each room hit.

Layout A

Unlock

Defeat the Flagship Construction in the Rebel Stronghold sector to unlock this ship.

Alternatively defeat The Rebel Flagship with the Engi Cruiser

• Default name: The Osprey
• Starting Crew: 1 Human, 1 Mantis, 1Rockman, 1 Engi
• Starting Weapons:
  • Burst Laser II
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 5 Missiles
  • 2 Drone parts
• Unique Ability: Artillery Beam
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

The main advantage that the federation ship has its  the Artillery Beam. This system is a weapon of is own that ignores shields and does a lot of damage. One build for this ship is to focus on beefing up the defenses (shields/engines) and let the beam it do the work. This needs patience, but is worth the wait. If possible, destroy the enemy’s missiles promptly (or get defense drones), as they bypass shields and pose a threat to the hull, cloaking can be an option too if you are playing the advance edition.  Hacking could be a good system too, hit the weapon system and wait for your artillery beam to take out the ship.

This layout start with a decent weapon, the Burst Laser II, so you don’t necessarily have to go the upgrade only the Artillery Beam route. You can work it with a teleporter since the starting crew (mantis + rockman) is good for boarding. Just be careful not letting the Artillery Beam kill your crew or destroy the ship whiles they are on it.

Bomb can goes well with the Artillery Beam, your Burst Laser II can take care of Zoltan shield, the bomb neutralizes system that might cause problem likes weapon if they have missile, piloting if they are trying to escape right away or hacking it they hack your shield, pilot, engine or artillery beam.

Layout B

Unlock

Earning two of the three Federation Cruiser achievements will unlock layout B.

• Default name: Nisos
• Starting Crew: 1 Human, 1 Slug, 1Zoltan
• Starting Weapons:
  • Dual Lasers
  • Leto Missiles
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 9 Missiles
  • 0 Drone parts
• Unique Ability: Artillery Beam
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

Layout B is very similar to layout A, they have the same module, 50 scrap more upgrade on the layout B and a smaller crew. The Dual lasers are less power full than the Burst Laser II but are very power efficient. The leto missile is useful but 1 damage is pretty low for a missile weapon, you might use them in the first few sector but you should try to either rely on the artillery beam instead like we explained for the layout A

Crew members of the layout B aren’t very useful for boarding so you might want to wither skip the teleport upgrade or hire better boarder along the way.

Layout C

Unlock

Reaching Sector 8 with The Federation Cruiser B and Advanced Edition content enabled will unlock Layout C.

• Default name: The Fregatidae
• Starting Crew: 1 Human , 2 Zoltan , 1Mantis
• Starting Weapons: None!
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 5 Missiles
  • 0 Drone parts
• Unique Ability: Flak Artillery
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Emergency Respirators

Layout C is quite different from the 2 other layout,  It has an Artillery Flak Gun instead of an Artillery Beam, which unfortunately don’t go through shield like Artillery Beam and can be dodge, but is very useful to shred a Zoltan super shield then teleport your crew on the enemies ship.

This ship is a boarding ship and the synergy of the Zoltan with the clone bay can have amazing effect. Warp zoltan on the other ship make them explode, your clone bay will bring your Zoltan back to life, send the mantis with a resurrected Zoltan to finish the job. You might want to upgrade the  Cloning Bay and the teleporter to Level 3, to maximize the effect of this tactic.

What can be annoying with this ship is other rebel ship that are charging their FTL drive right when the fight start. Since the only thing you got to attack is your boarding team and the artillery flask gun that take forever to charge, there always a good risk that they might run away with your crew on it and increase the rebel fleet progressing by on jump.

Note , that the Artillery Flak Gun lacks the shield-piercing capacities of the Artillery beam, meaning that it’s essentially a slower-cooldown or more power-hungry version of the Flak Gun II. This make this layout not viable to rely purely on Artillery, unlike Layouts A and B.