Shields Holding

Destroy a ship before it gets through the Zoltan Shield.

This is probably one of the easiest achievement to achieve, you can easily get it vs early ship and cut them through with the halberd beam of layout A or if you manage to have trouble with this achievement, get the Weapon Pre-Igniter, it will makes this achievement incredibly easy.

Givin’ her all she’s got, Captain!

With the Zoltan Cruiser, have 29 power in systems at the same time.

This achievement is probably the hardest of the three Zoltan achievement. To unlock it you need four Zoltan and you reactor maxed at 25. Note that it’s actually easier in the advance edition since the backup battery count toward this achievement, so you can use the power of you battery to get to 29.

Note that power in the subsystem doesn’t count.

Manpower

Get to sector 5 without upgrading your reactor in the Zoltan Cruiser.

This achievement is quick simple, you might have it rough in sector 4-5 but most your ship should be strong enough to make it through with the Zoltan crew giving you extra power. Note that the backup battery don’t count so you can use the power from the battery without risking not getting the achievement.

The technique to achieve this is to redirect all power from shield, med bay to the system you need. Cloaking with a Zoltan in the room then leaving the room wills enable you to benefit from the power in 2 system and still be cloak. See previous post on the Zoltan ship for more info about that technique. Cloaking is a great add for getting that achievement.

Another side note on the Advanced Edition also features events that can extend your generator capacity which will not prevent you from getting the achievement, like at a beacon where a ship requests fuel.

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 Zoltan and their ships are really particular in that it’s less power hungry than other ship, due to the fact that the Zoltan provide a free energy power and that the Zoltan Shield allow to redirect the normal shield power to other system. The Zoltan energy can be use to remove energy from recharging system like cloaking, boarding system, hacking and mind control simply by walking in and out of the room. Because of this it make the main reactor less a priority than usual and you can focus more on buying a system upgrade versus extra power in the main reactor.  It can be good idea to upgrade a system evens if it cannot be powered continuously. This gives you more room to juggle power distribution and meet particular demands. Another tactic that you can do with the Zoltan is to use them has bomb when boarding with a clone bay (see Layout C of the Federation Cruiser for more details on that technique).

Another side note once you get a non Zoltan crew member, move him or her into the pilot’s chair so your former pilot’s Zoltan energy can power one of the systems. Zoltan energy don’t power up sub-system like doors, piloting, camera and backup battery.

Layout A:

Unlock

Complete the Unarmed Zoltan Transport random event.
Or defeat The Rebel Flagship with the Federation Cruiser.

• Default name: The Adjudicator
• Starting Crew: 3 Zoltan
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Zoltan Shield
• Starting Weapons:
  • Halberd Beam
  • Leto Missiles
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 12 Missiles
  • 2 Drone parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

This ship has one of my favorite weapon, the Halberd Beam will cut through most ship you encounter in the first few sector and it will still be useful even late game. This Weapon usually stay the whole game. Beam weapon can be somewhat tricky but if you maximize the number of rooms it you can take out most of the early ship in one beam. Remember this beam deal 2 dmg so even against 1 shield enemy you can still use it but it will only do 1 dmg instead of 2. Once you start encountering enemies with two or more shield levels, you may want to use missiles to take out their shields or use an ion weapon. It is best to time your beam shots precisely when the enemy shield is hit, rather than putting your beam weapon on auto-fire.

This ship could really use the Weapons Pre-Igniter giving you the ability to take down most ship without your Zoltan Shield going down.

 Layout B:

Unlock

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

• Default Name: Noether
• Starting Crew: 3 Zoltan
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Zoltan Shield
• Starting Weapons:
  • Ion Blast (x2)
  • Pike Beam
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 0 Missiles
  • 2 Drone parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

The Noether (Zoltan Cruiser Layout B) starts with only one bar of power in the shield system, requiring 100 scrap to upgrade once and get to Level 1 Shields.

You have to rely on your Zoltan shield until you upgrade the shield for 100 scrap, speed is your friend here so you need to quickly disable the shield to be able to blast the enemies ship with the Pike Beam. Like the previous layout the Weapons Pre-Igniter can be a nice addition and later be useful when you get even better weapon. Cloaking is a nice addition too since it give your Zoltan shield extra time. Without shield asteroid field will be a problem, you might want to avoid those. Another other issue with the Zoltan in general is their lack of hp, which make them venerable to boarding (except if you have a clone bay).

Layout C:

Unlock

Getting to Sector 8 with the The Zoltan Cruiser Type B with Advanced Edition Content enabled will unlock Layout C.

• Default name: Cerenkov
• Starting Crew: 4 Zoltan
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Zoltan Shield
• Starting Weapons:
  • Ion Charger
• Starting Drones:
  • Anti-Ship Beam Drone I
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 2 Missiles
  • 15 Drone parts
• Clone Bay
• Backup Battery
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone

Starts with two bars of reactor power, requiring 30 scrap to upgrading the first 3 points.

The reactor is super low but 4 Zoltan and a level 2 Backup Battery should cover your need pretty early on. The starting combo of this ship is to use the Ion Charger to disable shields and then activate your drone with the backup battery.

Side note: the lack of need for the reactor of this ship makes Ion storms, weapons and pulsar little threat and even help you against enemies.

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.

Engi cruiser  is the easiest ship to get, you just need to get to sector 5 and you’ll get it. Is achievement are easier than the Kestrel, so you will probably end up unlocking the type B with the Engi cruiser before the Kestrel. Finishing the game with it unlock the Federation Cruiser.

Layout A: The Torus

Unlock: Reaching the fifth sector with any Kestrel layout will unlocks the Engi Cruiser.

• Starting Crew: 2 Engi, 1 Human
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Engi Med-bot Dispersal
• Starting Weapon:
  • Ion Blast II
• Starting Drone:
  • Anti-Ship Drone I
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 0 Missiles
  • 15 Drone parts
• Slots: 3 Weapon, 3 Drone

The Torus can be hard at first to play and you will rely mostly on your anti-ship drone to do damage to enemies ship at the beginning. The Ion Blast II is one of the great weapon of the game it’s fast recharge rate make it perfect to take down most shield with constant firing. Combine with laser & beam later your ship will be a force to recon with and will minimize your drone part usage.

Another key addition to this ship are bomb-type weapons. Ion Bombs are great later in the game against enemies with more than 2 shields, including the Rebel Flagship. The Ion blast and bombs can keep the shields down while your drones and lasers work on the hull. A Small Bomb or other type of launcher can help too, you can selectively take out systems as needed. This ship is one of the ship where the Drone Recovery Arm augment work great, it will allows you to use your drones without the fear of missing drone part. If you can grab extra anti-ship drone ship, specially a mark II, you will witness how powerful multiple attack drones can be has they tear down ship with more than 2 shield. You can get even 3 anti-ship drone and watch them go through even the most powerful shield and let your weapon finish the job

Upgrade:

Doors are probably a necessary upgrade on this ship because of the Engi weakness in hand-to-hand combat unless you have the opportunity to get Rock or Mantis crew, do so. Mind control can be a nice system to add to compensate Engi weakness in combat.

Hacking could be a nice addition but it unfortunately use drone part too unless you have Drone Recovery Arm augment.

The Teleporter is not advised on this ship, unless you are getting the system for blue storyline options.

Cloaking is always a great add, since it help dodge those nasty final attack of the Rebel flagship.

Side Note from the Wiki:

The Wiki have an interesting side note about how to level up the skill of your crew on this ship. In the first few sector you will probably encounter ship that can’t do anything to your ship so you can take advantage of that and level up your weapon, shield, piloting and engine since the ion blast is a non-lethal weapon.  Having these skill max will be huge later and will make it easier for you to spend your scrap on other systems.

Layout B: The Vortex

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

• Starting Crew: 1 Engi
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Drone Reactor Booster
• Starting Weapons:
  • Heavy Ion
  • Heavy Laser I
• Starting Drones:
  • Anti-Personnel Drone
  • System Repair Drone (x2)
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 0 Missiles
  • 6 Drone parts
• Slots: 3 Weapon, 3 Drone

I have to be honest with you, I really have a hard time with this ship. It’s decent enough to cover you base the first 2 sector, but it has a lot of flaw. Heavy Ion +  Heavy Laser I combo cover you base until you hit a ship with 2 shield, even before that the Heavy Ion is so slow to fill that the enemy might be able to hit your weapon before you even fire. Upgrade to a better ion weapon quickly or complement it with bomb/missile since it won’t do it for ship with heavy shield.

Starting with only one crew is one of them, it’s make you pretty vulnerable to boarding and event that might kill your only crew. Once you upgrade the doors the Anti-Personnel Drone can handle the hostile boarders on the ship while you empty the oxygen out of every room except the medbay and helm. The initial drone and augment will get useless pretty quickly since you probably want to fill this ship with anti-ship drone and defense drone instead of repair drone, and have a crew instead of just one lonely guy.

The only thing I can say that good about this ship is that the layout is somewhat good, easy to go around and system that go well together are next to each other like the teleporter and medbay which might make it a decent boarding ship if you get the right crew. There not much empty room though, so each hit will probably damage something important.

If you want a challenge that ship is for you, you can do a decent job if you get lucky but I get real hard fast if you don’t get lucky with your drops and shops.

Layout C: Tetragon

Unlock: Reaching Sector 8 with the Engi Cruiser Layout B and Advanced Mode enabled unlocks layout C.

• Starting Crew: 1 Lanius, 2 Engi
• Starting Augmentation:
  • Defense Scrambler
• Starting Weapon:
  • Dual Lasers
• Starting Drone:
  • Beam I
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 0 Missiles
  • 25 Drone parts
• Clone Bay
• Hacking System
• Slots: 3 Weapon, 3 Drone

The ship layout is pretty neat but the main problem of this ship its is constant use of drone part by the hacking system and Beam Drone. If you can get your hand on the drone recovery arm you might save a lot on drone part there.

Later, this ship will mostly relies on it’s hacking and massive drone army to destroy the enemy ship. The Defense Scrambler will takes care of those nasty Anti-Combat drones and defense drone so you shouldn’t have problem deploying offensive drone and you could add missile weapon to be able to target specific systems that are causing you trouble. Drones destroy Zoltan shields pretty easily so that not an issue here. Mind Control, Teleportation can be nice addition to this ship too since your Lanius is a pretty good boarder specially if you can get another Lanius crew.

Robotic Warfare – With the Engi Cruiser, have 3 drones functioning at the same time.

Probably the easiest achievement of the game to obtain. Obtain three drones and activate all three of them to unlock this achievement. Repair drone and anti-drone drone work best since they only need one power.

I hardly lifted a finger – With the Engi Cruiser, destroy an enemy ship using only drones.

This achievement can be done pretty quickly with the Torus in sector one if you encounter AI ship with no shield. Just let the “Anti-Ship Drone I” loose and he will get the job done for you.

If you’re not lucky enough to get a AI ship in the first few sectors, you can complete this achievement against a 1 shield ship in a asteroid field.

According to the wiki, you can use a boarding ship on a AI ship with doors connecting to every room. Since the ship will lose 1 hull each time a system is destroy, wait destroyed systems become activated again so you boarding drone take care of them. This might take awhile but will give you this achievement too.

The guns… They’ve stopped – Have 4 enemy systems or subsystems ionized at the same time while using the Engi Cruiser.

This achievement can be easily complete when visiting a pulsar since system ionized by the pulsar count toward that achievement. Systems that have cool down periods such as cloaking, hacking, mind control and teleporters also count towards this achievement. So ionizing the missing system while these are recharging will get you this achievement.

If you are going to to it the hard way, which is only going with weapon, the Ion Blast II cannons with a  Ion Bomb or/and a Ion Blast I will get the job done to. You have to quickly switch between system while the shield are down, and you will get that achievement.

Achievement :

The United Federation – Have six unique aliens on the Kestrel Cruiser simultaneously.

I though that this would be the easiest one to get but I never manage to get more than 5 different aliens. Your human count has one and you need to get 5 other from the eight different species in the game.

The Slug and the Crystal alien are the hardest to get. Slug can be recruited in store only in the slug home nebula or with particular event like Slocknog. Getting the cristal are even harder, you can only get them by receive the stasis pod from the Empty Ship in Asteroids quest, and then have the pod activated in the Zoltan Research Facility quest. You can get the achievement without these two race though. Here how to get other race:

Engi : They can be found through event, by defeating slaver ship or paying for a slave from a slaver ship. The can be hired in shop, mostly in engi control sector/homeoworld, zoltan sector/homeworld and even in the mantis sector/homeworld.

Zoltan: Like the Engi they can be found through some event like by defeating slaver ship or paying for a slave from a slaver ship. The can be hired in shop, mostly in engi control sector/homeoworld, zoltan sector/homeworld but less frequently elsewhere.

Mantis: Like the Engi they can be found through some event like by defeating slaver ship or paying for a slave from a slaver ship. you can get one in some occasion if you side with the mantis crew in a event in a engi controlled/homeworld sector The can be hired in shop, mostly in engi control sector/homeoworld, mantis sector/homeworld but rarely elsewhere.

Rock: They can be found too through the slaver and various event. They can be found in store too but mostly rock sector/homeworld but rarely elsewhere.

Lanius: You can get one when you encounter the “do you want our translator device ” event. It’s an event in abandoned sector that usually have Lanius there. You will encounter a Lanius ship that wants to trade scrap for fuel or drone or missile. There will be an option to inquire about their translator. Once you select it they will offer you 40 scrap for the “device” the device will end up being a Lanius name translator.
honestly I haven’t had the chance to find one except with that event or on the new Lanius ship or on a type C layout that sometime include Lanius crew member. However the wiki state that they can be found in store.

Note that This achievement is easier to complete using the Layout B (Red-Tail), as the starting crew includes three of the six required races.

Full Arsenal – Have every system and subsystem installed on the Kestrel Cruiser at one time.

This was the first achievement I manage to get on this ship and probably the easiest to accomplish of the three. You simply need to have all the system installed on the ship for the standard edition or 3 out of the 5 missing system in the advance edition. The missing system are : Teleporter, Drone Control,Cloaking, Hacking, and Mind Control, costing respectively 75, 85 (or 75, depending on which free drone it comes with), 150, 80, and 75 scrap. For the standard edition you need Teleporter, Drone Control,Cloaking.

The cheapest you can get this achievement in the advance edition is to get the Teleporter, Drone Control (if it 75) and Mind Control. Note your need the Battery subsystem too in the advance edition to get this achievement.

Tough Little Ship – As the Kestrel Cruiser, repair back to full health when it only has 1 HP remaining.

Probably one of the hardest achievement to pull off but here how you can do it.

Note (from the wiki): For the game to recognize this achievement as earned, the player must have the Kestrel Cruiser down to one hull point before jumping to a store beacon, and then the ship must be fully repaired all at once. If the ship is not repaired all at once or if the Hull Repair drone is used instead of a store, the achievement will not be earned.

I’ve added the note so you know that the Hull Repair drone won’t cut it and that you need to have 1 hp before going to a store.

They are several way to do this achievement but you probably know that having 1 hull is never a good situation to be and the risk of receiving more that 1 hull damage while fighting might throw off you calculation to get to  hull while fighting. And there always the problem that you need scrap to heal you ship full (usually 58 or 87 scrap).

There actually 2 somewhat safe way to do that achievement:

1- The first way is to find a asteroid field near a store, fight any hostile ship that are there. Once they are taken care of, power down your ship shield and watch it to go down to 1 hull while you repair any system or subsystem hit. Then warp to the store and repair it full.

2- You can use a weapon that can target your ship like the fire bomb. you need to have enough missile though (around 1 per point, note you can always lets the fire propagate). When you are near a store and you have enough scrap and missile, target your ship with the bomb until your at 1 hull point then extinguish the fire and jump to the store to repair your ship.

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 Kestrel Cruiser is the starting ship of the game. It’s a pretty well balance ship that start with very powerful weapon. The burst laser II with 3 laser will take care of the early sector and the Artemis missile will help you remove those nasty shield. The burst laser II is so good that I never had to sell it or get rid of it in all my gameplay with this ship.

Layout A: The Kestrel Cruiser

Unlock: Unlocked by default

• Starting Crew: 3 Human
• Starting Weapons:
  • Burst Laser II
  • Artemis Missile
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 8 Missiles
  • 0 Drone parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

Starting weapons of that ship are some of the best in the game, you’ll probably will likely keep one or even both for the whole game. Burst Laser II is simply amazing, it’s only 2 power for 3 laser shot making it probably one of the best damage output for that amount of power. If you manage your way well this weapon should be to cruise through the early sector where enemy ship usually have 1 or no shield. The Artemis will help you to take out those shield, 1 power for 2 damage it’s quite good the only other missile using 1 power is the leto and it does only 1 damage.

One tactic with this ship is to add beam weapons, due to this ship’s high shield removal capabilities. Pike beam or halberd Beam will fit quite well on this ship. Another amazing setup I managed to get was to get two extra Burst Laser II (one found the other bought) and I cruised through the game with them. Weapon pre-igniter fit well on this ship, specially if you manage to get beam weapon, extra burst laser or better missile (Pegasu, etc)

Layout B: Red Tail

Unlock: Unlock that ship by earning two of the three Kestrel achievements.

• Default name: Red-Tail
• Starting Crew: 2 Human, 1 Mantis, 1Zoltan
• Starting Weapons:
  • Basic Laser (x4)
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 5 Missiles
  • 0 Drone parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

The Basic Laser isn’t really good alone but four of them can make significant damage and will be very effective for early and even mid game. They are pretty good at leveling up your crewmember weapon skill. You will need replace these lasers with better lasers or support (bombs, missiles, beams). Already having a mantis might make it worthwhile to by a crew teleporter earlier than usual.

Layout C: The Swallow

Unlock: Unlock that ship by surviving up to sector 8 with the Red tail (the kestrel layout B)

• Default name: The Swallow
• Starting Crew: 2 Human , 1 Lanius
• Starting Weapons:
  • Dual Lasers
  • Ion Stunner
• Starting Resources:
  • 16 Fuel
  • 4 Missiles
  • 3 Drone Parts
• Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

I haven’t had the chance to try this ship yet but it’s hacking system combine with the ion stunner make a good combo to prevent enemies from repairing their systems specially their shield, add the hacking stun augment and they won’t repair anything. It can be use to take down the Med bay or oxygen and prevent them from repairing them. I really like its layout, the oxygen system can be drain out of oxygen surrounding it forcing them to move elsewhere.

If you don’t have FTL: Faster Than Light on iPad click here and to buy it.

Source : The FTL Wiki Kestrel Page, The Wiki Ship Strategies and my tear and sweat trying to unlock those damn ship.

I’m a big fan of FTL and basically have the game since release.  I’ve got all the ship except the Cristal one and over 100 hr played on it. So I was quite happy when then announced the release of FTL on the IPad awhile ago. With the recent release on the IPad they updated the game with new content (ship, alien, mod, ship layout).

The game started has a Kickstarter campaign on February 27th, 2012 andthe campaign was a massive success.

Ok! We get it, you like this game but What the game about ?

FTL is roguelike space games, where you control a spaceship that needs to save the Federation from the Rebellion. Has you flee from the rebel force to the federation headquarter to be deliver critical information about the rebel force, you encounter alien race, hostile ship, event, store. You can unlock ship by going through certain event or be beating the rebel Flag ship with certain type of ship. What most notable and very common in the roguelike game is that each time you lose your ship, either no more crew or the whole ship is destroyed, you need to restart the game.

With made me look forward for more game in the space genre here 3 games that caught my attention recently. Please note that because of my love for FTL I’ll probably start a weekly or bi-weekly post on how to unlock ship and various achievement. If you can’t wait you can always check there wiki, its awesome source of FTL information.

P.S: I hope they will make it available on android too.

Cosmonautica

Cosmonautica look quite promising, it’s can be describe has The Sim in space meet FTL of some sort. . The player’s ship is the size of a large townhouse and various rooms can be bolted onto its empty compartments. Living quarters, vending machines, cargo bays, weapons, engines and, wait for it, toilets… At present, there’s not much to do beyond trading basic commodities, but ground missions and enhanced combat are due before release. Take a look.

Related

A life of space trading (indiesgames)

The cosmo-nautica Blog

Planet express simulator (Rock paper Shotgun)

Cosmo-Nautica (indiedb)

Shallow Space

From the look of it Shallow space is a Space 3D RTS game inspired from homeworld. Players will need to mine for resources, advance capital ships and engage in battle to improve your officers skills. You can even design your own weapon configurations and ship modules, and believe me there are plenty of ships to play with!

Related: Dominate the Shallow Space (Indieretronews)

SPAZ 2

I loved the first game even though I haven’t finished it yet. It doesn’t have the same vibe FTL does but I really liked how you upgrade your spaceships and how you can customize them. The game has a bit of grinding to it that can sometime be cumbersome.

SPAZ 1

SPAZ 2 come back with all these mechanic, new ones and with enhanced 3d graphics.

Official Site : http://minmax-games.com/SpacePiratesAndZombies/