Ruwen's homecoming
Jul. 5th, 2024 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
primeidealSo in FTL, there's a hidden species called the Crystals, but the quest to unlock their ship is fiendishly difficult in the base game and requires a lot of RNG events to go your way. However, in the Advanced Edition, the version C Rock ship starts with a Crystal crewmember, which makes the unlock quest significantly easier (though still fluky). Anyway, back in the day when I was playing it a lot I unlocked the Crystal ship by going the Rock C route.
Today I was playing Engi A, who start with a combat drone, an Ion Blast, and the Engi Med-Bot dispersal as one of their three augmentation slots. I'm not exactly sure what the strategy for ion weapons is, some people understand this better than me, but I played around with "autofire" because if there's a shield to hit, the ion will default to bringing down the shields first, so you don't have to worry about "do I aim at the shields or what." And normally I'm pretty cautious with drone/missile based strategies, because they're limited in supply; however, this ship starts with no other way to inflict hull damage, so you pretty much have to use the combat drones early.
Early on, I got a pirate to surrender mid-fight and offer a Shields Recharge Booster augment. That's good, everybody needs shields and defense, so fine, I'll take that bribe. The med-bot augmentation serves its role well, my Engi (and human pilot) can cope with boarders even though they're not great in single combat.
At some point I got a Hull Repair drone. (I got something else like Systems Repair too but I sold that off, Engi crew don't need drone repairers.) At this point, I have put manymany hours into the game so I'm not above reading strategy guides for pro tips on how to efficiently use some of the niche items, and they said that "a hull repair drone will repair your hull from 3-5 points of damage before it's used up. So if you combine it with the Drone Reuse augmentation, just make sure to jump after 2 points of healing and you'll get your drone part back." 2 points of free healing every jump sounds great! And a good way to get over my risk-aversion, if I'm fortunate enough to have the opportunity to purchase a Drone Reuse.
Anyway, I got the "search for a ship in an asteroid field" event, and of course I'm going to search for the ship, because maybe, someday, everything will fall into place and I'll feel like I got the Crystal unlock the "right" way. (I have spoilers for this, too.) Sure enough, do I want the weapon or the stasis pod? The stasis pod, obviously.
More ships, more fights, the usual. Zoltan homeworld sector. I have plenty of scrap on hand, and here's a store. Maybe they will have the drone reuse augment for sale? Yes, they do! Great! Except...I already have three augments. Med-Bots and Sheild Recharge are useful, and darnit I'm holding onto that bleeping stasis pod just in case. Sunk cost fallacy. So I spend my money on upgrading shields instead.
And then...there it is! Out of nowhere! The Zoltan research facility event! They're able to unlock Ruwen! Amazing!
And now I have space for the drone reuse augment! But I already spent my money. Oops.
Anyway, we move onward, and sure enough, the Rock Homeworlds are up next! I can actually go through and get the Crystal sector with the Stasis Pod Crystal, as it was meant to be! What luck! Eventually I do make it to another store and buy the drone reuser, so life is good.
And then when we make it to the ship coordinate quest marker in the Crystal sector, they give me the Crystal Vengeance! Which I know I can sell for good money at a store! Except...now I really do need to leave one of the augments behind. Fine, medbots, you served me well, but I have a Crystal now, we can do it the normal way.
Then, returning into normal space in Rock sector 7, we get another "search for a ship in a dense asteroid field" event. This is getting out of hand, now there are two of them?! Obviously we don't have time for another quest, but I have to go for it, just for the heck of it. Except oops, this one is just an ordinary "an asteroid hits you and damages you, womp womp."
Late game I lucked into a flak gun and, somehow, yet another hull repair drone. When the flagship targeted my sensors for hacking in phase 1 I figured we were in a pretty good position; however, poor Ruwen was stuck on door duty and got locked in behind the hacked sensors room, eventually dying there. We did get past phase 1 and knocked them down to 1 HP in phase 2, but alas, systems were being destroyed left and right and the crew perished.
Anyway, now that I have the "real" version of the Crystal unlock, in the future I will have a clear conscience if and when I choose to take the weapon and small pile of scrap. ;)
Today I was playing Engi A, who start with a combat drone, an Ion Blast, and the Engi Med-Bot dispersal as one of their three augmentation slots. I'm not exactly sure what the strategy for ion weapons is, some people understand this better than me, but I played around with "autofire" because if there's a shield to hit, the ion will default to bringing down the shields first, so you don't have to worry about "do I aim at the shields or what." And normally I'm pretty cautious with drone/missile based strategies, because they're limited in supply; however, this ship starts with no other way to inflict hull damage, so you pretty much have to use the combat drones early.
Early on, I got a pirate to surrender mid-fight and offer a Shields Recharge Booster augment. That's good, everybody needs shields and defense, so fine, I'll take that bribe. The med-bot augmentation serves its role well, my Engi (and human pilot) can cope with boarders even though they're not great in single combat.
At some point I got a Hull Repair drone. (I got something else like Systems Repair too but I sold that off, Engi crew don't need drone repairers.) At this point, I have put manymany hours into the game so I'm not above reading strategy guides for pro tips on how to efficiently use some of the niche items, and they said that "a hull repair drone will repair your hull from 3-5 points of damage before it's used up. So if you combine it with the Drone Reuse augmentation, just make sure to jump after 2 points of healing and you'll get your drone part back." 2 points of free healing every jump sounds great! And a good way to get over my risk-aversion, if I'm fortunate enough to have the opportunity to purchase a Drone Reuse.
Anyway, I got the "search for a ship in an asteroid field" event, and of course I'm going to search for the ship, because maybe, someday, everything will fall into place and I'll feel like I got the Crystal unlock the "right" way. (I have spoilers for this, too.) Sure enough, do I want the weapon or the stasis pod? The stasis pod, obviously.
More ships, more fights, the usual. Zoltan homeworld sector. I have plenty of scrap on hand, and here's a store. Maybe they will have the drone reuse augment for sale? Yes, they do! Great! Except...I already have three augments. Med-Bots and Sheild Recharge are useful, and darnit I'm holding onto that bleeping stasis pod just in case. Sunk cost fallacy. So I spend my money on upgrading shields instead.
And then...there it is! Out of nowhere! The Zoltan research facility event! They're able to unlock Ruwen! Amazing!
And now I have space for the drone reuse augment! But I already spent my money. Oops.
Anyway, we move onward, and sure enough, the Rock Homeworlds are up next! I can actually go through and get the Crystal sector with the Stasis Pod Crystal, as it was meant to be! What luck! Eventually I do make it to another store and buy the drone reuser, so life is good.
And then when we make it to the ship coordinate quest marker in the Crystal sector, they give me the Crystal Vengeance! Which I know I can sell for good money at a store! Except...now I really do need to leave one of the augments behind. Fine, medbots, you served me well, but I have a Crystal now, we can do it the normal way.
Then, returning into normal space in Rock sector 7, we get another "search for a ship in a dense asteroid field" event. This is getting out of hand, now there are two of them?! Obviously we don't have time for another quest, but I have to go for it, just for the heck of it. Except oops, this one is just an ordinary "an asteroid hits you and damages you, womp womp."
Late game I lucked into a flak gun and, somehow, yet another hull repair drone. When the flagship targeted my sensors for hacking in phase 1 I figured we were in a pretty good position; however, poor Ruwen was stuck on door duty and got locked in behind the hacked sensors room, eventually dying there. We did get past phase 1 and knocked them down to 1 HP in phase 2, but alas, systems were being destroyed left and right and the crew perished.
Anyway, now that I have the "real" version of the Crystal unlock, in the future I will have a clear conscience if and when I choose to take the weapon and small pile of scrap. ;)
