One other thought about players' deciding to keep LRS instead of buying shields: I suspect some of it is down to loss aversion. People really hate losing things they already possess. That's why loss aversion is used so much as a marketing tactic: offers are framed in terms of loss instead of gains. That's a big reason for all the coupons, limited-time offers, free trials and so on: if you don't buy, it feels like you are losing something you "already have".
that's reasonable. Like early LRS and just needing to hold out for maybe just 1 more store and you get to have the best of both worlds. and it probably works out that way a good amount. but we don't do what works a good amount. it's what works "all" the time.
Another thing - i have no doubt the conversation over this topic will evolve. "budget" isn't really accurate. it's more about winning now versus winning more later.
You brought up many important concepts to think about, if one wants to become a great player. Well worth listening to for anyone wanting to improve their play.
It kind of started with you. The engi a run that I died against zoltan boarder police, and you pointed out i skipped a store because i bought piloting upgrade.
Excellent analysis. This is probably the most important change that many high-level players could make to improve their win rate. Unfortunately it can be very hard to change "winning" habits. The crucial first step, as you mentioned, is looking at the issue from BOTH sides, rather than just in favour of existing habits. For the record, I have not tested LRS vs. shields. I reserve my testing for decisions I am not already 100% certain about. ;)
I get what you're saying, and I think this type of playstyle is similar to gambling. You're betting your scrap on unlikely but very lucrative things (or at least it feels like you do). E.g. upgrading sensors for the nebula event where you get free stuff. There is a big thrill when you get those, and you simply don't get that by playing safe and sound, like selling LRS for a shield. What might also play a role is not wanting to double spend - that is, to sell something you already have that you know will 100% buy again if you have the money - like LRS. "If I just grit my teeth and survive the next 3 jumps, I'll save 15 scarp". Very well put together video btw.
thanks. very much a lot of people remember the payouts. I recall upgrading piloting once got me like 2 weapons and a crew in a run. but it also cost me at least 1 run and when trying to win all the time, you have to shed all the "unlikely to kill me but high rewards" and just say no.
I think you've made your point extremely well. Opportunity cost is widely misunderstood by players of lots of games, FTL included. I know I'm definitely too free-handed with my scrap ("how can this scrap help me now" mentality rather than "how can this scrap best be used overall")
you helped me get my first "normal" win in the game :) i was using slug a (just b/c it's a new ship I haven't won with yet ever, I've only got like 5 ships atm) and using this "budget" strategy, the run was very smooth. I'm used to playing on "easy" and often feel like when I lose, the game was just cheating me with RNG. but with these strats, it felt like RNG was heavily eliminated. I kept thinking, what do I NEED to win this run? some events that were really hard for me to pass up this run: LRS? not really... crew or scrap reward? eh...we already got doors 2 so I can manage without crew, but I need scrap sensors? eh, we got slugs backup battery? eh, to power what exactly? for something in the future, cuz I don't need power rn... new weapon? can't even get it online yet. how about we get my existing weapons online, but before that: shields? yes yes yes. plus the reactor to have it online... ok, now i need missle defense. anything else can wait... wow, there's a deal for pilot 2 for only 8 scrap? I REALLY want that. Dang, this is hard to pass up, but I'll pass. Few moments later, I'm so happy I passed up on being down -8 scrap for piloting 2 so now I can get... i was much more greedy with my scrap. already having in mind, exactly purchases I might NEED next
@@crowrevell2082 i actually just got my first hard win today, using slug a again. much, much harder than normal. only took some 100 hours in game plus researching online. i used to think winning hard was reserved for crazy gamers. maybe ive paid my dues to contribute to the ftl knowledge base now. so thanks again for posting such great content :)
Yeah, it's a thing we all do/did. Kind of why i wanted to make a video about it, cause i've tried talking with people about adapting their play to this style and found them pretty resistant to change. and there's so much to consider, so figured i'd make a resource available to try and showcase the difference.
@@crowrevell2082 I think maybe it's because, something like LRS *seems* like it's so good. Like, it's only 30 scrap, and it could maybe pay for itself super fast if you get even 2 extra encounters out of it quickly. The biggest issue is, I think, people never seem to account for repairs, which add up so much.
@@tfraenckel yeah. I mentioned i wanted to make a video about LRS being bad, and the response was "we'll down vote that to oblivion" and it's like, i'm pretty good at the game, maybe i know what i'm talking about, or at least worth the listen? I really had seen a string of runs, by solid players, end because of the bought or didn't sell LRS. That idea evolved into this video. Want to make another one explaining sector scouting. And, again, LRS are like something you get away with 90% of the time so they seem "right." Honestly my start down this path i think was Thomas. I died on engi a (sector 2 zoltan police with artemis and mc), and he pointed out that i bought a piloting upgrade for nebula that didn't pan out and i skipped an early store in the sector. Really shifted how I looked at value.
This video hits home for me in terms of attempting to train experienced and winning players out of some bad habits. I will give you my own experience for just the fun of reading it, if it interests you. It's only on-topic in that way. I've tried to explain how to budget your resources for success in the recent racing game F-Zero 99. I'm like a pretty solidly average player, but I've seen much better drivers be unable to get wins, and I've just been trying to explain how powerful the rubber banding mechanics of the game can be and how in certain races, I'm really just boosting on lap 4 and not crashing and that's how I get wins, and I get there by collecting 2 skyways and having a full health bar because I didn't overboost. Then I expend all my resources after everyone else has already rubber banded, and so have I, and then I just win the race. Not because I am even good at racing, I crash more than half of my races. I'm trash, but I manage the resources well. I was trying to explain to folks much better than me how I got ahead of a golden fox as the wild goose by the start of lap 2 in position to KO them without using a single boost, and they were looking at me like I had three heads. People really over-value the stuff they've tried that gives them any level of success, even when it prevents them from hitting a higher level of success. For example, they budget themselves 1 to 2 boosts per lap of the race, and that keeps them near the front, and then they hope their 1 to 2 boosts on lap 4 are enough because they're near the race leader. But I can catch up to the race leader at full health by the start of the final lap using free resources. That's better, but it conflicts with the strategy they've been using because they're more focused on maintaining rank on the laps that do not matter (1 through 3) as opposed to positioning on lap 4, the only lap that actually matters. It's tough to take what you think you know, and throw it in the garbage. Especially without being shown by someone much better than you that what you're doing can improve. Even so, a lot of people will reject the advice and just chalk it up to you getting lucky. Luck is me pushing the buttons correctly to not crash into a bomb or a wall, because I'm inconsistent. Collecting the 2 skyways and spamming the boost button on lap 4 is not really luck at all, and that's the part I try to teach people. That's what got me all my wins, that plus pressing the buttons correctly. But I can press the buttons correctly and not win, at all, if I don't budget my resources optimally. That's the point folks don't get. People don't like to examine what they lose out on with their chosen strategy, and what they lose out on in my example is the ability to catch up to the race leader essentially for free and have the most amount of boosts available for the one lap that makes any difference. It's just better, but they need to give up on uselessly boosting to maintain rank and then it just weakens their skyway rubber band, so they end up in the same place, but with less health. The skyway erases their advantage the same way it erases my deficit being in 40th place on lap 1 and then 20th place on lap 3, ending up right behind the first place person. It makes all your good driving and good boosting go away too. It only helps you if you are building a lead in first place over the second place person and "the pack" of racers, and make a lead so big the skyway can't cover the gap. Which is possible, but only if a lot of people are racing significantly more poorly than you, which is less likely to happen the more people gain skill and experience. Usually there are several people keeping up with first place, and whenever that happens, they generate the needed sparks to create skyways. That's free boosts ahead of first place being dropped by racers without using your vehicle's own limited resources. And if you're keeping up with the race leaders using skyways, you typically have the health needed to boost into them and KO them when they get low on health due to overboosting or making errors and crashing into things. And you have the health needed to erase some of your own errors. I'm barely hanging on to being a racer of my skill level purely because I budget well. You should see how often I still crash into stuff and make poorly inputted turns. All I can teach is how to budget. But the budgeting alone pretty much got me all my wins, only a few were due to someone smoking in front of me giving me a free KO and health refill on some lap where I was low on health. But there's also lost opportunity there, if you try to stay in first place the whole race you can't see when the folks behind you are about to explode. If they were just barely in front of you, unable to boost, unable to escape, they're free health refills. It's not always to one's advantage in the race to be in first place in FZero 99, it's a game where you can kill the other racers and the other racers give you things for free whether they get killed or not. Almost all benefit other racers have for your vehicle come from them being in front of you, to power your skyway's strength, to generate the sparks for the skyway, and to provide you with KO opportunities. Sometimes they even run into red bomb cars and explode them for you, making your path to the finish easier. It's nicer to be in like 5th place at the start of lap 4 with full boosts available while they're struggling. They basically become your unwilling escorts to first place, or grant you a skyway on lap 4 that you otherwise wouldn't get. Assuming you are relatively close to first, this is super viable. All of that gets ignored because folks really like to be in first for 98 percent of the race and then lose the race. For some reason.
that's really cool. I'm not a follower of f-zero but this is a really great break down of how meta-decisions can overcome skill and how being open to new ideas can lead to higher success rates.
I think an extremely important general idea is missed here is that the systems (especially the most important: shields, engines, weapons, cloaking and hacking) are much more important than any augmentation. For example, there are insanely rare situations when you completely have to sell zoltan shield and buy cloaking (if you have troubles with scrap)
I think that's a good point. I almost never go to a store looking for an augment. I think i noted elsewhere that DRA and ZSB are the 2 that I would visit a store with the goal of buying while everything else is like "well, nothing here I want and I can see the spots that they'd be helpful"
Just starting this video, very interested to see if my "does this make me win more" rubric is sensible compared to your approach! Usually, the choice is something like "does it make me win more to hold or spend this scrap? or: does it make me win more to buy THIS or THIS? Especially given that scrap early is worth way more than scrap late... Anyway this will be an excellent lunchtime watch!
Well, I can now see why Long Range Scanners may be considered a bad play. But I think the real enemy here now is the Scrap Recovery Arm! There is a value proposition to be made, but you're pricing yourself out of a lot of things when you're paying 50 scrap upfront. In particular, if you're looking to convince people of your budget-oriented strategy, I think the word that would help you most is "savings". More scrap is valuable, but savings lets you do more with less - and upgrading your shield early means you save scrap that you would otherwise spend on repairs.
I know of no players, winning around 80% that buy SRA unless they are memeing. LRS are generally considered a snap buy and the best of the "investements" which is why i targeted the most because if it falls, the others do as well. There are perhaps times were LRS are still an okay decision, 2 early stores with nothing else, and no real ship improvements of value to make. And Argument could be made. And there really isn't any video talking about this, so some of the terminology i was making it up on the spot so to speak. Budget vs value, but scaling early or "saving" could also describe the LRS vs shields debate. But it's opportunity costs that is the main driving force that players put themselves behind. And do so in the more dangerous parts of the game.
I've snowballed with SRA before, but that was when I was able to get it in the first sector which is the only time I'd consider it. Any later and you're not getting the most out of the bonus, while in Sector 1 it's really just a slight delay in getting your build up and going, with the upside being a noticeable increase in scrap income which can make it quicker to stack up your ship. I also always end up selling it in a late sector as well, as at that point it's not really useful anymore since I'm fully maxed out and still swimming in scrap at that point.
@@VestedUTuber like if you're snowballing, they you probably would have won the run without it. SRA is 1 scrap per 10 earned (not from selling items). In hard mode, i can justify spending 50 scrap early when I need weapons and systems to win fights. it isn't about "this works sometimes" it's what works all the time. But it is full to be rolling in scrap.
@@VestedUTuber the reward you get always rounds down to the nearest 10. so 19 scraps only gets you 1 extra. in practice, the 10% on the label isn't actually 10%. it's less. so that means only on high rewards in sector 1 and 2 (on hard that range is 19-23) that you're getting more than 1 scrap back. it takes 13 separate rewards to hit the break even point with selling it back factored in (and that's assuming you're hitting high rewards for those 13 rewards which in reality doesn't ever happen) but the entire idea of the scrap arm is to make MORE scrap... not to break even. in reality it's probably nearer to 17 or 18 rewards that you get 25 scrap back from it. that's a whole lotta of rewards to break even. (and if you go as far as to bring sector 3 into the equation, the range of high rewards is 27-32 so that means only high rewards half the time net you +3 scrap) to me what's noticeable is the opportunity cost of buying it. sometimes i miss the things in the stores that i need by 1 scrap, really to no fault of my own. actually played a run last night that i didn't spend any scrap in sector 1 (which i don't typically recommend) until i got to a store and was 7 scrap short of buying hacking. sector 1 and 2 is where a huge percentage of losing runs die as it's the time your ship is the most vulnerable. spending any scrap on anything that doesn't really help solve those vulnerabilities is only setting yourself back further behind the curve. the early/mid game is the most important time to be managing your scrap properly as usually later in runs you already have what you need to win so that tightness lets up a bit. i'm also looking at this from a view point of trying to win every single run all of the time on hard mode
Crow, you have described the correct approach to a successful gameplay that leads to winning the game. Allow me to add some notes on the topic from similar, yet different angle. The LRS do not provide the factual data on the ship presence in many double-rewards events, especially those that can give weapon (also crew, repairs, scrap, etc) !!! E.g.: Auto-ship attacking civilian (can occur multiple times in Civilian and Rebel sectors), Pirate attacking civilian (can occur multiple times in Civilian/Pirate/Rock/Slug sectors, can occur as filler or exit beacon event), Rebel transport (can occur only once, in Civilian/Rebel/Mantis/Slug sectors, can occur as filler or exit beacon event), Pirate smuggler (at nebula beacons, can occur multiple times in Civilian/Pirate/Uncharted, can occur as nebula filler event), Rebel attacking civilians in Last Stand (can occur multiple times; can give 8 hull repairs or resources+scrap), Rebel attacking Federation loyalists and Encrypted federation signal (can proc Hidden Federation Base quest marker, etc) Engi distress call (can occur multiple times in Engi sectors) and other beneficial events. Even the Pirate smuggler can occur 2-3 (maybe more) times in a large Uncharted sector, potentially substituting purchasing weapons at stores. The free weapon event does not contain a ship, so it will likely be omitted in favor of a ship fight. The most useful case for LRS as a blue option is at a Hidden Federation Base, but the scenario has only 1/8 chance. However, LRS can also lead to double-rewards fights, especially in sector 1 when playing with Stealth Cruiser netting 120-200 scrap. It depends on the events generated and the beacon map layout, of course. LRS can facilitate in finding certain events (Kazaak has ship presence; Zoltan peace envoy, Flagship shipyard, Ancient device - have no ship detected; etc). It is good to know where the ion storm beacons are when running low on reactor (especially w/o Backup Battery and/or Zoltans) and potentially confronting the Auto-ships with plenty of power and capable of turning their drones on if their weapons go down. Playing shieldless runs with LRS helps avoid nasty asteroid fights in early sectors, when the ship is not setup up for Zoltan Ships and Auto-ships with drones (moreso without any upgrades or improvements to the ship). ---- My opinion on LRS: 1. it is NOT needed to win the game on Hard difficulty (on regular, non-challenge runs). it MAY be useful for a player who knows events, but can mislead one who hasn't familiarized oneself with them (see the brief event list above as a misleading (by the game) example). it IS required for one of the Stealth Cruiser achievement - to avoid hazard beacons. 2. BUYING the LRS instead of weapons/systems/drone parts/etc - is very questionable (with the negative connotation) to say the least. It is when the players get away with that bad decision, they start and continue to think that they are/were "right". 3. Buying LRS instead of Shields or not selling LRS to buy Shields: see #2 - or the player is totally comfortable in playing without Shields and CONSISTENTLY winning the game without them (on Hard difficulty).
This was a big eye-opener, I haven't really considered value vs budgeting in this manner before. Everything here makes so much sense when you explain it in such an ordered manner. I do want to ask something related to value vs budgeting, so I'm looking at the Stealth A ship in the Multiverse mod. Stealth A starts with a 2 power 3 damage pinpoint that has a 14s cooldown. It also starts with LRS and stealth weapons. The supposed "attraction" of this ship is its external stealth weapons, which can be combined later on with Level 5 Cloaking to have 25 seconds of cloak without weapon fire draining the cloak duration. Normally you can only get at most Level 2 Cloaking to combine with stealth weapons, but since Stealth A starts with external stealth weapons it can bypass the Level 2 limit. So starting with stealth weapons provides (what many would consider to be outstanding) future value in the form of a normally unobtainable combo with high-level cloaking. However, the starting weapon as a standalone is rather lackluster given that there will always be one enemy with 2 shields at the end of S1 and some combat drone ships. So what I gather from this analysis is that, if having only this single starting weapon for your offense in S1 makes it more dangerous compared to later sectors (regardless of whether you keep external stealth weapons), then the ideal strategy is to scout S1 for the 3 stores and be prepared to sell both LRS and stealth weapons for something that immediately makes your S1 safer, which would be either getting shields or a low power laser + weapon system upgrade that helps the pinpoint to deal more effectively with the 2 shield ship?
I have not played multiverse, so it would be almost impossible for me to give an opinion on meta strategy for it. In terms of winning, your take away from the video is correct, that one should increase early game survivability for better scaling overall. Seems the the starting weapons of stealth a do nothing against 2 shielded ships, which are rare in sector 2 vanilla (rebel elites, light surveyor layout, engi bomber from virus event) but pretty common for sector 3. So i would agree that selling something like stealth weapons to get another weapon online would be far superior than waiting 4-5 sectors to get value from the augment.
As a long-time LRS acolyte this has convinced me to stop buying it in the early game (I already would have sold it for shields), and has also made me realize the error of taking an early crew from slavers (I've felt conflicted about it for a long time so it's kind of a relief that I can stop feeling like I should take the crew haha). I wonder though, do you take crew early in an Engi B run? Or do you still stick with taking the high scrap?
Aside from Mantis B, wear crew are weapons and, more importantly, can fix something if it breaks/burns, crew are not what i'm looking for on anything else. Engi B is very bad, but the weapons are the biggest issue early on. But i also feel comfortable dealing with boarders with just the engi and anti-personal bot.
@Crow Revell agreed re: mantis B. I am growing more comfortable with engi +/- anti-p drone but still suffer from an irrational fear I think of being forced into a rock sector and hitting the mine event haha. Not that it's ever even happened to me, and thinking about it I'm sure I would save more runs taking more early scrap to use on a weapon as opposed to that 1 in 100 (maybe less) game where rock is forced and mine is encountered before any blue option happens to be available/crew obtained by other means. Thanks for the great vid and the reply! Edit: I think the point you make about needing to farm up for stores and thus sacrificing your ability to scout a sector is really excellent. I've felt for a long time that scouting for stores is a key to success that not a lot of players realize, but your arguments will really inform my relationship with farming before a store (in that I will try harder to plan ahead and therefore not need to do it haha)
@@ralden2691 nice. i feel you about the rock mine event. There are a few blue options like non-hull missile missile weapons, engines 5 and beam drone. perhaps swapping to a clone bay, though i've not yet been in that spot. it's like 20% chance to take a crew and that's if you get the event, but would still suck of course. Thanks for the kind words. I really kicked this idea around for about 2 months and talked with other players to try and make this theory as accessible as I could.
What about considerations such as being in sector 2 and having seen that youve got double green choice for sector 3 or 4. In which case chances for engi controlled or homeworld are high which means that picking up an engi but delaying other upgrades is much more likely to pay off in time to help you get over the sector 4 hump. Or do you think that would still be thinking in terms of value rather than budget/will it help me win? Id say thats a far more reasonable scenario to pick an engi, especially considering youve already gotten past sector one and have the sector 2/3 "breather" as well as youve got more information.
i would say it still falls under value. I use LRS a lot, because LRS are the top of the value charts. There are definitely some spots buying LRS makes sense. Legit, avoiding hazards can be run saving. Engi sectors have a lot of variance, but scrap alone isn't really a reason to choose a sector. It's safety and stores. Another player, sleepingdragons, tracked sector scrap for their first cycle (streak of all ships no losses) and uncharted nebula were one of the top scrap sectors. The other issue with buying value crew is you can't sell it back. I've bought weapons, then found better weapons, and sold the bought weapon back without using it several times. Crew is kind of just crew. Engi as a life saving pickup for mantis b or even crystal b makes sense. And if you are swimming in scrap, one can get away with the purchase. But i've played through dozens, perhaps hundreds of engi sectors that i got no blue options from an engi. Can't recall if i mentioned this in the video, i once bought discounted sensors in sector 1 with crystal a. lvl 2 sensors have 3-5 blue options in every non-nebula sector. It never game me one. but in sector 5, i was a little jammed at a store because i could buy all the fuel AND repairs that I wanted. Still won the run, but I find it tough to justify blue option chasing when one could just invest in shield early or another weapon perhaps. I've definitely seen it work out (buying an engi) but that's the thing is doing something that can work vs what works "all the time"
@@crowrevell2082 Perhaps I shouldve clarified that I meant when a ship surrenders with a slave offer. Ive personally almost never bought crew except for some achievements that I wanted to get or as you said when you just really need it more than anything else. I personally think thats a pretty decent option to pick up in sector 2 if you know youve got a bunch of green sectors coming up and dont already have an engi. Unless you absolutely need the scrap or resources instead. Worst case scenario you dont get an engi sector or no blue options for it in sector 3 or 4 in which case youve still got an engi. Its sour when taking that engi means youre 20 scrap short of hacking or BL2 in the future but its less sour when that engi saves you 10 hull damage in a nasty fight by allowing you to get a vital system repaired faster. So perhaps having the scrap and resources instead of taking the engi would have still been better but I think its one of the better crew surrenders to take, especially if youve also got a lot of green sectors coming up potentially allowing you to directly recoup the lost scrap very soon and before or during sector 4 through engi controlled blue options which imo are also one of the much better cases of blue options. Id never take any other crew in that slaver surrender unless I desperately just need any crew. But engi imo is definitely something that should at least be considered if you dont have an engi. Maybe a zoltan but even thats kinda meh imo, I also dont recall if Ive ever seen the slavers offer a zoltan, if they have its very rare. One case I probably wouldnt take the engi is if I have like 60 scrap, have explored some of the sector already and havent seen any stores yet. But if Ive already seen the stores in sector 2 or im on the first few jumps or have almost no scrap at all Id honestly probably rather take the engi, if Ive got more than 80 scrap then I think engi is even more obvious.
@@andrek6920 Again, i honestly wouldn't. like if i have enough scrap that i can skip on a high scrap reward to nab a crew, engi or otherwise, then it's a run i would just win regardless. I mean, you are clearly giving consideration to things like blue options and sectors, and repair speed is amazing, but, not to be a broken record, i'd just invest scrap in my ship. because the next sector could be double zoltan and getting engines up/shield buffer perhaps to increase survival chances is more align with how i play. Like if crew management, and a lot of the micro i'm comfortable with, others aren't. and they should play accordingly in that regard.
I try to avoid stores until I get at least t2 shields, and have some amount of scrap in the bank. What's the use if I find something I want and can't afford it? Sometimes refueling + repairing has to wait if I see a LRS early in the run though. Def1 drones are something I splurge on too. Maybe I'm doing the calculations wrong, but repairing the ship over and over again starts to get expensive. Other things I splurge on: burst2 and flacks. I often regret my decision either way sacrificing too much for these, or failing to find good weapons for the second half of the game. Am I wrong in thinking that getting hit once or twice more per fight due to putting off shields already makes scrap recovery arm fail at it's job? I get it later in the game when scraps start to scale up to 60~80 and 15% is +10 scrap, but even then 1 hp is worth 2~4$ so deploying a single def1 drone might already outpace sra. This only gets better since coming across an attack drone more or less is -1 shields for the enemy in those tough fights, but aren't necessary in most cases so the few spare free drone parts tend to be enough without spending more?
yeah - generally each ship has like an upgrade path (typically shields) which outweigh what a store can provide. they taking a few hits because i bought x works with everything for the most part. My play style is to eliminate all risk. I think a lot of players assume there's a certain amount of rolling risk or "greeding" during runs, but I think that's wrong. DD1 can provide a lot of security against missiles and going drones and dd1 is probably something that gets skipped more than it should be. It's difficult to say when it's a good spot to pick up a dd1 vs holding out for cloaking/hacking. But i've definitely won runs because of the choice to buy drone control.
You seem like you have really mastered FTL, especially with such an unbelievably high winrate! Have you considered making content for the Captain's Edition mod, or other mods for FTL? I would be interested to see your opinions on the balance changes.
I have played captains edition and arsenal +, a run of twinge’s balance mod years ago and no real interest in multiverse. Captains edition is kind of all over the place with the whole transporting cargo thing being a stand out. On one hand you are often losing jumps to deliver such items but , on average in early sectors selling the item is worth it. Arsenal + is a monster. A lot of ships n the A packet are 1 weapon ships making a lot of bad fed a ships (which are already bad) there are a few horrible designed events like 1 in which ever system gets hacked losing 1 bar to a minimum of 1. So you’ll be losing a shield bubble and a weapon a lot of the time. Worse is when those systems get hit the hack is pushed down this being more disruptive and I consider the event to basically kill you unless you are very far ahead
Then there is the flagship which is just absurd. It fires 4 ions which deal system damage. 4 heavy lasers. 4 tipped missiles with high chance of causing a specific type of disruption like fire or breach and the beam cause breaches and lasts a lot longer. But that’s not the worst part. Phase 2 all the drones are randomized. I went against an ion intruder in weapons as well as a shield drone so shield hacks are a must. The surge is also random and can easily kill nearly requiring cloaking to live. Phase 3 is like 33% chance to resist ion and 33% chance to resist system damage which makes taking out the weapon systems rough. And I just stopped playing the mods because peoples were more keen on their ideas than balancing them out. That and wanting to focus on my vanilla game play
@@crowrevell2082 Well, at the very least, there are some wonderful cosmetic mods that make the backgrounds, ships, and portraits prettier. Really gorgeous stuff, definitely check it out! There is also a mod that makes curves on the map showing where the rebels will advance to with each jump, which for me has been some incredible quality-of-life. There are several versions of that mod; I like the one that puts just the curves without any numbers. Yeah, I was especially curious on your opinions on buying cargo tbh. For any unaware: Captain's Edition Normal is designed to have about 10% win rate for players who are experienced with unmodded FTL on Hard. I am not sure what your CE win rate was, but based on your other content I imagine it's likely much higher than 10%. I haven't really played the Arsenal+ mod for more than a few games, because it seemed pretty imbalanced and polarizing (all ion weapons with a single laser/beam is always the best choice due to op drones neutering missiles). So I think we are in some agreement there. One additional mod is the infinite mod, which adds an endless mode. There are also some weapon modpacks balanced specifically for that mode as well. I wonder what your high score would be?
MV is by far the best of the ftl mods I've tried. It goes for ftl 2 type of approach and gets pretty close, balance wise. System choice is a lot closer too with cost and balance changes. Most weapons are reasonable, with busted stuff gated to rare events or optional areas.
I think you've rediscovered the economic theory of Time Preference, and your argument is that players are thinking too much in the long term instead of balancing long term and short term goals. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_preference
Do you think it’s possible that when you said you never lost a run by not buying long range scanners that the value they would of provided would have put you in a more advantageous position for some of the fights you died on
It's a fair question to ask, weighing all the times i sold lrs on stealth ships which is a lot of the time and i have a record of 36-3. Stealth B died from just a lack of scrap in general, but I needed to sell lrs to get a shield online. Shield has definitely saved my life more than it cost. In that run, my sector 2 and 3 were some of the lowest I have tracked with 59 scrap mantis sector 2 and an 86 scrap sector 3. The other 2 deaths were stealth c. 1 i was learning how to do low reactor and micro pause and i overspent in an early store and the run fell apart (so a cause where I didn't follow the video advice and i lost). The other was another low scrap run, that i sort of stabilized in sector 4, or so i though. burst 1, hacking and shields 2 were added to my ship, but i lost a crew earlier when i opted to draw straws vs facing down a zoltan ship with burst 2 and some other weapon. I took a pirate fight in a nebula and faced a zoltan shields, 2x burst laser 2, ion stunner and combat drone. Of my other losses. Lanius B, Mantis B, Slug A all died in sector 1 before i could even get lrs. so 1 maybe and 5 hard No so far. The ill fated Federation A was a brutal scrap shortage throughout with trash stores. I lost a mantis by not powering medbay when I thought I did, but i took a bad approach to the flagship fight and died there. Better approach and I have a much better chance of winning. Engi B was a sloppy fight into 3 auto ships with double missiles. Slug b was 4 double missile auto-ships in a row (and I probably needed to risk crew and board to take down there weapons) so again, LRS wasn't a key in those 3 runs. So that leaves Fed C and Zoltan B deaths which I only vaguely recall, but my stats show terrible scrap numbers. So 3 losses out of 12 out of 364 runs there is the possibility that LRS could have helped. I don't even know if they were offered in the Fed C and Zoltan B runs. Again, I think getting shields on stealth B is far more optimal for survival. So, at best it's a 1% chance to have a positive impact, but i would argue that I was not in a position to spend 30 scrap on LRS because I was already so far behind. It could be argued that "risk grabbing lrs with the notion that the upcoming RNG is so awful, that I need to find every scrap fight encounter, more than I need to find a store, so I can keep pace with scaling. I don't find that particular viewpoint persuasive.
Well said. To further that point I’d say you can only possibly argue you should have bought long range scanners in hindsight after the run was completed as well as if you bought them to avoid low scrap runs more often it would have likely costed you more runs as a whole. Correct again as always crow, was just trying to play devils advocate lol. I no longer buy scanners in my runs after watching your videos and I don’t feel as if my runs ever suffered because of it 👍
I don't get why you'd put off access to information on every path you're connected to from start to finish just to have shields one fight early on a ship that probably was going to do 1 damage to you anyway, also saying you prioritize shops instead of collecting scrap... but you need scrap to use the shops?
again, LRS are not as powerful as shields. in combat it does nothing. In a spot where I can't farm up for the store, it would make sense to sell LRS to have a better ship. Saying "wait one jump" would be inaccurate because you can't just make a store appear a jump later. I'm also not saying skip all the scrap and rush stores. I'm saying it's far better to reserve money to make any store an oppotunity to improve instead of pricing yourself out of a store and hoping you live long enough to find the next one and that the store you find has something that can save you. Playing around as much bad RNG as you possibly can is better than hoping to get a ton of value from LRS then finding a store. While a likely outcome, it's far from certain. So, instead I play around ship improvement so I'm far more likely to survive nasty fights. A few months ago, i completed my goal of doing 13 runs with every ship on hard mode and ended up with a 352-12 record, while shunning LRS nearly every run. Some runs I kept it, because there wasn't a reason to sell it in the moment. I can't come to the conclusion that an item i basically ignored in 300+ runs (as it was useful early game on stealth ships) has much of any value. This video along with my video on scouting sectors covers my philosophy on how to maximize scrap efficiency while maximizing safety.
Not me snap buying Scrap Recovery Arm in the first shop over Burst Laser II and then dying 2 sectors later.
of course not
One other thought about players' deciding to keep LRS instead of buying shields: I suspect some of it is down to loss aversion. People really hate losing things they already possess. That's why loss aversion is used so much as a marketing tactic: offers are framed in terms of loss instead of gains. That's a big reason for all the coupons, limited-time offers, free trials and so on: if you don't buy, it feels like you are losing something you "already have".
that's reasonable. Like early LRS and just needing to hold out for maybe just 1 more store and you get to have the best of both worlds. and it probably works out that way a good amount. but we don't do what works a good amount. it's what works "all" the time.
Another thing - i have no doubt the conversation over this topic will evolve. "budget" isn't really accurate. it's more about winning now versus winning more later.
You brought up many important concepts to think about, if one wants to become a great player. Well worth listening to for anyone wanting to improve their play.
It kind of started with you. The engi a run that I died against zoltan boarder police, and you pointed out i skipped a store because i bought piloting upgrade.
Excellent analysis. This is probably the most important change that many high-level players could make to improve their win rate. Unfortunately it can be very hard to change "winning" habits. The crucial first step, as you mentioned, is looking at the issue from BOTH sides, rather than just in favour of existing habits.
For the record, I have not tested LRS vs. shields. I reserve my testing for decisions I am not already 100% certain about. ;)
Mike with the mic drop.
this is a good example of why its hard to escape a local maxima if it seems to be working its easy to lose sight of the global maxima
@@dontgetmestarted9881 Exactly right. Same concept applies to evolution.
I get what you're saying, and I think this type of playstyle is similar to gambling. You're betting your scrap on unlikely but very lucrative things (or at least it feels like you do). E.g. upgrading sensors for the nebula event where you get free stuff. There is a big thrill when you get those, and you simply don't get that by playing safe and sound, like selling LRS for a shield.
What might also play a role is not wanting to double spend - that is, to sell something you already have that you know will 100% buy again if you have the money - like LRS. "If I just grit my teeth and survive the next 3 jumps, I'll save 15 scarp".
Very well put together video btw.
thanks. very much a lot of people remember the payouts. I recall upgrading piloting once got me like 2 weapons and a crew in a run. but it also cost me at least 1 run and when trying to win all the time, you have to shed all the "unlikely to kill me but high rewards" and just say no.
I got clickbaited by the LRS! :) thanks so much for the super detailed write-up.
I think you've made your point extremely well. Opportunity cost is widely misunderstood by players of lots of games, FTL included. I know I'm definitely too free-handed with my scrap ("how can this scrap help me now" mentality rather than "how can this scrap best be used overall")
Thanks.
This is an extremely, impressively compiled and presented video. Thanks for the data and discourse! Very insightful.
Thanks and you're welcome.
you helped me get my first "normal" win in the game :)
i was using slug a (just b/c it's a new ship I haven't won with yet ever, I've only got like 5 ships atm) and using this "budget" strategy, the run was very smooth. I'm used to playing on "easy" and often feel like when I lose, the game was just cheating me with RNG.
but with these strats, it felt like RNG was heavily eliminated. I kept thinking, what do I NEED to win this run?
some events that were really hard for me to pass up this run:
LRS? not really...
crew or scrap reward? eh...we already got doors 2 so I can manage without crew, but I need scrap
sensors? eh, we got slugs
backup battery? eh, to power what exactly? for something in the future, cuz I don't need power rn...
new weapon? can't even get it online yet. how about we get my existing weapons online, but before that:
shields? yes yes yes. plus the reactor to have it online...
ok, now i need missle defense. anything else can wait...
wow, there's a deal for pilot 2 for only 8 scrap? I REALLY want that. Dang, this is hard to pass up, but I'll pass. Few moments later, I'm so happy I passed up on being down -8 scrap for piloting 2 so now I can get...
i was much more greedy with my scrap. already having in mind, exactly purchases I might NEED next
Nice. Always happy to hear back from others this this video has helped out.
@@crowrevell2082 i actually just got my first hard win today, using slug a again. much, much harder than normal. only took some 100 hours in game plus researching online. i used to think winning hard was reserved for crazy gamers. maybe ive paid my dues to contribute to the ftl knowledge base now. so thanks again for posting such great content :)
Fantastic video! You're totally right, I've probably made mistakes like the ones you were talking about in this video dozens of times
Yeah, it's a thing we all do/did. Kind of why i wanted to make a video about it, cause i've tried talking with people about adapting their play to this style and found them pretty resistant to change. and there's so much to consider, so figured i'd make a resource available to try and showcase the difference.
@@crowrevell2082 I think maybe it's because, something like LRS *seems* like it's so good. Like, it's only 30 scrap, and it could maybe pay for itself super fast if you get even 2 extra encounters out of it quickly.
The biggest issue is, I think, people never seem to account for repairs, which add up so much.
@@tfraenckel yeah. I mentioned i wanted to make a video about LRS being bad, and the response was "we'll down vote that to oblivion" and it's like, i'm pretty good at the game, maybe i know what i'm talking about, or at least worth the listen? I really had seen a string of runs, by solid players, end because of the bought or didn't sell LRS. That idea evolved into this video. Want to make another one explaining sector scouting. And, again, LRS are like something you get away with 90% of the time so they seem "right." Honestly my start down this path i think was Thomas. I died on engi a (sector 2 zoltan police with artemis and mc), and he pointed out that i bought a piloting upgrade for nebula that didn't pan out and i skipped an early store in the sector. Really shifted how I looked at value.
This video hits home for me in terms of attempting to train experienced and winning players out of some bad habits. I will give you my own experience for just the fun of reading it, if it interests you. It's only on-topic in that way.
I've tried to explain how to budget your resources for success in the recent racing game F-Zero 99. I'm like a pretty solidly average player, but I've seen much better drivers be unable to get wins, and I've just been trying to explain how powerful the rubber banding mechanics of the game can be and how in certain races, I'm really just boosting on lap 4 and not crashing and that's how I get wins, and I get there by collecting 2 skyways and having a full health bar because I didn't overboost. Then I expend all my resources after everyone else has already rubber banded, and so have I, and then I just win the race. Not because I am even good at racing, I crash more than half of my races.
I'm trash, but I manage the resources well. I was trying to explain to folks much better than me how I got ahead of a golden fox as the wild goose by the start of lap 2 in position to KO them without using a single boost, and they were looking at me like I had three heads.
People really over-value the stuff they've tried that gives them any level of success, even when it prevents them from hitting a higher level of success. For example, they budget themselves 1 to 2 boosts per lap of the race, and that keeps them near the front, and then they hope their 1 to 2 boosts on lap 4 are enough because they're near the race leader.
But I can catch up to the race leader at full health by the start of the final lap using free resources. That's better, but it conflicts with the strategy they've been using because they're more focused on maintaining rank on the laps that do not matter (1 through 3) as opposed to positioning on lap 4, the only lap that actually matters.
It's tough to take what you think you know, and throw it in the garbage. Especially without being shown by someone much better than you that what you're doing can improve. Even so, a lot of people will reject the advice and just chalk it up to you getting lucky.
Luck is me pushing the buttons correctly to not crash into a bomb or a wall, because I'm inconsistent. Collecting the 2 skyways and spamming the boost button on lap 4 is not really luck at all, and that's the part I try to teach people. That's what got me all my wins, that plus pressing the buttons correctly.
But I can press the buttons correctly and not win, at all, if I don't budget my resources optimally. That's the point folks don't get. People don't like to examine what they lose out on with their chosen strategy, and what they lose out on in my example is the ability to catch up to the race leader essentially for free and have the most amount of boosts available for the one lap that makes any difference.
It's just better, but they need to give up on uselessly boosting to maintain rank and then it just weakens their skyway rubber band, so they end up in the same place, but with less health. The skyway erases their advantage the same way it erases my deficit being in 40th place on lap 1 and then 20th place on lap 3, ending up right behind the first place person.
It makes all your good driving and good boosting go away too. It only helps you if you are building a lead in first place over the second place person and "the pack" of racers, and make a lead so big the skyway can't cover the gap. Which is possible, but only if a lot of people are racing significantly more poorly than you, which is less likely to happen the more people gain skill and experience. Usually there are several people keeping up with first place, and whenever that happens, they generate the needed sparks to create skyways. That's free boosts ahead of first place being dropped by racers without using your vehicle's own limited resources.
And if you're keeping up with the race leaders using skyways, you typically have the health needed to boost into them and KO them when they get low on health due to overboosting or making errors and crashing into things. And you have the health needed to erase some of your own errors.
I'm barely hanging on to being a racer of my skill level purely because I budget well. You should see how often I still crash into stuff and make poorly inputted turns. All I can teach is how to budget. But the budgeting alone pretty much got me all my wins, only a few were due to someone smoking in front of me giving me a free KO and health refill on some lap where I was low on health.
But there's also lost opportunity there, if you try to stay in first place the whole race you can't see when the folks behind you are about to explode. If they were just barely in front of you, unable to boost, unable to escape, they're free health refills.
It's not always to one's advantage in the race to be in first place in FZero 99, it's a game where you can kill the other racers and the other racers give you things for free whether they get killed or not. Almost all benefit other racers have for your vehicle come from them being in front of you, to power your skyway's strength, to generate the sparks for the skyway, and to provide you with KO opportunities. Sometimes they even run into red bomb cars and explode them for you, making your path to the finish easier.
It's nicer to be in like 5th place at the start of lap 4 with full boosts available while they're struggling. They basically become your unwilling escorts to first place, or grant you a skyway on lap 4 that you otherwise wouldn't get. Assuming you are relatively close to first, this is super viable.
All of that gets ignored because folks really like to be in first for 98 percent of the race and then lose the race. For some reason.
that's really cool. I'm not a follower of f-zero but this is a really great break down of how meta-decisions can overcome skill and how being open to new ideas can lead to higher success rates.
I think an extremely important general idea is missed here is that the systems (especially the most important: shields, engines, weapons, cloaking and hacking) are much more important than any augmentation. For example, there are insanely rare situations when you completely have to sell zoltan shield and buy cloaking (if you have troubles with scrap)
I think that's a good point. I almost never go to a store looking for an augment. I think i noted elsewhere that DRA and ZSB are the 2 that I would visit a store with the goal of buying while everything else is like "well, nothing here I want and I can see the spots that they'd be helpful"
Just starting this video, very interested to see if my "does this make me win more" rubric is sensible compared to your approach! Usually, the choice is something like "does it make me win more to hold or spend this scrap? or: does it make me win more to buy THIS or THIS? Especially given that scrap early is worth way more than scrap late... Anyway this will be an excellent lunchtime watch!
Well, I can now see why Long Range Scanners may be considered a bad play. But I think the real enemy here now is the Scrap Recovery Arm! There is a value proposition to be made, but you're pricing yourself out of a lot of things when you're paying 50 scrap upfront.
In particular, if you're looking to convince people of your budget-oriented strategy, I think the word that would help you most is "savings". More scrap is valuable, but savings lets you do more with less - and upgrading your shield early means you save scrap that you would otherwise spend on repairs.
I know of no players, winning around 80% that buy SRA unless they are memeing. LRS are generally considered a snap buy and the best of the "investements" which is why i targeted the most because if it falls, the others do as well. There are perhaps times were LRS are still an okay decision, 2 early stores with nothing else, and no real ship improvements of value to make. And Argument could be made.
And there really isn't any video talking about this, so some of the terminology i was making it up on the spot so to speak. Budget vs value, but scaling early or "saving" could also describe the LRS vs shields debate. But it's opportunity costs that is the main driving force that players put themselves behind. And do so in the more dangerous parts of the game.
I've snowballed with SRA before, but that was when I was able to get it in the first sector which is the only time I'd consider it. Any later and you're not getting the most out of the bonus, while in Sector 1 it's really just a slight delay in getting your build up and going, with the upside being a noticeable increase in scrap income which can make it quicker to stack up your ship. I also always end up selling it in a late sector as well, as at that point it's not really useful anymore since I'm fully maxed out and still swimming in scrap at that point.
@@VestedUTuber like if you're snowballing, they you probably would have won the run without it. SRA is 1 scrap per 10 earned (not from selling items). In hard mode, i can justify spending 50 scrap early when I need weapons and systems to win fights. it isn't about "this works sometimes" it's what works all the time. But it is full to be rolling in scrap.
@@VestedUTuber the reward you get always rounds down to the nearest 10. so 19 scraps only gets you 1 extra. in practice, the 10% on the label isn't actually 10%. it's less. so that means only on high rewards in sector 1 and 2 (on hard that range is 19-23) that you're getting more than 1 scrap back. it takes 13 separate rewards to hit the break even point with selling it back factored in (and that's assuming you're hitting high rewards for those 13 rewards which in reality doesn't ever happen) but the entire idea of the scrap arm is to make MORE scrap... not to break even. in reality it's probably nearer to 17 or 18 rewards that you get 25 scrap back from it. that's a whole lotta of rewards to break even. (and if you go as far as to bring sector 3 into the equation, the range of high rewards is 27-32 so that means only high rewards half the time net you +3 scrap) to me what's noticeable is the opportunity cost of buying it. sometimes i miss the things in the stores that i need by 1 scrap, really to no fault of my own. actually played a run last night that i didn't spend any scrap in sector 1 (which i don't typically recommend) until i got to a store and was 7 scrap short of buying hacking. sector 1 and 2 is where a huge percentage of losing runs die as it's the time your ship is the most vulnerable. spending any scrap on anything that doesn't really help solve those vulnerabilities is only setting yourself back further behind the curve. the early/mid game is the most important time to be managing your scrap properly as usually later in runs you already have what you need to win so that tightness lets up a bit.
i'm also looking at this from a view point of trying to win every single run all of the time on hard mode
Crow, you have described the correct approach to a successful gameplay that leads to winning the game.
Allow me to add some notes on the topic from similar, yet different angle. The LRS do not provide the factual data on the ship presence in many double-rewards events, especially those that can give weapon (also crew, repairs, scrap, etc) !!!
E.g.:
Auto-ship attacking civilian (can occur multiple times in Civilian and Rebel sectors),
Pirate attacking civilian (can occur multiple times in Civilian/Pirate/Rock/Slug sectors, can occur as filler or exit beacon event),
Rebel transport (can occur only once, in Civilian/Rebel/Mantis/Slug sectors, can occur as filler or exit beacon event),
Pirate smuggler (at nebula beacons, can occur multiple times in Civilian/Pirate/Uncharted, can occur as nebula filler event),
Rebel attacking civilians in Last Stand (can occur multiple times; can give 8 hull repairs or resources+scrap),
Rebel attacking Federation loyalists and Encrypted federation signal (can proc Hidden Federation Base quest marker, etc)
Engi distress call (can occur multiple times in Engi sectors)
and other beneficial events.
Even the Pirate smuggler can occur 2-3 (maybe more) times in a large Uncharted sector, potentially substituting purchasing weapons at stores.
The free weapon event does not contain a ship, so it will likely be omitted in favor of a ship fight.
The most useful case for LRS as a blue option is at a Hidden Federation Base, but the scenario has only 1/8 chance.
However, LRS can also lead to double-rewards fights, especially in sector 1 when playing with Stealth Cruiser netting 120-200 scrap. It depends on the events generated and the beacon map layout, of course.
LRS can facilitate in finding certain events (Kazaak has ship presence; Zoltan peace envoy, Flagship shipyard, Ancient device - have no ship detected; etc).
It is good to know where the ion storm beacons are when running low on reactor (especially w/o Backup Battery and/or Zoltans) and potentially confronting the Auto-ships with plenty of power and capable of turning their drones on if their weapons go down.
Playing shieldless runs with LRS helps avoid nasty asteroid fights in early sectors, when the ship is not setup up for Zoltan Ships and Auto-ships with drones (moreso without any upgrades or improvements to the ship).
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My opinion on LRS:
1. it is NOT needed to win the game on Hard difficulty (on regular, non-challenge runs). it MAY be useful for a player who knows events, but can mislead one who hasn't familiarized oneself with them (see the brief event list above as a misleading (by the game) example). it IS required for one of the Stealth Cruiser achievement - to avoid hazard beacons.
2. BUYING the LRS instead of weapons/systems/drone parts/etc - is very questionable (with the negative connotation) to say the least. It is when the players get away with that bad decision, they start and continue to think that they are/were "right".
3. Buying LRS instead of Shields or not selling LRS to buy Shields: see #2 - or the player is totally comfortable in playing without Shields and CONSISTENTLY winning the game without them (on Hard difficulty).
This was a big eye-opener, I haven't really considered value vs budgeting in this manner before. Everything here makes so much sense when you explain it in such an ordered manner.
I do want to ask something related to value vs budgeting, so I'm looking at the Stealth A ship in the Multiverse mod.
Stealth A starts with a 2 power 3 damage pinpoint that has a 14s cooldown. It also starts with LRS and stealth weapons. The supposed "attraction" of this ship is its external stealth weapons, which can be combined later on with Level 5 Cloaking to have 25 seconds of cloak without weapon fire draining the cloak duration. Normally you can only get at most Level 2 Cloaking to combine with stealth weapons, but since Stealth A starts with external stealth weapons it can bypass the Level 2 limit.
So starting with stealth weapons provides (what many would consider to be outstanding) future value in the form of a normally unobtainable combo with high-level cloaking. However, the starting weapon as a standalone is rather lackluster given that there will always be one enemy with 2 shields at the end of S1 and some combat drone ships. So what I gather from this analysis is that, if having only this single starting weapon for your offense in S1 makes it more dangerous compared to later sectors (regardless of whether you keep external stealth weapons), then the ideal strategy is to scout S1 for the 3 stores and be prepared to sell both LRS and stealth weapons for something that immediately makes your S1 safer, which would be either getting shields or a low power laser + weapon system upgrade that helps the pinpoint to deal more effectively with the 2 shield ship?
I have not played multiverse, so it would be almost impossible for me to give an opinion on meta strategy for it. In terms of winning, your take away from the video is correct, that one should increase early game survivability for better scaling overall. Seems the the starting weapons of stealth a do nothing against 2 shielded ships, which are rare in sector 2 vanilla (rebel elites, light surveyor layout, engi bomber from virus event) but pretty common for sector 3. So i would agree that selling something like stealth weapons to get another weapon online would be far superior than waiting 4-5 sectors to get value from the augment.
That's fine, I just wanted to try and apply this value vs budgeting thinking to a Multiverse example. Really appreciate the response 👍
As a long-time LRS acolyte this has convinced me to stop buying it in the early game (I already would have sold it for shields), and has also made me realize the error of taking an early crew from slavers (I've felt conflicted about it for a long time so it's kind of a relief that I can stop feeling like I should take the crew haha).
I wonder though, do you take crew early in an Engi B run? Or do you still stick with taking the high scrap?
Aside from Mantis B, wear crew are weapons and, more importantly, can fix something if it breaks/burns, crew are not what i'm looking for on anything else. Engi B is very bad, but the weapons are the biggest issue early on. But i also feel comfortable dealing with boarders with just the engi and anti-personal bot.
@Crow Revell agreed re: mantis B. I am growing more comfortable with engi +/- anti-p drone but still suffer from an irrational fear I think of being forced into a rock sector and hitting the mine event haha. Not that it's ever even happened to me, and thinking about it I'm sure I would save more runs taking more early scrap to use on a weapon as opposed to that 1 in 100 (maybe less) game where rock is forced and mine is encountered before any blue option happens to be available/crew obtained by other means.
Thanks for the great vid and the reply!
Edit: I think the point you make about needing to farm up for stores and thus sacrificing your ability to scout a sector is really excellent. I've felt for a long time that scouting for stores is a key to success that not a lot of players realize, but your arguments will really inform my relationship with farming before a store (in that I will try harder to plan ahead and therefore not need to do it haha)
@@ralden2691 nice. i feel you about the rock mine event. There are a few blue options like non-hull missile missile weapons, engines 5 and beam drone. perhaps swapping to a clone bay, though i've not yet been in that spot. it's like 20% chance to take a crew and that's if you get the event, but would still suck of course.
Thanks for the kind words. I really kicked this idea around for about 2 months and talked with other players to try and make this theory as accessible as I could.
What about considerations such as being in sector 2 and having seen that youve got double green choice for sector 3 or 4. In which case chances for engi controlled or homeworld are high which means that picking up an engi but delaying other upgrades is much more likely to pay off in time to help you get over the sector 4 hump. Or do you think that would still be thinking in terms of value rather than budget/will it help me win? Id say thats a far more reasonable scenario to pick an engi, especially considering youve already gotten past sector one and have the sector 2/3 "breather" as well as youve got more information.
i would say it still falls under value. I use LRS a lot, because LRS are the top of the value charts. There are definitely some spots buying LRS makes sense. Legit, avoiding hazards can be run saving. Engi sectors have a lot of variance, but scrap alone isn't really a reason to choose a sector. It's safety and stores. Another player, sleepingdragons, tracked sector scrap for their first cycle (streak of all ships no losses) and uncharted nebula were one of the top scrap sectors. The other issue with buying value crew is you can't sell it back. I've bought weapons, then found better weapons, and sold the bought weapon back without using it several times. Crew is kind of just crew. Engi as a life saving pickup for mantis b or even crystal b makes sense. And if you are swimming in scrap, one can get away with the purchase. But i've played through dozens, perhaps hundreds of engi sectors that i got no blue options from an engi. Can't recall if i mentioned this in the video, i once bought discounted sensors in sector 1 with crystal a. lvl 2 sensors have 3-5 blue options in every non-nebula sector. It never game me one. but in sector 5, i was a little jammed at a store because i could buy all the fuel AND repairs that I wanted. Still won the run, but I find it tough to justify blue option chasing when one could just invest in shield early or another weapon perhaps. I've definitely seen it work out (buying an engi) but that's the thing is doing something that can work vs what works "all the time"
@@crowrevell2082 Perhaps I shouldve clarified that I meant when a ship surrenders with a slave offer. Ive personally almost never bought crew except for some achievements that I wanted to get or as you said when you just really need it more than anything else.
I personally think thats a pretty decent option to pick up in sector 2 if you know youve got a bunch of green sectors coming up and dont already have an engi. Unless you absolutely need the scrap or resources instead. Worst case scenario you dont get an engi sector or no blue options for it in sector 3 or 4 in which case youve still got an engi. Its sour when taking that engi means youre 20 scrap short of hacking or BL2 in the future but its less sour when that engi saves you 10 hull damage in a nasty fight by allowing you to get a vital system repaired faster. So perhaps having the scrap and resources instead of taking the engi would have still been better but I think its one of the better crew surrenders to take, especially if youve also got a lot of green sectors coming up potentially allowing you to directly recoup the lost scrap very soon and before or during sector 4 through engi controlled blue options which imo are also one of the much better cases of blue options.
Id never take any other crew in that slaver surrender unless I desperately just need any crew. But engi imo is definitely something that should at least be considered if you dont have an engi. Maybe a zoltan but even thats kinda meh imo, I also dont recall if Ive ever seen the slavers offer a zoltan, if they have its very rare. One case I probably wouldnt take the engi is if I have like 60 scrap, have explored some of the sector already and havent seen any stores yet. But if Ive already seen the stores in sector 2 or im on the first few jumps or have almost no scrap at all Id honestly probably rather take the engi, if Ive got more than 80 scrap then I think engi is even more obvious.
@@andrek6920 Again, i honestly wouldn't. like if i have enough scrap that i can skip on a high scrap reward to nab a crew, engi or otherwise, then it's a run i would just win regardless. I mean, you are clearly giving consideration to things like blue options and sectors, and repair speed is amazing, but, not to be a broken record, i'd just invest scrap in my ship. because the next sector could be double zoltan and getting engines up/shield buffer perhaps to increase survival chances is more align with how i play. Like if crew management, and a lot of the micro i'm comfortable with, others aren't. and they should play accordingly in that regard.
I try to avoid stores until I get at least t2 shields, and have some amount of scrap in the bank. What's the use if I find something I want and can't afford it? Sometimes refueling + repairing has to wait if I see a LRS early in the run though. Def1 drones are something I splurge on too. Maybe I'm doing the calculations wrong, but repairing the ship over and over again starts to get expensive. Other things I splurge on: burst2 and flacks. I often regret my decision either way sacrificing too much for these, or failing to find good weapons for the second half of the game.
Am I wrong in thinking that getting hit once or twice more per fight due to putting off shields already makes scrap recovery arm fail at it's job? I get it later in the game when scraps start to scale up to 60~80 and 15% is +10 scrap, but even then 1 hp is worth 2~4$ so deploying a single def1 drone might already outpace sra. This only gets better since coming across an attack drone more or less is -1 shields for the enemy in those tough fights, but aren't necessary in most cases so the few spare free drone parts tend to be enough without spending more?
yeah - generally each ship has like an upgrade path (typically shields) which outweigh what a store can provide. they taking a few hits because i bought x works with everything for the most part. My play style is to eliminate all risk. I think a lot of players assume there's a certain amount of rolling risk or "greeding" during runs, but I think that's wrong. DD1 can provide a lot of security against missiles and going drones and dd1 is probably something that gets skipped more than it should be.
It's difficult to say when it's a good spot to pick up a dd1 vs holding out for cloaking/hacking. But i've definitely won runs because of the choice to buy drone control.
You seem like you have really mastered FTL, especially with such an unbelievably high winrate! Have you considered making content for the Captain's Edition mod, or other mods for FTL? I would be interested to see your opinions on the balance changes.
I have played captains edition and arsenal +, a run of twinge’s balance mod years ago and no real interest in multiverse. Captains edition is kind of all over the place with the whole transporting cargo thing being a stand out. On one hand you are often losing jumps to deliver such items but , on average in early sectors selling the item is worth it. Arsenal + is a monster. A lot of ships n the A packet are 1 weapon ships making a lot of bad fed a ships (which are already bad) there are a few horrible designed events like 1 in which ever system gets hacked losing 1 bar to a minimum of 1. So you’ll be losing a shield bubble and a weapon a lot of the time. Worse is when those systems get hit the hack is pushed down this being more disruptive and I consider the event to basically kill you unless you are very far ahead
Then there is the flagship which is just absurd. It fires 4 ions which deal system damage. 4 heavy lasers. 4 tipped missiles with high chance of causing a specific type of disruption like fire or breach and the beam cause breaches and lasts a lot longer. But that’s not the worst part. Phase 2 all the drones are randomized. I went against an ion intruder in weapons as well as a shield drone so shield hacks are a must. The surge is also random and can easily kill nearly requiring cloaking to live. Phase 3 is like 33% chance to resist ion and 33% chance to resist system damage which makes taking out the weapon systems rough. And I just stopped playing the mods because peoples were more keen on their ideas than balancing them out. That and wanting to focus on my vanilla game play
@@crowrevell2082 Well, at the very least, there are some wonderful cosmetic mods that make the backgrounds, ships, and portraits prettier. Really gorgeous stuff, definitely check it out! There is also a mod that makes curves on the map showing where the rebels will advance to with each jump, which for me has been some incredible quality-of-life. There are several versions of that mod; I like the one that puts just the curves without any numbers.
Yeah, I was especially curious on your opinions on buying cargo tbh. For any unaware: Captain's Edition Normal is designed to have about 10% win rate for players who are experienced with unmodded FTL on Hard. I am not sure what your CE win rate was, but based on your other content I imagine it's likely much higher than 10%.
I haven't really played the Arsenal+ mod for more than a few games, because it seemed pretty imbalanced and polarizing (all ion weapons with a single laser/beam is always the best choice due to op drones neutering missiles). So I think we are in some agreement there.
One additional mod is the infinite mod, which adds an endless mode. There are also some weapon modpacks balanced specifically for that mode as well. I wonder what your high score would be?
MV is by far the best of the ftl mods I've tried. It goes for ftl 2 type of approach and gets pretty close, balance wise. System choice is a lot closer too with cost and balance changes. Most weapons are reasonable, with busted stuff gated to rare events or optional areas.
Early Engi? Ooo I can put someone in the doors room and save myself an upgrade. Didn't realise the scrap reward was high from those ships
I think you've rediscovered the economic theory of Time Preference, and your argument is that players are thinking too much in the long term instead of balancing long term and short term goals.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_preference
Do you think it’s possible that when you said you never lost a run by not buying long range scanners that the value they would of provided would have put you in a more advantageous position for some of the fights you died on
It's a fair question to ask, weighing all the times i sold lrs on stealth ships which is a lot of the time and i have a record of 36-3. Stealth B died from just a lack of scrap in general, but I needed to sell lrs to get a shield online. Shield has definitely saved my life more than it cost. In that run, my sector 2 and 3 were some of the lowest I have tracked with 59 scrap mantis sector 2 and an 86 scrap sector 3. The other 2 deaths were stealth c. 1 i was learning how to do low reactor and micro pause and i overspent in an early store and the run fell apart (so a cause where I didn't follow the video advice and i lost). The other was another low scrap run, that i sort of stabilized in sector 4, or so i though. burst 1, hacking and shields 2 were added to my ship, but i lost a crew earlier when i opted to draw straws vs facing down a zoltan ship with burst 2 and some other weapon. I took a pirate fight in a nebula and faced a zoltan shields, 2x burst laser 2, ion stunner and combat drone. Of my other losses. Lanius B, Mantis B, Slug A all died in sector 1 before i could even get lrs. so 1 maybe and 5 hard No so far. The ill fated Federation A was a brutal scrap shortage throughout with trash stores. I lost a mantis by not powering medbay when I thought I did, but i took a bad approach to the flagship fight and died there. Better approach and I have a much better chance of winning. Engi B was a sloppy fight into 3 auto ships with double missiles. Slug b was 4 double missile auto-ships in a row (and I probably needed to risk crew and board to take down there weapons) so again, LRS wasn't a key in those 3 runs. So that leaves Fed C and Zoltan B deaths which I only vaguely recall, but my stats show terrible scrap numbers. So 3 losses out of 12 out of 364 runs there is the possibility that LRS could have helped. I don't even know if they were offered in the Fed C and Zoltan B runs. Again, I think getting shields on stealth B is far more optimal for survival. So, at best it's a 1% chance to have a positive impact, but i would argue that I was not in a position to spend 30 scrap on LRS because I was already so far behind. It could be argued that "risk grabbing lrs with the notion that the upcoming RNG is so awful, that I need to find every scrap fight encounter, more than I need to find a store, so I can keep pace with scaling. I don't find that particular viewpoint persuasive.
Well said. To further that point I’d say you can only possibly argue you should have bought long range scanners in hindsight after the run was completed as well as if you bought them to avoid low scrap runs more often it would have likely costed you more runs as a whole. Correct again as always crow, was just trying to play devils advocate lol. I no longer buy scanners in my runs after watching your videos and I don’t feel as if my runs ever suffered because of it 👍
Can I get a link to the data? I'm trying to win a reddit argument
my stats? tinyurl.com/u8rvuks
tldr: people forget about opportunity cost
I don't get why you'd put off access to information on every path you're connected to from start to finish just to have shields one fight early on a ship that probably was going to do 1 damage to you anyway, also saying you prioritize shops instead of collecting scrap... but you need scrap to use the shops?
again, LRS are not as powerful as shields. in combat it does nothing. In a spot where I can't farm up for the store, it would make sense to sell LRS to have a better ship. Saying "wait one jump" would be inaccurate because you can't just make a store appear a jump later.
I'm also not saying skip all the scrap and rush stores. I'm saying it's far better to reserve money to make any store an oppotunity to improve instead of pricing yourself out of a store and hoping you live long enough to find the next one and that the store you find has something that can save you. Playing around as much bad RNG as you possibly can is better than hoping to get a ton of value from LRS then finding a store. While a likely outcome, it's far from certain. So, instead I play around ship improvement so I'm far more likely to survive nasty fights. A few months ago, i completed my goal of doing 13 runs with every ship on hard mode and ended up with a 352-12 record, while shunning LRS nearly every run. Some runs I kept it, because there wasn't a reason to sell it in the moment. I can't come to the conclusion that an item i basically ignored in 300+ runs (as it was useful early game on stealth ships) has much of any value.
This video along with my video on scouting sectors covers my philosophy on how to maximize scrap efficiency while maximizing safety.
Why is this in my feed lol