7 Great Tips to Improve at FTL Faster Than Light - Tips & Tricks Strategy Guide

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In this Tips & Tricks strategy video, I teach you 7 of the best strategies I've used to succeed in FTL Faster Than Light in 2018! If you have any tips you want to share, be sure to let me know in the comment section down below! Enjoy!
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#FTL #FasterThanLight

[@blazinghookshot6333]

Doors, the most powerful weapon known in space.

[@SamiNaseem]

this blew my mind lmao

[@thatdieguy5310]

Use the doors, Luke.

[@jaredbalentine6863]

@@thatdieguy5310 Your Door monster is leaking.

[@lavenderwalrus9875]

@@jaredbalentine6863 nah then he would have put *swigs from water filled coffee mug* after it :p

[@Xune2000]

Open the pod bay doors Hal.

[@offathered2101]

I find that lv2 shields in the first sectors means many ships are incapable of hurting you letting you use the last tip in place of the first to get early skills

[@randomuser1249]

I thought the same thing it’s almost invincible early on

[@taterpussy3825]

Tip: If you have an ion type weapon while doing this, you can level up whoever is in your weapons room as well. You won't do any damage to their ship, but still get the exp every time it fires.

[@Dr4wfox]

@@taterpussy3825 Or a weak Beam Weapon

[@Henfredemars]

@@taterpussy3825 don't even limit it to an ion weapon. If you have a beam weapon, just keep shooting that repeatedly to get the experience.

[@The_hot_blue_fire_guy]

@@taterpussy3825 wouldn’t beams also work for that?

[@frankmueller4524]

a well-made, compact guide! Thank you for not stretching this to 15 mins like the average KZbinr would. Thumbs up!

[@spinter1310]

There are slug cruisers with oxygen rooms that have no doors. If those ships can’t hurt you (which I often find can happen), then you can get easy crew kills on them by just taking out that room and letting them suffocate

[@UntrainableWizard]

Boom, two seconds in, I learn I can upgrade the ship. xD I've not got the ability to see how many hours I've played of this game, I don't think... But I can gaurantee that it's enough to make that embarassing.

[@tjk3430]

I got this game recently, why can't I stop playing it it's become a problem! Best thing about the pandemic was purchasing this for my Chromebook. I recently unlocked all the ships and just had my first win on normal using the Crystal B. Boarding won't be the same without Crystal beings!

[@UntrainableWizard]

@@tjk3430 I know, right. It's addictive, I've been playing it pretty much non-stop. Every time I get bored, it's just a matter of time before I return to it. lol

[@lufie56]

Don’t worry, it took me awhile as well to figure out upgrades….😥 Was so frustrating how I kept getting invaded and had no idea I could upgrade the doors.😞

[@SugarBeetMC]

3:10 You can also rotate your crew through different stations to diversify their skill sets. If you have the right weapons and set some to autofire, you can level your crew up in piloting, engines, shields AND weapons. That can come in handy if you lose a crewmember later.

[@reasonableattempt1918]

is this viable? I just started a Let's Play on this and from my limited experience, it seems hard enough to get a crew member adept in one skill let alone multiple

[@SugarBeetMC]

@@reasonableattempt1918 As MDB said in the video, if your enemy can't hurt you (e.g. not enough firepower, out of missiles, ...) you can level up piloting, shields and engines. If a subset of your weapons can't hurt them either, autofire them and level up weapons skills. (MDB could have autofired his Anti-Bio-Beam since that doesn't pierce shields) When you've prepared that, go AFK and switch your crew around once in a while. I've done that a few times, I'd say it's viable. In a LP, you can timelapse the training or cut it out.

[@reasonableattempt1918]

@@SugarBeetMC ah right, I see what you mean. I feel like its a bit of an exploit so I'll probably avoid it. But thanks for the explanation

[@ZuluRomeo]

I did this in one game the other day when I was in a pure stalemate situation with no way for myself to actually destroy the enemy either. Ended up maxing out 6 crewmembers then just jumping out 🙃

[@TaylorMacD]

I found myself nodding along at every single point you made. Good video

[@nightowl6055]

At the final boss if you use raiding parties, leave one guy alive in the less dangerous middle weapon room, this way, the ship cant repair itself, and that one crew member cant repair it either, since theyre isolated from the rest of the ship, to make it easier to kill all the other crewmembers, if you have mind control and teleport, you can mind control a crewmember, then you can "kidnap" them by teleporting them on the ship, you can kill the ship's crew one by one like this.

[@PapperWORLD]

On easy it works not on hard

[@MrTehRave]

Nice to see a recent vid on this game most vids are old af

[@entropyfan9417]

oh...

[@MrTehRave]

@@entropyfan9417 lol. Good thing you're a fan of entropy and possibly George Carlin

[@shawdawg2852]

Hey, MDB, one game that might interest you is Executive Assault 2. It's an RTS mixed with First Person. In this one, you run a space station and add the parts to it and have to go to different sectors to expand and get resources plus your research. The main goal is to wipe out the other corporations, if you've set any to fight by either destroying their station or sending your ground troops into their station to kill the CEO.

[@D4RK.MP4]

Another tip: having 2 or 4 Zoltan’s in shield prevents the enemy from a fully ion shield and it even helps early game

[@supercables251]

WHAT!

[@plentyofpaper]

I'd like to add to consider cost/reward carefully, as opposed to just stockpiling missiles, or killing ships as quickly as possible. As a rule of thumb, a missile costs 6 scrap, a point of hull damage costs 2 scrap. So, if a missile can prevent 3 damage, it's a neutral investment. If you have a surplus of missiles, you may want to lower the exchange rate. If you are low on health, you may want to increase the exchange rate. The same reasoning applies to drones. I also gave the game's inherent costs as an example. Your loadout and personal play-style may be a bit different, so don't be afraid to change your values slightly (I wouldn't stray too far from 3-1 as a general rule of thumb though.) Also, don't buy hull repair until there's a real threat of a game over. You can always buy as much as you want at any store, and keeping the opportunity around to buy permanent upgrades until then is potentially more useful. Also, generally don't repair to full health. If you do, and then run into an event that freely repairs you, that opportunity goes to waste.

[@yazmeenascreamer]

Brilliant tips, thank you! Just got back into this game after a few years and forgot about how handy door upgrades were! All of these tips are gonna come in super handy :D

[@Table53]

Such an incredible game. I recently played/reviewed Subset Games' second game Into the Breach not that long ago (tl;dr it's okay) and all it did was make me fall in love with FTL all over again! 10/10 game!

[@TaylorMacD]

Into the breach was fun but I don't go back to it often. Playing it made me remember how enjoyable FTL was and I immediately reinstalled FTL when I finished into the breach

[@enderboy-db3sh]

The infinite XP trick works really well if you upgrade your shields early. If you have a weak weapon, that wont accidently kill your enemy, you can even gather weapon xp

[@Guardian-of-Light137]

Bit of a bonus for that last one. Leave a low damage weapon on auto fire or an ion weapon. Max them out as well. Also if you have strong enough shields you can afk in an asteroid field after killing the enemy to increase that way to.

[@infamous6283]

Would love to see you play more of this game in the future I know you're not big into mods but there's some fun one's for this game that might spice up the experience.

[@GoAway3729]

Got ftl about a year ago and played nonstop for about 3 weeks. Just got back into it so this is a great refresher

[@V4Andy]

I find it's more important to have more powerful systems than it is to have a reactor that can power everything at once.

[@PapperWORLD]

Back up battery is my f thing in this game .

[@rednoodleoffate]

With the Torus (Engi A) you have the ion II blaster. If you run into a ship that can't damage you, leave this weapon on autofire and target shields. Its 4 second charge time makes it insanely efficient at crew training, so I like to cycle through my crew when I can to have spare maxed crewmembers if one guy dies.

[@Henfredemars]

If the enemy only has one level of shields, you can aim at the oxygen room and you’ll eventually kill the crew, but it will take forever.

[@OldGodOfAsgard]

I Think that you can use enemy ship to Max out the skills for your gunner too, with simply damaging it's shields

[@chiefr9627]

On the kestrel I constantly leave the doors leading to the exterior open. Then I move my crew to medway and open all but their doors and adjacent rooms.

[@duress8801]

my dude, thanks for the guide and for not stretching this out to 10 min unnecessary

[@patricklinford689]

Another reliable way to kill enemy crew is keeping their o2 system ionized It's still possible if you can't keep it fully locked down as long as it is locked down more than half the time and they have only 1 level in o2

[@goeremusic]

every single one of these tips was great!

[@dropinota]

Oh my god you made FTL content! Yo, your other stuff is criminally under rated.

[@acceptabletelevision]

Trying to run a video competition with some friends, thanks!

[@michaelsummers9237]

Great advice!!! Thanks

[@jarfuloflove7320]

You can also skill up your weapons crew member by having them shoot weapons on auto pilot that won't kill the enemy ship.

[@psbates]

I had no idea you had played FTL! (Or maybe I did, and you were the reason FTL was on my Steam Wishlist...and I just _forgot!_ LOL)

[@xcalvinx892]

that moment when you spend 10 mins afk skill farming for your crew and then get killed in the next system

[@kallenamos1085]

All good tips that are often under-utilized, though engines I personally disagree on in favor of more universally useful early shield upgrades, and saving scrap for good weapons. Another top one imo, particularly in plasma storms, is that you can save power by turning off supplementary systems like medbay and oxygen, since battles on average don't last long enough to zero out oxygen levels for much of the game. Also I notice you are playing in Advanced Edition (since you have mannable sensors/doors), so it's worth adding that on Hard difficulty, the boss room layout is slightly changed, connecting Laser and Missile weapon rooms to the rest of the ship, making boarding less practical unless you have a Crystal crewmember (only starts on a handful of ships, and hard to obtain naturally). They're still usable for Ion and Beam rooms, and potentially killing crew in medbay if you use Hacking system on it, but otherwise not as useful as other systems like Cloaking and Drone Control (which is hard to admit as someone who mains The Basilisk, a boarding-oriented cruiser).

[@PapperWORLD]

If you have 4 crew members yea but if you have max grew you need O²

[@Henfredemars]

Eat in shifts, sleep in shifts, breathe in shifts when I'm not being shot at.

[@ZuluRomeo]

Another tip about jump points is that if you unfortunately find yourself in a scenario where the Rebels will take the exit beacon no matter what you do, jump to as many free beacons as possible to build up scrap, experience and other goodies, leaving yourself with just one jump to get to the now occupied exit. This combined with the engine upgrade early tip means you can escape the Rebels more quickly too because of the bonus to FTL charging rate.

[@BetomengLegoman]

I figured that out after 10 hours of playing, always risking ✨

[@rikboersma236]

thanks, that was very useful! ^_^

[@unclexsquid4897]

i feel like im a bit late to the party so to speak haha. But this video really helped me, thanks bro

[@foreducation408]

Dude the last tip was amazing

[@MahDryBread]

Thanks!

[@ToxicPea]

I already knew all of these tips from watching too much Northern Lion Let's plays, but ngl....I still loose in normal mode. I guess it's more of an experience/practice-based thing. .

[@thefixedland]

Helpful!

[@nikkof5384]

Thanks for all the tips and people in the comments as well. I’m going to give normal mode another go. Is into the breach any good?

[@MahDryBread]

I like it!

[@notesoftruth9301]

It definitely is! I've done many full playthroughs. It's very different, but still has an interesting strategy!

[@Speedy_Boi__]

Getting back into FTL, this was insanely helpful, thanks!

[@MrNightpwner]

I got 3 engi and 1 ant on my crew by level 3. It was awesome. Invasions didnt even matter. I lost on the 7th level. When they got 4 shields and robots, its all a matter of time.

[@meherbabaisgodinhumanform3090]

Very helpful.

[@ReaperEOD]

Oh my god of course.. board the weapon areas and nowhere else. Why didn't I think of this?!?!

[@Scatteredpast]

funny that after all this time of watching your pokemon videos I find this after being gifted a fun looking game on steam

[@TheOmegaRiddler]

I tend to avoid nebulas in the early game because that can easily kill a run if i'm boarded

[@zandbergx9747]

about the last one: I remember when you could still do that with asteroid fields......

[@eljerm]

Why can't you anymore?

[@zandbergx9747]

@@eljerm It got patched in an update.

[@eljerm]

@@zandbergx9747 Ah thank you

[@BandAid350z]

IIRC you can’t still do it while “in combat.” Kinda dicey, as you can get an asteroid while getting a volley from an enemy, but if there’s no chance of that, you’ll get an even faster increase in pilot, engines, and shields xp.

[@ajbaker1213]

This missed the most important rule, spend your first 50 scrap on ur second shield. I only break this rule on ships if i find a fantastic weapon in the shop or my ship has some sort massive weakness i need to fix. GL

[@xFrostiee]

One time I faced an engi in a pulsar system. I went from 100% to 0% painfully and slowly.

[@RetroJank]

One tip that helped me was to not buy fuel, ever, unless you are in the red then buy only a couple units. If you run out usually you only have to wait a turn with your distress signal on to get help or an enemy to fight and scrap fuel from. Also, never accept surrender unless they offer a good augment or weapon. All of this helps you get more scrap over the playthrough and secure all the upgrades you need to face the flagship.

[@RackaGack]

This is the worst tip I have ever seen

[@RetroJank]

@@RackaGack thanks I’m glad you love it. Of course being low on fuel is not a good thing there is a balance here but when I first started playing I was so worried about running out I’d make it to the flagship with like 20 extra units of fuel but still had an empty slot for cloaking or something else missing. Worrying about fuel and wasting my money buying it at every station instead of scrapping enemy vehicles or waiting for an opportunity to buy it at a discount had me missing out on key upgrades. Once I changed that I was able to get a victory.

[@RackaGack]

@@RetroJank you only need about 1400 scrap to very consistently get a win with almost any ship. I know for a fact that some runs I have played would almost certainly be losses instead of wins, but because I bought fuel when I needed to, they were fine. I say you want to hover around 13 fuel, while also respecting not locking yourself out of essential upgrades. Basically, I think its a huge mistake to base your early game decisions on the late game. Saying “I don’t want to get this because even though I need it now in sector 3, it sucks come sector 8.” This is a great way to lose runs you otherwise would have won.

[@Zucore_Creates]

When I was younger I named my crewmembers after my family members and cried when they died

[@TheRaidenLP]

Also, if you’re incapable of piercing their shields with your current armament in the early game but also can’t be hurt, cycle the crew in between rooms. Weapons to Engines, to shields, to piloting, to weapons. The crew can be completely trained while you cook some food or take a shower. It‘s a massive advantage.

[@kenaboss4527]

tysm

[@KeinNiemand]

I end up spending like 5 hours every time getting to the final boss then loosing becouse the boss is way to hard compared to other enemys (at least on easy) and I end up not beeing able to get trough the bosses shield long enough to both diable his shields and weapons I have to wait for all my weopons to charge to then only get maybe 1 shot worth of damage in. The boss is just waaaay to hard compared to early enemy resulting in even bad runs still getting to the final boss.

[@deankleinschmidt1068]

thank you i think i got 2 alreday

[@edsw1446]

3:15 And if you have an ion weapon, you can max out your weapons guy.

[@Vanile.]

the issue i have is that i dont feel like theres any way i could possibly improve, aside from playing the game so much that i have every event memorized. every good run i have dies at the flagship's first stage without fail (i play in advanced edition). every time i think i have a chance it pulls out some new bullshit and absolutely destroys me. how was i supposed to know that once you kill all the crew it switches to an ai controlled system and repairs all the guns?? it just feels a bit unfair to me. its not like i even really had a good chance of beating it completely anyways, i was expecting to probably die at the second stage. i just wanted to SEE the second stage at least.

[@Israelpwn]

Welp, at least now I know why I suck so hard. I thought 2 lasers (6 shots) would be enough as far as firepower goes. NOPE Then I went for drones, thinking "well if I just take down the shields, the drone will do all the work". NOPE Invest a bunch into shields, get 3 shields early on - enemy boards me, yeets me out of my own ship, generally makes a mess of my shields somehow anyway. NOPE again Mind you, this is all on Easy :( (I usually play games on Hard, or at least Normal) Gonna try this out and then realise my next NOPE :)

[@ziggyzoggin]

these are some pretty good tips, but... spoilers man. i only have the 2nd ship! see what i did there? no spoilers. **mic drop**

[@ryorai5804]

Then theres me who cheats in max scrap and still cant even make it to the flagship.

[@t900HAWK]

Just started playing this game and kept Ed getting destroyed by enemy’s boarding my ship. Not because they would punch me to death but because my first instinct was to open all the doors and say welp we all gonna now and then they run to my oxygen and break it so for sure we are gonna die

[@user-zx5yv3yv6l]

Also, if you have ion weapons or another weapon that cannnot damage an enemy, leave it on automatic if the enemy cannot kill you to boost your weapon operator's xp.

[@HenryGreenEngine3]

This game feels like playing a slot machine.

[@PapperWORLD]

1 more tip upgrade points in O² . If you need to go thought secteros with nebula and level 2 sensors is like 50 scrap and they are given tou blue options at those sectors.

[@alex_zetsu]

Does a training example of grinding against a ship in Sector 1 that can't hurt him... and he trains the guy on weapons instead of shields. Facepalm

[@aregon5004]

best game ever, the end.

[@marklewis1457]

Only tips that matter to me is a good RNG, I have such bad RNG that skill does not matter.

[@cartersmith9842]

Tips 1 and 6 arent the greatest. Engines should only be upgraded a bit later OR if youre forced into fighting in rebel territory. Shields are simply much much better for the cost. Attacking medbay is just useless most of the time. Whats the point of using medbay to slow down their repairs to weapons when you can just damage the weapons more?

[@2shy2guy52]

Hey mdb, what? I just got this game for like $2 and was looking for a guide and I was like, "I know that pfp..."

[@warpzone8421]

How do you win against 3-4 shields when the shops only offer you bad weapons?

[@kenjitempest8122]

Warp Zone rockets and ion weaponry

[@Henfredemars]

You have to learn to play the long game. You need to think ahead when your visiting shops and consider that in leader sectors you need missiles, bombs, or some other way of taking down heavy shields. I just noticed this comment was from two years ago. Oops!

[@infernapocalypse]

Lots of ur tips don't work on no pause hard mode though.

[@GeneralTurkey]

Clone bay with your teleporter will make permanently killing your guys impossible. Especially when you accidentally blow up the enemy ship. Edit: although, you could also just get gud, and not let your crew die.

[@juku-oi1op]

Teleport onto the enemys ship and open their doors

[@jameshaywood3194]

Been playing for over a decade. Never completed it.

[@zucarita_sr6121]

The last tips is very important to win in this game

[@viarnay]

You don't play FTL. FTL plays with you and cheats you.

[@scienceteam9254]

8. PRAISE THE GLAIVE BEAM

[@fragarar1595]

That last tip was so clutch

[@for-sure-friend]

7 tips to improve at life. 1. breathe oxygen. 2. eat food. 3. don't forget to breath.

[@housephone9090]

USE THE DOORS

[@rioplayz740]

pov you thought this was arubiks cube vid

[@worldweaver2691]

tried to do that skill grind with only one shield, 3 minutes in my ship is almost dead and started the downward spiral that let to that run's end.

[@foxfoxy5490]

There is only tips for boarding and boss...

[@HLWFlanker]

All flagship weapon rooms isolated... you aren't playing on hard!

[@MahDryBread]

I never said that I was playing on hard

[@amon5094]

Are you seriously complaining? "it's not hard mode" Obviously not. It's a fucking tutorial.

[@HLWFlanker]

Well, boarding strategies are significantly different on hard mode, as it's a lot harder to take out the missiles and heavy lasers through boarding. That's all I'm saying.

[@MahDryBread]

@@HLWFlanker That doesn't have anything to do with my tips.

[@HLWFlanker]

Honestly I made that comment semi jokingly a month ago. Dunno why that other guy got so annoyed.

[@ahmednasser8214]

Buy Vulkan whenever possible. I don't care if you have to sell your other weapons, systems, cargo or whatever. Heck, I'd sell my crew if I could. It's insanely busted and I don't think I've ever lost a run with Vulkan. Vulkan + 45% evasion + 3-4 shields system is pretty much a guarantee win. Add defense drone to shoot down missiles and it's literally impossible to lose unless you intentionally throw the game.

[@Henfredemars]

I’m not so sure. The Vulcan is a lot of fun absolutely, but that’s also a lot of time to be exposed to missiles and teleporting bombs. Even if your evasion is high, it’s potential damage. Weapon pre-igniter though? Every time with Vulcan.

[@GregorianMG]

Er.. I rather have 2 BL II than a Vulkan. Much more cost efficient and reliable.

[@Henfredemars]

@@GregorianMG finding a second BL2 has carried me to victory way more often than stumbling on a vulcan.

[@metalgearsolidsnake6978]

this game is impossible

[@achimsinn7782]

I just started playing (shocking, I know) so far I found out that getting lv 2 shields is really good as many early ships can't get through them. Also - and I know this is beginners only: Don'T leave all the doors in your ship closed at default as if the doors break all your guys are locked in the room whereever they are.

[@blubber0_0]

Screw your thumbnail, I'm genuinely upset

[@MahDryBread]

Why?

[@maximkonechno8742]

this game is easy until flagship appears ...

[@MrNaporowski]

I feel like I'm getting way less scrap than everyone else is... space jews?

[@NChambernator]

Dude me too, how do these people max out multiple systems? I feel like I'm always leaving a sector when the rebels are on my tail and I'm still barely able to max out shields by the final boss.

[@TaylorMacD]

@@NChambernator on all difficulties it should be simple to max out shields.. Are you accepting bribes? Don't. Are you leaving sectors too early? Delay as long as possible before the rebels catch up to you.

[@NChambernator]

@@TaylorMacD I just needed a better weapon combo, got 2 flak early on then 2 more later and had much easier time with everything. thanks for suggestions

[@kenjitempest8122]

Nick Chambernator ah yes the flakken

[@lucianmaximus4741]

RAPTURE444:360=1.23*MONAD