How to win an FTL Run! Mantis A, no pause, hard mode edition!

This was our second attempt at this run after a pretty bad run of RNG with weapons and boss fight on the Mantis A, however we learned a new strat! Thanks to Britnoth and some other FTL gurus, we learned how to exploit hacking's ability to isolate rooms along with Cloaking allowing us to avoid missiles on phase 1 to guarantee all (but 1) enemy crew deaths on phase 1 of the boss fight! GG cookie time, new strat edition! -- Watch live at / rand118

[@S4LtyTrIcKs]

“Boarding is so good late sectors” ***immediately stops boarding as soon as he gets 3 flaks*** :)

[@rand118]

Lol, Flak's always change your plans. Usually, from scraping by to destroying everyone easily!

[@deankleinschmidt1068]

Who doesn't do that with 3 flaks??

[@brianfox340]

Tried this ship for the first time and smoked the whole run by boarding literally every ship, right up until I got owned by the boss because the whole run I only got offered garbage weapons and being offered 14 crew. This video started off with complaints about the previous run with this ship ending due to exactly this scenario, and I felt better.

[@rand118]

Yup, boarding is great early, but can often fall off late game. Unless you have some pretty OP boarding strats, a decent weapon or 2 is kinda needed for the boss fight.

[@lukemurray1300]

Been straight up binging these FTL vids recently you have gained a subscriber! Perfect balance of fun and information.

[@Bltrommer]

Great video! GG, Rand. Just picked this up a short time ago and seems great! Enjoying your videos 🤙🏼 I watched this one over a few sessions due to its length and picked up some more stuff…I’ve been stuck on the Mantis A for a bit 😋

[@rand118]

Yeah, my videos are long since they're all full uploads (unedited) from my twitch streams. Maybe one day I'll have the money to hire an editor to make shorter videos, hah!

[@gruebles1481]

Hacking cloaking can be worth at the boss’ stage 1 so you can always charge weapons and more importantly you can board, break the cloaking and have free hacked door access to the doors room so you can now break though I’d take out the missile ion and beam first

[@chrisblast3446]

That misile ftl dodge HAHA

[@unfortunato]

Thanks for these videos mate, I recently started playing this game again and I've finally unlocked this ship. By far the hardest one I have played with. Also, 16:12 onward is so fucking classic for this game.

[@rand118]

Thanks HnShn, FTL is definitely a game worth coming back to! I have no idea how many hours I have in FTL now, but I STILL find situations that are unique, surprising, and rage-inducing, hah!

[@colelooney1430]

its interesting to hear people say they like drone control. i just cant find it to be more useful

[@stevenchamberlin01]

Jesus you got like 20 people that run I was trying the 6 race unlock and couldn’t get crap.

[@PunkDogCreations]

No need to use Jesus's holy name as a profanity. Please remove it and repent.

[@seniorbob2180]

Got 4 flak 1s on a zoltan cruiser earlier today, hilarious dps.

[@blabla23236]

Good content he should be more popular

[@gtmsnba13]

Missile takes out the pilot, then the next one wrecks the clones bay; if that were me my fist would have went through the monitor. Complete tom foolery.

[@cameronhendricks5967]

This is the first ship that requires boarding and I am at a loss for when to transition to weapons

[@rand118]

That can be a tough decision, but I'd say somewhere around sector 3-4. After I get the 2 shield upgrade in sector 1 or 2, I immediately start looking for stores to buy systems or weapons. Hacking is usually the best system to get since it's so flexible for offense or defense, but if I find a Flak I, Burst Laser II, Halberd beam, basically any of the best weapons, that's a good sign to start making that transition.

[@dridore1585]

good video. Is playing advanced recommended? the game says it's better without for new players

[@rand118]

To me, playing FTL without advanced edition is like playing Starcraft without Broodwar or the demo of a game instead of the full release. There is just more STUFF in Advanced Edition and I definitely recommend playing with AE on.

[@lucamonfreda4156]

Hi Rand, how are you?

[@rand118]

I'm super, thanks for asking! How are you, Luca?

[@lucamonfreda4156]

Glad to hear that. I'm fine, enjoing your videos

[@chrisblast3446]

Wow. You've wonnnn!

[@wasabi6123]

mantis ship is my #2 favorite ship nyan cat is the best

[@jez9999]

The Mantis A is dreadful. It starts out with weapons so weak they basically need replacing ASAP and you're meant to use a boarding strategy - difficult at best, but you only have 2 transporter pads. Best strategy imho is to rely on lucky early RNG, get lots of scrap and good weapon upgrades, and play the ship similar to the kestrel, focusing on weapon attacks with boarding only as a secondary backup on certain occasions.

[@haissake]

When having good luck is an actual strategy.

[@haissake]

I really HATE this ship. You need some insane RNG early on to have a chance on the mid sectors. After that is piece of cake but my god!

[@rand118]

Boarding ships are a completely different animal than most FTL ships. I would say this is one of the better boarding ships since it has a small bomb to kill off medbays, but if you CAN get successful crew kills, the rewards are very good.

[@haissake]

@@rand118 I allways get the "amateur pyrates" event with this ship, FTL makes fun out of me.

[@technicolorskies5432]

​@@rand118I feel like if this ship had a 4 size teleporter it would suddenly be like 5x better. At least that'll be my excuse for not winning with it yet...

[@nikoladd]

Nice crap covering arm at the end..

[@lelouchvibritannia7809]

1:58:59 1:51:33

[@BeeBoo2024]

Bro, how is this nopause when you pause to take a 3 minute piss right before the boss

[@rand118]

Troll comment? You know that "no pause" means you don't pause DURING a fight to make micro plays, right?

[@BeeBoo2024]

@@rand118 lol, it was meant to be read aloud in a really dumb voice. slick run man, i enjoyed watching :D

[@Danny-kt9oi]

Isn’t he cheating by using a mod that lets you see exactly where the rebels are about to jump? Not knowing exactly where is part of the game

[@rand118]

Some people think that mod "extended pursuit indicator" is not fair, but many players actually draw lines on a piece of paper and use that to figure out their jumps, so I don't feel it's unfair. The other reason I don't think it's unfair is because FTL often does completely unfair things like free hack on your shields sector one, free 4 mantis boarders, free ASB's to kill your ship, etc. etc. Knowing the pursuit lines doesn't feel that bad in comparison, in my opinion!

[@Quicksilver_Cookie]

Definitely cheating. The reason why game is unfair against a player is because it is assumed player is smarter than the AI. So it balances it out... I still quite like watching this gentleman, but I wish he wouldn't use the mod.

[@kinazura590]

like he once said, it's a convenience mod and you'd be able to figure it out anyway, it just takes slightly longer. i prefer seeing it too and it makes runs more fun and worthwhile.

[@codymansur8028]

I know this is a 2 year old comment but I've been playing a lot recently and found that it is something that will be found anyway by taking a measuring device to your screen. So it isn't really cheating to use the mod, it just makes the gameplay not have to be slowed down by some annoying task that otherwise has nothing to do with gameplay but will for sure result in worse outcomes if you didn't take the time to do it. The mod isn't giving some unfair advantage, it is just removing an unfun element of playing the game which is manually measuring rebel fleet pursuit.

[@hamsterfromabove8905]

@@Quicksilver_Cookie Ease of access isn't cheating. Its the same as having a ruler next to you. Or writing notes down on a pencil and paper. Its something that is 100% doable without the mod, just with more inconvenience and time wasted. I sure hope you've never looked up a wiki or guide for ftl, since that's using outside resources to gain an advantage over people who played it legit. /s