So here's my current tier list (those who know me know I'll probably change my mind about something the next time I do it). Here's the link for my stats page docs.google.co...
Ngl I've played ~200 hours of this game and not once did I even bother trying to use Engi C. I went through some of my worst Runs on Engi A and then B was even worse, so by the time I unlocked C I was just done and moved onto getting the Mantis and Slug unlocks. This video completely opened my eyes. I NEVER thought an Engi ship could be this good, thank you! Also, this is totally useless to veteran players but one thing I do like about the Federation ships is that there's never a worry about shield penetration - you always have the backup option. When I was new this was invaluable to me and allowed me to take risks experimenting with stuff like Cloaking and Hacking without falling too far behind
I had the best run ever as Engi B - I unlocked Rock A, Stealth A, Federation A, Engi C and Lanius A in one run, only because I got Pre-Igniter, 3x Flak I, Mind Control and Defense I drone.
Loved hearing your thoughts on all the ships! As a new player, this is a very interesting and helpful resource. FTL is a truly incredible game, and it's thanks to players like you that the game has experienced so many developments over the years. :)
Welcome. There is/were a lot of elite players hitting 95% win rates and some interesting meta shifts over the past few years. Best of luck in taking down the flagship.
Excellent list, I pretty much agree with everything here. At first blush I'd almost want to put Kestrel C in the bottom of B, but my success with running it has been, err, distinctly not B-tier.
Fed C is where I accidentally learned about zoltan ignoring ion. Had 4 crew reviving when ion intruder snuck in the room from a crazy fight. 2 zoltan were on their way to take out a fire in the room but I had already walked away from the pc until I realized the Clone bay alarm had stopped!
hahaha that awesome. And what's really great about it, like having an encounter like that, i think make it more likely for you to recall that information vs watching a guide about it.
Very good tier list, Everything is at least within a tier of where I would put it, and most are on the same tier, and I think that as long as engi c and lanius b are at the top, stealth b is at the bottom, most stuff is reasonable to have a bit of shuffling other than a few of the A tiers. Stuff I differ on: I think rock c is slightly underrated, best layout, and can easily transition into a powerful boarding ship and gunship, but I am also extremely biased when it comes to rock c, so that is a factor. I also swap slug c and Lanius A, but they are so similar I don’t think that it matters if at all where they are as long as they are high. Seeing fed c so low makes me sad, I think its pretty underrated. It has the same issues as mantis c and b, the vulnerable sector 1. It doesn’t scale as well as those 2, but it is still very cheap to upgrade since you already have 4 crew, and only can buy 1 more system. It has enough redeeming qualities for me to put it at least one tier higher. Its certainly not a good ship, but I think it is a lot better than a ship like rock a. Overall, great tier list. Probably one of the best out there :)
lanius a and slug c are interesting. like for a while i had lanius a higher. I've gotten 3-4 really awful runs on lanius A - a bit cursed for me. I think Slug C can just crew kill from the start while also being safe, and it's harder for the lanius a to do that. And that generates a lot of value early for slug c.
@@crowrevell2082 for sure, I think there are great arguments for both ships being over the other, the main determining factor for me is that i think having a second weapon massively helps in bad fights, more specifically zoltan shield BS in sector 1. And as much as I value early crew kills, I value survivability more. I think its just a choice between a weapon, or mind control. And while mc is better for longevity, having 2 weapons you can use immediately, and for the entire game is more valuable to me. There is also more boarding potential with Lanius A, but thats not really a main point. Then again, my stats show 1 Lanius A loss, and 0 slug c losses, so maybe I’m just biased.
Stealth B is very funny when you get pre-igniter and flak I in the first sector (just happened to me), I didn't even had to power shields until the flagship
I've been suffering with trying to get an Engi win, and goddamn it's the biggest pain. Definitely feels like it banks very hard on favorable RNG to get off the ground or you just stall and die. Pray you get literally anything good to replace that ion blast 2, like a burst 2 or flak 1 or you're just fucked.
Engi A is pretty bad. It's scaling is awful. Like even finding another ion weapons and DRA feels bad against 2 shields. like it can work, with some choice ion hits to weapons to reset them but generally i try to swap away from ion/drones asap. I don't have a crew kill video without/boarding that deals with 2 ways to get crew kills with engi a (if you aren't aware of ion stacking w/ and w/out combat 1.
Zoltan A is S tier for me it is basically untouchable in the first sector. Starting with halberd beam is insane and Zoltan shield always gives you time to charge it before being hit.
first 2 sectors are seldomly a problem. it's getting a weapon online with the beam. as the cheapest 2 shot laser (bl1) and weapon upgrades to get it only set the player back 135 scrap. Along with the want of 2 shields before sector 3, that puts the player on the hook for 185 scrap before sector 3.
Yes but with the Zoltan shield I’ve found that purely offensive focus you can put off upgrading defense for a while. Basically incapacitate enemy ships before they can get through Zoltan shield and damage you
55:42 Who is 'life is burrito'? I cannot find them on youtube. Or is it 'life as a burrito', as the transcript says? He's allegedly the best selfie player in the world!
I actually think this was a bit unfair to Ion Blast II. I've been playing around with it some and think it belongs just below the holy trinity of Halberd, Flak I, and Burst Laser II (tied with Vulcan).
I really think the 3 power no real damage is incredibly restrictive in terms of getting damaging through. While it can eventually get through even 4 shielded ships, you will still need something else to do damage. ideally a beam, it's still a 5 power set up for a beam while a burst 2 would be able to drop up to 3 shields, and only take 2 power. Vulcan, while being more power hungry, does have the distinction of winning fight by itself, provided one has enough defenses to wait for it to charge up (and if you are basically 100% safe, then really any weapon loadout will work.
@@crowrevell2082 it is relatively power-hungry (though, set against all the other 3-power weapons I think they are easily second best), but I usually run in the 6-8 power range on weapons, so it might be that it just doesn't seem that bad to me. I had a run a while ago where I had just that and a halberd beam and it worked out. I compare it to vulcan because it seems very similar as a shield-stripping tool, less good at max efficiency but without the painful charge up time. If you're hitting shield bubbles as opposed to systems, I think ion damage is unquestionably better than normal damage-it takes the layer down for much longer.
I saw this video on thumbnail, and I was totally confused by how Engi A is the best ship in the game until. I remembered Engi C looks just like Engi A and is freaking amazing. Somehow, I blanked that the ship existed. But it was a good 20 seconds of confusion.
Crow, now - that 1.5+ years have passed - are there any significant changes (re-evaluations) for you regarding the ships? P.S. If you could re-upload the VOD, that would be good: the soundtrack is much louder than your voice - that is if you had audio channels recorded separately.
Well, obviously, Lanius B is now pure trash... I don't really think so, as i have a tendency to shuffle the lists even after doing a script. I think stealth c is 2nd worst just because it's sooo far behind in terms of defense. Fed C is the ship with the shorted win streak (7) for me, but other players have found more consistency on it. Fed B is better than Fed A. On thing that makes it difficult is really embracing the idea of skipping fights, which is something I do in more spots than I have. Recent zoltan a run i skipped the search the asteroid field because I didn't have weapon buffer. A couple blind fights in nebula i've also opted to skip vs risk it being stupid. Still, my perception on ships is forever biased by my own personal experiences.
@@crowrevell2082 (Somehow the notification appeared only today) I like your approach with evaluating the ships - based on the long-term experience and observations. Surely, the experience with a ship can vary and be very different from one playthrough to another. The experience you had with Lani B - I had something similar with Engi C, though in a different aspect. I always regarded Engi C among the top ships, and was pleased that others thought so as well. But just one recent run with absolutely no weapons for numerous crew kills or no weapons in stores, and no combat drones - hard to believe, but that was just that kind of run. Heck, there were no crew rewards for the crew kills, so that I could buy and use Teleporter to keep going! A similar run happened with Zoltan C, but then I bought a combat drone and that helped to get through 5-6 first sectors till I found a weapon in a store. In some runs there are just no free weapons, no weapons for crew kills, and no weapons in stores (I don't regard a healing burst as a weapon for a non-boarding ship). Personally I would evaluate a ship based on how many enemy ships setups can kill it and can it go through 5-6+ sectors without necessary systems, weapons, drones, or crew (sometimes I do buy crew before sector 6+, if that reasonably boosts my assault ability) in stores or a rewards. RNG can be very punishing: what a player could and should do is to win despite all odds - just be ready for the worst and risk intelligently. Btw, ZNix's Testing Tool allows generating different enemy ships to go through the most challenging or peculiar fights ( gitlab.com/znixian/FTL-test-tool ). I didn't try it personally, but as I mentioned some time before, this can used for twitch channel points reward fights or alike, or simply as a showcase for anything in-game.
@@vgmackan Drama stuff. Also, i've played Captain's Edition and Arsenal + and their ideas of fun and balance aren't the same as mine. And I just wanted to focus on being the best i could at Vanilla.
I agree the multiverse is a whole different beast when it comes to gameplay and balancing and I can see wanting to stick to what you know and enjoy more. Still watch your runs while I’m playing with the mod regardless cuz I still learn new stuff that helps me out in my runs like the fact that hacking slows down repairs in the hacked room.
This is so goofy... You say engines are useless and in the same breath mention how a single miss can make or break a run ... Which is it? You don't like blue events... Thats just... Why? Why do you want worse rewards and more chances of failure? Thats just dumb bro. If you like a ship its got potential. "All you need is to find hacking, stealth, 2 flak I's and 2 halbred beams and youre all set". But if you don't like it you act like you gotta fight the flagship on your first jump. Your only strategy is a gunship. Like. You said turn Engi A into a gunship. Why would anyone do that? Its a drone ship specialized for Drones. Get a combat 2 and you're literally done. Flagship beat. You think the ONLY way to run Clone bay is to suicide your guys on their systems and kill them between jumps. Like. Deliberately playing as stupid as possible. You know you can like, still shoot their ship right? This whole thing game me an aneurism.
hi - fyi, i have a 97% win rate in hard mode. across 13 plays with every ship layout (364 runs) i had a total of 12 losses. And have had winstreaks of 68, 52, and 30 in a row. Blue events are fine, but spending scrap in the hopes of finding them is bad (this is covered in more detail in my budgeting video). I can play boarding just as well. it's like you turn your brain on and off to try and make me wrong. I can play engi as drones (have several times) but generally you'll want traditional weapons since the lack of targeting from drones can make for some bad experiences. I don't think that's the only way to run clone bay. Yes they heal between jumps. Which is weird cause you said i turn everything into gunships, but here you are talking about boarding strategies. This is a general guide to the approach to runs on each ship in FTL. The game won't always let you play runs the way you want and requires adaption.
Ngl I've played ~200 hours of this game and not once did I even bother trying to use Engi C. I went through some of my worst Runs on Engi A and then B was even worse, so by the time I unlocked C I was just done and moved onto getting the Mantis and Slug unlocks.
This video completely opened my eyes. I NEVER thought an Engi ship could be this good, thank you!
Also, this is totally useless to veteran players but one thing I do like about the Federation ships is that there's never a worry about shield penetration - you always have the backup option. When I was new this was invaluable to me and allowed me to take risks experimenting with stuff like Cloaking and Hacking without falling too far behind
I had the best run ever as Engi B - I unlocked Rock A, Stealth A, Federation A, Engi C and Lanius A in one run, only because I got Pre-Igniter, 3x Flak I, Mind Control and Defense I drone.
Amazing. that's bonkers.
Engi B is literally my worst performing ship lmao 😂
@@MingTheKing100 It's not a good ship, but miracles happen.
Loved hearing your thoughts on all the ships! As a new player, this is a very interesting and helpful resource. FTL is a truly incredible game, and it's thanks to players like you that the game has experienced so many developments over the years. :)
thanks :D
no disrespect but you should turn down the music its hard to hear you
I just started getting back into FTL, and roguelikes in general after a very long time. Thanks for the solid list brother!!
Welcome. There is/were a lot of elite players hitting 95% win rates and some interesting meta shifts over the past few years. Best of luck in taking down the flagship.
Excellent list, I pretty much agree with everything here. At first blush I'd almost want to put Kestrel C in the bottom of B, but my success with running it has been, err, distinctly not B-tier.
yeah - i have a lot of bad runs on that ship.
Fed C is where I accidentally learned about zoltan ignoring ion. Had 4 crew reviving when ion intruder snuck in the room from a crazy fight. 2 zoltan were on their way to take out a fire in the room but I had already walked away from the pc until I realized the Clone bay alarm had stopped!
hahaha that awesome. And what's really great about it, like having an encounter like that, i think make it more likely for you to recall that information vs watching a guide about it.
Interesting and illuminating analysis-- great video!
Very good tier list, Everything is at least within a tier of where I would put it, and most are on the same tier, and I think that as long as engi c and lanius b are at the top, stealth b is at the bottom, most stuff is reasonable to have a bit of shuffling other than a few of the A tiers.
Stuff I differ on:
I think rock c is slightly underrated, best layout, and can easily transition into a powerful boarding ship and gunship, but I am also extremely biased when it comes to rock c, so that is a factor.
I also swap slug c and Lanius A, but they are so similar I don’t think that it matters if at all where they are as long as they are high.
Seeing fed c so low makes me sad, I think its pretty underrated. It has the same issues as mantis c and b, the vulnerable sector 1. It doesn’t scale as well as those 2, but it is still very cheap to upgrade since you already have 4 crew, and only can buy 1 more system. It has enough redeeming qualities for me to put it at least one tier higher. Its certainly not a good ship, but I think it is a lot better than a ship like rock a.
Overall, great tier list. Probably one of the best out there :)
lanius a and slug c are interesting. like for a while i had lanius a higher. I've gotten 3-4 really awful runs on lanius A - a bit cursed for me. I think Slug C can just crew kill from the start while also being safe, and it's harder for the lanius a to do that. And that generates a lot of value early for slug c.
@@crowrevell2082 for sure, I think there are great arguments for both ships being over the other, the main determining factor for me is that i think having a second weapon massively helps in bad fights, more specifically zoltan shield BS in sector 1. And as much as I value early crew kills, I value survivability more. I think its just a choice between a weapon, or mind control. And while mc is better for longevity, having 2 weapons you can use immediately, and for the entire game is more valuable to me. There is also more boarding potential with Lanius A, but thats not really a main point.
Then again, my stats show 1 Lanius A loss, and 0 slug c losses, so maybe I’m just biased.
56:10 This is some life changing/saving advice thank you😨
you can see it implimented in my stealth b runs. it really does improve the consistency of getting to cloak 3.
Stealth B is very funny when you get pre-igniter and flak I in the first sector (just happened to me), I didn't even had to power shields until the flagship
it is a glass cannon. It's used for speed runs on easy.
Great list! Music far too loud, hard to hear what you're saying sometimes
Fair. yeah didn't check music volume to record. rookie mistake
I've been suffering with trying to get an Engi win, and goddamn it's the biggest pain.
Definitely feels like it banks very hard on favorable RNG to get off the ground or you just stall and die. Pray you get literally anything good to replace that ion blast 2, like a burst 2 or flak 1 or you're just fucked.
Engi A is pretty bad. It's scaling is awful. Like even finding another ion weapons and DRA feels bad against 2 shields. like it can work, with some choice ion hits to weapons to reset them but generally i try to swap away from ion/drones asap. I don't have a crew kill video without/boarding that deals with 2 ways to get crew kills with engi a (if you aren't aware of ion stacking w/ and w/out combat 1.
Zoltan A is S tier for me it is basically untouchable in the first sector. Starting with halberd beam is insane and Zoltan shield always gives you time to charge it before being hit.
first 2 sectors are seldomly a problem. it's getting a weapon online with the beam. as the cheapest 2 shot laser (bl1) and weapon upgrades to get it only set the player back 135 scrap. Along with the want of 2 shields before sector 3, that puts the player on the hook for 185 scrap before sector 3.
Yes but with the Zoltan shield I’ve found that purely offensive focus you can put off upgrading defense for a while. Basically incapacitate enemy ships before they can get through Zoltan shield and damage you
55:42 Who is 'life is burrito'? I cannot find them on youtube.
Or is it 'life as a burrito', as the transcript says? He's allegedly the best selfie player in the world!
www.twitch.tv/lifesaburrito/
I actually think this was a bit unfair to Ion Blast II. I've been playing around with it some and think it belongs just below the holy trinity of Halberd, Flak I, and Burst Laser II (tied with Vulcan).
I really think the 3 power no real damage is incredibly restrictive in terms of getting damaging through. While it can eventually get through even 4 shielded ships, you will still need something else to do damage. ideally a beam, it's still a 5 power set up for a beam while a burst 2 would be able to drop up to 3 shields, and only take 2 power. Vulcan, while being more power hungry, does have the distinction of winning fight by itself, provided one has enough defenses to wait for it to charge up (and if you are basically 100% safe, then really any weapon loadout will work.
@@crowrevell2082 it is relatively power-hungry (though, set against all the other 3-power weapons I think they are easily second best), but I usually run in the 6-8 power range on weapons, so it might be that it just doesn't seem that bad to me. I had a run a while ago where I had just that and a halberd beam and it worked out. I compare it to vulcan because it seems very similar as a shield-stripping tool, less good at max efficiency but without the painful charge up time. If you're hitting shield bubbles as opposed to systems, I think ion damage is unquestionably better than normal damage-it takes the layer down for much longer.
Man, I personally love Fed A. It's one of my more consistent ships, but that's personal preference I guess.
Music too loud😢
I saw this video on thumbnail, and I was totally confused by how Engi A is the best ship in the game until. I remembered Engi C looks just like Engi A and is freaking amazing. Somehow, I blanked that the ship existed. But it was a good 20 seconds of confusion.
there are a few ships that look really similar and kind of why i started with them in the order they were in so I was less likely to screw it up
Crow, now - that 1.5+ years have passed - are there any significant changes (re-evaluations) for you regarding the ships?
P.S. If you could re-upload the VOD, that would be good: the soundtrack is much louder than your voice - that is if you had audio channels recorded separately.
Well, obviously, Lanius B is now pure trash... I don't really think so, as i have a tendency to shuffle the lists even after doing a script. I think stealth c is 2nd worst just because it's sooo far behind in terms of defense. Fed C is the ship with the shorted win streak (7) for me, but other players have found more consistency on it. Fed B is better than Fed A. On thing that makes it difficult is really embracing the idea of skipping fights, which is something I do in more spots than I have. Recent zoltan a run i skipped the search the asteroid field because I didn't have weapon buffer. A couple blind fights in nebula i've also opted to skip vs risk it being stupid. Still, my perception on ships is forever biased by my own personal experiences.
@@crowrevell2082 (Somehow the notification appeared only today)
I like your approach with evaluating the ships - based on the long-term experience and observations. Surely, the experience with a ship can vary and be very different from one playthrough to another.
The experience you had with Lani B - I had something similar with Engi C, though in a different aspect. I always regarded Engi C among the top ships, and was pleased that others thought so as well. But just one recent run with absolutely no weapons for numerous crew kills or no weapons in stores, and no combat drones - hard to believe, but that was just that kind of run. Heck, there were no crew rewards for the crew kills, so that I could buy and use Teleporter to keep going! A similar run happened with Zoltan C, but then I bought a combat drone and that helped to get through 5-6 first sectors till I found a weapon in a store. In some runs there are just no free weapons, no weapons for crew kills, and no weapons in stores (I don't regard a healing burst as a weapon for a non-boarding ship).
Personally I would evaluate a ship based on how many enemy ships setups can kill it and can it go through 5-6+ sectors without necessary systems, weapons, drones, or crew (sometimes I do buy crew before sector 6+, if that reasonably boosts my assault ability) in stores or a rewards. RNG can be very punishing: what a player could and should do is to win despite all odds - just be ready for the worst and risk intelligently.
Btw, ZNix's Testing Tool allows generating different enemy ships to go through the most challenging or peculiar fights ( gitlab.com/znixian/FTL-test-tool ). I didn't try it personally, but as I mentioned some time before, this can used for twitch channel points reward fights or alike, or simply as a showcase for anything in-game.
i had hope today was the day you'd put fed c higher than fed a & b :(
did you? did you really?
There's something about Federation C that's fun to me
Pain
Do multiverse ships!! There is no other vid yet so you will get views
Probably would get some views, but I really have no interest in the mod (though understand why so many do).
@@crowrevell2082 why no interest in multiverse?
@@vgmackan Drama stuff. Also, i've played Captain's Edition and Arsenal + and their ideas of fun and balance aren't the same as mine. And I just wanted to focus on being the best i could at Vanilla.
I agree the multiverse is a whole different beast when it comes to gameplay and balancing and I can see wanting to stick to what you know and enjoy more. Still watch your runs while I’m playing with the mod regardless cuz I still learn new stuff that helps me out in my runs like the fact that hacking slows down repairs in the hacked room.
I love the rebels.
Hello
This is so goofy...
You say engines are useless and in the same breath mention how a single miss can make or break a run ... Which is it?
You don't like blue events... Thats just... Why? Why do you want worse rewards and more chances of failure? Thats just dumb bro.
If you like a ship its got potential. "All you need is to find hacking, stealth, 2 flak I's and 2 halbred beams and youre all set". But if you don't like it you act like you gotta fight the flagship on your first jump.
Your only strategy is a gunship. Like. You said turn Engi A into a gunship. Why would anyone do that? Its a drone ship specialized for Drones. Get a combat 2 and you're literally done. Flagship beat.
You think the ONLY way to run Clone bay is to suicide your guys on their systems and kill them between jumps. Like. Deliberately playing as stupid as possible. You know you can like, still shoot their ship right?
This whole thing game me an aneurism.
hi - fyi, i have a 97% win rate in hard mode. across 13 plays with every ship layout (364 runs) i had a total of 12 losses. And have had winstreaks of 68, 52, and 30 in a row.
Blue events are fine, but spending scrap in the hopes of finding them is bad (this is covered in more detail in my budgeting video).
I can play boarding just as well. it's like you turn your brain on and off to try and make me wrong. I can play engi as drones (have several times) but generally you'll want traditional weapons since the lack of targeting from drones can make for some bad experiences.
I don't think that's the only way to run clone bay. Yes they heal between jumps. Which is weird cause you said i turn everything into gunships, but here you are talking about boarding strategies.
This is a general guide to the approach to runs on each ship in FTL. The game won't always let you play runs the way you want and requires adaption.