FTL: Limited Information: PvtUrist's Private Topic

[callforjudgement]

Access to this topic:

PvtUrist (player)
callforjudgement (moderator)
Iconeum (replacement for PvtUrist)

[callforjudgement]

Welcome to FTL: Limited Information! This thread allows me to privately give you information, and allows you to take game actions. I'll only accept actions posted in this private topic. You may also use it for your own thoughts about the game. It will become public when the game ends. It might be shown to your replacement, if you need to be replaced.

You

may not

copy-and-paste from here to the game thread. You may paraphrase, but

please do not use numbers when doing so

.

Here is information about the character you're playing in the game:

Rock

You are a

Rock

, a member of a highly organised traditional society. The Rock religion preaches stoicism, obedience to superiors, and wariness of outsiders, helping the Rock society exist largely in harmony, except for all those people who don't have the same views. As such, Rocks who have reassuringly high loyalty tendencies, but worryingly high levels of curiosity, are often sent to join the Federation and help keep invaders away from Rock territory; and you are one of them.

You recently found out about the source of the Rebellion: an AI that has made its home in the Rebel Flagship. Unfortunately, the crew who discovered that were wiped out, and only just managed to relay the message to the few remaining Federation employees at your base. The last order you received was to make sure that the information remained in Federation hands, asking you to take the information, and your ship, to another Federation base, warning that the Rebels are very likely to try to stop you.

Being made of rock, your body doesn't have many weak points; you are immune to burns, and will resist ⅓ of the damage you take from any other source. However, due to your bulk, it will take you a long time to move around the ship; if you try to change station under time pressure, it will be a while before you can do anything at your destination.

Your

primary objective

is to take your ship – and your information – to a Federation base, and await further orders. The nearest Federation base that you know of is in the same sector as your own base, located near the Long-Range Beacon.
Your

secondary objective

is to avoid drawing attention that would help enable the Rebels to find you; one of the main risks to your mission is that the Rebels kill you to stop your information falling into the hands of the Federation High Command. It will be scored as follows:
-

+180 points

for every Long-Range Jump made by the ship (which will greatly expand the area that the Rebels will have to search in).
-

−10 points

for every FTL beacon visited by the ship (which will give more people a chance to observe your position); note that this is a score penalty, not a bonus.

[callforjudgement]

You're welcome.

There's a decision to make in the main game thread, about which parts of the ship each player will be responsible for; you might want to discuss what decision should be made with the other players.

[callforjudgement]

Weapon Power Relays

The ship has four weapon mounts; only two are currently in use.

This ship's weapon power relays are capable of supplying up to 3MW of power to weaponry mounted on the outside of the ship. This is enough to power either of the ship's weapons, but not both at once.

As a weapons operator, you can decide which of the weapons to power, and where to aim them. Additionally, you can specify how to time weapon shots (e.g. to synchronize them with something that disrupts shields). Staying in the weapons room will help the weapons form target locks more quickly, increasing their firing rate.

Micromanaging weapon targets for every battle would quickly become very slow. As such, let me know in this PT what rules I should follow to determine weapon targets; which weapon should I use, and which of the enemy ship's systems or crew should I prioritise damaging first? You can change these rules at any time, and if they appear to be struggling, I'll pause the game to ask you whether you wish to make changes.

Burst Laser II

This ship's primary lethal weapon is a Burst Laser II, designed for circumstances where you wish to damage or destroy an enemy ship.

This is a burst laser weapon; it fires 3 laser shots every 12 seconds. It requires 3MW of power to operate (it is capable of firing a partial burst if you request it to, but it will still draw 3MW of power). All 3 shots must be aimed at the same target. If a shot hits enemy shields, the shields will be briefly disrupted (allowing the rest of the burst through) but the shot itself will dissipate. Shots deal 1 system damage, 1 hull damage, 15 crew damage, and occasionally start fires.

The Burst Laser II is not permanently attached to the ship. If you wish to barter with it, you could likely exchange it for goods worth ⛯32.

EMP Ion

The EMP Ion is designed for encounters where you wish to disable rather than destroy an enemy ship, e.g. law enforcement against civilian ships.

The weapon consumes 3MW of power, can be fired once every 9 seconds, and has two modes of operation:

• When hitting enemy shields, the enemy shield generator will be both damaged and ionized, taking 1 system damage and losing 1MW of power for 5 seconds. This mode occasionally stuns enemy shield operators, but has no other special effects.
  
• When hitting the enemy ship directly, the weapon will cause system and ion damage to the hit room, as above. Additionally, it sometimes stuns enemy crews, and (in this mode only) often starts fires.

The EMP Ion does not directly deal any damage to a ship's hull or to crew it hits. Against enemy ships with inadequate weapons, and an inability to repair the shields quickly enough, it can allow the ship to be captured via disabling the enemy shields and then (if the enemy refuses to surrender) burning out the ship interior.

The EMP Ion is not permanently attached to the ship. If you wish to barter with it, you could likely exchange it for goods worth ⛯35.

Artillery Beam

The Federation's signature weapon, the Artillery Beam is used to break stalemates when fighting against defensive ships.

The Artillery Beam will fire after being continuously powered for 50 seconds. It cannot be manually aimed, and will target enemy rooms at random. It usually hits several rooms, dealing 1 hull and 1 system damage to each of them; notably, it is not stopped by enemy shields, and will deal full damage regardless of how many shield layers the enemy uses.

The Artillery Beam is permanently built into the ship. As such, it cannot be sold, but takes its power from the ship's reactor directly rather than needing the use of the weapon power relays, and does not require a weapon mount. It requires 1MW of power to charge.

[callforjudgement]

Got it. I'll ask for more information if an AI or Lanius ship comes up (or if the strategy seems to not be working).

[callforjudgement]

Just to clarify: I aimed at the enemy weapons as requested, didn't do much damage (there were a lot of missed shots), missed the second volley entirely and the enemy ship was fully repaired. They were ready to jump away before the Artillery could fire, so I had to jump away myself.

[callforjudgement]

Got it.

[callforjudgement]

You hear screams from just behind you. It seems like the asteroid hit the ship bridge, right next to where you are at the moment.

[callforjudgement]

OK. Turns out it's a fire.

[callforjudgement]

You extinguished the fire; Enter helped, but had to leave the room after a while. I'm taking you back to weapons as you requested.

[callforjudgement]

They're trying to surrender (details in the main thread). Do you want to power down the weapons, or keep firing?

[callforjudgement]

OK, that's ⛯12½, you now have 0.

[callforjudgement]

Looks like one of the weapon power relays got taken down by an enemy shot; they're only capable of supplying 2MW to our main weaponry, so they're both down right now. You might want to call for help in-thread, or fix them yourself.

[callforjudgement]

the worst fixed them, so I finished off the battle.

[callforjudgement]

Weapons-related purchases at this beacon:
Weapon power relay: costs ⛯45, allows an additional 1MW of power to be routed to the main weapons (cannot be sold)
Lensing system: costs ⛯30, increases artillery recharge rate by 20% but doubles artillery power usage (cannot be sold, but can be switched off)
Weapon stealth unit: costs ⛯50, causes weapon fire to not disrupt cloaking fields; requires a small machinery room
Healing burst: costs ⛯40, requires ammo, charges in 5 seconds, heals crew; uses 1MW of power
Burst Laser II: costs ⛯65, identical to our current Burst Laser II (e.g. it uses 3MW of power)
Chain Laser: costs ⛯65, time between bursts 19…14…9…4…4…4… seconds, fires two shots per burst, 1 damage, uses 2MW of power

You have ⛯7. (You can also sell the EMP or Burst Laser II, if necessary.)

[callforjudgement]

Primary objective updated

: Take your ship's information to the Federation High Command.

[callforjudgement]

Against enemies that can't damage us, Piloting > Medbay > Oxygen > Engines if not fighting AI/Lanius

I managed to break Piloting, Oxygen, Engines simultaneously on this Rebel ship, and they don't have a Medbay.

I'm just picking random systems to break next, but if you have a preference for if this happens in the future, let me know.

[callforjudgement]

Weapons-related purchases at this beacon:
Weapon power relay: costs ⛯45, allows an additional 1MW of power to be routed to the main weapons (cannot be sold)
Lensing system: costs ⛯30, increases artillery recharge rate by 20% but doubles artillery power usage (cannot be sold, but can be switched off)
Basic Laser: costs ⛯20, laser, charges in 6 seconds, deals 1 damage; uses 1MW of power
Hull Laser II: costs ⛯75, 3-shot burst laser, charges in 15 seconds, 1 hull damage, but double damage to crew and to empty rooms, does not damage systems; uses 2MW of power
Hull Beam: costs ⛯70, beam (same length as vanilla Hull Beam), charges in 12 seconds, double damage to empty rooms, can damage systems; uses 2MW of power

You have ⛯9. (You can also sell the EMP or Burst Laser II, if necessary.)

[callforjudgement]

Against enemies that will damage us (1 shield layer vs 2 laser/1 laser 1 beam/1 missile, etc), keep the enemy's weaponry system down with Burst II, then Weaponry > Shields > Piloting > Engines.

Against enemies that may damage us and isn't AI/Lanius (1 shield layer vs 1 laser 1 bomb, for example), EMP Ion enemy Piloting > Medbay > Weaponry > Engines, if enemy has Clonebay, EMP Ion it only when an enemy crew dies.

Against enemies that can't damage us, Piloting > Medbay > Oxygen > Engines if not fighting AI/Lanius

I'm in a fight that these rules don't handle: enemy Lanius ship, 1 laser 1 bomb versus our 2 shield layers. What weapon should I use, and what are the priorities?

[callforjudgement]

Which weapon? Burst Laser II?

[callforjudgement]

Weapons-related purchases at this beacon:
Weapon power relay: costs ⛯45, allows an additional 1MW of power to be routed to the main weapons (cannot be sold)

You have ⛯17¼. (The cornerpost is unwilling to trade for your weapons; purchases must be made with scrap only.)

[callforjudgement]

The enemy ship here has cloaking, two shield layers, two lasers, and a Siege Ion (which deals 3 ion damage); also, we're at a sun beacon. What should be the plans for two-shielded ships (both in general, and at this beacon in particular)?

[callforjudgement]

We have a new weapon!

Pulse Bomb I

The Pulse Bomb Mark I is not standard weaponry for Federation ships, but its power connector has a standard enough design; we can wire it into the main weapon circuitry if required.

The Pulse Bomb launcher teleports Pulse Bombs to their target, able to aim one bomb every 8 seconds. It requires 1MW of power to operate. The bomb almost always breaches a room that it hits, dealing 1 ion and then 1 system damage; it can also damage crew. We can aim bombs at our own ship, if necessary.

The Pulse Bomb launcher can partially fabricate its own ammunition, but it requires raw materials to do so. At present, we have enough raw explosive to fabricate 13 Pulse Bombs.

[callforjudgement]

It's up to you whether we attack the slaver (unless someone decides to trade first), as you're in charge of the weapons. If you do attack them, I'd like an updated weapon plan taking the Pulse Bomb into account (you can, of course, choose not to use it). We can only power one of the three non-Artillery weapons at once right now.

[callforjudgement]

Weapons-related purchases at this beacon:
Weapon power relay: costs ⛯45, allows an additional 1MW of power to be routed to the main weapons (cannot be sold)
Lensing system: costs ⛯30, increases artillery recharge rate by 20% but doubles artillery power usage (cannot be sold, but can be switched off)
Pulse Bomb I ammo: costs ⛯4 per shot, 6 units available

You have ⛯20. (You can also sell the EMP, Pulse Bomb I or Burst Laser II, if necessary. The Pulse Bomb I sells for ⛯22.)

[callforjudgement]

Two-shielded autoship, and it's running away. What weapons should I use, and where should I aim them?

[callforjudgement]

After the weapons usage and trades, we have enough explosive material to synthesize 9 Pulse Bomb I shots.

Weapons-related purchases at this beacon:
Weapon power relay: costs ⛯45, allows an additional 1MW of power to be routed to the main weapons (cannot be sold)
Lensing system: costs ⛯30, increases artillery recharge rate by 20% but doubles artillery power usage (cannot be sold, but can be switched off)
Hull Laser II: costs ⛯75, takes 15 seconds to charge, fires 3 shots per charge (dealing 1 hull damage or 2 to an empty room, but no system damage), requires 2MW to power
Halberd Beam: costs ⛯65, takes 17 seconds to charge, 2-damage beam, requires 3MW to power
Flak I: costs ⛯65, takes 10 seconds to charge, fires 3 1-damage shots,

very

inaccurate (about twice the spread of vanilla FTL), requires 2MW to power
Weapon Pre-Igniter: costs ⛯120, causes weapons to be fully charged after a jump, requires small machinery room
Pulse Bomb I ammo: costs ⛯4 per shot, 5 units available

You have ⛯9. (You can also sell the EMP (⛯35), Pulse Bomb I (⛯22) or Burst Laser II (⛯32), if necessary.)

[callforjudgement]

The enemy has a Halberd Beam and Chain Ion.

I tried the "EMP the shields, shoot at the weapons" strategy that's standard, but they have two shield layers, and seem to be repairing the shields faster than the EMP can damage them. As the enemy ship can get through our shields, I therefore need a new strategy for dealing with them.

[callforjudgement]

Well, if you want to suggest running, you'll have to do it in the main thread; it's Enter you'd be suggesting it to, not me. I'll try to take down their weapons with the laser, though.

Do you want me to use the bomb?

[callforjudgement]

Actually, it's OK, we got lucky with the Burst Laser and managed to disable one of their weapons before it charged twice in a row (and they needed to use both together to pierce our shields). So finishing the fight was pretty simple from there.

[callforjudgement]

We can adapt the ammo we picked up for use with our Pulse Bomb I, so we now have 11 uses of it left.

[callforjudgement]

Do you want any special rules for fighting Slug Scout enemies (which have no ability to repair their Oxygen system)?

This one can't get through our shields as long as the worst can keep them repaired, so I'm currently EMPing them in the hope of a crew kill, as per standard procedure. You're just about outpacing their repair ability, but it could take a while, as they have three shield layers to get through.

[callforjudgement]

Our EMP

was

making progress on their ship, but you black out for a moment. When you come to, the weapon system is damaged and their shields are fully repaired again. It doesn't look like it was hit by enemy weaponry (besides, they have only a Fire Beam); it's more like someone sabotaged it.

[callforjudgement]

Our current plan seems to be exceedingly slow; the fact that the EMP can barely outpace their repair speed, together with the frequent resets when you get mind-controlled and the chance of missing, means that it's only very rarely that you get a shot through to Piloting (although a couple of these shots did land). The enemy have taken a couple of points of hull damage, presumably from fires breaking out in their Piloting system, so you are making progress; it's unclear whether the hull or crew will die first.

Do you want to stick with the plan of using only the EMP and aiming primarily for Piloting? Or do you want to try something else?

[callforjudgement]

No, different ship.

Anyway, the original plan did work eventually (although if there are many more 20-minute battles the game might end up being slowed down as I try to find time for them…)

[callforjudgement]

We have enough explosive material to synthesize 14 Pulse Bomb I shots.

Weapons-related purchases at this beacon:
Weapon power relay: costs ⛯45, allows an additional 1MW of power to be routed to the main weapons (cannot be sold)
Lensing system: costs ⛯30, increases artillery recharge rate by 20% but doubles artillery power usage (cannot be sold, but can be switched off)
Advanced lensing system: costs ⛯80, increases artillery recharge rate by 40% but triples artillery power usage (cannot be sold, can be switched off, does not stack with a regular lensing system)
Pulse Bomb I ammo: costs ⛯4 per shot, 2 units available

You had ⛯38, but the worst sent you an additional ⛯65, so you have ⛯103. (You can also sell the EMP (⛯35), Pulse Bomb I (⛯22) or Burst Laser II (⛯32), if necessary.)

[callforjudgement]

OK. You now have ⛯18.

[callforjudgement]

Varsoon sends you ⛯17. You now have ⛯35.

[callforjudgement]

I treated the enemy ship as one that needed to be killed quickly (a Sunder Missile does 11 damage and I didn't want to take the chance of one of those getting through), although come to think of it, I maybe should have gone for a crew kill based on the instructions earlier, as it might well have run out of ammo before it got past our drone. (IIRC, though, the rewards for that event are the same either way.)

How should I treat ships whose only ability to pierce our shields is a missile in future? Go for the EMP-down-the-shields-then-shoot-weapons that I've been using against enemies that can hurt us? Or try to EMP all the way? The defence drone isn't fully reliable.

[callforjudgement]

We have enough explosive material to synthesize 18 Pulse Bomb I shots.

Weapons-related purchases at this beacon:
Weapon power relay: costs ⛯45, allows an additional 1MW of power to be routed to the main weapons (cannot be sold)
Large weapon power relay: costs ⛯100, allows an additional 2MW of power to be routed to the main weapons (cannot be sold)
[the power relays can't directly be used together as they'd need to share the same reactor access point, but we can use an additional ⛯20 worth of scrap to bodge around that]
Lensing system: costs ⛯30, increases artillery recharge rate by 20% but doubles artillery power usage (cannot be sold, but can be switched off)
Pike Beam: costs ⛯35, long 1-damage beam (same length as vanilla FTL's Pike Beam), charges very slowly (21 seconds), uses 1MW of power
Speed Beam: costs ⛯70, very short 1-damage beam (can hit three rooms if they all share a common corner), charges in just 4 seconds, uses 1MW of power
Charge Laser II: costs ⛯70, fires a burst of 1-4 1-damage shots (you control how many), takes 5 seconds to charge per shot in the burst (i.e. 20 seconds for a full 4-shot burst), uses 3MW of power
Pulse Bomb I ammo: costs ⛯4 per shot, 6 units available
Automated Reloader: costs ⛯60, causes all weapons to charge 10% faster, uses small machinery room

You have ⛯59½. (You can also sell the EMP (⛯35), Pulse Bomb I (⛯22) or Burst Laser II (⛯32), if necessary.)

[callforjudgement]

the worst sent you ⛯20½. That would give you ⛯80, but you spent ⛯35 on the Pike Beam, so you now have ⛯45.

[callforjudgement]

We have enough explosive material to synthesize 18 Pulse Bomb I shots.

Weapons-related purchases at this beacon:
Weapon power relay: costs ⛯45, allows an additional 1MW of power to be routed to the main weapons (cannot be sold)
Large weapon power relay: costs ⛯100, allows an additional 2MW of power to be routed to the main weapons (cannot be sold)
[the power relays can't directly be used together as they'd need to share the same reactor access point, but we can use an additional ⛯20 worth of scrap to bodge around that]
Lensing system: costs ⛯30, increases artillery recharge rate by 20% but doubles artillery power usage (cannot be sold, but can be switched off)
Missile shielding: costs ⛯80, makes our missiles immune to enemy defence drones
Pike Beam: costs ⛯35, long 1-damage beam (same length as vanilla FTL's Pike Beam), charges very slowly (21 seconds), uses 1MW of power
Basic Bomb: costs ⛯45, takes 13 seconds to charge, 2 damage, uses 1MW of power and 1 ammunition unit
Stun Bomb: costs ⛯45, takes 17 seconds to charge, 15 seconds stun + 1 ion damage, uses 1MW of power and 1 ammunition unit
Pulse Bomb I ammo: costs ⛯4 per shot, 6 units available

You have ⛯45. (You can also sell the EMP (⛯35), Pulse Bomb I (⛯22), Pike Beam (⛯17) or Burst Laser II (⛯32), if necessary.)

[callforjudgement]

OK. You now have ⛯0.

Could you be clear on how I'm meant to deal with ships with 2/3/4 shield layers? I assume the finisher is "EMP them repeatedly" if they can't hurt us, and "Burst Laser → Beam volley" if they're going to, but want to know how far to EMP/bomb down the shields first in the latter case.

[callforjudgement]

Any special rules for this ship? They have three shield layers, and are trying to suffocate us.

Their Oxygen system is not something they can repair, but we'll likely suffocate before they do if we simply attack it and wait. So we might want to kill them quickly.

[callforjudgement]

Apparently only 4MW is coming to the weapons in this battle (against the Slugs who disabled our Infirmary) for some reason. I've taken the missing power bar out of Artillery, as you didn't mention that above; let me know if there's some other change you want to make in this situation.

[callforjudgement]

i need a new plan for this battle. They have a cloaking device and 3 shield layers, and EMPing their shields isn't working; whenever we break them with the EMP, they simply just cloak and repair the shields while cloaked. Given that they can hurt us, I'm definitely not going to just continue with the standard plan until the ship's destroyed; I need an alternative.

[callforjudgement]

I tried to defeat them by bombing the cloaking, and had some success; at least we eventually managed to land a beam hit on them. However, they repaired the cloaking

and

the shields pretty quickly (the hit we landed came when two enemies repairing the cloaking got hit by the Pulse Bomb and decided to heal up, meaning they had fewer crew repairing. Unfortunately, by that point I had to abort the fight (see the main thread).

[callforjudgement]

There's basically nothing for weapons here; you can buy a power relay for ⛯55 but that's about it.

If you're interested in selling weapons, the Slugs here will gladly trade. Sell prices are the usual (EMP (⛯35), Pulse Bomb I (⛯22), Pike Beam (⛯17) or Burst Laser II (⛯32)).

You have ⛯17¾.

[callforjudgement]

future setup be ion and bomb/ laser and beam.

I tried this, but it was hard to get the Pike Beam to connect; as it takes 21 seconds to charge, the enemy's typically repaired the EMP damage to their shields in the time it takes to charge.

That latest battle might not have been an ideal test, though, as they kept damaging our weapons, preventing me from lining an attack up regardless of what strategy was used.

[callforjudgement]

We could try to fix some of the weapon-related debris in our scrap, if necessary. It'd take ⚙️55 worth of components to squeeze an extra 1MW of power to the main weapons, and ⚙️65 on top of that if we want an additional 1MW of power. We could also try to overclock the Artillery Beam, making it charge faster; that'd cost ⚙️30 and improve its charge rate at the cost of power consumption.

You have ⚙️39¾.

[callforjudgement]

I had to Pulse Bomb several times on the Jump 66 battle to not die immediately (the Pulse Bombs charge faster than their weapons do, so they're good at shutting down a system in an emergency). We now only have three Pulse Bomb ammo left.

On the plus side, we found a new weapon! It's a Basic Ion: it deals 1 point of ion damage every 8 seconds and takes 1MW to run; normal rules for ions, no special effects.

[callforjudgement]

We have too many weapons to mount to the ship; we're out of weapons mount points. Luckily, the merchants here are quite happy to reconfigure our weapons system if we buy something from them or sell something from them. So now's likely a good time to set up our weapon configuration and strategy for the next part of the game.

Not counting the artillery system, which is permanently fixed, the weapons we have available are:

Currently owned by us:
- Burst Laser II (3 1-damage shots per 12 seconds, 3MW), sells for ⛯32
- EMP Ion (1 shot per 9 seconds, dealing 1 ion + 1 system damage with possible stun/fire, 3MW), sells for ⛯35
- Pulse Bomb I (1 shot per 8 seconds, dealing 1 ion + 1 system damage, 1MW;

4 ammo left

), sells for ⛯22
- Pike Beam (long beam charging in 21 seconds, dealing 1 damage, 1MW), sells for ⛯17
- Basic Ion (1 shot per 8 seconds, dealing 1 ion damage, 1MW), sells for ⛯15
Purchasable:
- Burst Laser I (2 1-damage shots per 11 seconds, 2MW), buy for ⛯50
- Pegasus Missile (2 shots per 16 seconds, each dealing 1 hull + 3 system damage, 3MW; uses 1 ammo unit per burst), buy for ⛯60
- Phase Laser (1 shot per 19 seconds, dealing 2 hull + 2 system damage, passes through shields, 2MW); buy for ⛯80

Ammo costs ⛯4 per burst here (i.e. one Pulse Bomb I or one Pegasus Missile burst), with 6 units available.
The next three power supply upgrades for the weapons cost ⛯55, ⛯65, ⛯75 (i.e. ⛯55 for one upgrade, ⛯55+⛯65 for two, and so on).
The next three speed upgrades for the artillery cost ⛯30, ⛯50, ⛯80 (as usual, an upgraded Artillery will consume extra power, but you can switch off the upgrades if you wish to save on power).

You have ⛯36.