FTL: Defending Your Ship in a Hostile Galaxy pt. 3

I am Allergic to Death

One of the most important things you will be doing in FTL is destroying enemy ships. There are a variety of strategies to do that, each with strengths and weaknesses. In order to make an intelligent choice about which strategy you will employ, it is important to understand how the different offensive and defensive systems work. Today we will focus on the different systems you can use to keep yourself alive.

Shields

Your basic shield is a rapidly regenerating energy based defensive system which protects you against energy based threats like laser and beam weapons. Enemy ship shields use the same mechanics as yours, so keep this in mind for both. For each level of shielding a ship has, it can absorb one laser burst, or ablate one damage from a beam blast. This temporarily depletes that level of shielding; all shields regenerate after a short period in which they do not take damage. Shields do not mitigate damage from missiles or bombs, however. Keeping your weapons systems contemporary is critical; if your weapons become too outdated, you will find yourself unable to penetrate enemy shields at all in the later sectors - for instance, if you can only fire two laser bursts at once, you will be unable to do any damage to ship systems on any ship with level two shields or higher - in this case you would have to rely on non-energy based weaponry to impair the enemy shields before being able to use your energy based weaponry against the enemy. It sounds a little complicated in text, but the shield system is very intuitive once you experience it.

Evasive Maneuvers!

As long as your ship has a pilot, it has a chance to completely evade any incoming damage (except for beam weapons, which are guaranteed to hit). You can increase your chance to dodge attacks by having a pilot man the helm, an engineer manning the engines, and by having those crew members become experienced in their tasks the evasion bonus will increase. You can also increase the evasion bonus by leveling up your engines and providing them with more power. Evasion is an extremely valuable ability because it has a chance to avoid all non beam attacks, including bombs and missiles which can bypass shields. It is also active as long as your helm and engines have power and are not destroyed, and you have a pilot in the helm. When missiles go flying past your starboard side instead of sailing into your shield generator, you will give thanks for your pilot's capable hands and your powerful engines. Do not neglect your engines!

Tomorrow we will finish outlining your defensive options.

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