FTL: Bring the Fight to Them pt. 7

Today we are going to talk about offensive boarding and some tips for defending against boarders.

What are you doing on my ship?

Something here does not belong.

In FTL, being boarded happens quite regularly. Many enemy ships are equipped with teleportation pads (particularly Mantis vessels), and many special events involve enemy combatants teleporting onto your ship. It is important to develop effective methods of dealing with enemy boarders.

I have found three main tips that are very helpful for repelling enemy crew. First, investing in at least rank two doors is immensely helpful; rank two doors means that enemy crew cannot just walk through doors, and instead have to take the time to shoot them down. This is very important, particularly with the next two tips in mind. Second, when possible, fight the enemy in your medical bay; it will heal your crewmembers but not the enemy, and a single combatant does about the same amount of damage as the medical bay heals, so it is a very powerful defensive advantage. Finally, prepare to vent all decks to space! Opening your airlocks and dumping oxygen from any room that you do not have crew in is an incredibly useful tip for dealing with enemy boarders. If you have upgraded doors, you can asphyxiate your foe without ever having to send a crewmember to fight them. If not, you can open every room other than the medbay, and then send your crew into the medbay to force the enemy to come to you instead of sabotaging your systems.

Maybe if I board his vessel we can come to an agreement.

Offensively boarding enemy ships is a potent option for a few reasons. Teleporting onto an enemy ship bypasses all defenses other than the enemy crew that will be waiting for you, and unlike other offensive choices which penetrate shields, as long as you are effective with your crew and don't get them killed, they are not a consumable like missiles or drones are. You can teleport onto the enemy ship and target key systems, like shields or weapons, and sabotage them while fighting off the enemy crew. In addition, if you eliminate the entire enemy crew without destroying their ship, you receive bonus resources from capturing it intact instead of sifting through the scrap after you slice it into seventeen pieces with your beam weapons. Furthermore, transport ships often have additional bonus items that you can only get from capturing the ship. Although it can be more difficult and time consuming, boarding the enemy ship and systematically killing off the crew is definitely worthwhile if you have the capability to do so.

Hopefully this series of blogs has been informative for you. I highly recommend FTL and hope that if you choose to try it, my tips give you a better chance when starting out than I had.

If FTL sounds like fun, you can purchase it directly from the developers with no DRM here. Support independent developers and have fun with an outstanding game!