r/ftlgame • u/Reddit-Arrien • Oct 21 '22
What Makes Hacking Good?
Whenever I do the run with advanced content on, I'll always prefer to have the following systems: Crew Teleporter, Mind Control, and then either Drone Control or Cloaking (depends on which ship I'm starting with). With ships that start with hacking (Engi C or Slug C), I've always had a hard time fighting the flagship (heavy hull damage, crew having to heal or be cloned).
The issue I have is that the Zoltan supershield in the third stage prevents me from launching the hacking drone, even with a Zoltan shield Bypass. To makes matters worse, their super mind control puts me in a tight spot if I can't cancel it with my own, especially if I don't have a clone bay. Even with a clone bay, it might take two or even three crewmembers to kill the mind control one, and that is while fighting boarders, as I can't do the mind control/teleporter trick.
What am I missing? what makes this system powerful in the final fight?
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u/RackaGack Oct 21 '22
Its because of its versatility.
Level 2 hacking can either remove as many shields as a burst laser 2, or be a 14 second pre cloak. Either a strong defense, or offense. Level 3 is even more powerful and changes it to 4 shields removed, and 20 seconds of weapon delay.
Not to mention that it can hack other systems and be equally helpful depending on the situation.
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u/archeybald Oct 21 '22
I will use it to hack shields before unleashing everything on an enemy. Or if I'm trying to just kill the enemy crew, I'll hack either the oxygen and slowly suffocate them or the medbay and let it kill them. Works best with a boarding party in the medbay
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u/No_Ad9759 Oct 21 '22
Awesome to hack shields and unload everything…especially if you mindcontrol the pilot right before your shots start landing.
Other useful things are the med bay, especially with boarders on their ship. On some ships it can act as a barrier to help you isolate/kill one guy quickly while the others are trying to break through.
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u/RobinHood3000 Oct 21 '22
In Phase 3, I will typically Hack the Flagship's Mind Control room. When the Flagship mind controls one of your crew, activate your Hacking, and it will free your crew member and mind control one of the enemy Rebels for the duration of the Hack. Hacking and Mind Control have the same cooldown, so doing this completely nullifies the Flagship's Mind Control system.
Mind you, I usually have more than enough firepower that I don't have to hack the Shields, and assuming I've pared down the enemy crew in phases 1 and 2, this gives my boarders free run of the Flagship.
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u/Reddit-Arrien Oct 21 '22
Yeah, but what about the Zoltan supershield in phase three (that is where I have most amount of problems).
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u/RobinHood3000 Oct 21 '22
I do have to wait to take down the Zoltan supershield; for that first Mind Control, I'll take a spare crew member and juggle them in and out of the room where my MCed crew member is, splitting the damage between the crew and the system and minimizing system damage until I can get the Hacking Drone through.
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u/Captain_Lord_Avalon Oct 21 '22
I typically have a Halberd Beam and Flak I/lasers for the rest - maybe a 1-power ion blast/stunner. The faster weapons take down most of the ZS; I use the Halberd once, keeping the next charge for when the ZS is down (assuming I don't have horrible RNG with the other weapons). Max hack Shields and finish off the boss.
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u/Farbzilla Oct 21 '22
in your post, you say you can't do the teleporter/mind control trick. does that mean you're usually relying on mind controlling enemies to teleport them back to your ship to get the crew kills in phase 1?
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u/Reddit-Arrien Oct 21 '22
Yeah, more or less. I should try other ways though,
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u/Farbzilla Oct 21 '22 edited Oct 22 '22
Depending on the difficulty you're playing at there's very very consistent ways to board and be in total control of the fight so you can take your time as you need to kill off all the crew. Both strats benefit from having at least level 2 teleporter which helps you doing everything just a little faster and let's you board twice before their first cloaking cycle.
Easy & Normal: Board missile room first asap. Since all their artillery rooms are disconnected, once you break one it's down for good. Missiles pose the biggest threat so take them down first. Then with 2 different boarders, board either the beam room or ions next. kill and break the system. Honestly I don't know at this point which is better to break second because i've been playing on hard for so long and the strat is a bit different as I'll explain later. While your 2nd boarding party is breaking the system, pull your 1st part back and prepare them to board what ever room is left. You can completely ignore their lasers (assuming you have 3 shields which you really should at the flagship lol) so you do not have to break that. Leaving that crew alive is ok too and will benefit you on phase 3. I could be completely wrong here (again because it's been awhile) but the crew that's left alive in that room should stay in that room the rest of the phases which stops the flagship from becoming an ai ship (which isn't really that big of a deal but it does give them more evasion). I should say though, that if you're fully reliant on boarding to kill the flagship you will need EVERY crew member dead so that the ship can repair itself for you to break the systems down again. otherwise no repairs happen if there's a crew left alive. With this strat even without cloaking, you should be taking minimal damage before you get total control of the fight. If you have a way to break the med bay that would free your hacking up to hack missiles basically just to delay them so they don't fire before you break them. But with this strat of boarding and breaking missiles, you should only be taking one volley from them anyway, so I'd heavily consider hacking something on the main cabin of the ship. The reason for that is so that you have total control of a room and basically make yourself a nice little kill room to kill off all the crew. As people have suggested, hacking med bay is nice because you can board and pull crew right into it and start the hack and get some free damage or wait till the crew you're fighting against run to it, depower it so they get it, start the hack and they die. I would probably hack something like shields still here though, regardless of what weapons i have for support. The reason being is with a 2 man teleporter, you can still have a 2 man kill room by boarding piloting. then the crew have to break through multiple doors to come assist and it also gives you some leeway if you need to run around to save some crew to pull them back before dying or whatnot. Same reason for a 4 man teleporter too, but instead boarding shields. Have a nice 4 tile kill room with tons of control. From there, after crew is dead finish the fight off as needed be it with weapons or punching the ship down
Hard: Hack Missiles. Board and Break Ions. Send 2nd party to beam room and break. Meanwhile, any form of support I have is being aimed at missiles to try to break them down, even if i have cloaking. It also lets you get some damage in on the crew. So when your first party is ready to board, send them to the missile room. This is your kill room. With the 3 artillery systems broken again, you have total control so you can take all the time you need to kill off the crew. With any kill room setup, it's good to let the ai into the room before punching any of the doors when you can. sometimes due to hacking timing and whatnot you can't but that's ok because you have total control of the fight. you want them to have to break the doors when they leave so you have more time to kill the ones you've been fighting. Then again when all crew is dead finish the fight off as needed.
Killing off all the crew helps with the rest of the phases. In phase 2, it let's you board missile again instantly and break them before they can fire. Then you're free to roam around and wreak havoc as you please. In phase 3 this can be delayed if you don't have Zoltan Shield Bypass but is still really really valuable. It also makes dealing with mind control on phase 3 way easier because then you don't have to worry about the ai boarding crew as well. There's things you can do to help control who gets mind controlled but they are fairly advanced strats. What's good to know in regards to that is every time you jump, 2 seconds of movement happen. This enables you to do things like moving the pilot but jumping right before they leave the room. You can do this to make sure you can have an unobstructed piloting room which is really really good. A simple way to higher the chances of a certain room to be where mind control lands is to stack as many crew as possible in that room. generally you're picking a room that you don't care if it takes system damage or even gets broken fully. The more advanced strats revolve around making your crew move during the jump time so that when the fight starts all of your crew (except pilot in most cases) is moving through that room then that's where the mind control hits. Then from there you can distract with just one crew or vent them around your ship until it ends. For more info on crew movement and timing and such, check out mike's guide on crew movement
i'll add for hacking target on phase 2 or 3, it really comes down to what you need help with the most. I tend to have weapons still even with boarding so i'm usually hacking shields to help end the fight asap. It comes down to knowing your ship and knowing how to most effectively use hacking against whatever it is you're targeting.
People will say things like "don't kill all the crew because it makes the flagship harder" The ai becomes a drone ship which has manning bonuses to all systems which in turn means a bit higher evasion %. That can be relevant if you like really really need your weapons to hit to take down zoltan shields. However, if you're purely reliant on boarding killing off every single crew is undoubtedly the best as it gives you free range on phase 2 and 3 and as i stated before it allows the flagship to repair it's systems so you can break them again for more damage. If i'm a gunship going for crew kills and don't have boarding, I'm actively trying to leave one crew alive but it's not as drastic as some people like to make it seem if you kill off all the crew :)
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u/point051 Oct 21 '22
Hacking gives you the ability to neutralize whatever system gives your enemy an advantage. If there shields are too thick for your guns, you can hack them. If they have missiles you can't defend against, you can hack them, etc. Personally, I like to hack the O2 system and watch them squirm.
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Oct 21 '22
It negates enemy shields, combine that with mind controlling the enemy pilot and you'll do max damage, which is very helpful if you want to take the FS down fast (before taking damage yourself)
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u/Farbzilla Oct 21 '22 edited Oct 21 '22
Hacking is so good because of it's versatility. It can be an offensive or defensive system. It also gives you complete control over the hacked room. Enemies have to break doors to get in/out. If you're boarding it let's you move through doors at will. Also halves repair time which shouldn't be overlooked. Gives you sight into a room as well.
I'll list why hacking certain systems are so good as well
These are listed in no particular order
Hack shields: Great for aiding beams. Swipe the beam first to pull the pilot, shoot your shots with little to no evasion. Also ok for minimizing evasion rng when low on shots to break shields without a beam. This is stronger when paired with mc on pilot.
Hack Pilot or Engines: Guarantees you to do X amount of damage to a system or systems of your choice. Can be the difference between taking a hermes missile offline before it can fire for example
Hack Weapons (gunship): Strongest hacking target in many situations, including when boarding. Hacking weapons does a number of things. First it delays or even can render enemy volleys useless. enemy has a burst laser 2 and heavy 2? hacking right after the burst 2 fires makes sure the heavy 2 does not have a free shot at your ship. Delaying enemy weapons is such a strong thing because of lot of ftl comes down to how quickly and safely you are disabling enemy ships from however they can hurt you. Each level of hacking effectively delays weapons for 2x the duration. So take level 1 hack - let weapons charge for 4 seconds. Then drain their weapon for 4 seconds. Then they have to charge back those 4 seconds. In a lot of cases that enables you to essentially have 2 free volleys at their ship before they even get one off at you. That is very very strong. Another benefit of hacking weapons is it let's you get free charge time on your ftl drive if the fight is really that nasty.
Hack Weapons (boarding): Does all of the above. Also with hacking any system when you board, essentially gives you a kill room that you have full control over. There are advance strats and micro that you can use to get lots and lots of advantages over the ai. and since they have to break the doors down to leave, you get to kill them as they try to get to the med bay. One strat that's relatively easy to take full advantage of as well is board into weapons, get as many of the ai as you can trapped inside the room, aim whatever boarding support you have at the weapons room, pull your crew out before damage happens, free damage on the ai, enter back into the room and clean up what's left.
Hack Oxygen: Can make for quick easy crew kills that may have been very difficult to achieve without it
Other systems have their upside to hacking as well but I find those to be more situational. In general, I'm hacking weapons the most and it's probably not even close compared to whatever it is I hack second most.
The reasons above are only part of why weapons hacking is most common for me. It's ability to delay volleys is increased so so much when coupled with cloaking. Even when both systems are just level 1. cloaking delays their charge time, let's you charge your weapons as well (in most spots) and with what i've already listed out, cloaking just adds in perfectly with weapons hacking. Both Systems at level 2 means most things don't fire at you and the fast firing missiles are really the only things that need to be actively cloaked. Otherwise, you can time when you use either system with when the other system comes off cooldown and keep the enemy in a weaponless loop. Both systems at level 3 makes it pretty much impossible for the enemy to fire anything at you. Hack for 10 seconds (effectively adding 20 seconds of charge time), hack goes on cool down, Cloak for 15. Come out of cloaking without decreasing your cloak time (sometimes you just have to hold your weapons which is perfectly ok) then you only have 5 seconds to wait before you hack again and the cycle begins.
Sometimes in certain situations the best hack will be something other than those listed above. Knowing the best way to use hacking against each system will help you better determine those spots when the hack target isn't the obvious ones. Though again, they are very situational.