Not having an airlock is a problem that the enemy is eager to fix for you. Just wait until you get a breach in an empty sideroom and just never fix it. BAM, makeshift airlock. Works just as well, too.

I found a really fun trick on the lanius cruiser B. Basically, you drain the entire ship of o2 (except the pilot room) and you mind control an enemy. Then, you teleport the mind controlled enemy back quickly, and a really funny bug kicks in. The mind controlled enemy on your ship thinks it's a crewmember, which is normal, but then, because there is low o2 in the ship, the mind controlled enemy runs to fix o2, even though it isn't broken. This prompts it to stand still as it withers away and dies. It's probably not practical, but it's fun as HECK to do, and I think more people ought to know about it.

Dude... lanius B is the best ship in the game Lanius are the best borders, because they don't suffocate. Unlike every other boarding ship in the game this thing has no trouble with automated ships in fact it thrives on them. Your lanius can disable the scouts weapons with no resistance then destroy the other systems for free combat xp. This more than makes up for the occasional xp loss when a crew member dies. So that alone makes this the best boarding ship in the game, but guess what? For some reason this ship also comes with the best weapon in the game that's only obtainable by picking lanius B, like wtf. So even if boarding somehow fails this thing can fall back on being a gun ship, which the mind control can also help with since you can mind control an enemy pilot to greatly reduce enemy evade.

Kestrel B is my favorite ship, in part because it's fun to one by one replace each lazer with a better weapon.

Lanius B in anything other than S tier is sheer madness

I respectfully disagree with your rating of Lanius B. If Lanius crews are used as mantis, there would be a bit of issue health-wise when boarding. But the art of Lanius B is to use mind control to let enemies fight each other, while letting the boarding team vent and destroy key positions (e.g. medbay, clone bay, weapon) in the ship, then finally fight weakened enemy crew in a vented room. I do agree that this ship is the hardest to learn, as it requires some kiting cheese, boarder placement and shuffling, manipulating enemy crew AI etc. But it is not D tier. It should be at least A tier, if not S tier.

"The dual lasers are kinda shit" You did not just say that Fed A as S tier, while Lanius A is C, and Lanius B is D tier? In what world does that make sense? Also, the Crystal B should have its own S+ tier Also also, Fed C is hot garbage, and can't even be mentioned on the same page as the Lanius A or even the Rock B. What a silly tierlist this one is.

I think you need to come back to this tier list after another 100 hours.

Basically there are two different FTL camps: - Boarding fanatics who can manipulate AI, crew aggro and system priority to board with ease (especially when the enemy has a medbay) and get more scrap - Beam preparation folks who either have a Glaive or a Halbert Beam and their entire arsenal consist of ways to decrease the enemies' shields to let the beam do all their work.

idk if it's just me, but for some reason most of my favorite ships are the terrible ones (pretty much just stealth C and zoltan C). Also this guy highly, *highly, HIGHLY* underrates boarding/crew killing in general.

Maybe it’s just me, but all my Crystal B runs have been like triple S tier. Starting with 3 crystal boarding is so damn satisfying.

Love that your making ftl content as im getting back into it lmao

Stealth A has to be my favourite ship since not only is it strong but the unique earlygame makes it more fun for me.

Great to see someone make FTL content in 2021. Feel like I should share my thoughts as I have been active in the community since AE came out and have around 800 hours. Federation A - While bl2 is amazing and the artillery beam gives you an additional win condition late game, it can struggle in sector 3 if you can't get more firepower online as bl2 can struggle to consistently break through 2 shield layers and artillery beam takes too long to charge to be relevant in most fights. Still a good ship but imo not S tier, would probably say B tier Crystal A - Crystal weapons are kind of meh, they take longer to charge and aren't very reactor efficient for the shots fired. While the pierce is amazing early on it doesn't really synergize with other weapons later ( for beam weapons or heavy lasers you need to take down shields anyway), would probably put it B or C tier. Stealth A - This ship is criminally underrated by the community imo. It's weapons are 2 of the best weapons in the game. Dual laser is ridiculous providing 2 shots for 1 power and mini beam for 1 power can deal 3-4 damage and take down multiple systems, combine this with the fact that these weapons charge faster than a lot of ships can even fire and you can take the opponents weapons down without cloaking. Add to that that the ship comes with titanium system casing (aka 40 free scrap) and long range scanners, I would say minimum A borderline S tier. Crystal B - To me the crystal B is the second best ship in the game. It is the only ship in the game to start with shields + cloaking which basically allow you to avoid taking damage for the majority of the game. Adding to that, the ship comes a 4 man teleporter and the crystal crew ability which so powerful for boarding as it prevents people from running to their med-bay and can lock people out from saving their weapons room as your crystals tear it apart. Oh yeah and crystal vengeance is also 40 free scrap, definitely S tier. Zoltan C - Ship starts with no reactor and has to rely on battery. This wouldn't be a problem if it's damage didn't rely on your ion weapon hitting and beam drone aiming in the right spots. This means if you can't kill a ship by the time your battery runs out you then have to de-power your shield and engines to deal damage, with your Zoltan shields probably already down it really opens you up to damage. To make matters worse as upgrading your reactor early on is super expensive (30 scrap). I personally wouldn't put this ship any higher than E tier. Stealth B - This ship completely changes ratings as you increase the difficulty. On hard enemy ships are stronger and are more likely to target your systems, this is really bad for the Stealth B as the glaive beam takes an absurd time to charge so much so that against a lot of ships early you will be hit (especially from drones) no matter what due to lack of shields. If they hit your weapons you immediately lose all charge on the glaive beam, have to repair it and have no stealth. This makes the first two sectors for this ship a living hell where your run can end at any moment. I understand this list isn't necessarily for hard mode so I think the rating is fine maybe a little too high, but in hard mode this is imo the worst ship in the game. Federation C - This ship is garbage. It is a boarding ship that starts with absolutely no boarding tools, a two man teleporter, and a useless artillery flak that takes way to long to charge in the early game. At least the slug B has a healing burst and a missile weapon fed c has nothing. Similar to Zoltan C wouldn't put this higher then E tier. Slug C - Another ship I think is super underrated. Chain laser is a pretty mediocre weapon especially early game but who cares when you start with hacking and mind control (and doors 2 for some reason, also 30 free scrap from repair gel). Hacking and MC allow you to get early crew kills against sector 2 ships that can't break through 2 shield layers by either mind controlling the opposing crew to fight each other and then finishing them off with the laser or hacking the med bay or by hacking their O2 (provided they don't have level 2 O2 (you can use chain laser to find out)). Then come late game when you have more weapons online you basically have the run in the bag as hacking, mind control make sure the opponents ship is in constant chaos. Slug A - This is a wonky ship but actually pretty good. Dual lasers give your run strong late game as the weapon is super efficient and the extra scrap from crew kills you get from anti-bio beam are really nice early on (also 30 free scrap gel), does need some extra fire power by sector 3 which can make it a little inconsistent. Would probably put it B tier. Engi B - This ship is just bad. Heavy ion is imo the worst non-missile weapon in the game (two power to take down 1 shield). To damage 1 shield ships you need to wait for heavy ion to charge and hit both weapons shots. You also only have 1 crew member, a bunch of useless drones and no sensors for some reason (like why?). Minimum E tier. Lanius B - This is one the hardest ships to play perfectly as it requires you to use the de-oxygenation (is that a word?) from the lanius and mind-control to manipulate the enemy AI, if done properly you can basically take no damage on your boarding lanius while crew killing every ship. Beyond that this ship has the best starting systems and weapons of any ship, I did a challenge run on easy mode where I could not use any weapon, augment, crew or system that does not start on the ship (would sell free augments when i got to a shop). I could still upgrade the starting systems. Despite the restrictions I managed to make it to the 3rd phase of the flagship, only losing because the adv flak is not strong enough to take down the zoltan shield before it resets. I mean compare this ship to Fed A, you start with adv flak which has the same projectile count as bl2 and charges faster while costing 1 less reactor, you then trade the artillery beam and better crew for mind-control, boarding and emergency respirators (25 free scrap). This ship is imo the best in the game. Slug B - A lot of people hate this ship but after playing a fair chunk of hard mode runs with it I feel that it has a few more things going for it than some of the other garbage ships in the game. I think probably D tier but could see it being E tier. I know this was a long post and might come off as elitist but I genuinely love discussing this game and hearing what other peoples opinions of stuff is so I hope this was useful. Keep up the good content.

I’m not sure why, but I just can’t vibe with the engi A at all. I always have the worst luck with it, to the point that I perform better with even the slug A and rock A

Mantis B is easy S tier for me. It starts with a defense drone and 2 shields, meaning almost nothing is going to be able to touch the ship early game. On top of that, it's an amazing boarding ship as it starts with 2 mantis and has a 4 man teleporter. And if that isn't enough, you can also throw in your boarding drone. Since you'll do a lot of boarding early on and will barely need any repairs, you'll end up with enough scrap to get some decent weapons quite early on. My previous highscore was ~4500, my average score after completing the game is ~4100. I recently played this ship for the first time and the playtrough was an absolute breeze. I ended up with a score of ~5500 (1000 more than my previous high score) and at the moment of defeating the flagship, I managed to get so much scrap together that every system was fully upgraded except the drone system which needed 1 more upgrade.

Glad to see more content on this game after so long!

Honestly, just found your channel and I've been enjoying this game for years, glad to find a creator still playing it. Couldn't agree much more with your ratings here, other than personally finding that the slug ship and Stealth C loop back around for me because I enjoy the challenge. You're absolutely right about them not being good though, I just enjoy playing them.

Zoltan B and Red-Tail are massively underrated here! ;) Fun list dude! Thanks for making FTL comtent!

There's a theme for each layer of ships: A Ships: A core concept of play with a single flaw, or two minor flaws. Kestrel A: Balance, no specialization. Mantis A: Boarding, few weapons. Engi A: Drone Focus. Etc. B Ships: The ship/species play style as a specialty, bordering on crippling overspecialization. C Ships: A new variation on the original theme, showcasing the new content, sometimes to crippling overspecialization. My personal favorites? Kestrel A and B.

I enjoyed the video but Lanius B in D is bonkers bro, it is either the best or second best in the game

I've been watching several of your videos lately, and it's become painfully clear that a lot of your judgment is clouded by the fact you don't know how to board. It's totally understandable that you don't prefer that style of play, but there's a big difference between not liking something and not understanding it. Crystal B and Lanius B are the two most broken ships in the game and probably deserve their own "S+" tier. Putting them any lower than A tier is telling.

I think you got Lanius B off. The Lanius o2 sucking and mind control combined make it an extremely effective boarding regardless of their health. SUPER easy money to make. Clone Bay makes it so you can just toss your crew onto any ship without worrying, and the skill reduction for combat is only 1 per revive. I've found myself intentionally killing my Lanius crew just so that they're full health next time, its that good.

Keep up the good work mister, you gained a subscriber

Crystal B makes the entire game a hilarious cake walk. Board whatever manned ships you run into in the 1st few jumps, murder everyone, and get weapons later. Ditch CV for scrap for weapons + upgrades. Pick up some Mantis drinking buddies. Maul the flagship. The End.

It's worth mentioning that the Weak Reactor of the Zoltan C is 30 scrap each (reactor events are a *godsend* on this ship). I thought they got rid of the rename trick. Although it IS true that you can luck into the Crystal Sector by blindly finding it in Rock Homeworlds and using the blue option for the portal event. That's actually how I got the Crystal ship, I could never line up all three events. I think my biggest actual beef with the list is Lanius B below Federation C. In a way they're similar with minimal weapons, cloning, and going almost all in on the boarding strategy, but I think Adv Flak blows Flak Artillery out of the water. All in all it's a nice list and I think it's a great resource for beginners, or even people breaking into Hard.

Bruh, I requested this vid like 2 hours ago and here it is - damn youre dedicated lol

I have over 1000 hours in the FTL, love the game. My tier list would have the Mantis B and Crystal B in S-tier for normal mode then add the Lanius B for advanced mode. Crystal B is the single best ship in the game as long as you don't get really bad RNG with autoscouts at the start. Even if you do, you can disable the weapons systems with Crystal boarders due to their tolerance for zero oxygen (plenty of time to beam them out again) but if you get lots of autoscouts then you miss out on the scrap because you can't finish them off. After the start, the ability to kill crews quickly regardless of medbay / cloning means that you can steamroller the rest of the game, including the flagship. Of the rest, the quality of the starting weapons and augments is a big factor, so anything with a burst laser MK11, Halberd beam, Glaive Beam, Zoltan shield, which loosely correlates with your list.

Love me some FTL content! KZfaq could definitely use more. I like the points you make and not liking the boarding strat is fair. I definitely think you showed the rock A too much mercy though 😆

Zoltan Shield easily makes any ship S+ imo. It's the most busted thing in the game next to pre-igniter. I agree with Fed A, but I think Kestrel A is also an S Tier. It really is one of the best ships in Vanilla with essentially the most efficient laser in Vanilla. I also think Red Tail is an A. It shreds early game but is very RNG dependent on getting a good primary weapon, it's also a ship that forces a pretty energy efficient playstyle because it promotes low power weapons en masse by it's default load out. And just a bunch of lasers is easily the most OP thing in this game. The rest I can give or take. I really only like 5 or so vanilla ships.

Imagine putting Stealth B over Lanius B

Oh man, you sound like vanguard if valor.... I'm getting flashbacks. It's awesome

Great vid! Offhand, Crystal B, Kestral B, and Engi are too low imo Rock A, Federation A, and most ships that can only teleport 2 are rated too high. Keep it up, brother.

I actually really like the Rock B for a boarding play, as the combo of being able to field an all-rock boarding team with a fire bomb consistently is just hilariously fun, and can be really damn powerful. But of course, you have to hope for the chance to get a crew teleporter early, and will struggle against unmanned ships in the mid-game if you neglect other aspects of your offense too much, since boarding and fire are both obviously horrible against them. It's not so much that I feel it deserves a higher ranking, more just that I often have so much FUN playing with it :D

I think the slug B is slightly better than the stealth C. How often do you see a minibeam in sector 1? Well, if you do you are dead, that minibeam will shred your stealth C to bits and you cannot stop it. Slug B's offensive strategy does suck, but at least it will survive sector 1 using it, allowing you at least a chance at a better layout later.

You must be on crack to rank Artillery C a C. It is the hardest ship to win by on hard mode by far. At least with slug B you have a lot of stuff to sell to get decent weapons at the beginning. With Artillery C you have no weapons, a terrible boarding party and one item to sell for 30 scrap. I had to grind for over a week to get a win with it on hard mode.

I feel like Red Tail should be s tier it make early game so easy. You start with 4 weapon bars and 4 crew. The layout is kind of wonky though

I would bump the Fed A down one because the artillery weapon takes up a subsystem slot and thus gives you one less subsystem to install. yes it itself IS a subsystem but it isn't always that useful.

Regardless of tier, just here to give my personal thoughts on my favorite ship in the game. Slug C. The weapon may be a bit underwhelming, but the combination of mind control AND hacking is insane! Hacking is hacking, it disables so much and allows for numerous strategies, but I think a lot of people forget that mind control has good utility too. Mind controlling the pilot will give you a boost to accuracy. You can use it to soften up targets for boarding operations, or even slow down enemy repairs! Those two systems allow for a lot of chance for differing options. It's essentially an Electronic Warfare ship.

I watched this video and immediately got my first win, and then 2 other wins in that day and the next day. And I wasn't even using the top rated ships. After playing for 6 years. It's magic.

My counterargument against your view on the Crystal B is the following: Yes, while it does not come with 2 layers of shields or defense drones, Crystals allow you to seperate hostile crew into your killchamber making the fights extremely unfair. The ship also comes with Cloaking, which you did not mention and probably overlooked, and comes with 40 free scrap in Crystal Vengeance :) (you will be attempting to not take damage anyway, I always sold it). Yes, the room layout is bad, but that is managable. Then yet again, having the 4tile TP right next to the medbay is very useful for such slow boarding crew Edit: literally 3s later you mention cloaking my bad

Kestrel B is definitely S tier. It is so strong early, you save a bunch of scrap from repairs, and once you get one good weapon to replace one of the lasers you are good for a while.

5 minutes into the video I went "If he put Fed A and Zoltan A in S tier, where's he going to put Lanius B and Crystal B?" Turns out for some reason you don't like them that much. Go fig. Got quite a few comments: Crystal A's starting weapons charge slower than the standard lasers the enemies carry, allowing them to fire a free volley at you, and if you decide to sell them off later they don't net you much scrap. Its main strength is having two Crystals and being able to turn itself into a boarding/hybrid ship. Crystal Vengeance is terrible, sell it in the first shop. Lanius B is arguably the best ship in the game because of its ability to mitigate RNG. Great foundation for any type of setup (including gunship, boarding or hybrid), starts with the best weapon in the game, comes with free scrap in the form of its augment, gets an Engi right off the bat along with the Lanius. Crystal B is the only other ship that has a claim to the title. With Stealth B you rush Cloak level 3, cloak immediately when combat starts, with weapons manned this gives your enemy 7.5 seconds of weapon charge before the Glaive goes off, which isn't enough for anything other than charge weapons. If you can't kill with one shot, you just draw a beeline from the shields to the weapons and cloak/charge again. However, Stealth B is bottom tier because of the number of hoops you have to jump through. Any shot that gets through hits your weapons, you're done. You can't get hacking or extra weapons before enemies upgrade their shields, you're done. Most unreliable ship in the game, though it's one of my favorites because of the difficulty and fun factor. Rock B was king of vanilla, behind only Crystal B, but in Advanced it's much worse because it needs a teleporter or insane luck with weapon drops to really get started. It's mostly best to turn it into a gunship these days. However, it's still my favorite ship because nothing beats the sheer enjoyment of plonking two Rocks into a burning weapons room and watching the enemy burn. Crystal B is OP, just teleport into weapons, lockdown, beat down the single guy in there, cloak to avoid the enemy volley, lockdown again, break weapons and cruise to victory. Pretty much the only pure boarding ship that still works in Hard mode because it's so good at quickly breaking enemy weapons while reliably avoiding damage. The flagship is a bit harder than it was in vanilla but it's still a pushover with three lockdowns, provided you have some weapon or drone support. Engi C has the Defense Scrambler-Hacking combo which guarantees that you can hack whatever you want without fail, which gives you a chance to hack and aim your damage with Dual Lasers from the beginning where Engi A has to shuffle Ion Blast II targets (and any miss resets your progress completely). Engi C is clearly better. Flak Artillery is horrid, its charge time is way too long until you can get it to Level 4 and it needs support from weapons which you aren't guaranteed to get. Fed C objectively is bottom 5 for sure, and it's my personal least favorite in the game. You don't need to rename your Crystal crew on the Rock C, you can just go directly to the Ancient Device in the Rock Homeworlds regardless. Slug C's main disadvantage is that it only has 1 free system slot at the beginning, and you're likely not going to use it on a teleporter (need Cloak or Drones to have some form of reliable defense against projectiles), which makes Mind Control seem like dead weight.

Wow... this tierlist is complete garbage xD I have put hundreds of hours into the game and easily can beat hard mode now. And there is so many things wrong with this tierlist it is laughable. There is a bunch I would put up or down 1 tier, but I'll just list the ones that are 2 positions or more off from where they should be. Carnelian (Crystal B): This ship is godlike due to the 3 crystal crew start, it does fall problem to early auto-ships, but once you get it going this thing will dominate due to the overpowered nature of crystal boarding. S tier without a doubt. The shike (Lanius B): Wow... just wow, I am shocked you placed this down in D tier. Honestly it has the best weapon in the game at the very start. The advanced flak. Essentially a flak with better aim and 2 seconds less cooldown. Not to mention the great crew, decent ship layout and lanius + clonebay + teleporter to start the game. Easy S tier ship, perhaps best ship in the game. The Nessassio (Stealth A): My personal favourite ship in the game, it has honestly great starting weapons with the dual laser and mini-beam, 4 engine power for a massive start in evasion. Starts with Stealth (the best system) and has the 40 scrap augment to start the game. With proper cutting with the mini beam you can hit 4 rooms on a ship and output so much damage quickly. Not starting with shields is not even a problem since you will often get them before the start of sector 2. S tier for me with how easy it makes the game. The Vortex (Engi B): This ship is god awful, one engi crew to start the game meaning you can never take any risks with events, bad weapons to start due to the limited damage output. One hit shields and a bad fire and this ship is immediately losing 5-10 hp in a single fight if not more. Not to mention if you get a bad hack, mind controlled, destroyed drone bay or a bad boarding event. Just a terrible ship that is very hard to win with, F tier. The Cerenkov (Zoltan C): Honestly a truly bad ship, relying on drones for damage, let alone a beam drone which can't go through shields on its own, weak reactor to start the game which cripples your early game economy on normal/hard mode. This is not even to mention how poorly the ship plays with a clonebay, poor combination of zoltans low hp and clonebays will lead to them dying often and this makes the ai's code target the clonebay (The weights for the enemy shooting a system increase for different things, for the clonebay it's when someone is being revived... making it pretty god damn bad.) F tier ship, not worth the pain of playing it. DA-SR 12 (Stealth B): Really this is just a meme of a ship, you either get a weapon pre-ignitor in the first few sectors or you die to the enemy repeatedly hitting weapons due to the low system count and the high weight added to them hitting weapons bay since a weapon is charging there. Ever wonder why this ship always seems to get hit in weapons? That's why. E tier. The Fregatidae (Federation C): Flying hot garbage that fires hot garbage on a long cooldown. Relying on artillery is never good and this ship has it the worst of the 3 federation cruisers. It struggles early due to relying on that piece of crap to charge for so long early game and the boarding with mantis is the only other way it can beat ships until you find a weapon and upgrade the weapons bay. Terrible ship, E tier. The Ariolimax (Slug C): A much better ship than most give it credit for, it starts off really well with hacking, mind control, a crew that is immune to mind control, door upgrades to counter boarding, good layout. The weapons could be better with it having only a chain burst laser for damage, but it does good enough when combined with hacking and lets you get through sector 1-2 smoothly. Not the best ship in the game but a very good one that makes getting to sector 8 relatively easy. A tier I'll save mentioning the other two federation ships since they clearly seem to like using them, but honestly the layout of them is what kills them the most. Long ships meaning super long walk times to get across the ship. Bad weapons and reliance on artillery, at least they have diverse crews which is somewhat of an upside giving them blue events throughout the run. Also the swallow is pretty bad too, but I could be persuaded to put it in C tier instead of D tier since it has some potential with a good ship layout.

I only have maybe 20 or so hours in FTL but I have always loved watching gameplays of it and I am proud to say I unlocked the Zoltan, Lanius and Federation cruiser in one run with the Engi Ship type B. So hyyped!! Edit: Just this morning, I did a run with the Zolton ship and got extremely lucky with weapons (2 flaks and a halberd beam) and even got the stasis pod crystal ship quest... So I unlocked the mantis and crystal cruiser in the very next run!!! Super hyyped!!!

Honestly, I just despise Engi B. Godawful crew setup, bad weapons that WILL leave you taking guaranteed damage on 80% of early game encounters (especially if you roll a miss on your first heavy ion, have fun getting shot by two more rockets) and just general inability to succeed despite your run's RNG. Wanna quickly get a few more crew so you can have non-awful evasion/weapon charge time? Enjoy not having enough scrap for actually good weapons/augments/modules/system upgrades. Do it the other way around? Well, then you don't actually have any crew to staff all those beefed up systems. The ONE very niche thing that makes the Engi B start work is getting a mk. 1 defense drone very early on to prevent yourself from getting constantly screwed over by missiles. Otherwise you're just going to be bled dry on scrap through a bad start position combined with heavy attrition. Of course, once your run gets rolling, it's fine - but that's if you can get your run rolling, and literally every ship is good once you get a good run rolling. I would honestly put Engi B into E, if not outright F, just because of how helpless it is against the game's RNG, which is a problem that all the A or S tier ships don't have, because they have actually good starting layouts.

On hard, stealth B is terrible. Worse than stealth C, even worse than Engi B and Fed C. 100% raw, unadulterated garbage. If you're playing for winrate on hard, no ship is worse than stealth B. Too many systems that can get hit and set off damage cascade, too many fights to get out of that risk reliably. It also takes the sector 3 transition really hard...just not enough scrap to add 2nd weapon + shields by then. Putting it ahead of ships people can run 90% winrates on hard with is wild lol. Below hard, Rock A is probably more RNG since you get scrap/upgrades faster, but have a small chance to not get weapons and just lose. Lanius A starts with the best system in FTL and passable weapons, no way is that a C tier ship! Hands down better than every federation variant, at least on hard. Engi C similarly starts with hacking and some damage available, instantly high tier. Same for lanius B, it doesn't just start with boarding, it also has mind control...two systems immediately is an incredible advantage. For boarding ships, slug B can self target, so you can guaranteed heal between fights. It is objectively better for winrate than stealth B and fed C, but no ship strains your boarding micro more than this one (Mantis C is also high-finesse but good). Crystal B is easily the best boarding ship.

Nicely done. Gave it a like. Don't agree. But, that's what's so great about FTL.

For me, stealth b is one of the most frustrating ships early on. You HAVE to upgrade the weapon slot ASAP cause having glaive beam go down is so detrimental. But it’s also my favorite.

I think the Lanius ship can be REALLY good for boarding, you just have to buy the teleporter, kill the O2 and medbay or cloning bay, then just walk around the ship and watch them suffer.

Do you upgrade the beam on the federation A or do you just leave it at base stats?

Slug A is probably my favorite, but I'm a boarding/capture guy. The bio beam, lasers, and bomb synergize really well together, but are versatile enough to be useful even if you don't go for capture. Also: I hate spiders.

I've only done two Mantis runs. The first went well until the 6th sector, I beamed my boys over, I guess a fire started and spread to some systems, and the ship managed to be completely destroyed before my teleporter had recharged. The second, I had a chance to tag out for a cloning bay, went for it, and immediately regretted my decicion.

There's a fun trick with Federation C that you can do. Since you start with a clone bay, teleporter, and 2 zoltan, I think you're supposed to make use of their racial trait that they do bonus damage to enemies on death. So you just send them in together as suicide bombers.

I have every ship but Slug C because you need to get to sector 8 with Slug B.

Slug B definitely needs some custom augment to conserve missiles or get more missiles. Or at least start with explosive replicator but a 50% conservation isn't really enough.

Again with a lot of other's i'd have to disagree with Lanius B, but I also think you might have overlooked the power of clone bay/boarding with the existence of Reconstructive Teleport - it is quite expensive, however if you do manage to grab it your medbay problems are completely solved, forever. The Teleporter heals your boarding crew and what minor damage your other crew would take (they're HOPEFULLY not on the front line... hope is the key word here) would be healed by the passive heal the clone bay gives you per jump.

The only thing I disagree with you on is the crystal b should have been ranked slightly higher because in the early game you can use the lockdown ability to quarantine the medbay and destroy it before the enemy can react we're with the Mantis b if the enemy has a medbay you have to use weapons to destroy it

Anxiously waiting for Multiverse tier list.

I think the loads of layouts in this game kinda has the effect sometimes of making layout soup. I.e. the meta is pretty well established, so the gimmicky/unique ships exist for those frustrated with meta. Speaking from extensive personal experience, the game is challenging enough to the point where you can enjoy playing the way most people play, but the nonmeta ships still have a place in my heart as being more rewarding and fun for someone that's played enough of the game straight-up.

Crystal B comes with stealth too which has to push it up to A-tier for me.

Kestrel (Kestrel A): variable playstyle, BL Mk. II, Human crew (“uninteresting”). Torus (Engi A): drones (drone

Would you guys feel vindicated if I said I won Hard Mode with the Stormwalker?

Backup DNA should save the skills each sector jump, and use that as the minimum a cloned crew can have for that sector, and bump up the price on it, that way the disadvantage of dying is mitigated (but you should still have a death limit for each fight, so you do not flood the enemy ship with mindless clones all the time.)

Need a consumables tier list, which is best? Scrap, drone parts, missiles, or fuel? And don't forget empty rooms tier list! the 2x1 vertical? The 2x1 horizontal? or the 2x2?!

The Engi B is the last ship I beat the game with. The way I found to play that is to vent the entire ship and get lvl 2 doors. The ship is immue to fire and boarding. I had one extra crew member to hang out in the bridge, a rock guy, to help put out fires and to fight when enimies teleport to the bridge. The healing bay is 3 squares away which helps when my pilot needs to heal. It's not a bad ship. It's gun focused, done maintained.

I have no idea how, but for some reason the Slug B has my record for high score... I used to only play on easy but still, I totally don't understand how that ended up being my best run ever

the mantis are the best if boarding isn’t integrated with other strategies. Rockmen will beat them thump for thump if used alongside a fire based weapon, and labours beat both of used alongside a breaching strategy

So.. As for clone bay hating... I don't love it either, but as for the half hp in next encounter can't you just vent your wounded and clone them back before jumping to next zone?

Slug B is so fun despite it’s drawbacks, it was one of my easiest wins too haha

The Stealth B is my favorite ship. Yeah, it's kind of a mad dash to get a shield ASAP, but starting with the glaive is just an instant delete button. And being able to stealth to charge it up unhampered negates its biggest drawback.

Crystal B in B-tier? What? That ship is the best one in the game, it's blatantly overpowered. Just the fact that it starts with cloaking AND shields, which makes it effectively impossible to take any serious damage in the first few sectors, makes it overpowered, and then you factor in the 4-man teleporter and the 3 crystal crewmembers (who are the best boarders in the game because of the lockdown ability) which make it the best boarding ship in the game. I think you're heavily biased against boarding so you gave it a bad ranking since it looks like a dedicated boarding ship. You should watch a video of someone that can play the boarding game properly to see just what Crystal B can do

S-tier ships 2:28 Federation A 3:39 Zoltan A 9:51 Cristal A

Unlocked Fed C today. Tried a few runs and always die in the first sector lol. Running into an unmanned drone: "My time has come"

Next do a multiverse ship tier list, gonna take forever lmao

I think you should force a normal distribution to make you have to make hard choices.

Man, I love the Slug C.

Federation cruiser also looks like a BC 304 from stargate

Good to know my first successful clear was with a d tier ship.

Reconstructive teleport and clonebay is a favorite combo of mine, it allows for hyperagressive boarding, like i have only 1 available and the opponent is fixing their medbay already? Well then let's stall the repair.

My best hard-adv runs are fed-b and crystal B. Best normal-adv runs are slug a, stealth b and lanius b.

For me personally Kestral B (RedTail) is the best ship. You basically start with a superior burst laser Mk3, except it only takes 10 seconds to charge and not 19, If systems are damaged you'll only lose a portion of your weapons rather than 100%, firing 4 lasers at once means you're weapons operator will be max-skilled by sector 2 and in general starting with 4 points in weapons is extremely generous. As soon as you get 70 minerals upgrade to shields 2 and you're pretty much untouchable for the first 3 sectors. Mantis B is great too, starting with 2 shields (only ship which does) and defense drone again makes you pretty indestructible for the first 2 to 3 sectors, but the effectiveness of boarding drops off very quickly in the later sectors and you usually find yourself just reverting to standard lasers and stealth.

Zoltan B deserves S tier. It's possible to do the flagship just by keeping the default weapons and dumping all your scrap into only engines and shields. Cloaking and all that is an added bonus ofc

it's your opinion but this might be the wackiest ship tier list I've seen. Here's mine: S: Zoltan A, Lanius B, Crystal B - the absolute top tiers, very hard to lose with A: Stealth A, Slug C, Kestrel B, Federation A - very very strong, some small issues keep the from top tier B: Engi C, Kestrel A, Engi A, Mantis B, Rock C- strong starts but theyhave issues C: Lanius A, Crystal A, Zoltan B, Federation B, Slug A - middle of the pack, not great not terrible D: Slug B (it's not that bad cmon), Zoltan C, Rock B, Kestrel C, Mantic C - weak ships but still capable of winning without having insane luck E: Rock A, Mantis A, Engi B, Stealth C - very tough to get off ground, then you're stuck with a mediocre ship F: Stealth B, Federation C - absolute garbage, unless you have insane luck

My favorite is mantis B. THe amount of scrap I get is ridiculous. If I get reconstructive teleport it kicks ass every time.

Mantis A and B are both S tier, in my opinion. The boarding parties can easily destroy the early game, allowing for a massive stock of scrap and you can then make your ship really badass.

Lanius B is an easy S tier for me. Advanced flak is the best weapon in the game and Lanius are amazing boarders (they can even board automated rebel ships)

All stealth ships (because they are supposed to be specialised military flaker ships) should have +10% dodge even without engines, should have 25% chance to negate ion damage , and should have the automated reloader effect built in also , and the advanced navigation and FTL charge booster built in, not taking away any augment slots.

Having less experience in boarding really underestimate some of the ship here. To say Lanius is not as good at boarding as Mantis or Rockmen is also an understatement. I used Lanius B and beat most boarding battle with a pair of Lanius while my other crew stay in my ship. They make the room no oxygen which does extra damage. Enemy crew will just run away when they low health. You mind control some to make them even more confuse. And some how if your hacking lock their escape door, they got stab in the back by those they are running away from. Mind control also makes you immune with enemy mind control as well which help a lot during the boss 3rd phase. Just simply put one energy bar on mind control than mind control the mind controlled. There’s also a nasty move that is mind control then teleport them to your ship. And when they snap out of it, you beat them hard. Lanius B is easily S tier. It’s is probably sit at top 3 of best ship out there.

Im so glad someone shares my hatred of Slug B

Do weapons!

I will say anti bio beam sorta shines if you find 2 of them. Instant delete anything but rocks, finish them off with the bomb. But if you don't find 2x it's worthless

Didn't listen to the whole video but dude, duuuuuude, Crystal Ship B IS hands down the best ship in the game. Note I have beaten FTL with every ship on hard mode. I don't think people talking about Lanius and such understand the stupid power of a four man teleporter with three crystal dudes... 1. Teleporting 3 crystal means you can instantly lockdown any room (really you want weapons disabled as you kill the crew), and then rotate the lockdown cooldowns so no one ever gets in or more so out to heal. If you time it right you can even catch them as they try to run and they will stop fighting. 2. Teleporting and taking a ship intact always grants more metal than destroying it. 3. While you cannot kill a drone until you get a weapon (unless you have a clone bay) you CAN teleport you crystal guys over to them because they have reduced suffocation. The only ships you have to worry about are drones that might cloak or ones that generate super shields that might keep you from beaming your guys back but by the time you encounter them you should have weapons to back up your boarders. The problem with Lanius boarders is they will continually have to fight crews if they have a med bay keeping them from destroying systems. Crystal with lockdown does not.

The only thing they forgot to put in FTL is an option to design your own "perfect ship" once all ships are unlocked. You pick the the base design, a paint job, room layout, systems, crew, starting augment and weapons. Maybe with a point system so you can't design a ship ready that's completely game breaking.

Just got my first victory with Slug ship and it was slug B ! I played along with the boarding bomb healing gimmick, and I got lucky enough to get clone bay and 2 free mantis crew in sector 1 ! I took 2 damages from the last stand in easy mod. Point being, yeah Slug B sucks, you need to get extra luck in early game.

Idk, I started like 3 runs on _easy_ with the Mantis A and so far I've always ran into a drone encounter that has a missile, a basic laser, and beam drone within the first few jumps... which I can do jack shit about. Literally got annoyed enough after the few attempts that I just gave up...

Engi type B is terrible. Two bad weapons, no crew and with 0 upside. But Stealth ship type B is actually a challenge run, 80% dodge while stealthed is basically 0% you can't trust it. Run into an enemy with a beam weapon? You will get hit. An enemy with any drone? You will die. If you don't rush level 3 cloack some ships can get 2 lasers off before the glance beam charges. One shot in the weapons or the cockpit and it's GG until shields. Sector 1 is very hard. Sector 3 with lvl 1 shields or no weapon upgrades , just as bad.

I would rank Slug A at least a b B tier. With one additional weapons upgrade anti-bio beam becomes very easy to utilize however the ship comes with the most resources in the game, transitioning to better weapons becomes easy once something becomes available. Also Crystal B might be the best ship in the game. Also Rock A is bottom 3 for sure.

Also The naming the Cyrstal Crewmember in Rock Type C 'Ruwen' was patched out of the freaking game YEARS ago.

Lanius are literally the best race in the game for boarding. They have the best kill time out of all the races and take 0 damage from lack of oxygen making them impossible to stopped by your own ship being boarded and heaps of opportunities to take advantage of lucky o2 damage and breaches on board enemy ships. Clone bay in Lanius B also allows for you to RISK your crew at EVERY random event encounter consequence FREE. Thus you get the highest chance of acquiring most scrap out of any ship in the game and the highest possible chance of winning the run. Lanius B isn't just the EASIEST S tier in the whole game but, would beat every other ship you have put on S tier in combat.