Stack it up during the first systems and explore as much as possible

Oct 2, 2012 22:31 GMT  ·  By

I never actually ran out of fuel while playing FTL, yet anytime I glance at the resources I am managing on this lone starship lost in the galaxy, I am most worried about how many jumps I have left, not about my drone count or the number of missiles remaining (I have run out of both of those plenty of times).

I have some ideas about the reasons that power my fear of zero fuel, but I decided against investigating them.

I would rather use them as a guiding philosophy for a most recent run through FTL: one during which I would hit every store and first buy all the fuel I could, only then worrying about hulls, upgrades or other resources.

In FTL, it’s important to have as many encounters as possible in each sector in order to get scrap, the main currency, but also the weapons and the crew that are required in order to advance through the final few sectors.

But, at the same time, encounters lead to battles and they lead to damage which requires a store to repair, so there’s considerable risk in getting as much fuel and exploring as many star systems as possible early on.

I started out very well and lucked out by getting a second laser early on, which meant more power for weapons and less for shields (which I tend to upgrade first on normal runs).

In the third sector I managed to get even more fuel, bringing my total to 30 for the first time, and also managed to get another individual on my crew, a Rockman who is immune to fire and who is very handy.

I was thinking that a fuel-oriented strategy is a good way of playing FTL until my trusty cruiser was blown up from the inside and I failed once again to deliver my important message.