FTL Ship Analysis: Lanius Cruisers
Like the Crystal Cruisers, the Lanius Cruisers are not part of the standard unlock chain, instead being unlocked by unlocking 4 ships beyond the Kestral Cruiser A. It can be any four ships, thankfully, so it'll always be one of the earlier unlocks, just never one of your first unlocks. (Unless you happen to have your first run to unlock four non-Lanius ships all at once, which is possible, just unlikely)
Lanius Cruiser A: Kruos
1
1
1
x8
3
2
1
1
1
1
16
3
9
Chain Laser+Ion Stunner
Maximum of 4 different weapons, 2 different Drones.
Starts with the Emergency Respirators Augment.
Lanius Cruiser A: Kruos
1
1
1
x8
3
2
1
1
1
1
16
3
9Chain Laser+Ion Stunner
Maximum of 4 different weapons, 2 different Drones.
Starts with the Emergency Respirators Augment.
Room total: 16
In terms of starting conditions, the Lanius Cruiser A is frustratingly bad.
In terms of starting conditions, the Lanius Cruiser A is frustratingly bad.
A Chain Laser is honestly largely inferior to a Burst Laser I -let alone Dual Lasers- until you're far enough in the game that enemy ships have pretty decent Hull values. Initially, quite often the Chain Laser will be hitting its stride right around the point the enemy ship is about to die, at which point you're cleanly behind a Burst Laser I having not needed to wind up. Furthermore, the Chain Laser is initially so slow to fire, and is set back so badly by taking damage once it's gotten going, that it's easy to get unlucky and have a death spiral where your Weapons System takes hits, knocking out the Chain Laser before it can do damage to the enemy and thus giving the enemy more opportunities to do damage, which can themselves create further problems. (eg they hit your Shields System, and so following laser attacks land even more hits on your actual ship)
Indeed, the Chain Laser initially takes so long to fire that even using Hacking at level 1 to delay enemy shots will still result in Leto and Artemis Missiles firing before the Chain Laser first fires.
The Ion Stunner is decent, at least, but its reliable Stun is only mildly -and unreliably- synergistic with the Burst Laser, and only if you upgrade or man Sensors so you can actually tell when fires have been started to try to go for the crewkill.
Starting with two Lanius is cool, and I'm glad some ship starts with more than one given they stack well yet are so ludicrously rare you're unlikely to recruit even two in a run, but they don't add a lot to the Lanius Cruiser A's initial setup - you can be more aggressive about venting the ship, maybe even preemptively vent most everything outside the Pilot seat and upgrade Doors early to make things very hard on most boarders. That's nice and all, but not great, and Lanius being slow can be a problematic flaw -and they're only good at fending off boarders if either the boarders focus on their room or you do the preemptive venting+Door Control upgrade.
In practice, the ideal goal of the Lanius Cruiser A is to hope you get the opportunity to buy a Crew Teleporter. Seriously consider selling stuff if you find an early Crew Teleporter opportunity and can afford it by selling some stuff; the Emergency Respirators Augment in particular is fairly pointless on a Cloning Bay ship, but it's not terribly difficult to justify selling off the Chain Laser as well if you need both to cover expenses. A pair of Lanius boarders backed by a Cloning Bay does, after all, let you successfully take on anything without a Zoltan Supershield -which the Ion Stunner can be held onto to handle that.
If you manage to get switched to a boarding strategy and get replacement crew for manning Systems, the Lanius Cruiser A actually ends up a pretty decent ship right there. The layout is reasonably defensible, including having options like instant venting of the Cloning Bay and Engines if you need a fire put out or to push boarders elsewhere, and everything is fairly centralized to boot (Aside the Cloning Bay, which can often be protected via venting), and double Lanius boarders really is quite good.
If you don't manage to transition to a boarding strategy, this isn't the worst ship around, but it's still frustratingly bad. In particular, if you're actively intending to not do a boarding strategy, you should honestly just pick a different ship, one whose starting conditions aren't so miserable at the shooting game. There's even other options for starting with Hacking, options that are better-equipped to leverage Hacking.
Alas, you'll have to play the Lanius Cruiser A some if you want to unlock the more sensible B variant... so let's look at those Achievements.
Advanced Mastery
Have Mind Control, Hacking, and the Backup Battery actively performing their effects simultaneously.
This is a kind of dumb achievement, and probably only exists because these are all advanced edition content and the Lanius Cruisers are the only advanced edition ships that can have ship-unlocking Achievements tied to them in the framework of the advanced edition update refusing to do 'retcons'. Hacking and Mind Control aren't particularly synergistic with each other, and Mind Control isn't even synergistic with Lanius. The Backup Battery is okay with Mind Control and can be used to decent effect with Hacking, I suppose?
It's at least not horrifically burdensome to earn it. You just need to buy Mind Control and Backup Battery, with the Backup Battery being cheap and Mind Control being naturally synergistic with pursuing a boarding strategy.
Just keep in mind you have to be actively Hack Pulsing for it to count, not simply have the Hacking Drone sitting on the enemy ship.
Scrap Hoarder
Have 600 Scrap in storage at some point.
why
Okay, to be fair, this is actually thematically appropriate to the Lanius Cruisers, as Lanius harvesting metals is one of their main plot elements.
It's still a pretty awful achievement, though. 600 Scrap is well over half of all Scrap you will earn over the course of an entire run on Normal difficulty, and you really have to spend Scrap to make Scrap, so there's never a good, natural point to organically earn this. You can try getting to Sector 6 or so and just ceasing to spend Scrap at that point, assuming you've gotten lucky enough to be more-or-less set for the rest of the game, but you'll very probably crash-and-burn in the process instead of getting the Achievement.
If you do seriously try to earn this, you should probably just play on Easy outright, since you'll have more Scrap to work with and will be better able to survive bad decisions caused by trying to earn the achievement.
But seriously, just ignore this Achievement. It's not like the other two are unfun nightmares.
Loss of Cabin Pressure
Reach Sector 8 with your ship's listed Oxygen level having never risen above 20%. (Starting from after your first Jump)
It's a bit frustrating the Lanius Cruiser A isn't an all-Lanius crew, but you can still, for example, vent every room aside Piloting and just try to not let the Human pilot die. You have enough wiggle room to even leave adjacent rooms not-vented, so you can eg have the Human run if enemies teleport into Piloting without having to walk into a vented room. Furthermore, you have a Cloning Bay, so even if the Human dies, it's fine, they'll be back.
Piloting is the preferred place to keep filled with oxygen since new crew always spawn into Piloting if possible. Venting Piloting and having a Lanius handle Piloting means new crew will take damage unnecessarily. This is a generally applicable principle (Lanius in Piloting=not great), but is particularly worth noting when pursuing this Achievement.
Also keep in mind that enemy Hacking will force doors closed and can deny you this achievement if you're not quick to turn off Oxygen in response, particularly if they happen to hack the Door Control so every room in the ship starts gaining oxygen. Hacking is sufficiently rare it's entirely possible to have it never crop up prior to the Rebel Flagship, with the Rebel Flagship being irrelevant to this achievement so whatever, but it's something to keep in mind. This is also a good argument for keeping your Oxygen level notably below 20%, instead of at something like 19%, so that you have some time to respond to Hacking closing doors, instead of it hitting and a half-second later you've failed the Achievement. By a similar token, you probably shouldn't run Oxygen above level 1, to maximize the time you have to respond to doors being closed.
Alternatively, you can simply turn off Oxygen entirely and completely write off the Human crewmember. I wouldn't recommend it, but it is doable, and if you get lucky and acquire a couple of Lanius early it's actually worth considering taking this tack, since there's a lot of advantages to having an oxygen-less ship; fires are no threat, most boarders are less of a concern, having Oxygen off means you get to have all the doors closed to delay enemies from getting to Systems while still suffocating them, and of course the Power normally tied up in Oxygen gets to go elsewhere.
Loss of Cabin Pressure is actually one of the cooler Achievements of the game, being thematically appropriate to a Lanius ship, reasonably practical, yet challenging enough to be interesting, and encouraging thinking of things in a somewhat different manner. It's also not horribly unreasonable like several other Achievements; an enjoyable challenge, not one that produces endless frustration. It'd be great if every achievement was like Loss of Cabin Pressure.
The closest thing to a complaint I have is that it's so horrifically impractical and luck-based to pull off a Lanius-heavy crew, and that's less a criticism of Loss of Cabin Pressure and more a criticism of decisions like 'Lanius literally can't be acquired outside of Abandoned Sectors', and how they fit together with other decisions. I would, for example, be okay with Lanius being restricted to Abandoned Sectors if there was even one ship that started with 4 Lanius for its crew... but there isn't. For that matter, I'd also be okay with it if Lanius were more in line with other species, in terms of encouraging spreading yourself across the species instead of stacking on one species.
Still, the Achievement itself is pretty good.
Advanced Mastery
Have Mind Control, Hacking, and the Backup Battery actively performing their effects simultaneously.
This is a kind of dumb achievement, and probably only exists because these are all advanced edition content and the Lanius Cruisers are the only advanced edition ships that can have ship-unlocking Achievements tied to them in the framework of the advanced edition update refusing to do 'retcons'. Hacking and Mind Control aren't particularly synergistic with each other, and Mind Control isn't even synergistic with Lanius. The Backup Battery is okay with Mind Control and can be used to decent effect with Hacking, I suppose?
It's at least not horrifically burdensome to earn it. You just need to buy Mind Control and Backup Battery, with the Backup Battery being cheap and Mind Control being naturally synergistic with pursuing a boarding strategy.
Just keep in mind you have to be actively Hack Pulsing for it to count, not simply have the Hacking Drone sitting on the enemy ship.
Scrap Hoarder
Have 600 Scrap in storage at some point.
why
Okay, to be fair, this is actually thematically appropriate to the Lanius Cruisers, as Lanius harvesting metals is one of their main plot elements.
It's still a pretty awful achievement, though. 600 Scrap is well over half of all Scrap you will earn over the course of an entire run on Normal difficulty, and you really have to spend Scrap to make Scrap, so there's never a good, natural point to organically earn this. You can try getting to Sector 6 or so and just ceasing to spend Scrap at that point, assuming you've gotten lucky enough to be more-or-less set for the rest of the game, but you'll very probably crash-and-burn in the process instead of getting the Achievement.
If you do seriously try to earn this, you should probably just play on Easy outright, since you'll have more Scrap to work with and will be better able to survive bad decisions caused by trying to earn the achievement.
But seriously, just ignore this Achievement. It's not like the other two are unfun nightmares.
Loss of Cabin Pressure
Reach Sector 8 with your ship's listed Oxygen level having never risen above 20%. (Starting from after your first Jump)
It's a bit frustrating the Lanius Cruiser A isn't an all-Lanius crew, but you can still, for example, vent every room aside Piloting and just try to not let the Human pilot die. You have enough wiggle room to even leave adjacent rooms not-vented, so you can eg have the Human run if enemies teleport into Piloting without having to walk into a vented room. Furthermore, you have a Cloning Bay, so even if the Human dies, it's fine, they'll be back.
Piloting is the preferred place to keep filled with oxygen since new crew always spawn into Piloting if possible. Venting Piloting and having a Lanius handle Piloting means new crew will take damage unnecessarily. This is a generally applicable principle (Lanius in Piloting=not great), but is particularly worth noting when pursuing this Achievement.
Also keep in mind that enemy Hacking will force doors closed and can deny you this achievement if you're not quick to turn off Oxygen in response, particularly if they happen to hack the Door Control so every room in the ship starts gaining oxygen. Hacking is sufficiently rare it's entirely possible to have it never crop up prior to the Rebel Flagship, with the Rebel Flagship being irrelevant to this achievement so whatever, but it's something to keep in mind. This is also a good argument for keeping your Oxygen level notably below 20%, instead of at something like 19%, so that you have some time to respond to Hacking closing doors, instead of it hitting and a half-second later you've failed the Achievement. By a similar token, you probably shouldn't run Oxygen above level 1, to maximize the time you have to respond to doors being closed.
Alternatively, you can simply turn off Oxygen entirely and completely write off the Human crewmember. I wouldn't recommend it, but it is doable, and if you get lucky and acquire a couple of Lanius early it's actually worth considering taking this tack, since there's a lot of advantages to having an oxygen-less ship; fires are no threat, most boarders are less of a concern, having Oxygen off means you get to have all the doors closed to delay enemies from getting to Systems while still suffocating them, and of course the Power normally tied up in Oxygen gets to go elsewhere.
Loss of Cabin Pressure is actually one of the cooler Achievements of the game, being thematically appropriate to a Lanius ship, reasonably practical, yet challenging enough to be interesting, and encouraging thinking of things in a somewhat different manner. It's also not horribly unreasonable like several other Achievements; an enjoyable challenge, not one that produces endless frustration. It'd be great if every achievement was like Loss of Cabin Pressure.
The closest thing to a complaint I have is that it's so horrifically impractical and luck-based to pull off a Lanius-heavy crew, and that's less a criticism of Loss of Cabin Pressure and more a criticism of decisions like 'Lanius literally can't be acquired outside of Abandoned Sectors', and how they fit together with other decisions. I would, for example, be okay with Lanius being restricted to Abandoned Sectors if there was even one ship that started with 4 Lanius for its crew... but there isn't. For that matter, I'd also be okay with it if Lanius were more in line with other species, in terms of encouraging spreading yourself across the species instead of stacking on one species.
Still, the Achievement itself is pretty good.
And thankfully, with two Achievements actually being pretty reasonable, it's actually not that hard to unlock...
Lanius Cruiser B: The Shrike
1
1
x8
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
16
0
0
Advanced Flak
Maximum of 4 different weapons, 2 different Drones.
Starts with the Emergency Respirators Augment.
Lanius Cruiser B: The Shrike
11x812111111600Advanced Flak
Maximum of 4 different weapons, 2 different Drones.
Starts with the Emergency Respirators Augment.
Room total: 16
The Lanius Cruiser B is pretty much a flat upgrade over the Lanius Cruiser A in practice.
It actually is missing Sensors, and replaces the versatile Hacking with the somewhat more specialized Mind Control, but the crucial thing is it has a Crew Teleporter, allowing it to immediately leverage starting with two Lanius. This is huge all by itself, making the Lanius Cruiser B very reliable at taking on a wide variety of ships, and if they're not Autoships likely with increased rewards, with this effectiveness being pretty evergreen -while Medical Bays and Cloning Bays become more likely on enemy ships as a run progresses, they're never actually guaranteed, or even common enough to be assumed to be guaranteed the way eg 4 Shield bubbles is late in a run.
Furthermore, starting with an Advanced Flak is incredible, even with the Lanius Cruiser B starting with only level 1 Weapons and so having some difficulty expanding its weapon selection. The Advanced Flak can kill ships all on its own for quite some time if you don't care about crewkilling or don't think you can manage a given case, and more importantly is an excellent tool for eg knocking out Weapons so you don't take Hull damage while your Lanius wipe out the crew, thanks to it charging fast, easily overwhelming Shields, and still having damage to spare.
It furthermore makes it really easy to transition into a flak-spam strategy; just one other flak weapon is enough to let you overwhelm even maxed Shields and potentially get started on damaging the ship's Systems, and it's pretty rare for a run to not get an opportunity at a flak weapon. It's just usually you can't count on getting the 2+ flak needed for them to turn ridiculous. Flak-spam is itself ludicrously powerful, and in a shockingly flexible way; if you get a lot of flak damage output (Whether that means 2-3 Flak Is atop the Advanced Flak or means a Flak II at all), you can just shred ships with bonkers amounts of damage that leave them no opportunity to do much of anything before they die. Alternatively, a couple flak weapons synergizes very well with beam weapons, and if you can get used to the timing they also go well with letting lasers land hits, to hopefully start fires, open breaches, or just do more Hull damage in the cases of lasers that do more than 1 damage on impact.
Flak-spam of any kind overwhelms Defense Drones, quickly smashes through Supershields, and just generally is fairly ridiculous. The only thing resembling a flaw it has is that some ships are made entirely of thin, spread-out rooms, which cause a lot of shots to not do Hull damage; Autoships are particularly extreme about this, but Mantis ships include a few spindly designs that flak is poor at killing. This is pretty mild of a flaw, both because thin-and-spread-out ships are rare in general and get rarer as you get further in a run (The biggest, most threatening Mantis ships that only show up late in a run aren't spindly, for example), and also because even against spindly ships flak is sufficiently strongly tuned it tends to be about as efficient as competition. (And flak's ability to overwhelm Defense Drones isn't affected by ship design, too) Flak-spam is arguably the most powerful strategy in the game, honestly...
... which means it's very, very useful that the Lanius Cruiser B is usually going to be able to transition into such.
Notably, the Rebel Flagship is hugely vulnerable to flak-spam at every stage, so flak-spam is great at, you know, winning the game, where a few other strategies are powerful for most of the game but awful against at least one stage of the Rebel Flagship and so actually awful to commit to.
Anyway, the initial lack of Sensors isn't even that problematic. If you're going to actually use your Crew Teleporter, you'll be able to Mind Control just fine, and defensively you've got options like venting a lot of the ship to minimize the dangers of boarders and fires. The Lanius crew can safely sweep the ship after a fight for breaches, not to mention repair damage even if the Door Control Subsystem gets busted or the Oxygen Subsystem does, and so long as the Cloning Bay survives even the Engi ending up in a no-surviving state from such won't actually get crew permanently lost. If you like, you can use not having Sensors as an excuse to be more aggressive about popping into nebula Beacons/Sectors initially. The Lanius Cruiser B doesn't even need that much Power to do its job with its initial tools, so running into an Ion Storm is far less likely to be catastrophic than with most other player ships.
Certainly, you should buy Sensors at some point if you can, just so you can better aim your initial efforts and all, but not starting with them hurts far less than you might expect.
The ship's layout is even pretty decent. Its primary flaw is Oxygen being far off from everything else, and that's not much of a flaw for a ship that starts out 2/3rds Lanius and has a Cloning Bay so even full de-oxygenation isn't necessarily a serious problem for the non-Lanius crew. (In the sense that if they die you'll still have them so long as the Cloning Bay isn't actually smashed) Reactive venting options are widespread, the Crew Teleporter and Cloning Bay are directly adjacent (Allowing revived boarders to get back to the fight immediately), the core manned Systems are all close to each other so crew assigned to them can rapidly support each other in an emergency... the two prongs out front are inexplicable and basically pointless -I don't think it's possible for purchased Systems to be assigned to them- but while that's weird and all it's not an actual problem in play.
The Lanius Cruiser B is reliable, versatile, flexible, and not burdened by any bizarre-slash-horrible decisions. It's actually fun to play and everything!
A rarity for advanced edition ships, and surprising that it's one of the Lanius Cruisers that managed it given how heavily based they are on the new content the advanced edition update is hit-or-miss on.
-----------------------------------
Next time, we wrap this whole thing about by talking about the final fight of the game -the Rebel Flagship.
See you then.
Comments
Post a Comment