This is a guide for new players, particularly those who are struggling to make it through the system and achieve their destiny after the final boss. This guide is written assuming you didn't play FTL, and if you have and want to know the differences, you can find that in a short section at the end of this guide.

I'm just a dude who loves FTL very much and am even more in love with this game. I may have gotten some things wrong, just shout them out in the comments and I'll check them and correct it.

The tutorial is very good at quickly getting you up to speed on how the game works.
The game is played by warping to nodes in sectors until you reach the Vault of Souls, which is protected by a boss fight. As you journey across the galaxy, you'll need to build your ship and strategy for how to deal with that boss, and all the threats you meet along the way. Below I state a lot of what is covered in the tutorial, but also the things which were not.

You'll start with the tutorial, and I'll assume you're using that ship in this guide. That ship is named the Triumph of Heaven and is the Imperial Cruiser (A) Layout.

Upgrading Systems and Subsystems:
When you defeat enemy ships or during events and trading, you'll gather Scrap, which is primarily used to upgrade systems and subsystems.

Your ship starts with a few systems, which is the word for things like Engines, Shields, Weapons, Launch Bay. All of these are laid out on the bottom left of the screen and managing their power and status is a big part of the game. Most systems can be manned, which gives a bonus to that system. For instance, engines will provide a better dodge chance if you have a unit manning the computer in that room.

On the lower right you'll see your Subsystems. Subsystems (such as Doors, Command Throne, and Sensors) are straight upgrades and do not require power. They can be targeted and damaged like other systems, and some benefit from having someone man the station, too.

Imperial Cruiser (A) Systems:

Launch Bay
Boarding enemy vessels is a very reliable way to take out shields, spell casters, or nab those always-appealing Storage Vaults. The base cooldown is very generous and you can near-instantly recall crew at any time (there is a button by the Launch Bay interface, but also in the top left of the enemy ship view). Upgrading this allows you to load more units, however, if the room the assault sled hits is too small, the other units wait inside the sled until the room is cleared. If that means knocking down a door, this can be a problem. Probably for your first run, you can skip upgrading this, especially because the default room only has space for 2, so loading 3 or 4 can be annoying.

Weapons Bay (Storm Cannon I and Bolt Cannon)
You must have enough energy in your weapons bay to power all your weapons, which means upgrading it and your reactor is the basic way to improve your damage output. But there is no benefit to having more energy or upgrades than the weapons you're currently using. Don't put points into this until you pick up a new weapon, either from a node or from a shop. We'll discuss weapon types later. Manning this station provides a 10% charge bonus. In other words, that's 10% off the charge time. (A weapon with 20 seconds of charge time will instead charge in 18)

Engines
Each pip of Engines gives you 5% dodge chance and manning this system gives you 5% more. Fully Upgraded and manning the Command Throne, fully 50% of all projectiles will miss you! This is huge. After shields are at level 2, it's worth it to pour a lot of resources into dodge chance. Or, if you don't know what else to buy, buy Engines. It's very easy to pull a few pips out of dodge chance to power a new layer of shields.

Shields
Shields absorb one projectile per shield strength and fully negate most Beam weapons. However, spells and missiles (and lances, and a few other things) can bypass shields. Probably your first upgrade should be to get to shield level 2, and you'll need to have maximum shields by the final battle. Gaining a level of shields requires upgrading the Shields System twice and providing it with two pips of reactor power. Manning this station provides a 10% recharge bonus after your shields have been hit. Shields recharge sequentially, one at a time, and how quickly you get them up is how quickly you can absorb another hit.

Life Support
If you have vented a room because of fire or gas, how quickly you can re-enter that room once it is sealed is based on this system. If you take all the power out of it, eventually your crew will suffocate and die. Honestly this is a very low priority. There's almost no reason to upgrade this, save your reactor pips for more important systems.


Imperial Cruiser (A) Subsystems:

Sensors
These provide you valuable intel on your enemy units and the current state of their ship. If your Sensor rating is insufficient (because of the enemy ship having superior sensors and manning them, for example) their ship will simply look grey. Otherwise, you can see what type of crew they have and the oxygen level of the rooms. Upgrading this is a low priority.

Door Control
Eventually enemies will show up on your ship, either through assault sleds or spells. The best way to slow them down is by killing them. The second best way is doors, which they'll have to knock down to get to your valuable systems and crew members. Upgrading this is a medium priority, unless all your crew are absolute killers. The starting crew for this ship are pretty strong for the first few sectors.

Command Throne (Starts with one upgrade)
In order to warp, you need someone in your command throne, which makes it one of your most essential subsystems. Your ship's evasion is derived from your engine system, but if your Command Throne is unmanned, your evasion is half of your Engine Dodge chance. You will also lose the Manned Bonus for your Engines if your Command Throne is empty. All that to say is, your starting Dodge Chance can be 20%: 10% from engines, 5% from manning the Command Throne with your commander, and 5% for manning the Engines. If you leave the Command Throne, this drops to 5% (half of engine's power, 10)- regardless of whether the Engines are manned or not. This is the meaning of Autopilot 50%. One more upgrade will give you Autopilot 80%, so 8% dodge if Command Throne is unmanned. Upgrading this is... well honestly, just man the throne, there's too much lost by not manning it. If you have the extra scrap, it's cheap and might be worth it when your engine is fully upgraded.

You only get a manning bonus on your Command Throne if your Commander is there. While casting spells, units do not give their manning bonus. Be smart about who you want manning which stations, and which spells you give your commander.


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The other stuff
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Hull Strength:
You ship has a hull strength of 30, indicated by pips at the top of the screen. If that number reaches 0, your ship falls apart and everyone on board dies. Game over. Hull strength can be recovered with items, at shops, or at Shipyards.

Evasion:
Dodge chance calculated by Command Throne and Engine strength. It is a flat dodge chance for all projectiles (Lances, Shots, Missiles, but not beams or spells)

Scrap:
The currency of the game. Used in shops and while upgrading.

Munitions:
A missile currency, used in Missile Bays and Bombards.

Every ship has a Commander. This character is you. If they die, that's a game over. If they're on an enemy ship when it explodes or jumps away, that's a game over too. Other than this death condition, they're just like every other crew member.

Crew have a handful of stats and qualities which will be important to familiarize yourself with if you want to succeed. The biggest two are HP and DPS.

Your commander is the Exile. Let's run down his stats now:
He has 90 HP, and a base DPS of 3. He also comes with the innate ability "Ancient Translocator", which allows him to quickly move to any room (both on your ship or onto the enemy ship). He has an Armor Slot, a Weapon Slot, and a Tool Slot. Generally, armor increase HP, weapons increase DPS and Tools are expendable things that do something (but this category has the widest range). He also has the Commander keyword.

You've got 2 Imperial Enforcers too.
HP: 60, DPS of 3. They have no tool slot, so only Armor and Weapon. They have an innate 90% fire resistance and the Imperial Citizen keyword.

These keywords are most important for modules, which we'll discuss next.

Although the Enforcers have less health than your exile, I tend to use them as the strike force at the beginning of the game. I keep my Commander as a ship defender, I might use his translocator to quickly grab a Storage Vault on the enemy ship, but otherwise he stays on the ship where he's unlikely to die and end my game, but that's totally up to you. His bigger health pool means he can fight harder enemies, or more enemies before needing to flee back to the ship.

As you travel across the galaxy, you'll find equipment and artifacts which your crew can equip, giving them bonuses. Armor will give you a larger HP pool, but can also give you movement increases or decreases, a higher DPS, immunity to suffocation or fire, and other benefits.

Weapons will give you higher DPS, and sometimes quicker Door Breaking speed, more DPS in certain room sizes, more DPS versus enemies of certain types, or damage to all enemies in the room. There are lots of modifiers, and choosing the right weapon for the job is key. You cannot change equipment during a fight, so plan for generalists.

Tools have the widest variety. Tools include expendables like hull patches or medic drones. It can be ritual materials which are single-use spells to summon demons. There are also flat bonuses in those tool slots, such as the repair tool giving 50% increased repair speed, or the many combat shields which lower or limit enemy DPS.

Crew may also have a spell slot. Spells cannot be unequipped and are destroyed if replaced. Spells operate on cool downs, just like the Ancient Translocator, but are refreshed after a warp jump. The healing spell is limited to two charges per warp, but is still very very good. Summoning spells are broken, and for that reason alone, getting spell casters is always a good investment. With 4 necromancers, you're sending 8 ghouls to the enemy ship every 30 seconds. It's incredible.

Casting, using consumables, and some innate abilities will make the unit enter a casting animation which can be interrupted by melee or being hit by a projectile. They also lose their manning bonus while casting. Be wary of adding long casting time spells on your pilot/engines guy.

Crew may also have innate abilities like your Exile. Necromancers have an innate spell to summon ghouls. Some spell casters have an innate spell, but no spell equipment slot. Some start with a spell to summon ghouls and can learn ANOTHER summon ghoul spell. What more could a guy want?

Look carefully at the Equipment Slots of any crew you are going to pick up, and what equipment you have available. Be sure they have a spell slot, not just one innate spell, unless that's a really good spell. Weapons are pretty cheap, so it may be wise to pick up a few from the shop, even without crew to wield them yet. Even +1 DPS can make a big difference. That makes a mirror match a win for you.

Note on room sizes: Small room is a 1x1 square, Medium room is 1x2 rectangle, and Large room is 2x2 square.

While travelling across your sector, you'll see map markers for Shops and Shrines, among other things.

Modules are static bonuses, usually related to keywords. You might find a module that adds +1 DPS to all Imperial Citizens. This would apply to your two Enforcers, but not to the Exile, because he does not have that keyword. You can only have 3 modules on your ship, and like spells, they cannot be swapped out. Installing a fourth will have to destroy one of the already-installed modules.

To maximize the benefit of a module, you'll want to have as many of that keyword in your crew as possible. The best way to do this is to visit a Shrine. Right out of the gate, you'll see an Imperial Shrine, if you visit it and dedicate yourself to the Imperial Cult, you'll get the immediate benefits of healing and hull repair, but you'll get the passive benefit of Imperial things appearing more often in shops, including crew. There are other Shrines and the dedication process can be failed if you're not careful, so make your choices wisely.

Having a synergistic crew can make the game much easier. A Death Cult crew will be immune to poisonous gas and may even generate it themselves with Death Cult weapons and spells. They can get a module to add 10 HP to all Death Cult keywords.

There are modules which benefit systems and weapons too, but they become more common on higher difficulties. There's even a module that lets you dodge spells!

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Shrine Benefits:
I believe equipment related to that faction becomes more common when you activate the respective shrine, but I'm not 100% on that. You definitely get more units with the respective keyword. Shrines can have drawbacks and challenges when activating. Just experiment!

Shrine:Keyword
Imperial Shrine: Imperial Citizen
Bone Shrine: Death Cultist
Gore Shrine: Blood Cultist
War Shrine: War Cultist
Listening Station: Raider Outlaw
Machine Shrine: Techno Cultist
(names may be slightly incorrect as I'm going off memory, I'll update these in time.)

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Shops will also offer Systems to add to your ship. You can complete your first run with what you've already got. But, you might make it easier by buying one of these. Here's a few you will probably come across:

Bombard:
The Bombard is a great addition to any ship. It costs 3 munitions to turn it on for a fight, but then fires a projectile automatically continuously. It's a great way to chip away at shields and costs very little. If you aren't using Missile Bays, this is worth adding to your ship, but prioritize the systems you've already got before buying this.

Missile Bay:
Missiles ignore shields and can only miss based on enemy evasion. Early in the run, these are very reliable, but later ships may have 30+ evasion. Missile Bay will come with the Gladius missile template. You load one Missile Template at a time, and every charge uses munitions based on the template. Powerful, devastating missiles use 2 or 3 munitions per shot. There are also ion missiles and poison/fire/anti-personnel missiles. This is a fun system to play with, but also an investment in munitions, scrap, and power. If you find yourself struggling to get through shields, this will help a lot.

Auto-Surgeon:
Quickly restores health to your boarding party before they load back into the sleds to do it again. If you're boarding heavy, this gives you some amount of sustainability, but it doesn't last forever. You can take the power out of your Launch Bay to power this, though, as you're unlikely to use both at the same time.

Husk Rack:
Husk Racks spawn sub-husks which will die on Warp. These are mostly useful for pestering the enemy ship with expendable units, but can also be nice to have as ways to repair breaches or just extra hands on repairs in a bad fight. For a first run, this probably won't be very helpful unless you get some Machine Slave modules. Upgrading this makes the husks come out slower, but upgrades their stats.

Systems will need a room to be placed in, but can fit in any room size. The Auto-Surgeon benefits from a larger room, as it can treat more units at once.

Keep in mind your reactor cannot be upgraded past a certain point, and you're likely to max it out. Buying too many extra systems will end up with them un-upgraded or even un-powered.

How you attack the enemy with your ship is entirely up to you. Summoning, boarding or just shooting them - probably the best strategy is going to be a mix of all of those. There are a lot of weapons in the game, but they generally fall into these categories.

Shot
Energy bolts or projectiles, these shots hit one level of shields and usually do 1 system and hull damage. Read the descriptions carefully, because some do not do system damage, but only rip holes in the floor. The standard weapon type - Storm I and Bolt Cannon are examples of what to expect. More projectiles and more damage will require more power and charge time.

Ion
Ion damage does not harm the hull or the system, it merely overloads that system, temporarily disabling it. Ion blasts will hit shields, and then the ion damage is applied to the shield. A ship fully equipped with Disruptors can lock down enemy ships, but will also have trouble killing the crew if they don't care for Life Support.

Beam
Beams draw a line on the enemy ship and damage every room they pass through and usually the systems inside. Some beam weapons can pierce shields, but most are fully negated by even 1 level of shield. These can be very powerful in combination with Storm Cannons or strong Ion cannons.

Lance
Lances start the fight charged, but have a limited number of hits per Warp. They also ignore shields. This makes them very good for an alpha strike at the beginning of the fight, but will make them a waste of space and energy in a long battle. One Lance early in the game can make the first few sectors a breeze, but should be replaced eventually.

Fusillade
Targets an area of the enemy vessel with multiple low-powered shots. These are shield destroyers with long charge times and high energy cost.

Missile
Missiles are used to target specific systems through shields. Like Lances, they're great at locking down enemy weapons while your other weapons charge up, or damaging engines to make sure your next volley hits. Ion Missiles and Bombs are ways to directly disable weapons instead of working through shields first.

My recommendation is to aim for quantity over quality for your first run. Storm II and III are worth the investment, as are any fusillade weapons. Plink through their shields and mess up their systems after that.

Shipyards
Shipyards are safe places to repair, heal, gather munitions, or make 1 husk (a weak unit useful only for their manning bonus on a system). On most maps, you can avoid the shipyards, which I recommend you do so you have more opportunity to gain scrap. 10 free hull repairs is quite good, though, if you need it, especially if there's no shops after that shipyard.

Abstract Wounds
Travel through this to increase your game's difficulty which will give shops a wider variety of things, and give you larger rewards at the end.

High Threat
You may find a helmet-shaped node occasionally - this is a high-threat enemy and is basically a miniboss. They are optional, but are a good test of your build. Remember, you can warp away from a fight if your engines and Throne are charged up and occupied. I won't describe these boss fights, but they're pretty fun!

Sector Choices
Sectors have 3 difficulties, indicated by a circle, circle with a cross, and a skull. Desolate, Warzone and Exclusion zone, respectively. If you want to dedicate yourself to a certain cult, the Shrine of that cult will be in the first 3 nodes of that sector. So go to a Blood Sector to join the Blood Cult, for example. I recommend you aim for a circle and cross sector whenever you can. The difficulty in these is higher than a peaceful circle, but the rewards match it. If you breeze through those sectors, jump up to a skull for even greater rewards.

Events and Quests
You will eventually find repeats of events, but don't worry! There's usually some randomization involved, so what was the right choice last time, might not be the right choice this time. Don't worry, they're all grimdark, so it will always /feel/ like the wrong choice. You might be asked to do a quest (usually to deliver something somewhere). These will have good pay-outs, but if there's a shop on the map in a couple jumps that you really want to go to, you might want to skip the quest which may require you fly away from the shop.

Venting
Removing the air from a room will also put out fires and poisonous gas.

Breaches and Warp Breaches
Some weapons will cause breaches, which instantly vent the room that they hit. These require repairing and usually mean some damage to the engineer. Warp Breaches are the same except some times demons will crawl through and knock down your doors. Best to fix these as soon as you can.

The Vault of Souls
At the end of your journey, when you reach the Imperial Core Worlds, you get a very short map up to a boss fight. The symbol on the Vault of Souls tells you what type of boss it is. The short sector is the best place to quickly finish off your upgrades and visit the shipyard or shop to fully repair before you go into the fight. Best of luck!

Winning and Losing
If you win, you are rewarded with a handsome sum of Resonance, a metacurrency used to unlock Commanders and ship layouts. If you lose, you're ALSO rewarded with Resonance. Never cancel a run because it's going bad, keep at it, or turn off your life support and open all the doors. On a normal difficulty run, you'll probably earn around 4000 resonance from winning, which is enough for a new commander, or save it up to unlock a ship layout. A failed run usually gets me about 1000-1500 resonance.

I don't recommend save editing to give yourself infinite resonance, you'll learn the game better by unlocking them the old-fashioned way.

My brother in Ghoul, you're reading this guide, so you're obviously committed. Buy it!


If you're not a Warhammer 40K fan, but you are an FTL fan, I can honestly say that this game is about a 30% upgrade on FTL. The crew variety adds a lot to the game, and the additional systems (such as missiles being templates and a System of their own, equipment and summons, etc) are a perfect addition to an already great game.
If you are a 40K fan, unfortunately there are no Orks in this game yet. I completely understand if that is a deal breaker.

Some differences:

Their is no pursuing fleet, instead the map is more of a straight line with 2-3 options at each node. There is also no fuel to keep track of.

There are subspace breaches as well as normal breaches. Subspace breaches may summon demons or skeletons into the ship.

The game is overall a bit easier, but has many difficulty levels, and the option to dive into a higher, not-yet-unlocked difficulty within the first sector.

Boarding is now much more useful, heavily recommended, but not necessary. You have many ways to get to enemy ships, and many benefits for doing so.

Equipment allows you to build an unstoppable boarding party that is the perfect killing machine.

Expendable equipment (hull patches, repair drones, and summoning reagents) allow you to get yourself out of a terrible jam, or prepare an overwhelming onslaught on enemies.

The game has minibosses.

The game is much more willing to let you guarantee damage on enemies by having unerring damaging spells, even allowing you to destroy ships with spell casting alone.

Above all, Resonance is why you should buy this game. We all spent hours, days, WEEKS hoping for good RNG to unlock that last ship for us. With a metacurrency, just playing earns you enough to eventually unlock it - and most layouts can be unlocked by meeting conditions, not just spending resonance.

Look, if you're totally new to the game and are having trouble to get to the Vault of Souls, here's some real direct advice.

Upgrades
2 Shields > 2 Shields > 2-3 Engines > 2 Shields > Engines forever
I usually go like that per sector, but if you get your shields up faster, it's a good investment, as that relates to less repair costs. As mentioned before, carry around a lot of scrap and upgrade your weapons bay only when you have your hands on Armaments to use.

Check enemy weapons
Some of your very first battles may not be even able to damage your ship. Take your time to fiddle with all your systems and settings and learn the combat interface. Later on, you will need to know if the enemy is an immediate threat or a slow building one. Do they have Ion missiles or Hull Shredders? Pay attention to what absolutely destroys you - because those will be the types of weapons you want to buy.

Run from a fight
If things are going really bad, the time to build up to warp is not that long and you only need one pip in the engines and a working manned command throne to still jump. You can even jump with enemy invaders on your ship, and deal with them at the next node. Better to limp away from a fight than to die in one.

Target their command throne
If their dodge chance is high, you can take out their engines or command throne to lower their evasion. Take out the throne. It has less health and whoever is there will stop manning it to repair it, which also removes the manned engines bonus. Usually, the strongest enemy on the ship mans the throne, but sometimes the crew will swap out to something like a husk, which a fully equipped raider can take out in a couple seconds.

It is always in a small room, which means only one person can repair it, and thus, slower repairs.

The Ghoul Protects
Pray at a Bone Shrine to get more and more Necromancers (Death Cultist keyword). These are cheap units that come with a spell to summon 2 ghouls. If you want an easy victory, this is the strategy: just never stop sending ghouls to their ship. They're weak and they die very easily, but they're unlimited. If the enemy crew is dead and the ship is only running on a Demon Heart, they've got free reign to damage systems. Pour all the rest of your scrap into shields and engines.