Paco Hope My Random Musings and RantsHome22Feb/150On Pharmacists and Roadside JusticeI've seen a few discussions of this story of a licensed, clearly competent pharmacist who shoots and kills a would-be armed robber. I understand that what he did was legal and—to many people—justified. Applying the death penalty at the roadside as punishment for threats is not the society that we want to live in. The guy is not a hero. He was reckless and put others in danger needlessly. He was absurdly lucky. Nobody who has studied how to respond to an armed robber would endorse this course of action, even if they broadly support gun rights.Tagged as: crime, guns, justiceContinue reading11Jan/15OffMy Strategy at FTL: Faster Than LightI'm playing FTL: Faster Than Light on my iPad. Apparently you can get it for Windows, Mac, and Linux as well.So far I've only won it twice—once with the Engi Cruser and once with the Federation Cruiser. A couple friends of mine have asked me to write up my experiences and strategy. I've only won it on the easy difficulty without the advanced options turned on. These are my personal strategy ideas. I notice that there is a Strategy Guide at the FTL Wiki that says a lot of similar things. It's good.Basic PrinciplesPlan your route through the sectors.I always plan a route that has the most green sectors. You often can't tell what the green or red sectors will be before you get one space away from them. Once I can see what they are and I am choosing, I look at what alien race will be in the sector. Here's my priority for aliens:Zoltan is better than Engi is better than Slug is better than Rock is better than MantisSlug nebulas can have good stuff in them.Nebulas Aren't that BadWhen I first started playing, I avoided them as much as possible. Now I don't. Fighting in a nebula isn't that bad, really. Plasma storms, though, suck. If I get caught in a plasma storm, I often maximise my shields and wait for my FTL drive to charge. Then I jump out of the battle. It's hard to win a fight with half your reactor down.Restart without remorse.If your ship is not well on its way to being bad ass by the time you reach sector 5, just quit. There's little to be gained by getting all the way to The Last Stand and losing.Upgrade the systems, even if you can't power them.Upgrades on things like engines, oxygen, etc. are kinda extra hull points for the ship. They give you an ability to take extra damage and keep fighting. If you're using a 2-point drone, and your drone control only has 2 points of capacity, then a single hit on your drone control will stop your drone. Likewise with weapons. If you're using a 3-point weapon and you only have 3 points of weapon system, then a single hit knocks your weapon offline.Use Your CrewCrew are valuable. The more the merrier. Spread them around the ship, mainly stationed near systems so that they jump on the repair as soon as something's damaged. You also need them to be near possible fires or intruders.Putting a guy