The PC game FTL: Faster Than Light has dozens of different augmentations that improve your ship in various ways. Many of these augmentations offer unique benefits that can’t be gained through any other means. The main advantage of augmentations is that they don’t cost energy, though you are limited to only three at once. Support Augmentations cover the gambit in terms of benefits offered to your ship. Some are useful in combat, while others have absolutely not combat value at all. They all tend to be very efficient, though and many provide benefits you can’t get any other way in the game. The following guide to support augmentations in FTL: Faster Than Light will help you determine which augmentations are best for your needs.
Scrap Recovery Arm (50 Scrap) – The Scrap Recovery Arm gives you an extra 10% scrap every time you earn scrap from any means other than selling. Since it costs 50 scrap, you need to earn at least 250 scrap and then sell it, or 500 scrap without selling it, just to break even. Assuming you get this early in the game, which you easily can, you should have no trouble earning that much scrap, especially if you get lucky and get one of the events where having this augmentation gets you a blue option. Buy this early and then sell it in sector 7 if you can. This augmentation does stack, and it is definitely worth it to own more than one.
Long-Ranged Scanners (30 Scrap) – Long-Ranged Scanners is by far the best support augmentation in the game are arguably in the running for best augmentation in the game. It shows you which adjacent beacons have ships, solar flares, meteor storms, and plasma storms. This protects you from some of the nastiest encounters in the game and lets you hunt ships easily when you have a well tuned combat ship. Buy it as early as possible and never sell it.
Drone Recovery Arm (50 Scrap) – At the end of a battle the Drone Recovery Arm will return the drone parts to your stock from any deployed drone that wasn’t destroyed. Since drones cost roughly 5 scrap each, this isn’t particularly useful if you don’t intend to use more than 10 drones over the course of the game. But if drones are part of your primary offense or defense, this effectively puts unlimited drone parts in your stock.
Reconstructive Teleport (70 Scrap) – Reconstructive Teleport is absolutely worthless if you don’t have a crew teleporter system. If you do, it fully heals any crew member you teleport. This is moderately useful if you have a medbay, but exceptional if you have a clone bay. Normally crew members can’t heal when you have a clone bay. This solves that problem and really increases the power of your boarding teams. If you have this augmentation, make sure to fully upgrade your crew teleporter system.
Lifeform Scanner (40 Scrap) – Effectively, this augmentation is nearly identical to having a Slug crew member. It shows the location of any crew members on your ship and enemy ships, even if your sensors are not currently functioning or upgraded. If you happen to have a Slug crew member, this is a worthless piece of equipment. But, since they are very difficult to obtain, this is a moderately useful way to upgrade sensors in a way that functions even when you enter a nebula. This is best to purchase only if you intend to move mostly through nebula sectors. Otherwise you should just upgrade or man your sensors.
Zoltan Shield Bypass (50 Scrap) – This augmentation is incredibly corner case. It allows teleportation and mind control to function through a supershield. If you don’t use any of these types of attacks, this is completely worthless. Even if you do, it will still rarely be useful because supershields are rare in this game. The one supershield you are assured to face is on the third stage of the flagship. If your attacks are almost entirely dependent on being able to teleport or use mind control, this is a critical upgrade. Otherwise, you should usually just sell it if you happen to get it randomly from an event.
