FTL: Faster than Light

[Vympel]

http://www.ftlgame.com/

Just released, really good game. Difficult on normal, very fun mechanics. Got through five battles in the first sector before I died due to the foolish decision to fight too close to a sun!

[White Haven]

I've been playing the beta extensively, the game's quite fun and surprisingly difficult at times. I ted to play it kiddy-pool and stay on Easy more often than not.

[Nephtys]

Oh fuck yeah. I've been looking forward to seeing this out for a while. Going to get it after work.

[weemadando]

It's pretty cool. A bit of Infinite Space, but with more puzzle-y combat.

[Stark]

By 'puzzle-y' you mean 'repeat same strategy every time = win'? It takes ages to get to the part where the enemies are interesting - for ages its just 'this one has a drone controller' and 'this one has an ion gun'.

At least its not complete steaming shit like Infinite Space, though. Hopefully Star Command will be the same sort of thing only more interesting.

[Vendetta]

I think the strength of the game is in the random nonsense it can throw at you, rather than in the actual combats, which most of the time are "shoot enemy weapons to win, eventually". Several of my games have felt really different depending on what events got thrown my way though, including a game where it seemed determined that I could have no more than two crew at any one time and would immediately kill any more that I obtained, and one where I seemed to spend half my time putting fires out and desperately scrambling for oxygen.

[weemadando]

By 'puzzle-y' you mean 'repeat same strategy every time = win'? It takes ages to get to the part where the enemies are interesting - for ages its just 'this one has a drone controller' and 'this one has an ion gun'.

At least its not complete steaming shit like Infinite Space, though. Hopefully Star Command will be the same sort of thing only more interesting.

For ages it's also "automated ships so subsystems, O2 levels, etc don't matter a goddamn, just your DPS."

[Stark]

The O2 does some wierd shit too; sometimes your guys are dying from no air, even though the doors are closed, O2 plant is running, O2 level is around 35%, etc. Other times, the moment it rises above 5% the damage over time stops.

Its pretty funny that the final boss is designed explicitly to negate the number one win forever strategy (ie shoot weapon systems) because it has separate weapon rooms. Get to the end with the wrong loadout? Sorry, you're just plain fucked. Better restart lol!

I dropped down to easy and the game becomes a cakewalk unless you're unlucky with shops. Get the right shit early = steamroll, get constant crew/drone shops = hard.

[Vympel]

At least its not complete steaming shit like Infinite Space, though. Hopefully Star Command will be the same sort of thing only more interesting.

Star Command had me at the bit where one of your crew guys is holding on for dear life out a hull breach. That game looks like its going to be a laugh a minute. The death animations alone will be worth the price of admission.

I think the strength of the game is in the random nonsense it can throw at you, rather than in the actual combats, which most of the time are "shoot enemy weapons to win, eventually".

I think that's about right - I stopped at a science station which was being used as a trap by pilots to teleport borders over, they beamed over with four guys whilst their ship attacked, was pretty frantic for a bit, barely managed to win, especially with the fires raging out of control.

I'm keeping the difficulty on Normal for now, not interested in Easy yet, I think the challenge is just about right for me. I've managed to get as far as Sector 2 before dying last night.

[Stark]

Yeah, SC looks like its similar enough while having way higher production values. It remains to be seen how any of the mechanics work, although it does appear there's a lot more crew interaction than just 'put man in each of the 4 rooms, have team of guys running around killing boarders and fixing shit'.

But dude, if you think the 'normal' difficulty is right for you and you can only get through like 8 encounters before dying... that's crazy. Maybe it'd help you if you bought the 'see crew' upgrade for sensors, because seeing how they move their dudes around might give you an insight into the best way to attack ships (ie down shields, break guns, laugh infinitely).

[Vendetta]

The O2 does some wierd shit too; sometimes your guys are dying from no air, even though the doors are closed, O2 plant is running, O2 level is around 35%, etc. Other times, the moment it rises above 5% the damage over time stops.

Oxygen supply is tracked per room as well as globally. Rooms with no oxygen have orange outlines.

I dropped down to easy and the game becomes a cakewalk unless you're unlucky with shops. Get the right shit early = steamroll, get constant crew/drone shops = hard.

They were aiming for roguelike in space, and success in roguelikes is dependent on whether the random number god is smiling on you today, so that's not too bad a thing.

I've been fucked by the last boss because the wrong gear though.

I think what could make the game more interesting is to improve the crew allocation business. Since you only actually need 4 crew to do everything ever on the ship the fact that you can have 8 really doesn't mean a lot except for damage control and boarding. If more systems required manning, or you could have multiple people manning a system after upgrading it to get some kind of bonus to that system, but still only had 8 crew, you'd have to make decisions about what they were doing more often.

The only time combat wasn't automatically do the same thing was either when I've been boarded or in the game where I only had two crew all the time and had to decide which systems I wanted them on and which I could leave to themselves.

[Stark]

Oxygen supply is tracked per room as well as globally. Rooms with no oxygen have orange outlines.

Too bad everyone was losing health everywhere I guess. And the 'tracking' is pretty apalling, given the truly bizarre way oxygen moves between compartments. But it's only really useful anyway for special events; barring rule changes or fire even instantly losing your O2 room still leaves you plenty of time to kill the other ship unless you got ruled by the shops.

They were aiming for roguelike in space, and success in roguelikes is dependent on whether the random number god is smiling on you today, so that's not too bad a thing.

Loot drops != shops. Heaps of stuff is extremely rare except through shops, and if you don't even ever see them, well too bad you're going to lose. Imagine a 'roguelike' (a useless term I love seeing used when a FAQ answer is 'ok it's not really') where on the second floor you could find a weapon that would see you through the entire game and another item that might not RANDOMLY ROGUELIKE appear and without it you are totally wasting your time. That'd be awesome!

I think what could make the game more interesting is to improve the crew allocation business. Since you only actually need 4 crew to do everything ever on the ship the fact that you can have 8 really doesn't mean a lot except for damage control and boarding. If more systems required manning, or you could have multiple people manning a system after upgrading it to get some kind of bonus to that system, but still only had 8 crew, you'd have to make decisions about what they were doing more often.

I was BLOWN AWAY when most of the rooms didn't have crew interaction. Fucking BIZARRE. I mean its all 'roguelike' anyway so you might have 9 crew by the end of the first sector or never ever get another crewguy, but if you need more drone deeps or sensor knowledge... too bad. It was a bit sad to see that crew never has anything special beyond race and they don't bother telling you what the skill effects are, but hey - get the weapon recharger, the insta-charge, and you literally cannot lose ever, even on the super-lazy boss of lazy.

The scope for all kinds of dungeon keeper room shit was huge, and all we got was 'charge faster' and 'charge faster' and 'charge faster' and 'dodge better'. Even the non-random stuff is poorly balanced - for instance, the basic ship has achievements based on pretty random shit you could never get in hundreds of hours, and the engi ship has shit you can literally do straight away.

My favorite feature is that when you ACCEPT SURRENDER your lasers and plasmas instantly veer off safely so you don't kill the other guy... but fires still rage and they could well explode anyway, especially if you're using fire weapons. You don't get anything from the wreckage though, because SURRENDER. On the other hand, enemy weapons still damage you after a surrender and you can even actually die.

My entire thoughts on the game can be summed up with 'hope Star Command is better'. I have to lol at the forums where not only do guys post crap like 'don't play to win play to have fun roffle the secret is sometimes you just can't win' but also 'i played 200 times and never won', both of which really make me question who exactly these people are. Let's make a list of everyone who needed less than a dozen goes to win. :V

[Vympel]

Yeah, SC looks like its similar enough while having way higher production values. It remains to be seen how any of the mechanics work, although it does appear there's a lot more crew interaction than just 'put man in each of the 4 rooms, have team of guys running around killing boarders and fixing shit'.

But dude, if you think the 'normal' difficulty is right for you and you can only get through like 8 encounters before dying... that's crazy. Maybe it'd help you if you bought the 'see crew' upgrade for sensors, because seeing how they move their dudes around might give you an insight into the best way to attack ships (ie down shields, break guns, laugh infinitely).

Well got to play it again when I got home, this time made it through 12 encounters, got up to Sector 4. Bloody addictive. I'll try it on Easy if I hit a plateau in terms of progress, I'm still learning. Break shields / guns etc is obviously the way to go, but good luck if you don't get the right upgrades early enough to make that happen against the tougher ships.

[Tolya]

Along these lines, there is an indie title called "Starship Corporation" which lets you construct a space ship (basically put preset rooms in a preset hull space, connect with corridors etc.) and then run it in a Weyland-Yutani type setting. It's in early alpha, if you google it you can try the starship build component.

[Vympel]

Finished the game today - if you're lucky enough to get a decent dedicated boarding team - say, a Rockman and a Mantis, you can take lots of the smaller ships you encounter intact, which leads to a lot more scrap, which leads of course to more buying / upgrade power. By the time I destroyed the boss I had a very tricked out Kestrel - full shields, two Burst Laser IIs, a Hull Laser, an Artemis Missile Launcher, enough power to run three of them at once, a cloaking device (essential to deal with missile salvos), and a bunch of cool augmentations, including the Pre-Charge Igniter augmentation.

Not a single one of my full crew of 8 died

[weemadando]

Simple trick - run your ship with all doors except to occupied rooms open, so when the enemy boards, they board into hard vacuum. Sucks to be them.

[Stark]

Spacesuits too hard for nerds lol. Its a bit sad they have external doors and nobody ever boards using a craft, simply teleporting aboard to inevitable death. They destroy the door room rather than jamming the doors open and beaming home, too; interaction too hard for game designer. They don't even use the captured bridge to make the ship easier to hit or whatever.

Boarding you just mean they're ruling themselves anyway; even without sensors you can guess where their guys are, and without crew or power they're screwed. Unless the random seed for your game is such that winning is impossible, of course.

[Vendetta]

Simple trick - run your ship with all doors except to occupied rooms open, so when the enemy boards, they board into hard vacuum. Sucks to be them.

Nah, just run into the medbay and vent the rest of the ship. They have to fight you where you're regenerating.

Then you go to your teleporters and board them back.

Boarding is cheese in a can, especially if you have Rock and Mantis crew, it's even a way to beat the endboss because it's gun rooms are cut off, jump two guys into one, kill the gunner and wreck the gun.

[Stark]

Fire weapons are the same. The AI will take guys from useful stuff to fight fires no matter where they are, so you can set the biggest fire you want and just keep firing and kill everyone.

Most ships will die before their crew, but the first 75% of the game is just there to give you money and stuff anyway. Its a shame the different ships aren't very good, though (although the stealth ship and the engi ship are amusing for the broken mechanics).

[weemadando]

I'm yet to get past sector 3. Just having terrible luck with the world creation
Stores packed with shit & failing all the dice rolls for random encounter outcomes.

[Stark]

For heaps of the events, its not worth taking the risk without the blue option, especially as there's no way to know if you'll ever be able to replace whatever you lose if you get a bad result.

I lost all but one of my crew in the first sector once. That was 'fun'.

[weemadando]

I might just have to do an arsehole play through. Ignore everyone and everything.

[Stark]

If you have sensors, there's lots of reward for just avoiding fights. You still get rewards but generally don't use or lose anything, and you'll unlock a bunch of other ship types.

Oh sorry you just said 'renegade playthrough' lol.

[Tolya]

FTL is a lol game. When I first got it, I was glued to the screen for the entire day. After a sixth playthrough or so I managed to finish it on easy. And then I just stopped playing it since replay value is nigh. Certainly not worth doing it just to see the 25 thousand lines of sidequest text the designers boast. I didn't even want to replay the game and finish it on normal, since it's mere chance that decides if you are able to win the game or not. And it is supposedly a good thing about the game, as the devs say?

It is a bit disappointing that with the amount of money they got on the Kickstarter they released such a small game.

[Vympel]

It is a bit disappointing that with the amount of money they got on the Kickstarter they released such a small game.

How much game does $200K buy, really?

Anyway, I paid a measly $8.99 for this game. I got my money's worth, easily. Still playing, want to try to get all the achievements I can / win with every ship.

Also, they're planning additional content.