FTL: Faster Than Light - Advanced Edition

[Gord]

So I watched some let's play vids on youtube, but I'm not completely getting the allure of this one.​

Seems all you do is repeating the same patterns all the time: Fly to a sector, get attacked, target subsystems to kill foe, move around crew a bit, sell/buy some shit, wash, rinse, repeat.​

​

Is there more to it in the long run and it's just because the guy recording the vids sucks at it and can't manage to get past the early game?​

 

[Lightknight]

I for example find that boarding is extremely powerfull, if risky.

Near worthless and requires lots of extra crew. You teleport to them - they rush to fight you, then move wounded to medbay, so you have to destroy medbay. If i can destroy medbay - i could already be destroying shields and weapons instead. Of course, its a different story if you have like, four mantises and a bio beam/fire bomb, but when does it ever happen ?

The boarding drone is awesome as well.

Same story, except i've never even seen it in any store. Not once.

If i wanted improvements they have to be:

Fucking hotkeys !!! What kind of idiot developer skimps on hotkeys !
Another thing is an accuracy modifier on something, like a weapons guy could give you +10 to hit. Its retarded when you fight the boss and you both keep missing for half an hour. You cant even do anything, just sit and hope something hits more than twice in a row. Pretty dumb system.

 

[Black]

So I watched some let's play vids on youtube, but I'm not completely getting the allure of this one.​

Seems all you do is repeating the same patterns all the time: Fly to a sector, get attacked, target subsystems to kill foe, move around crew a bit, sell/buy some shit, wash, rinse, repeat.​

​

Is there more to it in the long run and it's just because the guy recording the vids sucks at it and can't manage to get past the early game?​

If you summarize it like that, then yes, it sucks. If you summarize other games like that, they suck too.
Fallout? Go around doing quests, talking to npcs and shooting people in the eyes. Sell and buy stuff. Big deal!

 

[RK47]

Playing Stealth ship is a bitch. You can tell it's time to restart if you meet a drone ship before you could get any offensive weapons load out going.
But I got it to stage 2 before with Halberd - Dual Laser combo. This ship just needs shields to shine. So scrounge up everything you can in 1st sector to buy that shield ASAP.
And the cloaking mini-game is so twitchy with the pause, I almost wished for auto-pause on enemy firing and some kind of combat log.

 

[Damned Registrations]

General note about the game: Part of the appeal is discovering uses for random shit in the various encounters. I've found uses for all sorts of crap I considered useless. The firebomb yesterday netted me some nice bonus swag.

Protip for stealth ship: sell your titanium casing. 50 scrap in sector one is a huge deal, especially for a ship with such a bad loadout. That augment, not so much.

Boarding is easy if the enemy either has no medbay (most ships early on don't, and still like 1/3 to 1/2 ships later don't) and even if they do, medbays are a lot easier to take out than weapon or shield systems. A single small bomb can destroy a medbay. Then you send over 2 mantises inside it, and it can't be repaired, while the enemy sends in guys (often 1 at a time) to try and repair it. 2 expert mantis boarders can wipe out most crews without needing to heal. The keys are to not teleport into rooms where enemies already are, and keeping the enemy weapons shut down. If they're fighting you, they can't repair or pilot the ship. It is a bit harder on average, especially if you don't have a pair of mantises, but the rewards are much better. You get a lot more fuel, constant chances at prisoners, and better loot in general. Though it's only especially noticeable on certain ships (like escaping smugglers, where blowing them up damages the cargo.)

Also, later on the fact that many ships have medbays is balanced out by the fact that they also often have teleporters- enemies beamed to your ship are easily raped, and a single bomb when they beam back and go to medbay can fuck their crew and destroy their medbay in one shot. Obviously you can substitute other weapons for bombs, bombs are just the most efficient. Boarding gets you rolling in missiles anyways. Also, late game weapon and shield systems often have like 6 or even 8 points to burn through to destroy them, and you'll have to actually deal like 10 to put them in the red after considering a crew of 3 or 4 repairing it. By comparison, wiping out a 2 point medbay and the crew is often faster.

 

[Father Walker]

Guys, I didn't follow the thread, but... Could anyone gimme a TL;DR answer whether this thing is worth playing? Does it have lots of customization?

 

[Black]

With the amount of checks (strength of weapons, what kinds of weapons, what races you have on board, what augments you have and how upgraded your ship's systems are) FTL so far is the RPGOTY 2012
Not that it has any opposition as of now but hey.

 

[J_C]

Guys, I didn't follow the thread, but... Could anyone gimme a TL;DR answer whether this thing is worth playing? Does it have lots of customization?

Yes and yes. Now go and buy the game on GoG.

 

[Gord]

So I watched some let's play vids on youtube, but I'm not completely getting the allure of this one.​

Seems all you do is repeating the same patterns all the time: Fly to a sector, get attacked, target subsystems to kill foe, move around crew a bit, sell/buy some shit, wash, rinse, repeat.​

​

Is there more to it in the long run and it's just because the guy recording the vids sucks at it and can't manage to get past the early game?​

If you summarize it like that, then yes, it sucks. If you summarize other games like that, they suck too.
Fallout? Go around doing quests, talking to npcs and shooting people in the eyes. Sell and buy stuff. Big deal!

That's why I ask what makes a good game out of it.
Obviously there's something to it, as it's the Codex' it-game of the week, I'm just interest what it is.

 

[odrzut]

So I watched some let's play vids on youtube, but I'm not completely getting the allure of this one.​

Seems all you do is repeating the same patterns all the time: Fly to a sector, get attacked, target subsystems to kill foe, move around crew a bit, sell/buy some shit, wash, rinse, repeat.​

​

Is there more to it in the long run and it's just because the guy recording the vids sucks at it and can't manage to get past the early game?​

I've watched some Lets plays of FTL on youtube, and I didn't liked it that much. It's boring to watch. But I've tried it, and it is highly addictive because of all the decisions you need to make and the randomness, and the fact it's so unforgiving.

 

[Tommers]

I made a review and stuff...

http://thebaneofqueequeg.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/faster-than-light.html

 

[kazgar]

I for example find that boarding is extremely powerfull, if risky.

Near worthless and requires lots of extra crew. You teleport to them - they rush to fight you, then move wounded to medbay, so you have to destroy medbay. If i can destroy medbay - i could already be destroying shields and weapons instead. Of course, its a different story if you have like, four mantises and a bio beam/fire bomb, but when does it ever happen ?

The boarding drone is awesome as well.

Same story, except i've never even seen it in any store. Not once.

If i wanted improvements they have to be:

Fucking hotkeys !!! What kind of idiot developer skimps on hotkeys !
Another thing is an accuracy modifier on something, like a weapons guy could give you +10 to hit. Its retarded when you fight the boss and you both keep missing for half an hour. You cant even do anything, just sit and hope something hits more than twice in a row. Pretty dumb system.

Winning a encounter by defeating the crew nets you extra resources than blowing the ship up, which helps balance out the risk a little bit.

 

[kazgar]

Just been looking around on the official forums, modders are already fixing it (or making it worse, depending on your opinion) whole bunch of overpowered weapons are available. Though there's a few good ideas happening.

 

[RK47]

I never seem to be able to capture a weapon from killing the enemy crew.
This should be patched I think. The whole ship is practically intact, it shouldn't be too hard to dismantle the weapons and grab whatever you want.

 

[odrzut]

I like to use firebombs on enemy O2 room. Extra resources + no boarding risk.

 

[RK47]

Actually that is a good approach to the 'kill crew' metagame. Fire kill people and they need people in that room to repair the life support. Since Life Support bay usually is a 2-tile room, they can't possibly repair is fast enough.

Will try that tonight, but Stealth Ship was really, really fun once you start acquiring those vital shields. Very twitchy cloak-dodge system and lots of gambits you can pull if you have the right combination of equipment. And yes, that Titanium Plating is shit and should be scrapped ASAP.

 

[tindrli]

since i boarded the enemy for the first time just cant stop boarding :D

 

[Renegen]

Finally won the game with the stealth ship. I had the beginning dual laser, a Pegasus missile launcher, a Glaive Beam and 2 Anti Ship I. This is really what you want, the dual laser, a missile and a beam weapon.

edit: I should also say I defeated all 3 phases with no repairs and only losing half my health. Glaive Beam is so op.

 

[tindrli]

shit.. im stuck with Torus (engi) cant pass sector 5.. trying whole damn day

and when i play normal mode i realize how much i like playing on easy

 

[Black]

Torus is piss easy, 1 defence drone level 2 is great, I guess 2 defence drones level 2 will make you almost invulnerable to anything but bombs and beams.

 

[Renegen]

Very next playthrough this is what happened.

Cool Type B bro. Playing with the stealth ship is nice but you never get ship events. I learned that distress signals and ship battles never yield those events, so it's time to play with other ships. Too bad I have everything unlocked for the 4 pathetic ships I own.

 

[Jaedar]

What do you mean ship events? As in events that unlock more ships?

 

[Renegen]

yeah

 

[Black]

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/09/19/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-ftl-faster-than-light/

What's next?

Matthew: One thing at a time! We have enough on our plates making sure FTL is the greatest game we can make it without worrying about future projects. FTL is a unique design that has a lot of potential to be expanded on in future content, but that's all up in the air. We'll see how FTL works out and plan accordingly from there. A vacation from working seven days a week might be nice though.

 

[Gord]

Hm, I guess that I'll wait a bit before considering to get FTL.
Depending on what this future content is going to be (and how it's going to be delivered, be it free updates or non-free DLC), either waiting out a few patches or for the inevitable complete/ultimate/gold(-pressed latinum) version might be the most sensible thing to do.