FTL: Faster Than Light is pretty awesome

[chozo_hybrid]

Great game. I finished it not one hour ago for the first time, with only three crew members. I was pretty impressed. A word of advice: Cloaking devices are really useful against the final boss, as you can just activate it as soon as he launches his missiles (which I found to be one of the biggest problems, especially as I didn't have the manpower to repair everything once it was hit) and they'll all miss.

Also, I find the best way to repel boarding parties is just to get improved blast doors and then drain their oxygen, waiting them out until they reach the med bay, where your crew can fight the enemy (once already weakened). I've noticed that if the enemy is suffocating, they usually go for the nearest door rather tham the system in the room that they occupy, so if you can drain the oxygen fast enough, you won't have to worry too much about keeping your life support alive.

Just thought I'd give my thoughts and advice. My congratulations to the devs.

How long is the game in general, give me a ball park figure if you can?

That's a difficult question. I see that you've now bought it, but for the benefit of others I will answer the question anyway:

It really depends on how good you are at it, and also on how lucky you are. One playthrough, from finish to end, can take as short an amount of time as oe or two hours, but the fact of the matter is that you have to play it many times to be both skilled enough and lucky enough to win. And even after that, there is a bunch of ships to unlock, and extra ship layouts to unlock, too, neither of which are easy.

After playing, I see what you mean. I have one question though, as I haven't died after my two hours last night, is the galaxy maps etc random generated each play through as well?

Yeah. If you could somehow record what you found at certain places and then apply the knowledge to future playthroughs, it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining or as replayable. Of course, the number of events where you have to make choices is somewhat limited (as are the outcomes, at times), but the game mainly prides itself on the combat, which is very varied (as you know), especially with the environmental hazards, like solar flares, asteroid fields, etc.

Awesome, that's the cherry on top for me! Thanks for the information, this is my first rogue-like game and I am enjoying it so far. I am playing on Easy just to get the hang of the game and its mechanics.

 

[Piorn]

On my first round, I found a crashed Engi on a planet and took him into my crew. A few systems later, everyone died in a Mantis attack, and only he survived by fleeing into the medbay. By then, the athmosphere was completely gone, the door controls were offline, and all that was keeping him alive was the constant healing from the medical equipment.
That was so sad.

 

[Frankster]

Got curious enough to check it out from this thread, liked premise, saw it was on gog, bought it, played tutorial and loved it when i realized i could move the crew around, played "easy" game, got caught by rebels in 3rd system and killed. Came back to post on relevant thread and now playing again.

This was a kickstarter game? Nice, powa to the people and all that.

 

[Quaidis]

This is going to sound crazy, but in my half-dreaming state, I looked at the title and read, "FTL: Fatter Than Light is pretty awesome" and thought something completely different to the game that was represented in the first post.

First bizarr idea went towards some new silly diet or scientific breakthrough.

Then I thought that FTL was some new weird tele show. And hey, if you like Fatter than Light, that's okay. I may even check out that.



Now that I know it's a game, and not called FTL: Fatter than Light, I'll go check it out. But, you know, who wouldn't want to play a game called that? The possibilities are endless!

 

[Soopy]

So what ships have everyone unlocked? On my first playthrough I unlocked the Engi, square donut ship. Got to say, it's annoying to play because of the fast reloading Ion guns that ties up your clicking from other micromanagement. I really want one of those ships from the race that powers stations they are manning. Zoltan maybe? Dunno the name, but I want it. So I'm only going through their sectors now.

Got to play MORE!

I would love to play it, but they have some funky resolution issues going on. The game doesn't fit my screen right...

I'm on a 16:10 screen (1920x1200) and it's perfect in aspect. Which means the developer made an oops because 16:9 is the far more common screen aspect these days. The developer who did the brunt of the work probably has a 16:10.

either way, its freaking annoying. Game isn't playable.

 

[PiCroft]

I got the Mantis ship, the big red one you get for capturing that kakliak-whatever space thief guy.

It's okay but the biggest WTF with it is it has no sensors whatsoever, but starts with a teleporter.

TBH I would prefer sensors

 

[Soopy]

Eh, there is a bunch of people with the same problem. Seems like a fairly silly thing to mess up.

 

[Soopy]

There really needs to be a way to prevent intruders from boarding the ship, because the instant they do, it's Game Over. Kinda ridiculous.

You can, upgrade the doors and the open the airlocks to eject them. You can also send all your crew to the medi-bay and open all the doors except the medibay.

 

[PiCroft]

Opening airlocks doesn't eject enemies, but it does drain your ship of oxygen and can asphyxiate intruders if you open doors between them and your airlock(s). You just have to pray your O2 unit doesn't get destroyed or the areas drained of oxygen will be uninhabitable until you can get someone through the depressurized areas to the O2 unit to repair it.

 

[Magicduck]

Awesome game, my only complaint is I'm not really a fan of the basic visuals. Sure they're retro and everything but the cynical side of me thinks its them being lazy by creating basic visuals. But anyway, there is absolutely nothing worse then getting a boarding party early on in the game when you've only got basic doors, pretty much instant death (especially if they're the insect people haha).

 

[Ziame]

The game is fun - played at a friend's - but I refuse to buy it till they add softcore mode. I fear that this one 'feature' will lead to it's ultimate downfall.


As to features I'd like to see - I'd love some kind of crew EQ (blasters, armors whatever) and definitely bigger games... 8 systems is pretty short, and then it kinda ends :<

 

[Tropicaz]

Picked this game up yesterday and my god it's tricky. SO far my biggest problem is fires, my guys cant put them out quickly enough to stop them spreading. My poor crew has burnt to death about 15 times now. Really enjoying it though

 

[Erttheking]

Bought it, and it's pretty fun...hard as Hell (only managed to get to sector 8 once, and it was on easy), but pretty fun

 

[PiCroft]

I think if you get boarded, its really a crapshoot since if you don't at least have lvl2 doors by that point, they can just waltz all over your ship. This also heavily depends on the number of crew you have since if you're stuck with 3 crew with poor attack skill, there's little you can do but pray.

I usually concentrate fire on enemy weapons during boarding so at least I can stop worrying about taking additional hull damage, then take every crew member who isn't either in engineering or the bridge (so my drives continue to charge for a jump in case everything goes sideways) and mob rush the enemy boarders.

I also usually sequentially depressurize compartments that boarders are in to wear down the health to make them easier to beat.

 

[sora91111]

Yea I saw the wtf is... and knew I wanted it, I have yet to purchase it though. I will probably get it sometime this week hopefully

 

[latiasracer]

I love it, And also it was no.10 on the top played steam games yesterday, Which isn't bad for an indie title.