FTL: Faster Than Light is pretty awesome

[RedMattis]

I've played four hours of this game, unlocked one ship, and my conclusion is that this game is full of shit. I've never played a game that feels more unfair in my life, never. There is no strategy or skill involved, it's all luck. The ships system and crew system are really awesome. I like that you can put out fires by exposing the room to space. There is no way to beat this game without a huge amount of luck. All necessary items are scarce and random, all of the encounters are random, all of the navigation is timed to a certain number of turns before you face certain death.

There is no way to get better at the game because your success is 100% dependent on ridiculous random events. The random events are beyond bullshit also. In at least one third of all of the combat events in the game the enemies are beyond suicidal. What fucking sense does it make for a squad of npcs to board my ship in the middle of goddamned supernova when they don't have a ship to return to and immediately destroy the shields and life support systems? This game just trolls, hard, on purpose, and I paid for it.

Then you're doing something wrong. I get to the boss every third time on average and beat him half of the time. Also, having learned more and more effective tactics my overall success rate keeps going up.

Stop using your weapons on auto-fire, consider what sort of defence you will us to counter your opponents weapon, and try to buy stuff that actually compliments your other equipment etc.

Here are a few great weapon combinations:
¤ Beam/beam drone + as much EMP as possible (disable shields then disable & cut them to pieces)
¤ Heal-bomb + Boarding party (kill their crew)
¤ System destroyer bomb/missile + Lasers (kill shields and pound them to pieces)
¤ 1x EMP + Burst Lasers (stop shield from recharging, and pound the shield followed by their systems)

Try to create a combination which will work even if the enemy dodges half the projectiles.

Defensively:
¤ Hurry up and get reinforced doors if you lack a combat capable crew.
¤ Cloak fantastic and a decent replacement for missile defence drones.
¤ Unless you're a flying fortress, get some upgraded engines. Quicker escape is critical, and you probably won't survive without the (~45%) dodge later.
¤ Defence drones are great vs. missiles. Overall drones are pretty great actually. Use them!

General:
¤ You don't need to be able to power everything. Instead try to have a counter to most types of encounters (even if the counter is a swift escape)

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

God damn the final boss is hard. I though I had him on my last playthrough with a fully kitted out ship with over 50 missiles to spare and plenty of drone parts. But I time a cloak wrong and got a few damaged systems and with only two crew members once the systems started going down it was only a matter of time. I'm still too scared to try normal mode again.

I've found that an Engi ship with two Ion blast and a beam drone is pretty unstoppable. The ion blast take 4 seconds to charge so 2 of them can quickly take down even high level shields. Then once the shield is down re-target one of the ion blasts at the weapon system and release the beam drone. Now just watch as the enemy ship is cut up by the drone without being able to fire back. I managed to get to sector 8 without using any missiles or needing to pay to have my ship repaired using this strategy.

For boarding parties I find it's best to upgrade your doors as soon as possible and leave all unmanned rooms opened so they have no oxygen in them, that way enemy boarding parties take damage the minute they come on board. This works well in tandem with an anti personnel drone as they don't need oxygen and thus can be used to keep the enemy busy in a room without any air in it. Of course the risk is if you take damage in an area that you've flushed out the oxygen, repairing it in the middle of a battle can be risky. I've lost many crew because I got distracted quickly finishing off a ship, not realising my repairman has suffocated.

 

[Dansen]

I really like the game, but I think it could be improved a lot by implementing fleet battles.

 

[Rose and Thorn]

I haven't gotten past sector 6, but I am loving this game to death and I refuse to play on normal, before anyone suggests it. I like the challenge!

I got it the day it came out. I am usually in the gaming loop because of people like Total Biscuit and others.

 

[TrevHead]

I've been playing this game non stop the whole weekend, great game.

I've been trying to avoid spoilers as i'm trying to beat the game on normal. Made it to the final boss last night.

Spoiler

The only tip I used was that someone suggested not using power 4 weapons due to the fact they were difficult to keep fully charged.

This spelled my doom when met the final boss when I couldn't get its level shield down with a lv1 bomb, lv 2 ion cannon and level 2 and 3 lasers. Monty Python's big foot of death would decribe the encounter better lol.

Iv'e just unlocked the Orange Falcon, i'll see if it makes the game easier for the endgame.

 

[Laughing Man]

In fact, has anyone tried focusing down the O2 system with Ion Cannons? Since they go through shields, it wouldn't matter how tough the enemy ship is, you could theoretically choke everyone onboard as long as you can defend yourself long enoug

Doesn't work, the Ion Cannon doesn't appear enough for you to equip enough of them on the ship to take out the O2 for a long enough period to suffocate the crew. By the time the Ion cannon comes back on line the O2 has reset and topped the Oxygen level back up a bit, in the early game you may be able to last long enough to hold out but in the late game you'll get tanked long before it has any effect.

I go for as many lasers as I can, each round removes one point of shield with late game ships having 4 shields having enough fire power to punch through and damage the shield is good. I also keep a breach weapon on stand by as well as an anti bio beam.

Use the breach to hit the shields, tank the shields with as many lasers as you can once the shields are down hit the crew with the anti bio beam, while using the breech. It cause loads of damage causes hull damage and contributes to killing the crew. You get loads more scrap, and have a higher chance of finding new crew mates as well as tech on ships with no crew than if you destroy them.

 

[NardBasket]

I love this game so much! And you're right, it's all the more fun when you give your crew verbal commands I've never played a more fun space captain simulator

 

[Zantos]

I really like it, even if it's so damn frustrating! It's still fairly popular amongst my friends and I to name your crew after people and post the story of your inevitable, heroic (or not so) deaths to facebook. I imagine by this point it's satisfying if you actually win.

I particularly like opening up airlocks for fires, intruders, fun...