FTL - Faster Than Light

[ungoliant]

Not just Steam owners - everyone gets the FTL: Advanced edition regardless of where they bought it (Steam, GOG, Humble Store).

Thx for that update, I was about to blow a gasket with my GOG version in a full-on forum nerd-rage. *sigh* and i just dug into my CCNA studies, too, but now that I know this exists, everything is going to take a backseat to FTL for a couple days. *draws shades, closes doors, turns off phone*

 

edit: oh my shit, all the ships have a type C layout. This is going to be a long night. Any clues on how to unlock them? achievements doesn't seem to give any hints. There .. is... a HARD mode?!!!!??? are you KIDDING ME!?! RNGeesus, my body is ready, take me.

 

edit: boarder events have rewards! yes!!!!

 

edit: beam weapon interface vastly improved. all rooms associated with a 'hit' now get a yellow border around them. much easier to maximize damage around those tight corners.

 

edit: zoltan benefits just got a big boost. sensors, doors, any systems with a white outline and a face above it can be upgraded to the next tier up for FREE just for being powered by a zoltan. Pesky mantis boarders on your lv2 door ship going to ruin your day? run a zoltan to your door systems for a free door upgrade during the fight!

Edited May 7, 2014 by ungoliant

[ungoliant]

So I'm doing a hard mode run on my first advanced edition attempt. zoltan type b. Advanced is really opening up the gameplay. I bought a battery backup and upgraded it. Along with the zoltan natural system-powerup advantage, the upgraded battery backup gives you an absolutely obscene advantage in nebula sectors. I'm hitting up every nebula in the system on my way to sector 8. Currently in sector 4, taken a grand total of 10 hull damage, all currently repaired.

 

Also, Breach type 2 bombs fucking rule. that is all.

[Diego]

I played a couple of times the advanced edition but I couldn't get into it again, like I did the first time. I think I played the original too much

 

edit: I don't mean that it's worse now! I'm just burnt out of playing FTL

Edited May 7, 2014 by Diego

[ungoliant]

feels like a whole new ballgame to me. Not sure if hard-mode is required, but I definitely just unlocked Zoltan Type C just by reaching sector 8.

[At0mic]

all the ships have a type C layout. This is going to be a long night. Any clues on how to unlock them?

Type C layouts are unlocked by completing the game on the Type B of a particular ship. Which means you need to have unlocked Type B first before you have the opportunity to get Type C. Fortunately the game now indicates in the ships list which ships have completed the game on their specific layouts.

 

I will also never, EVER play on the Hard skill level. FTL is hard enough on Easy and masochistic on Normal. Why would I pay money for a game that just stresses me out by playing on Hard? Feeling like you're a shit gamer after playing FTL is not a nice experience, and Hard will just make it worse.

 

Also, a lesson in trying for achievements. I tried FTL again yesterday with a wiped profile because I wanted the joy of starting from scratch Was going really well in the Kestrel and I wanted to get that ship achievement where you repair fully after hitting 1 HP on your hull. I got into a combat situation near a shop so I dropped my shields so the enemy lasers could whittle down my hull, and had a defense drone to deal with missles. Got to 2 HP... and then an enemy missle managed to bypass my defense drone. Boom.

 

This was one of those cases where I felt like I deserved that death for doing something so risky, but at the same time, in most other games I'd have quickloaded after the incident. Risk-taking isn't rewarded in FTL.

Edited May 8, 2014 by At0mic

[ungoliant]

I'm fairly sure that difficulty has been mitigated in Advanced Edition. There a lot of factors in favor of the player now. Boarding events now have rewards. In my first playthrough, in 2 of 4 boarding events i experienced, I got a weapon plus other stuff for my troubles. Exit nodes are now rampant with new events to get scrap.

It seems like in all sectors, there is much less barren space-wasteland that burns up fuel and gives you no scrap. Those empty events are much fewer and farther in between. Shops now have 2 pages of stuff. Its like getting 2 shops for every 1 shop, but its better than that, because the product types are always different on each page. You'll find what you want to buy with a MUCH higher frequency per shop visit.

 

Sectors 6&7 have much higher scrap rewards than previously, even in hard mode. If you were broke in the first half of the game, you'll be swimming in scrap by the end as long as your completing the events and not tucking tail and running, or burning through 10 hull points per event. Trick is to find the shops to spend it all before sector 8.

 

Pretty much, I made it to sector 8 in one playthrough on zoltan type B in Hard Difficulty, which should be absolutely freakin impossible if Hard was harder than vanilla "Normal" mode. In one try. And take my word for it, the Zoltan ships are usually only good for crushing sectors 1&2, and then get mercilessly fucked in the mid to late game unless you roll super lucky in shops and are flush with scrap. I was completely surprised i made it past sector 3. The RNG game mechanics have been revamped for fairness, there is no doubt about it.

[Sotha]

I don't think the game has become easier. Sure, there is a lot of beneficial events, but there are bad ones, too. And the new systems make combat more unpredictable. More moving parts. Bad luck causes a lot more damage to you, but you mitigate bad luck disaster into a small setback with experience.

 

Still, like you said, it is like a completely new game. When I first started the original, I doubted if I ever make it to victory, but I did once I was experienced enough. Now I just gotta learn the ins and outs of the new systems.

[ungoliant]

the new systems make combat more unpredictable. More moving parts.

Now I just gotta learn the ins and outs of the new systems.

It's only more unpredictable until you learn it, and then it becomes more 'exploitable'.

 

Finished up Zoltan b&c runs to sector 8 hard mode. Made it to Final Form with C, but got stomped on. Pretty sure I have a good grasp on battery backups. I'm going to start a mantis career now, leaning towards mind control + hacking + teleporter. Could be freaky overpowered if utilized correctly.

 

Just learned this from the final boss doing this to me. apparently hacking a drone system can destroy the drones it controls. I doubt the computer cares much if you do that to it, with its infinite supply, but it sure makes hacking systems higher fire priority if you use a drone build.

[ungoliant]

In case you were wondering what the hacking system is all about: http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Hacking

• Weapons: Power down all weapons on the affected ship, and give charge status like a full sensor subsystem.
  
• Shields: Slowly discharges shields, taking ~1.5s to discharge each level of shielding.
  
• Bridge or Engines: Reduces the affected ship's evasion to zero and stops FTL charging.
  
• Oxygen: Depletes oxygen on the ship at the same rate as if the system had no power or was destroyed.
  
• Medbay: Damages crew instead of healing them.
  
• Clone Bay: Shut down the cloning bay, killing potential clones permanently.
  
• Drone Control: Deactivate enemy drones, with a chance of destroying them.
  
• Hacking: Disable enemy hacking modules, potentially destroying them. The enemy can launch a new module when the system goes back online, if they have the parts.
  
• Mind Control: Disable enemy mind control and mind controls one of the enemy crew at random.
  
• Teleporter: Enemy boarders are returned to their ship. Mind controlled enemy on your ship are not treated as enemy boarders.
  
• Doors: Turn all enemy doors into friendly blast doors, effectively locking all enemy crew in their current rooms.
  
• Battery: Disable bonus energy and drain two more energy bars.
  
• Cloaking: Disable cloaking and decloak ship.
  

Some of these are very good. In particularly I had skimmed over the "doors" section before without a second thought, but I'm pretty sure for a boarding party build, this is exactly what you want to aim for. The ability to isolate individual crew for killing, stopping them from medbay retreats, and/or prevent them from repairing damaged systems or getting to fires or breaches in a timely fashion.

Edited May 8, 2014 by ungoliant

[Sotha]

Hacked medibay is.... Murder.

 

I lost some crewmen to that. Was healing them, saw the hacking droid coming and ZZZZzap. Dead. Nasty.

[Sotha]

This... this...

 

I had everything right, and even luck was on my side. But still I died. The level of difficulty...Wow!

 

I took Kestrel for a ride again. It was a breeze. I had fully working weapon setup: artemis + 3 shot laser + 3 shot laser + chargeable missile launcher up to 3 missiles. Max shields. Mind control (level 1). Hacking (level 1).

 

Mind control is NOT a nuisance. It is evil. You mind control the enemy crewman in the shields room. Everyone of the enemy crew goes into combat there. Charge all weapons and blast them into the shields room in a single volley (slow missiles first, of course). You can get intact ships that way as everyone of them dies in the onslaught. If they live, they will be crouching mortally wounded in the medibay so shoot the next volley there. Hah! Serves them rebel scum right!

 

Or you could first load your weapons to full capacity. Then mind control the man in the cockpit. Enemy ship evasion is zero until a crewman runs to fight with his friend. A nice window for a guaranteed 100% hit salvo. You may fire when ready!

 

I got so nice setup I was sure I was gonna win. Got into the end fight. First step was easy as always. Baddie did not break through my shields. High evasion, no hits from missiles. I mind controlled the man in the shield room and battered the fighting crewmen with full force. Shields died and then it was cherry picking, dropping the systems in the order I wanted.

 

Next encounter. The droid one. I got somewhat destabilized by the boarding drones, because I only had 4 crewmen. I hacked the droid room immediately and then fried the shields again with my mind control + volley trick. Enemy defence droids were useless as I had Droid Scrambler augmentation. All my missiles went through them and I could shoot 4 missile salvos with 2 missile cost. I won, but took some damage in the fight. I even was lucky enough to have a STORE right next to me so I went there and repaired.

 

On the original FTL the 3rd fight was always easier than the others. I was convinced I will win. It was about unwrapping my prize. I repaired to 100% and went on to the final phase. I went for the kill.

 

Teleporter, eh? Ooh, scary. Hehe!

 

Suddenly my ship was full of enemy boarders. Maybe 5. Too many. I think all the enemy crew boarded my ship. I had my mind control so I subverted one for my cause. The boarding combat was long and the micromanagement distracted me very badly. I lost sensors as multiple volleys of rockets hit me. Probably because I had to take my engine crewman to the fight. After the boarding was over, I noticed that cockpit was red. Bad luck: a missile hit there. Took some more hits as evasion was zero. Fixed cockpit and went on to fix shields....

 

Shield room had 4 tiles of fire. Door control station was destroyed.

 

Fuck. I died. I suppose one should VENT the whole fricking ship before you go to the third phase. Or one should have a big & sturdy crew.

 

*Waves fist* Next time!

[ungoliant]

Fuck. I died. I suppose one should VENT the whole fricking ship before you go to the third phase. Or one should have a big & sturdy crew.

There are certain ships that I keep many rooms vented at all times. I guess in Advanced this applies particularly if you pick up a Lanius crew member. You can repair and fight even in the vacuum. For all ships though, I'm quite convinced that Cloaking is almost a near necessity for ultimate victory in phase 2&3 of the final boss, unless you are prepared with some serious burst damage, like hacking pilot system, double flak II's, and a weapon preigniter.

 

also, I've had 3 good deep runs completely crushed by double lanius boarders now. Really starting to hate those fuckers. Starting to see value in cloning facility

Edited May 9, 2014 by ungoliant

[At0mic]

Dying, yes. It's what I play games for. To feel pain.

 

Despite that I still keep playing though. There's something about FTL that keep me coming back. Perhaps I'm a masochist?

[Sotha]

I'd say it is like this:

 

Victory means something only if there is a significant risk of losing.

 

If the game just let's you win, what is the point?

[simplen00b]

Bought this a year and cannot cannot cannot get into it. My brain just isn't configured to view doing that level of micro-management as a 'game'.

 

However, to go slightly off-topic for a moment (but still on the subject of difficult games): everything I heard about Dark Souls made it sound like a complete no-no for me, but I've started watching a Dark Souls run on Twenty Sided, and gotta say, if I found a Steam key going for about £5, I'd be tempted to give it a try. I'd probably suck at it big time, but it doesn't half look amazing.

If the game just lets you win, what is the point?

To make money for the AAA-game industry?

[At0mic]

I'd say it is like this:

 

Victory means something only if there is a significant risk of losing.

 

If the game just let's you win, what is the point?

Well, if you follow modern mainstream gaming trends it would seem that for the majority of cases (Dark Souls excluded) it's more about the "experience" rather than the challenge. People want to be immersed in some sort of world and feel like a badass, and you can't be a badass if you die too easily. That, and making games more accessible for a larger crowd.

 

The difficulty level of FTL is also not particularly linear. Most games will gradually ramp up the difficulty level because you'll learn the mechanics and have better strategies and tools for dealing with obstacles. FTL and most other rogue-likes just goes all over the place because rarely is anything actually planned in terms of enemy progression. Sometimes you just get a shit roll of the dice, and no-one enjoys losing due to randomness. With something like The Dark Mod, it's challenging but things follow well-understood mechanics that can be learnt and adapted too. Rarely is anything totally random that you end up hating the game for it.

 

Simply put - losing because you made a bad decision is fine. Losing because the game's random decision making basically forced you into an impossible situation is not fine. I know it's the style of rogue-likes but I'm having a hard time getting used to it.

Edited May 10, 2014 by At0mic

[ungoliant]

Losing because the game's random decision making basically forced you into an impossible situation is not fine. I know it's the style of rogue-likes but I'm having a hard time getting used to it.

Well do yourself a favor and don't play MTG or Poker. Beating the RNG in games like these is a lot about game theory and finding ways to maximize winning decisions, and trying to avoid high variance plays when possible. But there is never a way to just choose correctly and always win. Gambling is part of the game. You just make sure that, like the House in Vegas, you keep the odds in your favor, and you'll win the majority of the time.

[At0mic]

<nevermind - ranting>

 

Let's just say that I feel FTL is not as much fun anymore after all the new stuff the advanced edition put it. It's too much to master, and if I'm going to have to master so many details I'd rather use the brain power to do better with actually important things in life.

Edited May 10, 2014 by At0mic

[Sotha]

The difficulty level of FTL is also not particularly linear. Most games will gradually ramp up the difficulty level because you'll learn the mechanics and have better strategies and tools for dealing with obstacles. FTL and most other rogue-likes just goes all over the place because rarely is anything actually planned in terms of enemy progression. Sometimes you just get a shit roll of the dice, and no-one enjoys losing due to randomness. With something like The Dark Mod, it's challenging but things follow well-understood mechanics that can be learnt and adapted too. Rarely is anything totally random that you end up hating the game for it.

 

Simply put - losing because you made a bad decision is fine. Losing because the game's random decision making basically forced you into an impossible situation is not fine. I know it's the style of rogue-likes but I'm having a hard time getting used to it.

 

I actually see a linear difficulty curve in FTL. The enemy ships in initial sectors are really easy to win. They only have 1 shield and almost all shots seem to hit. The difficulty progresses towards higher sectors. So does the scrap rewards.

 

I love it, because the balance is very well crafted. You have a soft appetizer in the beginning to get into the mood and then comes the hard battles, followed by the desperate end boss battle.

 

<nevermind - ranting>

 

Let's just say that I feel FTL is not as much fun anymore after all the new stuff the advanced edition put it. It's too much to master, and if I'm going to have to master so many details I'd rather use the brain power to do better with actually important things in life.

 

This is perfectly fine. Luckily you can still play without Adv Ed content. For me, there is no going back because I love the new stuff.

 

I remember how hard original FTL was when I first played it. Took me many games to reach only the end battle. Now I can make it to the end immediately, and I am pretty confident that with some experience victory will come. One just needs to build a ship with the proper systems that can deal with each facet of the end battle.

 

In my last game, it was clear that I omitted the boarding counteractions. Died because of that.

 

Well do yourself a favor and don't play MTG or Poker. Beating the RNG in games like these is a lot about game theory and finding ways to maximize winning decisions, and trying to avoid high variance plays when possible. But there is never a way to just choose correctly and always win. Gambling is part of the game. You just make sure that, like the House in Vegas, you keep the odds in your favor, and you'll win the majority of the time.

 

I agree with this. It is not about losing due to bad RNG. It is the player's responsibility to do all the Correct Actions to turn the odds to his favor. In every FTL game I have lost, I have always been able to trace back to the error that caused me to spin off towards my doom. It is a player mistake, and you really cannot blame RNG. Blaming RNG is protecting your ego, surely you see that? Player loses because the player wasn't careful and did something foolish. A good player is prepared for whatever the RNG throws at you!

 

You must explore as much as you can to get as much scrap as possible. You must optimize your ship build with the maximal scrap at your disposal. If shit hits the fan, you can still escape before you take too much damage. That is my usual mistake: I am compelled to fight to the bitter end even if the situation looks too bad. Then I want to escape when too much damage has been already done. Knowing when you are over your head and must escape is one of the most important skills in a roguelike. Discretion is the better side of valor.

 

That is the charm of roguelikes, I suppose. You really need skill to win in the long run. You might get lucky and survive an impossible situation, but in order to really survive in the long run, you need to Right Things At The Right Time. It is an interesting challenge, because roguelikes have so many moving parts.

 

When winning is difficult, it feels awesome when you occasionally get a bite of that delicious cake.