FTL: Faster Than Light

[Tpek]

I got a copy from GoG.
Already played the tutorial and a single game, unlocking the Engi ship (starts with a drone and an Ion weapon).
Also, unlocked an achivement (not using drones :P)

[jomni]

What! I played 3 games and lost and you already unlocked a ship?

[jomni]

There's a VASSAL mod for B-17QotS out.

I already played that to death.  Things get repetitive and it all boils down to luck.  Just like FTL.

[Tpek]

What! I played 3 games and lost and you already unlocked a ship?

I got 2 achievements, one for not using drones, and another for reaching the 5th sector. These I guess unlocked the new ship :)

[Nefaro]

Damn yous!

Another roguelike to purchase.  >:(

[Arctic Blast]

I played a couple of quick games. Had horrible, horrible luck...hence the quick part. Nothing like a pirate craft crippling your engines when you're too close to an unstable star. Every time a solar flare goes up, another piece of your ship starts on fire. And you can't leave fast enough. And the fire takes over. And you run out of air.

Oh, teleporting bombs are an awesome weapon.  ;D Unless the other ship has them.  >:(

[Nefaro]

Definitely had some widely varying luck in the first area over a couple plays.

The game's great, but I can see SoM's point about it getting repititive after a bit.  Doesn't seem to be a lot to the RPG-like customization side of it.  Still enough to hold interest for awhile, though.  :D

[jomni]

Even if you're "lucky" not encountering enemies for several turns.  It's actually bad because you won't earn scrap to buy fuel.   :P

[James Sterrett]

I've had this for a few weeks (there was a late beta release for backers), and have had a blast with it.  Parts are predictable, parts are not, and there turns out to be a fair amount of strategy in trying to use the repetitive (predictable!) parts to your advantage in dealing with the non-repetitive (chaotic...!) elements of chance.

After beating my head against it a bit, a normal play (on easy, as normal is bloody hard still for me) gets to the last sector and an engagement with the Big Bad, though I haven't beaten it yet.

You may a high tolerance for learning from failure and for working through similar situations repeatedly.

[Tpek]

I don't see how to beat the Big Bad boss at the end.
That ship was just so frikkin powerful.
It didn't even have a single weapons module, but one for each weapon, so you couldn't disable them.

My second playthrough I went with the Engi ship, it went terrible. I wasn't even able to reach the end boss :(

[James Sterrett]

Two tricks I'm using (read these on the forums!) --

1) Get the Transporter, and use it to beam two crew over into the Big Bad's weapons spaces, starting with the missile system (2nd from right).  Two crew can kill their one crew at the weapon, the isolated space means it can't be reinforced - and so once your crew destroy the weapon, it stays destroyed.

2) Get the Cloaking Device and use it to hide.  If you are lucky, you can get the fire-when-cloaked thingy too.

Those got me through the first of 3 (!) fights with the Big Bad.

In the second round, at least, weapons stations where you killed the crew still have no crew.

Apparently, if you kill all the crew, an AI takes over and you are screwed.

BUT next time I will try to kill all but one of the crew - not killing one of the weapons guys - in the first round, so that I can send combat teams to destroy critical items in the second round and third round.  This is likely *tricky*.

The trick is collecting enough resources to upgrade the ship enough to be able to pull that off - which brings us straight back to managing the predictability and chaos well.

Also, I think getting better at collecting resources will make it possible to fully upgrade both the shields and the engine, so with some power management I should be able to defend/dodge better.

[DennisS]

I don't see how to beat the Big Bad boss at the end.
That ship was just so frikkin powerful.
It didn't even have a single weapons module, but one for each weapon, so you couldn't disable them.

My second playthrough I went with the Engi ship, it went terrible. I wasn't even able to reach the end boss :(

OK, I have played 18 games, and kept pretty elaborate statistics. I'm a grog..of COURSE I kept elaborate statistics. ;D

My average experience is just under 1300, and 38 beacons. I have made it to the final boss four times.

The two that I won with were using the Kestrel. The first, I managed to find a drone that repaired 3-5 hull damage, useable during combat. This was the "I win" button, and I finished the game with no hull damage, at all. I repaired at LEAST 50 damage during the last boss fight. I also had two augmentations, the first gave my shields a 15% faster recharge time, and the second gave my weapons a 15% faster reload time.

I have discovered that the BEST way to win is to upgrade your shields first. If you aren't taking damage, you aren't spending scrap to repair, AND your crew, during the longer fights, gains experience and skill ups faster too.

Start slow, and stay slow. Stay JUST ahead of the rebel fleet..every beacon you hit is extra scrap, and extra experience.

The anti-personnel drone is pretty cool, and will help you stay alive when the Mantis invade your ship.

When I attack, I attack the weapons. Yes..the shield will stop some of the attack..but I want to knock the weapons offline just as fast as I can. If I have two weapons, one goes immediately against the shields, the other immediately against the weapons. If I have an ion weapon, that disrupts abilities, but fires every four seconds, then this is the one I use against the weapons. Immediate neutralization of their ability to harm you. This is a GOOD thing.

If you are offered scrap of fuel or anything else to stop attacking, take it. One more beacon down, you're safe, and you've made progress. You don't get brownie points for killing more ships. You just don't know when your weapons will take a critical hit, and catch fire. This SUCKS, 'cause the next shot may take out your O2.

[Nefaro]

It seems like that "I Win" button is the key to getting it done.  Just gotta get lucky and find some superb piece of IWin Equipment to make it noticeably easier? 

Someone also told me they got an "Ion Bomb" weapon and cruised through after that. 

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Here's a Giant Bomb Quick Look video showing typical play.  Seems like it might be fun for a while.

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-ftl/17-6584/

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Bought it from GOG yesterday.  I've unlocked my Engi ship but haven't made it past sector 5 yet.  Anyway, are the encounters always the same?  I've run across the giant spider encounter and the mad crash survior encounters 3-4 times each and the choice always ends up the same.  If I choose the interact option, the spiders eat one of my crew and the loony always puts a bomb on my ship.  Has anyone had a different result?