FTL: Faster Than Light

[Peter McCoy]

FTL: Faster Than Light

Some info on an indie game currently in development and due to be released sometime thuis summer: http://www.ftlgame.com/

A space-sim real-time rogue-like where you explore an infinite galaxy and encounter randomly-generated events from lost civilian cruisers to mercenaries for hire and even hostile pirates to engage or flee. Your resources and crew are finite, and like all good rogue-likes, your journey will ultimately end with the destruction of your ship. How long you last is up to you and the decisions you make along the way.

Do you engage the robot drones in hopes of salvaging them, or is it better not to risk it and do without the much-needed scrap for upgrading your ships systems. And upgrading them can mean the difference between death and survival in the next pirate encounter. You can upgrade your weapons systems to allow the use of more powerful or simply more weapons in combat, beef up the shields or engines, even add entirely new systems into your ship such as cloaking technology or a drone control room.

Your crew can move form room to room to repair systems, put out fires or fight off intruders. But why risk putting out a fire when you can open the airlock doors and vent the oxygen into space - just make sure your oxygen generator is operational enough to replenish what you lose.

I've only played for half an hour and I love it already. If you've ever watched Star Trek or Firefly or any other space series then you'll likely get a kick out of this charming game. It's currently in an early alpha-build only playable through OnLive and at most you can play for 30 minutes - but you can play those 30 minutes again and again and have a different experience every time. No matter how good you may be, some content appears to be locked anyway, so the time limit isn't a big deal beyond not getting to fully upgrade your systems.

Your first 30 minute session should be to play through the tutorial but after that, simple controls allow for a very enjoyable experience where the stress and challenge comes not from how to do things, but how to prioritise things in a crisis. If the weapons and shields go offline at the same time - do you focus on one at the expense of another, or divide the crews actions to tackle both simultaneously albeit neither particularly quickly.

I've had my eye on this since the beginning of the year when I saw a preview in PC Gamer and I was thrilled when I heard there was a demo available through OnLive. With plans to have more ship choices, more races and a wider range of foes to encounter as well as a large number of random encounters and equipment, this promises to be something really special.

[Peter McCoy]

After months of waiting, I've just now purchased this game from the developers and am downloading it. I've sated my appetite by watching people play the beta on Youtube but now it's my turn!

You can buy the game on Steam as of 1pm today EST, from the developer now, here: http://www.ftlgame.com/, or from GOG.com here: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/faster_than_light

[Alexia Sturkov]

It looks really interesting, but it also looks hard as balls and something that I would probably play for a day, die a lot, ragequit, and never touch again. A cool idea regardless. Tell us how you like it.

[Peter McCoy]

I love it! Only p;layed one run-through, got to the penultimate sector and died. But I unlocked another ship for reaching Sector 5! Gonna play some more tonight since I'm not in work until 11am.

[Atreyu]

Thanks for the recommendation. Just purchased and downloading now! :)

[Atreyu]

Played my first game just before - made it to the 3rd sector before I got horribly overwhelmed. :lol Nice little game. :)

[Peter McCoy]

I tend to use missiles very little since they're costly to replenish when the scrap could be put to better use. I highly recommend upgrading sensors to Level 2 ASAP so you can see what the enemy crew are up to; also knowing where they are means your attacks can damage them as well as the hull.

If you reach Sector 5 you unlock another ship so persevere and check out the Engi ship for a different playstyle if you struggle in The Kestrel. Also, unlocking the Kestrels B-type layout is quite easy if you check the achievements on the hanger screen, and the B layout is much better in my opinion thanks to the initial arment of 4 basic lasers (though only three can be powered until you upgrade your weapons system to Level 4).

[Atreyu]

Played again today. Didn't make it past Sector 2, though I did better overall than my first game (upgraded sensors and weapon systems, visited more places in each sector). Was doing really well until I ran into a trap and got boarded whilst the enemy ship proceeded to smash my ship. Killed the intruders eventually, but by then my O2 section had been destroyed and my crew suffocated before I could fix it. :lol

I love this game. New game tomorrow. :)

[Peter McCoy]

I'm trying to unlock more ships but no joy so far, but I am quite good at defeating the final boss (albeit on Easy). Once I've unlocked all the other ships and the B-Type hulls, I'll move on and try my hand at Normal. *shudder*

[Atreyu]

Finally made it to Sector 5 yesterday (have come close several times, but keep suddenly dying after a bad run-in or 2 in the 3rd or 4th sector) so was able to unlock the Engi ship. Had a play this morning (made it as far as Sector 4) - I like it, the use of an Ion cannon with a drone as an attacker is a nice change. :)

I was doing well with it but had a bad run-in with a pirate and limped through half a sector with 5% hull integrity before I got wiped out by a Rebel scout in only 2 shots. >_<

[Peter McCoy]

What are you struggling with? I assume you're playing on Easy? When I play as the Kestrel I ignore my missile launcher for the most part, saving them for the boss and/or dire circumstances where its imperative to have the additional firepower. Be on the lookout for a Repair Arm which lowers scrap accumulation by a percentage but whenever you acquire scrap, you repair some hull damage automatically. It keeps you topped up nicely. Couple it with a Scrap Recovery Arm and you can lessen the effect. I think the Repair Arm lowers scrap by 15% while the Recovery Arm increases it by 10% so for a penalty of -5% scrap you could keep your hull in good nick.

My favourite weapons are hull lasers. Multiple shots, double damage on systemless rooms, plus their impact sound effect really has a nice boom to it. I also love System Bombs, great for keeping the ship in tact while preparing for boarding actions such as taking down the medbay.

Still haven't unlocked anymore ships! Trying for the Mantis one the most so I can move onto unlocking its Type-B hull which comes with a 4-man teleport room!

[Atreyu]

I was playing on Normal initially so wasn't making it very far; since switching to Easy I've done a lot better.

Most importantly of all however is that I've finally figured out how to generate more power on my starship (it was there in plain site on the Upgrade screen, just didn't notice it) - until now I've been carrying my entire ship on the same powerload I started with which meant having to turn everything on/off all the time to power all my new-fangled weapons and other upgrades. >_<

Now that I've figured it out I've improved greatly - have made it to Sector 8 in my last 2 games and have faced the end boss once (failed miserably, but I'm getting better). :)

[Peter McCoy]

Tip for the boss: prioritise taking out the missile launcher (3rd weapon from the left) since your shields mean jack-shit against them. Then go for the lasers (2nd from left I believe) and finally Ion cannon (left-most weapon).

IMPORTANT: DO NOT KILL THE GUY MANNING THE 4th WEAPON (Beam).

By killing the first three gunners, you prevent them from repairing the weapons to bring them back online. You can then proceed to, quite safely, annihilate the rest of the crew. But again, DO NOT kill the guy manning the beam weapon. This is for 2 reasons:

1) The beam weapon cannot penetrate your shields (depends how high you have them)
2) If you kill the entire crew then an AI takes over and all systems can be repaired.

This way you keep the ship as nerfed as possible.

A System Bomb is a great weapon for taking out the weapons. I usually target the missile launcher with a system bomb, focus all my remaning firepower on the lasers, then teleport over my fighters to finish off the gunners, then carry on. Have you used the Weapon Pre-Igniter, it's so awesome!

[Atreyu]

Played it again yesterday with hilarious results:

Game #1 - crashed and burned in Sector 1 (yes, Sector ONE!) with the Kestrel - ran into 2 supernovas in a row followed by a pirate whom I kept missing whilst he happily smashed my ship up. Worst playthrough yet. :lol

Game #2 - started off ok (with the Kestrel again), but in Sector 3 I ended up in a situation where over 1/2 my ship was on fire and all my crew were near death. I managed to get them to repair the blast door controls then hide them right up the front of the ship, then proceeded to open all doors to the vacuum of space and put the fire out. It worked (just) but left me with only 5% hull remaining. Impressively I managed to limp through right up to Sector 7 despite never being able to fully repair and only having basic weapons.

[Peter McCoy]

Well I've had some success! I unlocked the Rockman ship last night :) Not played as it yet but looking forward to it. Managed to beat the game using the Stealth Ship with about 2 hull remaining as well!

[Korax]

Sector 5 seems to be the point of no passage for me, bad stuff just happens yo.

[Guy Gardner]

I get routinely destroyed in this game, and constantly get boarded. I like that it's challenging, I hate that it can suddenly wheel about and kick you in the teeth with no warning, though.

After hours of frustration, I'm done with FTL for at least a month.

[Peter McCoy]

Is anybody still playing this?

I've decided to reinstall this game and was pleasantly surprised to see quite a lot of new content. The devs have added new races as well as new ships (a new racial ship as well as a Type-C hull configuration for most of the existing ones.) And there's new weapons and equipment too! I'm loving these new 'charged' weapons - basically they can charge up multiple times, allowing for a more intense barrage of firepower. I've seen a laser that takes 6 seconds to charge up and can charge up twice - so you can either shoot once every 6 seconds or twice every 12 seconds - handy for penetrating shields.

But the most awesome new thing I've encountered so far is the Swarm Missile Launcher - again it's a charged weapon so every 7 seconds it charges - up to a maximum of three charges, So you can fire one, two or even three missiles at once depending on how long you let it charge for. And the great thing about this weapon is that it "replicated" warheads, so whether you unleash a single, duo or trio of shots it only uses one of your missiles. So potentially whatever your missile count is, you effectively have up to triple that if you can wait for the charges.