FTL: Faster Than Light - Advanced Edition

[Ulminati]

If someone has made something and they have 100k fans who are willing to give then $10 a piece, then good for them I say. The Internet has made this possible, why should it not be done? People like to support those who make things they enjoy, and this is a way to do that effectively.

I suppose, but look at Dwarf Fortress. Free. donation supported. No OnLive nonsense.

I'm pretty sure if DF did a kickstarter for a GUI they could rake in $½mil easy

 

[asper]

If someone has made something and they have 100k fans who are willing to give then $10 a piece, then good for them I say. The Internet has made this possible, why should it not be done? People like to support those who make things they enjoy, and this is a way to do that effectively.

I suppose, but look at Dwarf Fortress. Free. donation supported. No OnLive nonsense.

Excatly. Before all this Kickstarter hype, there already were games funded and supported by fans. Wolfire games' Overgrowth is another one.

 

[Crooked Bee]

For those of you interested in the game, we've done an interview with the FTL team:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8133

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Cool beans. Threw money at 'em and looking forward to it.

 

[Regvard]

Though actually buying one of the books strikes me as pretty ugh. Webcomics turned print get turned to greyscale, which can make them pretty awful and certainly isn't an improvement in any way. Waste of paper and shipping fees.

A friend of mine bought all of the books so far. They're actually pretty nice. Glossy paper of decent quality, full colour, some bonus strips and additional comments from Rich. While 99% of what's in the books is already available for free through his site, the books themselves are by no means a shoddy product.

He should have bought an Ipad. Save some trees and space. Print is pretty much obsolete now. Except for engineering textbooks, those are awful on tablets.

 

[Ulminati]

iFag detected

 

[Grunker]

DISCLAIMER: I'm sorry if I missed a running thread on this topic - you can't search for FTL in the search engine.

Around 00:00 I think, I was playing some HoMMV, getting ready to go to bed. Then Ulminati wrote on Steam that one of his crew members in FTL just died. One thing led to another and the champ ended up giving me one of his keys for the game.

Then suddenly it was 6AM.

God damn this game is addicting. The mechanics, though simple and hardly extreme innovative, are just well done. There's always something interesting to find in the next star system. You quickly get that "just... one... more... system..." feeling going on.

I'm not normally one for roguelikes but I enjoyed this game very much.

One tiny dislike I had was that sometimes dying felt random. I died a lot because of my own stupidity, but once in a while I would have this pimped out ship and good crew, run into a couple of ships in a row, get low on Hull health, and be fucked. My next eventful jump could have one of two outcomes: A chance to repair the hull, or certain death, even versus far inferior ships. Maybe I just suck and should invest in a better engine so I could escape quicker, I guess.

Besides that, I really enjoyed the game, but I have a question: Does anyone know whether the final game will have significantly more content and customization, or is what we're seeing now basically the final product?

In any case, they're definetely getting my jewgold.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

My thoughts on FTL:

HNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH GOD DAMN WHEN ARE THEY GONNA RELEASE IT SO I GET MY KEY WHY DIDN'T I KICKSTART ENOUGH FOR BETA ACCESS HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH SPACE SHIPS

Out of curiosity, have you played Binding of Isaac? Would you compare it to that for vaguely roguelike-ish games where you'll die early and often but occasionally get ridiculous luck and then stomp the game?

And as far as I'm aware the game has supposedly about as much content as it's going to have at release. I'm not sure if they're going to keep adding free content past that point (Or paid DLC) but a few things I read from 'em semi-recently made it sound like they're probably content complete. Since they were aiming for $10,000 from Kickstarter and ended up with $200,000 I'm hoping for more stuff added to the game past launch, but I dunno.

 

[Grunker]

Out of curiosity, have you played Binding of Isaac

Yep, but only a bit. Wasn't my kind of game. Wasn't really anything similar between the two games as far as I could tell, except the random room-thingy.

but occasionally get ridiculous luck and then stomp the game?

So far, no. You'd have to be ridicously lucky and get many good events many times in a row. A single event isn't by itself that game-changing, it's the way the stack.

they're probably content complete

A shame. Although it is pretty stocked with events, there is a bit of a lack of variety in some other cases. Plus the sheer potential here really calls for eternal expansion. If ever there was a game where a monthly fee for extra content patches each month could be defended.

So hopefully they'll keep adding content.

 

[Destroid]

Don't worry, modders will fix it

 

[asper]

Great game, FTL, but the normal difficulty makes the game extremely random. Without the perfect sequence in the first two sectors you have no chance of reaching the boss. I have only once reached the boss and I play exclusively on normal. Also, things get very hectic when you use teleporters, my reflexes and micro aren't so sharp anymore...

Hard game!

 

[Grunker]

I just had a run where I could probably have made it very far if I had had the resources. Got a very early defense drone mark II which basically made my ship invulnerable at the early stages, but I got almost no drone parts or fuel, so I had no way to use that shit. Ultimately died quite early, sadly.

 

[asper]

I've been trying this tactic:

- All scrap collected at beginning is for getting the teleporter ASAP
- all other scap goes to upgrading shields

Of course you maximize the amount of nodes visited per sector, never spend srap to hire crew, and never agree to surrender terms.

It's been quite succesful, the teleporter is quite strong (when you send over rockmen and mantis). The one time I got to the boss on normal was not with this tactic though, and I didnt even have cloak. I managed to get to the third stage, at which point I was not able to hurt him. A teleporter would have made the difference

 

[Ulminati]

One tiny dislike I had was that sometimes dying felt random. I died a lot because of my own stupidity, but once in a while I would have this pimped out ship and good crew, run into a couple of ships in a row, get low on Hull health, and be fucked. My next eventful jump could have one of two outcomes: A chance to repair the hull, or certain death, even versus far inferior ships. Maybe I just suck and should invest in a better engine so I could escape quicker, I guess.

Well, the randomness is part of its allure. Like slot machines. :D

Besides that, I really enjoyed the game, but I have a question: Does anyone know whether the final game will have significantly more content and customization, or is what we're seeing now basically the final product?

There's a bunch of different ships you can earn (8 atm, 1 more incoming, possibly more after that) and there's going to be alternate layouts for the ships as well. The devs claimed the game was more or less complete back when I wrote the codex preview, but there's been a lot of new events and augments added since then. You can expect a bit more of the same since the game is pretty close to release but new mechanics are firmly in post-release territory.

The key to enjoying FTL is not to take beating sector 8 as having finished the game. There's a bunch of different ships you can hunt for and they all play quite differently. For instance, the Torus ship is probably the first one you'll unlock. It starts out with a drone system but can only carry a limited amount of weapons. And of course there's always the scoreboard at the end too.

In any case, they're definetely getting my jewgold.

Not unless you're getting the game for someone else. The beta key is valid for a copy of the finished game as well

tactics stuff

Getting that second (or even third) point in shields is definately top priority. Many of the early ships won't have enough weapons to penetrate, turning fights in the first 2-3 systems into walkovers. Unless you run into the dreaded missile boats or a bunch of mantis ships with teleporters.

You definately need the teleporter pretty quick as well. Not only do boarding actions yield more resources, it also aoocasionally allows you to salvage weapons or augments from ships. On top of that, there are a bunch of events where the only way to get a "good" outcome instead of a "neutral" one is by teleporting onto/away from a ship. Cloaking is not nearly as critical, but it is very, very nice. When you're fighting the boss at the end, one of its weapons fires a salvo of missiles on a long cooldown. Those utterly wreck you if they hit, so having a cloaking system is almost mandatory.
For augments, I'm a huge of scrap recovery arm. :jew: If you're running a drone system, drone recovery arm is almost mandatory. Other than that, I'd definately get the long-range sensors if playing on normal. They'll give you warning ahead of time if there are any environmental hazards in a system you're about to enter, as well as an indication of whether or not to expect a ship there. Stealth weapons are also pretty good, but only if you've got a stealth system naturally.

A shame. Although it is pretty stocked with events, there is a bit of a lack of variety in some other cases. Plus the sheer potential here really calls for eternal expansion. If ever there was a game where a monthly fee for extra content patches each month could be defended.

So hopefully they'll keep adding content.

The devs have stated several times that they were planning on post-release content. Whether it's free patches, modding tools (OMG geekgasm), an expansion or DLC remains to be seen. They've rolled out a LOT of stuff since the first beta releases already. 5 or 6 playable ships, 2 new races, 3 new series of ships (zoltan, rockmen, slug), a bunch of new events, several new augments and drones that move around inside ships (anti-personnel drone, breeching drone, repair drone).

 

[Peter]

The beta key is valid for a copy of the finished game as well

Uh, Ulminati, bro, y-you wouldn't... uh, you wouldn't have another one of those, uh, lying around, w-would you?

 

[Ulminati]

Sorry BRO. I gave them all away now.

 

[Grunker]

Not unless you're getting the game for someone else. The beta key is valid for a copy of the finished game as well

Well, in that case perhaps I'll spread the FTL love to some homies!

 

[Destroid]

How many hours does it roughly take to play through and beat the boss?

 

[Grunker]

I haven't actually gotten there yet, but based on what I've seen, 1½-2 hours.

 

[Ulminati]

Depends on a lot of things, but 2-3 hours seem to be the norm fo rme. Bear in mind that's for reaching the boss and not counting when I die horribly before I get there. Once I get to the boss, my win rate is ~20%

Also, check out mah new ride!

The zoltan are probably my favourite race to have aboard. They provide an additional bar of energy to rooms they occupy, doubling as free reactors. The layout isn't too good (difficult to flush and invaders in the big rooms are going to be a pain). But the shield boost is really good. 5 points of shields that don't regenerate except between jumps, but prevnt people from teleporting onto your ship while they hold. The leto is shit - definately avoid wasting missiles on it and try to get hold of a better missile weapon. But the halberd beam is awesome at tearing up ships. Aligning the beam for 8 damage per shot is pretty easy. Long as you weren't hoping to disable systems with it.

They've also finally implemented alternate layouts. Each ship (8 in the game so far, 9th on the way) has 3 achievements associated with it. If you can do 2 of them, you can access an alternate loadout of the ship. Comparsion of the 2 Kestrel layouts:

Normal:

Alternate:

The alien cew is a big bonus. On the flipside, the 4 basic lasers are really crap compared to what the regular kestrel starts with. (4x1 damage compared to 1x3 + missile). Flushing sections seems pretty good though and I like the chokepoints.

 

[Jaedar]

I really want this game to be released.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I really want this game to be released.

Same here. I'm jonesing pretty hard for it. Hoping it's released next week but it sounded like it may end up early September.

Does the size of the rooms impact anything Ulminati? I noticed there was some difference in the Kestrel variant, like a smaller engine room. And is there any use for empty rooms?

 

[Grunker]

I really want this game to be released.

Same here. I'm jonesing pretty hard for it. Hoping it's released next week but it sounded like it may end up early September.

Does the size of the rooms impact anything Ulminati?

Yes. How many guys can be in the room at the same time? (important for repair and boarding, for example)

 

[Ulminati]

Also, the alternate layout in the mantis ship has a 4-person teleportation pad. Meaning you can sent twice as many mens over to fuck peoples shit up. Great googly moogly!

The only rooms whose efficiency is impacted by size are medical bay and teleportation pad. Other than that, size mainly decides how many boarders/defenders can duke it out in a room. Also, if you fight a ship with a beam weapon, the beam rakes across the ship, dealing its damage to each room it crosses. So clusters of many small rooms can result in a shitload of hull damage. Mostly what I look for when looking at ship layouts is how many rooms I'll need to open to vent a section of the ship of atmosphere. The basic zoltan layout shown above is pretty crap in that respect. If a fire starts in the engine room, you have to evac weapons and shields or put it out manually. And putting it out manually takes longer and injures the crew.

Also, if you're planning on running boarding actions, the path between your teleportation pad and medbay needs to be as short as possible so you can rotate injured crew faster.

 

[Ulminati]

Just unlocked the alternate layout for the Zoltan Cruiser (the retardoland in the previous screenshots):

Ion guns don't bypass shields, but they have a really low charge time. sSo long as you pick up a missile or a heavier weapon in the first 2 sectors it should be k. I like the layout in terms of defending from invaders and suppressing fire better than the standard layout.