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
asper said:
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).