FTL: A space based roguelike

[doctorfrog]

I've played FTL almost exclusively for the past couple three days. Kinda burning out on it, it really needs some hotkeys and a bigger soundtrack. Great game overall though.

[icepick37]

There's 12 tracks with 2 versions each. I guess it is pretty small compared to AVWW, though, heh.

[zebramatt]

I've only ever played it on mute! 

[zespri]

I don't want to sparkle the discussion "are rogue-likes too punishing?" again, we discussed it in a lot of details bordering on flame in another thread, but this is the issue I'm having with this game. You make a tiny little mistake and you have to start the sector from scratch as there is no way to recover.

On an unrelated note, when a battle is over, ftl drive is charged instantaneously. Why won't they do instantaneous repairs as well (or something that amounts to it) It's really boring going over the ship and reaping everything one by one each time.  Even if you have a repair bot.

[LaughingThesaurus]

^ Regarding roguelikes, part of the genre is the fact that they are extremely punishing, extremely complex, and overall are just not for everyone. If someone sees fit to not follow all of those standards, I wouldn't object, but it's not something that I would expect. Roguelikes are supposed to be punishingly hard.

...and regarding the repairs thing, I've seen a fair bit of footage where after a battle, you could actually lose your ship entirely to, say, a fire that went out of control, or an oxygen system that took one too many shots and kills off your crew while you're trying to frantically repair it. It's not like being out of combat means you're out of danger.

[zebramatt]

Just yesterday I came out of a particularly grueling battle against a far more powerful enemy ship in the corona of a sun and jumped to a safe system to repair. I'd had half the ship exposed to vacuum to fend off boarders and put out fires when my door control caught alight, just before the jump. My crew were injured enough that I knew sending them to fix the O2 systems before getting the ship re-pressurised would definitely kill them. I lost one man to the fire in door control, another died on the way to O2 with only 12% oxygen spread throughout the now-sealed ship, and the last man died having literally just fixed our oxygen systems - too little, too late.

My battle to save the ship was every bit as action packed as the actual fire fight had been!

[Mánagarmr]

If you are still debating wether you should get this game or not (what's wrong with you???), watch this.

[Mánagarmr]

I don't want to sparkle the discussion "are rogue-likes too punishing?" again, we discussed it in a lot of details bordering on flame in another thread, but this is the issue I'm having with this game. You make a tiny little mistake and you have to start the sector from scratch as there is no way to recover.

And I don't like the WoW-style "respawn without penalty" either. It's down to a matter of taste. Roguelikes are for people who like that. Platformers are for platformers. It's as simple as that.

On an unrelated note, when a battle is over, ftl drive is charged instantaneously. Why won't they do instantaneous repairs as well (or something that amounts to it) It's really boring going over the ship and reaping everything one by one each time.  Even if you have a repair bot.

FTL charge has 0 impact on your next battle since it's going to have to recharge after the jump. It also does not instantly recharge if you're in a hazard zone (star, asteroid field or similar). Now, broken systems, wounded crew members and similar things does, however, carry over. Forgetting, or forgoing repairs for whatever reason, affects your next battle. This is particularly noticable when you have to bail out of a dangerous situation (such as a star frying you) and you have to deal with the remnants of that after the jump.

But I guess on Easy, it could instant-repair your ship after battle, but that would really take the entire charm out of it, as you would only ever risk losing on the boss ship unless you are completely terrible.

[zebramatt]

I can only concur with Moonshine: anyone who hasn't played this game should check it out immediately!

I've only ever been able to even remotely approach success in traditional roguelikes by adopting one of two strategies: a) playing extremely conservatively; or b) aggressively playing the odds - taking any risk which stands a half decent chance of paying off but probably won't kill me. Personally I've found the former to hold the greatest chance of survival; but the latter to be the most fun. FTL, in my experience, actually punishes playing too conservatively - making it one of the most exhilarating roguelikes I've ever played!

[keith.lamothe]

FTL is awesome.

FTL is incredibly annoying.

Yep, sounds like a roguelike

1st run: killed by RNG, third sector, by random-event boarders (since I was down to 2 men from other random events and didn't know the ropes of boarding: remember, concentration of forces is easy because enemies cannot stop you from leaving the room, and do defensive fights in the sickbay if you can!)

2nd run: got to last sector, lost via time limit because I didn't realize it wasn't really distance-based; woudn't have mattered probably, I was out of missiles since I hadn't gotten a competent non-missile weapon other than my initial pulse laser (which was useless unless I could get enemy shields down some other way).

3rd run: started with a different race ship unlocked in second run, did really awesome with boarders (revenge for first run, perhaps), had more scrap than I could put into truly useful upgrades, had pretty good equipment.  Mauled the end-event really good, but my crack boarders were aboard the target at the end of the fight (I was trying to get them off, but I had the teleporter on minimum power so the cooldown was longer, argh).  Then it turns out that the end-event is actually multiple parts, and I only had my backup boarders left.  Probably could have still won somehow, but this was such a jerk-move by the game that I set course for an uninhabited part of the galaxy and told the war where it could shove the rest (i.e. quit).

Looking forward to the end of the workday today for round 4

[LordSloth]

I had wiped my profile in honor of the friday release, clearing out all my beta progress.

The first game in I unlocked the Mantis starship.

The second, third, fourth, fifth games the game was cruel enough to spawn *one* zoltan energy bomber with super shield in the first sector. This was pretty much an extreme result of the RNG, but an evil one.

For those not familiar with it, the mantis starship has ONE bar on the weapon systems, a small bomb, and a basic (1 shot, 1 damage) laser.

The super shield doesn't regenerate, but blocks teleportation, missiles, bombs, lasers, and everything till it gets shot down.

 

[KingIsaacLinksr]

So I got the game gifted to me by a friend and today I was playing.

I was fighting a rock ship in sector 3 and was low on hull, I accepted their surrender so I wouldn't blow up. When I accept it, one of their last beam shots smacks right into the hull. Ship dies. Game over. QQ. So unfair.

Yet so fun.

[keith.lamothe]

Lasers know nothing of surrender

[LaughingThesaurus]

So I got the game gifted to me by a friend and today I was playing.

I was fighting a rock ship in sector 3 and was low on hull, I accepted their surrender so I wouldn't blow up. When I accept it, one of their last beam shots smacks right into the hull. Ship dies. Game over. QQ. So unfair.

Yet so fun.

That's kind of hilarious in my mind. I imagine they called for a false surrender so you wouldn't fire the last few shots to kill em before that laser hit you... they transfer over the loot, and when you explode after the ceasefire, they take the loot back.

[doctorfrog]

In a recent game, I had a situation where the oxygen generators were busted, the whole ship was in the red, and my guys had just won the battle...

but they were all in medical. Getting continually treated, because medical, like the rest of the ship, was decompressed. So they were continually suffocating and being subjected to vacuum, and also being healed.

I would have welcomed an asteroid at that point.