We've gotten a lot of chatter recently in the steam thread about this game, so much so that it's probably deserving of it's own thread.



WHAT IS FTL: FASTER THAN LIGHT?

WHERE CAN I GET FTL: FASTER THAN LIGHT?

Various places online. Their official website is http://www.ftlgame.com/
You can also purchase the game on Steam, GoG, etc. Expect to pay 10 dollars or under if you get it on sale.

WHY SHOULD I PLAY FTL: FASTER THAN LIGHT?

Because it's an awesome space strategy game.
Because it's challenging. You died? Start over.
Because it's quick. A game will take you anywhere from 10 minutes to maybe an hour or so if you make it through.
Because it's random. Never the same game twice.
Because it's addicting. "Just one more game" goes through your head constantly.

And finally, because it leads to lolanguish moments like this one caught on livestream. (minor spoilers if you don't want to see what the final boss looks like):




So let's talk about some FTL already!!!!

I'm probably never going to play this game...but man that vid is priceless

Game is great, engi ship rules, final boss is a mother****er.

So far I've gotten to the last boss 3 times. Died twice on phase two, and yeah, that video. Wife got home from work right as I died, and apparently calling out "You scrubbed it up" is an easy reaction to me saying "I had em!"

Pro tip, for the final encounter, you only want one energy on the cloak, it'll be back up before the next energy surge (bunch of lasers at once), otherwise it'll be on cooldown. You would've beaten it there I think

Noob tip: Upgrade your doors ASAP. I usually do it before I leave the first sector.

I considered that postmortem and think you're right.

Awesome FTL streamer - http://www.twitch.tv/lethalfrag

He's an awesome streamer in general but great to watch play FTL and especially Isaac if you're just starting out.

Nice video. I've looked down many times after a battle/death and wondered why I didn't use/do something obvious in hindsight.

Lessons are best learned through the experience in the game.

New player boarding tip - each room has priorities for position. Top down, Left right. You can switch your guys by clinking them both out, then back in the order you want.

I should get back into this. I played through on easy a couple times to get a feel for it; the one time I won, I managed to die immediately after from a ship fire (like probably half a second after the mothership started blowing up, my ship started going as well. The last thirty seconds of that fight was a pretty sick sweat.)

I haven't messed around with boarding yet, I'll have to try looking into that.

$5 on gog.com

gump- Boarding is amazing. It requires a bit of luck because you need rock/mantis dudes and you need to save up 75 early for the transporter, but you get a pretty significant bonus to scrap/material for taking a ship alive, and until ships with medbays show up(sector 6?) you're essentially unbeatable.

Running boarding centric games I'm like >75% at getting 2500+ scrap.


The biggest downside to this game, imo, is that the final boss is so so so cheap.

PRO TIPZ:

1) The distance the enemy fleet is behind does not change while you're at a beacon in real-time mode, so repair all your **** and dudes after each battle. It moves when you jump. It moves less when you're in a nebula. It does not carry over from sector-to-sector.

2) As noted above, doors are a surprisingly valuable early upgrade. They slow down attackers, often enough to allow you to starve them of O2, and they also prevent fire from spreading.

AND TRIX:

3) As noted above, the distance behind doesn't carry over. You want to visit as many beacons as possible, especially early on when the battles are easy. It's not so much the scrap as it is you're hoping to bink a positive weapon/crewmember/augment event.

4) Don't use autofire, you lazy bitches. I know you want to. But it's better to coordinate volleys, carefully manage your missile stocks, and ESPECIALLY never fire when you're cloaked. Also, don't just cloak at the start of a battle. Let the bad guys fire their alpha strike and cloak while it's enroute.

5) Don't be afraid to run underpowered. You only need to power your medbay while there are dudes healing. You can survive a surprisingly long time with an unpowered O2 generator. You don't need shields when you're cloaked. Etc.

Died on phase 2 again with 1 health left on boss ship. I know I would have torched phase 3 too.

Quad - why is there no sound when I watch your link? Other streams are working.

EDIT: Nvm. Clicked another one of your videos and then back and it works now.

I found that trying to hit as many jumps as you can in sector 1 is actually very helpful. I always tried getting through each as quickly as possible, but that tends to put you behind.

I may not completely understand so I'll ask here. How do you defeat the enemy ships without destroying it? If I hit their O2, they go and repair it. If I keep hitting it I destroy their ship.

I've tried teleporting, but my guys just end up dying before I can teleport them back. Also, keep in mind that sometimes I just try things since I don't have a lot of time in the game.

I'm trying to not play on Easy, but rather just take my beatings and learn the game through trial and error.

After I realized I should hit as much jumps as possible I ended up getting to Sector 5 after 8 failed attempts so it seems I'm getting somewhere!

Oxygen is a difficult win except for the slug ship where you have to teleport into the room (no other access). However, your guys can't get off without the teleporter. (Mine got damaged in fight, had no one to repair it quickly enough - they died).

Boarding is relatively easy. You really want to have a mantis/rockman boarding crew. I think it goes Mantis>Rockman>Human>Slug>Engi>Zoltan. Pause the fight often - watch health - shuffle the fights if needed. If struggling, you can always teleport back and forth after healing. If the other ship has a healing bay, you need to hit that to make the fight much easier.

There is nothing wrong with playing it on easy while you are learning. This game is very difficult.

Get your sensors up so you can see where enemy men are at on the ships. Hitting a room with one of your weapons will do damage to the crew members in that room. A breach or fire will just add to their loss of health. If the ship is manned, it will always have a pilot in the control room at the start of the battle so that is a good room to attack after you have taken down the shields or weapons system. Stop firing at that point then teleport over and take out the already injured enemies.

It is cheap, but you can actually keep your men in motion while they are on the opposing ship if they are low in health so that the enemy can't actually engage. You can just move them from one room to another until you can teleport them back. If you keep them on the move the enemy won't ever be able to attack you.

Weapons that cause fires are especially useful for gaining scrap since they don't initially damage the ship. With a good laser or ion weapon that can take down the shields, you can set an entire ship on fire and basically murder the enemy men with fire and leave the ship intact.

My best play through included the quick firing ion weapon (fires every 4 seconds), a tri-beam laser, and a fire beam. I could disable the shields (and weapons systems) with my ion cannon and the laser (used strategically mainly to just take down shields and avoid actually damaging the ship if possible) and then lay waste to the interior of the ship with my fire beam. I didn't even need to board the ship. The fire would eventually take out the crew.

If you have a beam weapon, also make sure to maximize the carnage by spreading it over as many blocks of the ship as possible.

I underrated ion weapons at first. They are great because they can overload shields even if you aren't targeting the shields. The overloading can also add up so that the system can be taken offline for several seconds even if the enemy has level 2-3 shields. I love getting the quick firing ion cannon because it can be so useful in taking out systems.

Yeah the difficult levels are mislabeled. It's more like Difficult and Very Difficult

Ion bombs, in particular, seem incredibly awesome

Bombs in general are amazing. The Sm Bomb that doesn't damage hulls but does hit dudes and systems is elite for capturing ships that have a medbay. The breach bombs are rare but they just murder people, one of them has a 9 second cooldown and only takes 1 power.

I did it! I won! Finally!

Video evidence of me vs. the last boss phase (5 minute vid)
http://www.twitch.tv/quadstriker/c/1812577

edit: lol I got a little excited.

I liked how you had to stretch a bit before the final battle.

Very fun game. Bought it a week ago, already have 35 hours into it.

I was pumped up man. Had to be ready for anything.