Gaming FTL review

That's a nice little spoiler for what the final boss looks like.

 

I chose to try this game last week over Torchlight 2 and I'm incredibly happy I did - it's great. 45 hours it took me to beat it on normal (basically you need the stars to align). In the end I'd say defence (shields, stealth and most importantly Defense II drones) and boarding is much more important than weaponry. No really.

I'd have to disagree with Joe's statement that the games only an hour long - generally a run through to the end boss would take me 3-4 hours. Rushing through is a plan for disaster.

This game left me wanting MORE.. MOOOOORRREEEE! Any other similar sci-fi games out there? Looking forward to Maia.

 

Ok, after giving a portion of my life to FTL, I can say without doubt - I frikkin hate this game!

I also love it - It's completely engrossing, very addictive and insanely unfair at times.

You can build up a bad-ass ship/crew in four or five sectors, perfecting a strategy to overcome more powerful ships (with patience), and still get your ass kicked in what should be a routine encounter. I've yet to complete the game, having made to the final level a few times, because the boss is soooooo hard to finish off.

Incidentally, this is the nearest I've to come rage-quit in a decade.

Please, for the love of cheeses, give me a save point!?

 

Here is your save point

 

I'm sure that means something to you, but.... meh

 

Sowwy ... it's a "save point" from Final Fantasy VII (should have mention it)



I'm hesitating about FTL ... do not want to ruin the lil' spare time I have available. That kind of game is to much addictive

 

great game, not much else to say

 

Ah, makes more sense now.

It is VERY addictive. The whole idea that it's okay for a quick play, because the campaign is very short, is nonsense. Once you start, you can't just walk away after failing once. Although that could just be sloppy impulse control on my part.

 

Found myself not going to bed on time thanks to this game

 

This is exactly the kind of game I could play for hundreds of hours. Happend to me with UFO, Terraria, Civilization .... and that's why I'm afraid of playing FTL and Minecraft

OMG, that's dangerous ... I MUST resist ... or not

 

Took me a while to pick this game up, but I'm rather glad I did. I also both love it and utterly despise it at the same time. I do find that the encounters get a bit repetetive, and I can often tell which scenario it is without even having to read the description properly; the answers usually tell me which particular encounter it is (though the outcome isn't nearly as predictable). The music does start to get a bit repetetive, so I've started switching off the in-game music and listening to my own; Manowar seems to make a much more fitting backdrop...

I managed to make it to the third battle with the boss only once: both of us had only three or four hull points left, neither of us had any shields left - despite the the valiant repair efforts of the remaining crew of HMS Fartbag - and both of us were waiting for weapons to charge. His weapons fired a fraction before mine did and HMS Fartbag became a toasted wreck. This was about half one in the morning, and the other half didn't really appreciate being woken up by cries of anguish.

I've tried a couple of different strategies - stealth, boarding, letting drones do the work - and usually I find that sheer brute force (i.e. weapon & shield tanking) is quite effective. Although finding upgraded weapons can be a bit of a lottery; more than once I've made it to the last sector with only the starting weapons on the Kestrel and hadn't once found a weapon upgrade in any shop. Even when the game showers you with new weapons in shops, you usually never have enough scrap! In my last game I found the Glaive Beam in one of the earlier sectors but was short by 4 scrap, and I couldn't afford to sell anything else off! By the time I'd earned enough scrap, the rebel fleet had overtaken the store...

I have to agree. I stick it on when I think I've got 15/20 minutes to spare, and it ends up turning into an hour or two...

 

Oh there are times when I've been flush with scrap, but all the shops have crew, cloaking devices and maintenance bots on offer. Infuriating.

Spoiler alert!

Spoiler

If you can find the weakest ion canon (rapid firing - every 4 secs) and use it with a heavy laser and an anti-ship drone, it's a pretty effective combination. Just target the Ion at the enemy weapons (not shields! Let the Laser do that.), and you'll eventually get through with enough hits to turn your attention to o2 and power.

It requires patience, and that you hunker down, and power off everything you don't absolutely need. Although, if you have the medi-field, I wouldn't power down the med-bay.

 

Being able to sell off un-needed missiles or drone parts at stores (rather than just in random encounters) would be extremely handy. It would also probably make the game extremely un-balanced when it came to scrap...

Moar Spoilers!

Spoiler

I've tried similar strategies using the Engi ship, and it's pretty effective; once you get a crew trained in weapons, the recharge time for the ion weapon drops dramatically. The Engi ship starts out with both an anti-ship drone schematic and the basic ion weapon, which I find far easier than trying to outfit the Kestrel with a drone bay. In the past I've tried using more drones as the basic Engi setup is extremely lacking in firepower, but powerful drones can be even harder to find than new weapons!

 

Spoiler

The Ion on the Engi ship is a MkII, changing to the MkI made a difference - although, power requirements permitting, keeping the Ion MkII for later encounters and using them together is VERY effective. Especially if you can manage two anti-ship drones.

I found a MkII anti-ship drone once - but didn't have anything like enough resources to use it. I only had a few bars left on the hull integrity too, so I had to sell it! Gutted.