![]() It compels players to annoy their friends and co-workers with tales of narrow escapes from Mantis slavers, terrifying encounters with the Rebel armada, and that one time you lost half of your crew to a spider infestation. I approached battles more timidly, and I made certain I knew if there were ships in the beacons I was heading to - it was horrible, stressful, and bloody exciting.Ī quick game of FTL offers up a bounty of stories and anecdotes despite the absence of a plot or real characters. I had to learn how to play all over again, focusing on the ship’s cloaking device rather than shields. This strategy went completely tits up when I got myself a ship which had absolutely no shields whatsoever. So, in most games, I like to upgrade my shields pretty quickly, so that at least laser and beam attacks become less of a concern. ![]() While shields can be repaired and regenerated easily, repairing the hull requires a pit stop at the, to be fair, quite common “stores.” Yet, the ever present threat of total annihilation made me only feel remotely safe when I had 100% hull integrity. Early on, I had learned to fear even the slightest bit of hull damage. Encounters may be continually recycled and repeated, but how I dealt with them changed on a game-by-game basis. ![]() The plethora of choices kept FTL fresh long after I expected it to get a bit stale. Of course, that didn’t stop me from being destroyed before I reached the end in that particular game. ![]() I’d even started working on a maniacal laugh, as I shut down my foes’ weapons and watched as my trusty little drone peppered it with deadly laser blasts. The Engi ship was the first one I unlocked, and it made the first few sectors an absolute breeze compared to my experiences in the Kestral. Fighting in that vessel demands more attention to enemy shields, and a focus on shutting down systems instead of doing direct damage. The Engi ship, on the other hand, starts with drones, ion cannons, and no missiles whatsoever. As enemies become more powerful and complex, new weapons, upgrades and augments are necessary to avoid a nasty case of getting set on fire or facing the bleak emptiness of space without a spacesuit, and inevitably the simple tactics from the start are shoved out the airlock. The laser cannon shoots out three shots in one go, usually taking out shields quickly, or a missile can be launched, penetrating shields, often taking out systems in one shot. There are only two weapons to worry about, and no additional systems like teleporters or drone control, so it’s is rather easy to get the hang of things. With the Kestral, the starting ship, things begin quite slowly and simply. Death is waiting around every corner, and as with any roguelike, death is permanent. While there are lots of opportunities to avoid combat, it is the nail-biting, everything-to-lose, life-or-death battles which really make FTL something special. Rockmen are tough and immune to disease, Slugs are telepathic, the Engi are amazing engineers and synthetic each race has skills and attributes which not only lend themselves well to specific roles on the ship, but to the text adventures as well. So having a varied crew and adding new components to the ships is a must. Thankfully, the races of the crew, the specific systems onboard the ship, and the text options chosen during the event can alter the encounter quite a bit, and rewards are randomized too. There are mercenaries who could be friend or foe, space stations that need help, traveling merchants, commercial planets, ships in distress, and devious traps laid by the foul Rebels.Īfter a few games, it’s hard not to notice that, while there are a lot of random events, they do repeat frequently, often within the same game. It could be an enemy ship, or a sun throwing a solar flare temper tantrum, or maybe both. Each sector of space is filled with beacons which can be explored, and at first there are no clues as to what’s out there, though getting sector data from other ships can provide a little more information.
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