Faster than Light review

[Golgo]

I'm proper rubbish at this. Any tips? (...apart from hope for random luck...)

[Sketcz]

So is it like infinite space?

You mean linear with absolutely zero room for exploration, because the planets are all on rails? God, I hope not. I've watched movies in the cinema with more room for viewer exploration that Infinite Space had.

[Golgo]

Getting better at it now...just got as far as end of 4th galaxy/level. Yay! I derived about as much enjoyment from it as I would've had from flipping a coin.

[EvilBoris]

To be honest, there is a big amount of luck involved with the encounters at first, soon you get the feel for which ones are risky and which aren't.
But in saying that, always avoid the space spiders and always trust the unicorns.

You get additional options for those sections depending on what crew members you happen to have or what upgrades you have bought. For example if you level up the med bays enough, which is normally a fairly pointless thing to do in my experience, you will sometimes get the option to use them in the story.

One of the first upgrades I go for are the blast doors, it stops fires spreading and people who have beamed aboard take ages to get through the doors, so you can open up the airlocks and suffocate them before they can!

Remember sticking people on the consoles improves that part of the ship whilst they are on it and the more they use that console the better they get at it, so try and give each crew member a specific task.

There are a couple of particular upgrades that are really worth getting or saving up for if you see them, in particular the scrap retrieval arm, which gives you more scrap per encounter.

You can almost never have enough crew, so if anybody wants to join you, let them in, if you come across a slave ship, buy one or attack it if you are strong enough, sometimes they will surrender a slave to you.
The little green glowing guys actually provide power to that system if they are operating the console, so I always go and have one operate the shields, so that it frees up power for weapons or whatever.

[Golgo]

Ta, Boris - good tips there, I'll give it another shot!

[kryss]

This would be pefrect on ipad or Android Tab.

Lends itself to touchscreen.

There is a free game called Strike Fleet Omega which looks a little similar, obviously doesn't have the depth though.

[Tobal]

I'm now starting to experiment with the other equipment, getting the Kestrel up with ion weapon, drone protection against missiles and crew teleporter is definitely the way to go. Beaming across 2 men to wreck up where pilot does wonders for accuracy later on, though early attempts at this lead to losing to men in a fight in the astroid belt, the enemy ship blew up with 1 hp left, and shield down after 2 astroids inthe row hit it.

And after a few attempts at the boss, i managed run where i didn't die in 20 seconds... about 5/10 mins of putting out fires from the missiles until my hull gave up... also sooooo close to getting the slug ship, i think i choose the wrong option when i came across it and it escaped while i was fighting of a very evasive scout ship

[EvilBoris]

What's the most effective way to use the teleporter, my little men usually get killed to death.

[Tobal]

I tend make sure 2 always go across if i can, and in to a room (2 square room if possible to keep fights to 2 on 2) where i've been shooting at it occupance so the HP's going to lower, if im having a problem hitting them with my main weapons i go for the pilot or engine room. If i have a while before the teleport is back up to port them back and HP is running low i keep giving them order to run room to room to slow the damage.

Once there back aboard it to the med bay to get ready for the next round. Also don't bother border a full mantis crew, they'll turn you inside out unless you got them damaged and few in number.

[Mr Ono]

There is a free game called Strike Fleet Omega which looks a little similar, obviously doesn't have the depth though.

Have that but that feels more like Flight Control with spaceships. Decent enough though.

[Golgo]

Despite EvilBoris' advice I'm still not getting the joy of this. Getting randomly wiped out or advancing nicely whether I take cautious or headlong approaches. Yesterday got to a bizarrely comical stalemate with strong shields in my ship versus a ship with a peashooter blaster. Couldn't penetrate their shields with my lasers, was out of missiles due to being jumped a few moves earlier, enemy couldn't penetrate my shields, and had no fuel left to jump away (idiotic management by me, there). Just had to sit there in space like a bell-end. Left the ships auto-pewpewing at each other, went to make a cup of tea, and it was still doing it when I got back so marched my men to the airlock and opened it. Ritual suicide. Game is too random for my tastes. Played a bit of Hotline Miami later which seemed quite predictable and strategic in comparison. Clearly I'm just crap at FTL though so I'll refrain from offering a score.

[Tobal]

Your problem there was autofiring it works fine against the weak but don' use it onthe strong, if you have 2 or more lazer/ion cannons use them in volly to smash the shields in 1 go.

[Golgo]

Only set it to auto because I wanted a pee and a cuppa. Several minutes of manual aiming on various bits achieved nothing either.

[vanpeebles]

Super game this but so unforgiving. I made it to the last sector only once and even then got blown up on the way to a repair base. Can you unlock equipment to fit on your ship in the starting hanger? So far I've only unlocked a robot ship with the droid which seems pretty naff.

[Sketcz]

GOG has a sale on, only $5. Downloading as I type.

Definitely go for the GOG sales. Screw Steam and their draconian DRM.

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Been playing since downloaded.

THIS GAME IS AMAZING

I'm going to give it a score of 14, and then as I play, will decrease it by one each time it does something really stupid. I'm pretty sure we're looking a solid 8 or 9.

EDIT2:
Bored of it now. A 7, maybe?

Like all Roguelikes, I very quickly got bored of repeating the same, similar random generated rubbish, with a weak character. The game is mainly fun once you're a little powered up. Now that it lasts, since you're then at the boss and it's game over.

Time to download the Save Game Generator and tear stuff up.