
FTL: Advanced Edition - nuriaion
http://www.ftlgame.com/?p=598
======
bstar77
This is one of the most perfectly balanced games I've ever played. I've come
one shot from beating the end boss, but that final kill still evades me.

The great part about the game is that the beginning portion is actually quite
strategic despite the battles being very easy. You really need to maximize
your wins by either getting in as many battles as possible per sector or by
killing opposing crews without destroying their ship. Your first 5 or so
sectors really set the pace for the later game.

~~~
Strilanc
The trick to beating the final boss is to have maxed teleport and cloaking.
This lets you avoid all missile volleys, by cloaking just before the first few
would hit and boarding the missile weapon system to disable it. Also you
should murder all but one of the crew during the first battle (this is tricky,
but you can take your time), so you can disable systems quickly in the second
and third battles without them being repaired.

Cloaking and teleporters are great early investments, too. Cloaking saves tons
of resources that would have been spent on repairs, and killing the enemy crew
gives better rewards compared to blowing up the ship.

~~~
cobrausn
Oddly enough, I only ever made it to the final boss twice. The first time was
with the stealth cruiser, which had maxed stealth and teleporting, and I got
annihilated by missile volleys and those combat boarding drones.

The second time was with the Engi cruiser, and I handily beat him. I had only
EMP weapons, a level 2 defense drone, and a level 2 attack drone (probably
also a repair drone). I just played damage control and set the EMP weapons to
autofire at the shield room. When they eventually disable it, the level 2
attack drone shredded him.

Haven't played since then (figured I'd quit while I was ahead), but this may
get me back in.

~~~
BillyMaize
How did you get that far with the stealth cruiser? I love playing the ship but
I never survive past sector 3. I have logged hundreds of hours on FTL and
never once beaten it with my favorite ships :(

~~~
cobrausn
The stealth cruiser is definitely hard to work with, and requires very
precision timing on the part of the player. It's a tough ship to win fights
with if it doesn't have the ability to outright destroy or cripple it's enemy
as it comes out of stealth, which is why I had trouble in the final encounter.

First and foremost, it is tempting to get shields working early on, but I
actually had better luck upgrading stealth first and then shields - early
encounters can be destroyed before they fire at you if your weapons loadout is
good. But be sure to upgrade to full shielding before getting to the end.

Basic idea for me was to charge all my weapons to full, fire if I had an
opportunity to before the biggest enemy weapon, and wait for the largest enemy
weapon to fire (usually a missile). As it fired, engage stealth. This gives
you a really absurdly high dodge chance, and the weapons fire almost always
misses.

Immediately drop stealth and fire all weapons. If the ship has a lot of
shields, target shields, otherwise target weapons (none or low shields means
you will hurt bad if they fire back). Generally this can cripple the enemy
ship, making it so they can't effectively engage you - this is pretty vital to
keeping the stealth cruiser alive. If it starts to go bad for you, stealth
away, and consider leaving the engagement.

For what it's worth, my best loadout consisted of a large missile system for
punching through shields to disable the shield system, an EMP bomb system for
disabling defensive drones (or other systems), and a fire beam weapon I used
to try and hit shields and weapons at the same time, all on an alpha strike
after coming out of stealth. I also had a teleportation rig set up with two of
the insectoid crew that could take the fight to the enemy - this was _really_
useful at keeping them busy, and keeping the ship alive. Also good for when I
ran out of missiles - could send them in to disable shields and / or weapons
and get out.

I still got torn up by the drones sent in by the final boss though, so a good
drone defense system would have been invaluable - if you stealth, they just
hover around until you come out of stealth, then breach. Good luck. :-D

~~~
BillyMaize
I basically did the same thing except my volley out of stealth went for the
weapons instead of shields since I wanted to make sure it couldn't hurt me
after my cloak wears off. Perhaps I should start running from less than
optimal fights, usually I stick out every fight because I want all the scrap.

~~~
cobrausn
Yeah, targeting weapons is a great idea if the enemy has low enough shields
(based on your weapons load) that you can punch through them, disable weapons
completely, and then do the same for the shield, while they sit there unable
to shoot you, scrambling to repair.

The problem the stealth ship has is when the enemy ship has shields _and_
weapons in abundance (those Zoltan ships are EVIL). In this case, you have to
take the harder task (and almost always take damage) and knock out shields
first. I loved the long beam weapons because I could drop shields for a moment
and burn apart weapons and shields on most ships.

Another important thing I would always do is not fire missiles if shields were
down unless weapons were still up - you will need every one of those missiles
later.

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officemonkey
I think FTL captures the spirit of "Star Fleet Battles" and "Traveller" ship-
boarding combat without the extreme crunchiness that the pen-and-paper RPGs
were known for.

However nothing beats the Escape Velocity series. The writing, the "asteroids-
like" space combat, the trading missions. It's what I wished EVE Online was.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Velocity_%28video_game%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Velocity_%28video_game%29)

~~~
tekromancr
I loved EV. Especially EV:Override. So many hours invested. I have long
thought an online MMO version would be pretty boss.

~~~
bashinator
EVE Online is basically that MMO.

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austinz
I love FTL. I can beat it semi-reliably on Easy with a few of the ships, and
occasionally on Normal. And that's part of the game's genius - there are quite
a few practical ways you can build your ship and crew in preparation for the
final boss, and each of the ships (and even layouts) is tailored towards
facilitating a particular strategy. So even if you master one strategy, there
are plenty more waiting to destroy you through your inexperience or
ineptitude.

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dshep
Brilliant game. Super excited for this.

If you haven't played FTL before, don't heed the complaints about the
randomness, it's not as difficult or random as it may at first seem. And
frankly failing in this game while you are learning the ropes is half the fun.

~~~
dshep
If you have been playing for a while and are still having difficulty check out
DarkTwinge's video tutorial for some good tips:
[http://www.twitch.tv/darktwinge/c/2609597](http://www.twitch.tv/darktwinge/c/2609597)

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failrate
Not to whine (because this game is pure liquid gold straight into my brain
meat), but the one thing I was hoping for was a new endgame as an alternative
to the final boss.

~~~
rcthompson
Yeah, I saw an article somewhere that pointed out what I believe is the
problem with the endgame. In the last sector, the feel of the game changes
completely. You've just spent seven sectors fleeing before the might of the
unstoppable rebel fleet, and you finally get to the Federation base, and they
say "OK, now find the biggest, baddest rebel ship and kill it." This jarring
shift, combined with the flagship breaking all the rules (e.g. having drones
after you've killed their drone systems) and yet still being trivial to defeat
using specific gimmicks, really breaks the endgame for experienced players.
Like the author of the aforementioned article that I can't seem to find, I
only play the first seven sectors now. The final sector is so unenjoyable that
I just quit when I get to the final sector and start a new game so I can go
back to having fun.

~~~
failrate
I even tried to fly through the sector in reverse to see if I could do
something weird like assaulting the rebel homeworld. Not a thing you can
actually do.

~~~
saraid216
Honestly, an Ender Wiggin moment would actually have been pretty good here.
Instead of fighting any of the rebel ships, your goal is to survive until you
can jump past each, and when you get to the flagship, survive until you can
fire the Super Secret Win Button weapon.

~~~
rcthompson
You could always play with the federation cruiser and defeat the boss with
only the artillery beam.

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codezero
This is a great rogue-like indie game. I highly recommend it. You should know,
my recommendation is essentially a guarantee.

~~~
Grue3
Stop calling it roguelike. You're doing a disservice to people who know what a
roguelike is, because this game is nothing like Rogue. Also I got bored with
it after 3 play throughs, there's just not enough variety.

~~~
mden
So should we call it a roguelikelike? It exhibits many features of a roguelike
game including randomized maps/battles, permadeath, and essentially turn based
combat. I think it's fair to say that the roguelike genre has evolved passed
just being narrowly Rogue-like.

~~~
itsameta4
I've heard it referred to as a "Rogue-lite".

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Keyframe
Friends, consider this a warning. If you are working on something important
and/or have a deadline - AVOID this game at all costs.

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asciimo
I command-F'd for "music" but I see no hits. I think that the music in FTL is
great, especially for coding. Here's a link to the FTL soundtrack and other
great stuff by the artist, Ben Prunty:
[http://benprunty.bandcamp.com/](http://benprunty.bandcamp.com/)

~~~
Perseids
See the video on 0:43

> New music by Ben Prunty

> New content by Tom Jubert

> and guest writer Chris Avellone

~~~
daned
Awesome. I love me some Space Disco.

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Spittie
FTL is great, I loved playing it on my computer, and I still love opening it
for a game or two from time to time.

Too bad that they aren't releasing it for Android (for now). I would loved to
play it on-the-go, and would easily pay again for it.

Still, it's great to see a free expansion. Thanks FTL Team!

~~~
cturner
I'll be surprised if it works out well for tablet, becaue of power consumption
issues. It chews through battery on my laptop.

~~~
keenerd
You are probably still playing the original Humble Bundle (or launch) version.
Update that. A while ago they added a frame rate limit and power use is
reasonable.

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anonymous
Too bad the unfair, uncontrollable, unmitigateable randomness turns this
otherwise excellent game in a poor joke. There is no planning you can do,
since every shop is random and there is nothing you can do if the game just
decides to spawn precisely the kind of enemy that can kill you right then and
there. All the different combat systems and options are good, but given that
you have no idea what weapon drops you'll get, you can't do any planning
ahead. Additionally, if you start having to run away from battles you fall
behind the curve and there's no going back. You can't just scout the sector to
find easy enemies to beat, because you have a very tight limit on how much
exploring you can do. Once you fall behind the resource curve and have to run
away from more and more encounters you're already dead.

I spent 15 hours with this game, did close to 40 attempts and only once got to
sector 7. Usually I'd die around sector 4 or 5.

If you already have the game and like it, good for you. I just want to warn
other people. My final opinion is: the devs don't understand statistics and
randomness; go play nethack, it's easier.

~~~
darklajid
Small hints, since you're struggling:

\- Make sure to man your stations, try to keep these operators alive and in
the same place

\- Playstyle depends on the ship type you're using, but you need to have
something to penetrate shields soon. Ion weapons might help if you have
enough/fire fast enough. Rockets/explosives are easier early on, but later
defense drones will be very annoying

\- If you're really having trouble: My wife disturbed me during one game and
the battle was boring (enemy couldn't penetrate my shields). I went doing
whatever she asked for and returned to a decently trained shields engineer :)

\- Intrigued by the above: If you can do the same in an asteroid field... ;-p

Last but not least: I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the game. Dieing is part
of the genre and difficulty might certainly vary, but that's the fun of it.
It's mostly about these "Really? THAT encounter when I'm out of missiles?" or
the "Whoa, too much hopping around. I sure could use some fuel" moments, right
before you're back to square one. For me beating the game isn't the goal and
when I beat it, the game failed. :)

~~~
anonymous
I have done all of that, except tried different ships. I only played with the
starting ship, on hard difficulty, because I wanted to finish the main game
before trying the extra modes.

Yes, I have maxed out dodge and shields. I have actually grinded enemies until
I had every crew member maxed out on every possible stat. It doesn't help one
bit, because you can still get hit 10 or even 20 times in a row, even though
you have a 20% evade chance, and 20 hits from anything is pretty much enough
to sink you.

It is honestly the most frustrating game I have ever played.

Also, I'm not struggling, I just gave up on it for good. I haven't played it
in a year, if not more.

I bought into the hype and bought the game and it turned out to be ... that. I
just want to give my perspective so other people don't get it and then feel
misled.

~~~
king_jester
> I have done all of that, except tried different ships. I only played with
> the starting ship, on hard difficulty, because I wanted to finish the main
> game before trying the extra modes.

You are playing on hard mode without any experience in handling game
strategies and events, this is why you are losing. Try it on the easy mode and
get a feel for some different strategies and ships. This game is not
difficult, with some experience you can beat most runs in the game with any
ship on the hard difficult.

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mercurial
I didn't know they had Chris Avellone (main writer on Planescape Torment) on
board.

~~~
Danieru
Chris appears to be working on everything at present. Planescape, Wasteland,
this small FTL gig, plus no doubt Fallout 4 in some capacity. Either indie
game writing pays too little or Chris does not know how to say no.

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titraxx
And the best part : it's a free expansion !

~~~
john2x
It wasn't mentioned in the page, but I'm assuming the iPad version will need
to be re-purchased even if I've already purchased for the PC?

~~~
cstuder
I think so too. The App store has only limited functionality to give out
licences outside the normal purchasing process (100 free keys, if this
information is still correct.)

This is a constant problem for all Kickstarters which produces iOS apps.

(But seeing how I got the original game for 5$ and how much time I've spend
with it, I am willing to pay again for it.)

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devindotcom
One of the very first things I thought when I played this, right when it came
out, was "god damn why don't I have this on my iPad?"

I knew in my heart they would come through. Really great game, can't wait to
play it again.

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Kiro
Is this like Star Command? I like the idea but Star Command was a
disappointment. Just the same thing over and over again without any real
depth. Unfortunately this looks just as battle focused so I'm skeptical.

~~~
liquid_x
There's a lot more depth to it than star command and higher replay value

~~~
psionski
IMHO the replay value is way higher than many supposedly-AAA titles. I'm
looking at my game time stats from Steam, so I'm not making it up :)

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danso
Thank god this hasn't come out yet. Easily the most addictive game I've played
in years...I've lost whole weekends to it. I don't think my social life can
take an upgrade to this game right now

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otikik
+1 for FTL. A challenging game, expect to die a lot at the beginning.

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dangayle
I've played this game a thousand times, and I've still never beat it. That's
one of the reasons I like some of these games like that.

I remember the first Final Fantasy where, sure, maybe you could sneak your way
through to the boss. But he's going to kick your butt.

Same thing with FTL. The journey is only half of the battle. Being prepared
after making it through in another game entirely.

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boksiora
This is one of the best games ever

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alexmchale
Advanced edition? This game kicks my ass already!

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presidentender
I enjoyed (and highly recommend) FTL, but I don't think that a few new weapons
gives me a reason to play it again.

~~~
phenol
New events? New sectors? New systems and subsystems?

New content from Chris Avellone?

~~~
presidentender
Based on my reading of the announcement, the content and story are still
largely unchanged. I'm sure the content is worthwhile, but since I already
know in broad strokes what's going to happen to my crew, I think I'd enjoy
spending the time elsewhere.

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deaconblues
Great news. I'm absolutely abysmal at FTL, but I have fun every time I start
it up.

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Kiro
So should I play this or the vanilla version?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I haven't played the new version yet, but you might consider playing the
vanilla version 'til you start to get bored, then upgrading for some new
experiences.

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tinco
So eh, what's interesting about this? Did they get funding? Are they using an
interesting business model? Are they using a cool new technology? Is there
something we can learn from them?

All I see is the announcement of a sequel to a modern popular game, what's
going on?

~~~
outworlder
"Modern popular game", which so happens to be developed by two guys, who got
their funding on kickstarter.

There are lots of interesting things going on, pick one.

