FTL: Faster Than Light

[Rusvul]

Hello! FTL is a really cool game- It's like a space exploration roguelike-like. Your storyline is randomly generated each time, and when you die, you're gone for good. To quote a friend of mine, "It's like being the captain of a Star Trek ship, but with less Star Trek."
I know of several youtubers who have been playing it nonstop- Quite a few other people have been, too. Seriously. I'm one of them- Or about to be. Only played three hours at the moment, but I don't think it's the kind of game you get bored of easily

...It's so much fun. I recommend it to anyone who has ten dollars to spare and wants to play a cool space game.

...You can even control the airlocks. On several occasions, I've flooded nearly the entire ship with... Um... Space... To extinguish fires and kill boarders.

[Norham Waterpaw]

I. . . Love that game.

[Rusvul]

I saw that you had commented, and before I even saw your post, I was like, "Oh, he'd love FTL..."

[Norham Waterpaw]

Yup. Don't pwn it, but I've played it several times. My friend was stuck, so I took over and got him an Engi ship. I actually unlocked something. Yay. 

[Rusvul]

The Engi ship is pretty good.

...Once, I got all the way to the final fight. I lost almost immediately, though
Another time, I got one of the best weapons in the game in Sector 1. I one-hit all the ships in sectors one, and two, by sector thee I was still taking only one or two hits to destroy stuff. Then I died because I was boarded. I couldn't try to vent the intruders and remove their oxygen supply, because my doors were unupgraded. Lesson: Always upgrade your doors. You will not regret it, when the boarding parties assault you.

[Wylder Treejumper]

I
LOVE
THIS
GAME!!!

I've actually gotten all the way to the boss battle thrice, and even got through the second stage. I just always die after that...

[Rusvul]

I think I've done... what, thirty-three runs on Easy mode? I'd say maybe twenty of them I fought the boss, but I usually die immediately. I just recently beat him, though.

Here's a few tips:

Stage 1:

The main thing here is to have either a Crew Teleporter or a strong missile/bomb weapon. Do you see how all their weapons have a sealed-off room? That means that if you can destroy the system and kill the crew member in that room, nobody will fix it and the weapon is just broken. The exception is if you kill the entire enemy crew- Don't do that. An AI will kick in and fix systems automatically.

Basically on the first stage, if you can disable all their weapons, you win. I suggest destroying them in this order: Missile, Laser, Ion, Beam. Perhaps Beam > Ion would be better- Though, at that point it usually doesn't matter.

Suggested items: Crew Teleporter

Stage 2:

So, after you've destroyed the first stage, the left side of the ship will break off and the Flagship will jump away. This means you don't have to worry about the Ion weapon, the Cloaking, or the Hacking. This stage is centered around Drones.
So, the Flagship will fire upon you with its weapons as normal- All systems repair from fight to fight- But instead of the Ion weapon, it will have two drones- a Combat Beam drone and a Combat Drone. They will swirl around your ship and generally be annoying. As usual, disabling the Drone bay will stop the drones. As before, teleport your crew aboard their weapon systems and disable them. Destroying the drone bay is optional, however I don't suggest beaming aboard their main ship segment unless you have a clone bay.

Power Surge- Every so often, a warning will come up on your screen. "WARNING: POWER SURGE." This means that the ship is redirecting power to its drones, and in a few seconds it will summon a swarm of drones. If you have a cloaking device, now is the time to use it. If you can dodge most of the drones, you'll be good. Otherwise, redirect all available power to your shields and engines.

Stage 3:

Once you defeat stage 2, the Beam weapon will snap off, and the crew will become more desperate. They'll beam aboard your ship- Or so I'm told, in my only run where I got to this stage, I had killed the entire enemy crew on stage 1, so I don't really know. But yeah. They'll also fire their newly repaired weapons at you, of course- Though they've only got missiles and lasers. As usual, beam aboard and disable them.

Power Surge- So, the ship still has a power surge. It's just different- Instead of spawning loads of drones, it'll shoot a volley of about twelve lasers at you- If you're lucky and you've got good evasion and shields, you can dodge them. Cloaking devices help with that, too. Otherwise.. Well, you'll get hit hard, but you might be able to survive.


There's definitely alternate strategies that would work well- Missiles, for example, could replace boarders in most situations. Really good engines and shields could take the place of a cloak. Flak guns could work for a fast offensive strategy, maybe. I'm not really sure. This is just the tried-and-true method. Hope this is helpful!

[Wylder Treejumper]

I haven't had the game that long... Usually I just focus on taking down their shields, but I suppose that strategy might work better.

[Rusvul]

Yeah, taking down shields can work too- Especially if you have Flak guns or missiles to disable their shields around or through them. If you have any questions, I might be able to give you an answer- I'm by no means the best at the game, but I've learned a few things.

[Wylder Treejumper]

My real problem is that the rebels keep taking over the repair bases... So I have to face the boss three times in a row with no repairs. It is not good...

[Rusvul]

Yeah... Generally, by the time you're attacking the Flagship, you can't really repair... It's quite annoying.