Comments on: One Desperate Battle In FTL

By: Jason L

Jason L — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 02:19:30 +0000

Playing on Easy and graduating to Normal is a common piece of advice and maybe it’s right – but I’ve never played on Easy and don’t think it’s advisable unless your goal is explicitly to see an end and move on. My view is that rogueishes/PPs are all about learning from mistakes as rapidly as possible, usually by dying from them. By putting too much lag between actual error and signs of failure, I think you can wind up reinforcing bad habits or chasing red herrings.

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 23:46:00 +0000

That was me! I love this article to death! Your writing style is perfect, seriously. Keep up the good work, cheers!

By: phuzz

phuzz — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 11:09:46 +0000

I’m always a bit surprised when people mention that they’ve never completed FTL, because after 116 hours* I can now kill the boss ship about half the time.
Then I remember that I only ever play on Easy, never Normal, and realise that I’m just a scrub :(

I’d recommend getting some games in on easy though, because it gives you a good idea of new tactics to try. For ages I wouldn’t use a teleporter, after my first try where I kept leaving my crew on the enemy ship, whilst warping off. Recently though, with the Crystal ship and it’s quad teleporter I’ve got right into it.
Then I remember I’ve not flown a drone armed ship for ages so I’ll ‘have’ to play a game like that.
It’s fun how different your play style has to be to use each different strategy, eg missile heavy vs teleporting boarding crews vs the slug favourite of burning them all.
Man I love this game far too much.

* according to Steam. I almost wish it didn’t tell me these things…

By: Pentadact

Pentadact — Sun, 22 Dec 2013 11:48:39 +0000

I don’t remember how I died, but I certainly didn’t win – I never have.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sun, 22 Dec 2013 04:27:14 +0000

I’ve always wondered, Tom — do you remember how that run ended? Because on the one hand, it would be epic to be so close to death, but claw your way back and defeat rebel flagship… but one the other hand, FTL is the sort of game where one disaster leaves you so short on resources, and so prone to another disaster, that the death spiral is inevitable. So I’ve always feared that after clawing your way back from the brink, the brink came back, clubbed you in the head, and pulled you straight back in.