[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.

[lnanek2]

If you can't beat the game easily on easy, you are just missing something. Maybe you should read a forum or something?

You can give yourself an easy bonus just by training against the first enemy you encounter that can't penetrate your shields. Make sure you have helm, engines, shields, and weapons manned and you aren't auto-firing enough to damage the enemy then just let the game sit for an hour or two while your crew levels up.

Early on your shields are plenty vs. the non-missiles of the enemies you encounter so all that matters is upping your engines enough to dodge missiles and saving enough spare money for stores. A nice bonus is that you can run away faster too.

Once you hit a store with enough money and a teleporter, bio beam, cloaking device, or drone system and defense drone, you win basically. Teleporter/bio beam lets you capture enemy ships intact for massive resource gains (and disable weapons on the end boss) and it is easy to micromanage your guys and beam them back and forth to take any ship. Cloaking lets you dodge full enemy salvos. Defense drone takes care of the pesky missile problem, the only really effective weapon in the game as long as you keep your shields upgraded properly.

I can win reliably on easy with any ship, and often on normal. If you can't win on easy you are just missing some technique. You can't scout but you can easily pick the right nodes to see the maximum number of nearby nodes, picking the optimal path, etc.. If there's anything I hate about the game it's the fact that there are so many auto-win scenarios. If I run into a teleporter in a store in a ship that doesn't start with one and I can afford it selling anything non-critical, I pretty much win, so it isn't fun.

[LinaLauneBaer]

Your comment does not do the game justice IMHO. FTL is a solid game and I spent a lot of hours with it. It is true that there are a lot of random events in the game but you can plan a little or let's say: You can improve the odds:

For example there is a subsystem (forgot it's name) that let's your ship jump to every previously visited location. So if you find a map of the current sector later on and this map reveals a store you may be able to simply jump back to it if the fleet is not yet there. Also: If the fleet is already there you can still jump back. You only have to fight a ship from the fleet. Then you go to the store, buy your goods and jump back.

Also: You can plan your route through a sector. You should try to visit as many places as you can but still be ahead of the fleet. This is a very cool challenge - especially for CS people… route planning, route optimization, etc…

Your actions also have a direct influence on what you get: For example if you encounter a hostile ship you can destroy it or make a plea bargain with them. Usually the ship will offer you fuel, scrap (=money) or other stuff you may or may not need. If you decide to destroy the ship instead you usually get less goods (fuel, weapons) and more scrap (money). So if you plan (haha) to visit a store soon you may decide to destroy the ships on your way.

There is a whole wiki-community for this game. They note different strategies:

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/FTL:_Faster_Than_Light_Wiki

Also you can upgrade your ship with scrap (money). You have to decide what system to upgrade.

When fighting another ship it makes a huge difference if you know what you are doing or not. Of you are a noob you will most likely be destroyed or loose too much during the fight.

Before you start your journey you can also pick one of several different ships. Every ship has different characteristics. Even your crew members have different capabilities:

There is one species where each crew member gives the room where the crew member is in additional power. Guys from other species are made of rock: Use them to distinguish fires on your ship.

Fire on your ship is a huge topic.

Fire occurs when your ship is hit by sun flares, big weapons or other dangerous stuff. Fire is causing damage to your ship and makes the current room unusable. You can plan ahead to deal with fire:

You can control the hatches of your ship. Some people have all hatches open so that all unused parts of the ship are exposed to space. This means that those rooms have no oxygen in them. When a fire happens in those rooms it automatically disappears after a few seconds because in those rooms there is no oxygen.

You can plan so much in this game…

[lobotryas]

What you're thinking of is the "Adv. FTL Navigation" augmentation instead of a Subsystem.

Completely agree with the rest of the sentiment. I usually have a general idea of what I want (ex: get shields to 3 by sector 4) but improvise depending on what drops/encounters I get.

[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.

[marvin]

You must be doing something wrong. I beat the game every single time on easy. The only ship I've had trouble with is the Mantis cruiser. I also beat it 50% of the time on Normal (the hardest possible option).

[lewispollard]

> I only played with the starting ship, on hard difficulty

And you're wondering why the game is hard?

[PeterisP]

If you're getting hit 10-20 times in a row then it means that the enemy is getting the time to take 10-20 shots at you... which seems far too much; the battle should be over much sooner almost always - you can't afford attrition battles since any damage costs you funds that are required for upgrades.

But starting with hard difficulty probably was the mistake - unlike other games, it's not something you do before trying other things, it's something to do after you've tried other things and found out a strong strategy that works for you.

[KVFinn]

>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 should 100% try the other ships, it's the fastest way to learn. The different ships teach you different things. Some ships start with no shields, or no weapon, etc, and show you different approaches which you will bring into any ship.

[xentronium]

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

If there is also an enemy shooting at you, you will gain experience for shields and engines when asteroids hit/miss. Otherwise, no.

[James_Duval]

You used to be able to do this, though.

[shazow]

Fun to imagine this comment in the context of building a startup.

<Too unfair, ran out of money after 4-5 weeks, gave up. The whole experience is a joke. If you like it, good for you. Go get a real job, it's easier.>

[rcxdude]

This seems to be a common impression among those who start playing the game. However, I have seen an experienced player win 10 games in a row on normal difficulty (in response to someone making the exact claim you did, so it wasn't like he got a lucky streak), switching to a different ship each time. So obviously the randomness is not a complete killer if you know the game well enough. That said, I'm not that good at the game.

[KVFinn]

>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.

The game is hard no doubt, so most of the challenge is seeing how far you can get with what resources you encounter rather than 'winning'...

But FYI, the best players have win rates upwards of 90% on Normal. Perhaps 60% with a random ship rather than one of the better ones. In fact there are people on Twitch who win more than 50% of their games WITHOUT PAUSING... !

[UweSchmidt]

Note that there are various mods for this game, including one that removes the time limit. That should allow for some pressure-free exploring, trying out the nice equipment and recruiting and training a fun crew.

That way you'd technically miss out on some stuff, but you know, these days I'm a "casual" at best, and I spend my forum-reading- and figuring-things-out-energy on other things.