FTL: Faster Than Light [Official Site] launched in 2012 and years later it's still being supported which is fantastic. This latest patch is mainly bug fixes and some quality of life changes. This is an example of an indie developer doing good support!
The latest release adds in a change to screen mode switching, with the game no longer requiring a restart when you change between windowed and fullscreen. I tested it and it works beautifully even with my dual-monitor setup, so that's fantastic.
They've also gone through and fixed a couple of rare crash bugs, some event logic, spelling, and grammar fixes along with minor tooltip text changes. On top of that, they also fixed some annoying mouse input bugs, restored the useful “Low O2” warning, small art fixes, AI improvements to their use of power juggling when weapons are mid-charge and so on.
See the full changelog here. It's live on Steam, with other stores to follow soon.
I'll be honest, I've never completed it. As much as I've genuinely tried and I absolutely adore the game, I do find it really difficult. I've reached the boss many times, but I just never seem to be well enough prepared to face it! Even after this many years, I can still happily go back to it and try again, which shows what a really great game it is.
Literally, all those weapons fire off immediately - and were aimed on the Boss shields to take them down as quickly as possible.
What does the Boss do?... He only randomly / flukily sends a Hack-Bot to attack my weapon systems. Absolute b**tard! It powers down my weapons regularly, and I find myself unable to take down his shield. Literally this was the only thing that could have saved him. Still, it was a good run. Love this game.
I contacted the FTL developers some months ago about how much I liked the game, and also an improvement suggestion. FTL looks fine on a 1920x1080p monitor in windowed-mode. But, it does not look fine on 4K (3840x2160p) in windowed-mode. You need to run it full screen else it is much too small. My suggestion was to have pixel resizing as a Setting option, e.g. 2x resolution or 3x resolution (or dynamically resizing by grabbing the window border with the mouse). They responded, but I think they indicated it would be unlikely to happen (old game and all that). I guess this hasn't gone into the game patches, but I'll have a look when I get home.
Probably played 250+ hours of FTL (and still haven't unlocked everything yet).
Very native English-speaker inability to understand 95% of the world ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers))
FTL had so much potential, but really it's an exercise in masochism. It should be called "RNG: Count the Ways it will F*#$ You."
It does not matter how many times I've attempted to complete a run, some new BS event would take place. One you simply could not overcome, or would have to deal with at the worst possible time.
I was blown away at the sheer creativity put into the number of ways the game can ruin your run. I don't remember if the RNG (ie. so-called "luck" ) ever really worked in my favor. Another one of those games with a solid foundation but turned into a cultural fad in itself as a game that's stupidly hard for the sake of being hard.
So until they add a mode that has less RNG events (much much less), or one that balances the number of bad RNG events with good ones (if there even are any), I doubt I'll ever install or play again. This game sits in my "Garbage" steam category out of principle. My patience (and free time I have to sink into any game) has reached its limit with FTL, which, in this case, appears to be 5 hours of playtime.
You should try Massive Chalice :)
Actually, where I really really like FTL (including its balanced game mechanics. Yes, the RNG too), I'm not at all keen on the mechanics of Darkest Dungeon. FTL - you start a completely fresh game each time (or load back to the point you had reached). The game lasts no more than 3 hours start to finish. You choose your starting ship and you have difficulty options (Easy, Normal, Hard ~ and then Mods as well.)
With Darkest Dungeon, you are trying to build up a team of characters and every step along the way, they're getting increasingly insane and diseased. So, you finish a dungeon, your best characters are ruined, and you're hoping to take on harder and harder dungeons. Basically, you make mistakes in your DD play, and you might as well wipe hours and hours of punishing work that you put into the game to get to that point.
The RNG in FTL is a lot more balanced than you'd think. Watch some game play videos on Youtube, and see the techniques people employ. Use the Pause button a lot! Fire off the weapons by hand so that they all work together. A lot of the fun in FTL is choosing options based on your current status. Do you need to buy another weapon, do you need to repair the ship, do you need to reinforce the doors. When RNG favours you with an item - Do you use that item or do you stick with your existing weapon, augmentation, crew member. Lots of strategy involved.
Last edited by g000h on 16 Jan 2018 at 5:47 pm UTC
I'm on a 4K screen, I load up FTL and change from full-screen mode to windowed-mode in the Options, and I get a too-small play-window. Then, I select the corner of the window with the mouse, and resize it to be the window size I want, and the game is nicely handling the game-window resizing.
Whoop! Very happy about this.
Last edited by g000h on 16 Jan 2018 at 6:44 pm UTC
I also credit watching Kikoskia's incredibly fortunate Let's Play with helping me get there:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2wyBHX_6fA&list=PLTvwKQHVid4bzdxY1nJYqFUrfPGGBwLpa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2wyBHX_6fA&list=PLTvwKQHVid4bzdxY1nJYqFUrfPGGBwLpa)
Sometimes you just need to know that the game is in fact winnable. :|
Last edited by Hamish on 16 Jan 2018 at 7:57 pm UTC
It is hugely RNG which goes against the idea of user ability to affect outcomes, but its just too damn satisfying when you do win.
I originally hated it also, but then invested time in it, unlocked every ship on hard and every variant (including the crazy hard to get crystal ship). over 600hrs gameplay, cant believe there are others like me on here with more hours in this than things like path of exile!
I even thanked the developer
Last edited by g000h on 16 Jan 2018 at 11:05 pm UTC
Not sure if you guys have noticed, but right now FTL is 78% off on [Humble Store](https://www.humblebundle.com/store/ftl-faster-than-light) and not only do you get the Steam key, but DRM-free download from Humble and browser-play from Humble and iOS version too.
But the version they sell (as DRM-free) is still from 06/02/2014 :(
Strange, since the GOG.com release got the update.
While I can understand having difficulty on the normal or hard levels, I've got around a 90% win rate on easy and I don't think it's particularly difficult to achieve. Just remember that pause is your friend, carefully timing the firing of your weapons can boost your damage output considerably, and that the game's all about adapting to what you get and going with the flow rather than trying to force a particular loadout; all types of weapons have their uses and getting to know them all can give you a real advantage. Also boarding is overpowered; if you can consistently capture an enemy ship without destroying it you'll gain a small but noticeable boost in resources.
Also, use the doors Luke! :D
View video on youtube.com
Me again. Great News - I'm not sure when it happened, but finally FTL supports windowed-mode resizing (on Linux at least).
I'm on a 4K screen, I load up FTL and change from full-screen mode to windowed-mode in the Options, and I get a too-small play-window. Then, I select the corner of the window with the mouse, and resize it to be the window size I want, and the game is nicely handling the game-window resizing.
Whoop! Very happy about this.
This is great. I play it often on a 14" 1920x1080 laptop and the window is a little bit too small for my taste. Now i can resize it like i want.
Treasure your Pike Beams folks.
By the way, are you the Hamish who calls in to Talk Heathen show on youtube?Nah, I am just one of many Hamishes. ;)
FTL forums on Steam are full of people complaining that the game doesn't work for them any more after the patch. It's funny how those things work.The updated version from GOG.com works brilliantly for me at least. Are these Linux users having issues or just FTL players in general?
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