The Case

Kickstarter, the Shut-Up-and-Take-My-Money initiative to support cool projects (some of which are not game related!) in need of funding is bearing fruit. FTL: Faster Than Light has had a great following from the beginning, one that threatened to drown the creators in money. They were promised a space “Roguelike”; what did they get?

The Trial

FTL takes place in space, on the Unimportant A.D. The Rebels are beating up the Federation; as one of the loyalists, you are tasked with delivering important intel to a Federation base. Thing is, the base is eight space sectors away – and each one of those is crawling with rebel advance forces, pirates, unfriendly locals and space anomalies. And, to make matters worse, the rebel fleet is hot on your heels. This is not going to be a pleasant trip in a space pleasure yacht, that’s for sure!

Before you begin your almost assuredly suicidal run, you can select your ship and customize your crew. Well, at first you can only get the Kestrel Cruiser and three humans, but you can at least rename them (“Eternity of Pain” sounds about right) and, in the case of humies, change the sex. This has only cosmetic effects, but maybe you want to save the Federation with Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup. Later on (and I do mean LATER) you can unlock new ships and new layouts.

Once you’re out and about, you’re given a sector map with hyperspace beacons you can jump to. Your goal is to get to the system marked as “exit”. You can’t travel freely – you can only jump to beacons that are close to your current system. After a few jumps the map will begin showing the advance of the rebel fleet, so you have to be quick. When the Rebels overtake a system, the only thing waiting for you there are their ships – and you won’t even have the time to loot them after their destruction.

While there are non-combat encounters or ways to avoid battle, a huge part of the game is trying to blow up another space tub while it tries to do the same to you. You’ll only ever fight them one at a time and one ship per system – though that still leaves plenty of opportunities to get killed. You have not only to watch shields and hitpoints, but also the things happening aboard your ship. Certain weapons, say, missiles, ignore shields and hurt the ship directly – while at the same time possibly disabling important systems, causing fires and ruptures, hurting crew… and even if you do survive, the local Negative Space Wedgie can still kill you, solar flares and asteroids being the biggest ones.

Firing is done by targeting the enemy systems and maybe turning “Autofire” on. Each weapon has its own strengths and weaknesses (o rly?!). Rate of fire is important, but then come the weapon specifics. Lasers do normal damage, but are stopped by shields. Beams can mess up several rooms, but are usually less than useless against shields. Missiles can usually rip the enemy a new one, but they are limited in ammunition (so it’s wise to let the first one disable the enemy shield generator). There are drones for every occasion, but, like missiles, they are limited by the drone parts you have and need an entire new system and its upgrades to function. Drone systems aboard enemy craft are one of the primary recipients of missiles.

At the same time you’re looking after what’s happening aboard your ship. Power levels have to be managed – each system needs more juice the more advanced it is. So you might be forced to, say, cut the power to the medbay or lessen its flow towards the engines to get some of the better weapons (the ship can have three or four of those at the same time – though good luck firing more than two of them) or drones online (same situation as weapons). Meanwhile a missile might have hit your oxygen generator and caused a rupture in the hull. A crewman must be diverted to repair the breach and fix the damaged system (in that order). That is, if he’s not busy manning a station (gives certain bonuses, like accuracy or dodge chance), fighting fires or boarding parties. Though I like to deal with those two things by opening large sections of the ship to hard vacuum.

After the battle you receive your loot (unless the enemy escapes), hopefully scrap, fuel, drone parts, missiles and, if God owes you a favour, new guns and systems. Scrap is what makes the FTL universe go round. It can be used to upgrade ship systems, like experience points. Then again, you time and again find a store. Whatever goodies it might have, the first thing on your mind will be fixing the ship’s hull and maybe refueling. FTL requires a lot of balancing between a powerful systems and powerful gear – your default weapons alone can’t carry you to the end. One thing I can tell you is that you should not neglect to get your hands on a teleporter and a security/boarding drone. It’s also advisable to be stocked up on missiles.

These things are important out of the battles, too, as they can provide alternative (read: better) solutions to encounters. Why send you valuable troops to check a derelict station when a bot can do it? Why attack a ship if you can cloak and sneak past it? This really captures the sense of wonder that is lacking in other Roguelikes, that was present in Weird Worlds and Space Rangers. The universe is not only about combat; it’s about losing your weapons technician to giant spiders while evacuating a space station.

The graphics part does its work for the most parts, though it lacks the polish of Gratuitous Space Battles or Weird Worlds. The sound part is decent as well – and you must listen to the sounds else you miss that your technician is choking to death while fixing a breach (these people don’t know what a space suit is).

The Verdict

For a game that was funded 2005% of its asked money, FTL: Faster Than Light really proves its worth. It is hard – though not Dwarf Fortress or Paradox Grand Strategy hard – but it is fun, creative and addictive. There’s beer in my fridge that sits there ignored because I was playing FTL. You should definitely try – if only to partake in massive, bloody fanboy battles when Star Command comes out.

Case Review