So I got FTL: Faster Than Light

[BloatedGuppy]

If you can't accept a valid criticism of the game then go somewhere else.

Well the key word here is "valid", right? It's not terribly surprising that you found your own criticism of the game to be compelling, but the point of issuing declarations in a public space is, I assume, to receive public feedback. If after hearing a host of people attempt to patiently explain to you that the game is not entirely RNG based and there is plenty of room for skill/tactics to affect the outcome your conclusion is "LOL NOPE" then I'm not sure what the point of this exercise was to begin with.

I mean, I'm giving you the out you clearly want. YOUR copy of FTL is clearly broken and governed entirely by RNG. I think that's terrible, and that you should petition for a refund post haste.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Yes running away is supposed to make you weaker. I fail to see what is wrong with that as you take the easy way out you get less of a reward. It is not very hard to keep the enemies weapon system out while you charge your FTL drive. Honestly, from reading this you just seem to be using bad tactics and not going for the best possible out come of scenario.

Yeah sometimes you get no stores with decent stuff that is a Rogue like. The game is not hard to finish and does not require any special knowledge or tactics. Sure you can go with some certain tactics that will certain make some fights like the final boss easier but they are unnecessary.

You should really lay out what thought process you go through when you get a distress event and give a couple of examples of how you reacted after you knew some of the possible outcomes and the state of your ship at the time. Also what weapons you are going for and battle tactics.

 

[Inkidu]

If you can't accept a valid criticism of the game then go somewhere else.

Well the key word here is "valid", right? It's not terribly surprising that you found your own criticism of the game to be compelling, but the point of issuing declarations in a public space is, I assume, to receive public feedback. If after hearing a host of people attempt to patiently explain to you that the game is not entirely RNG based and there is plenty of room for skill/tactics to affect the outcome your conclusion is "LOL NOPE" then I'm not sure what the point of this exercise was to begin with.

I mean, I'm giving you the out you clearly want. YOUR copy of FTL is clearly broken and governed entirely by RNG. I think that's terrible, and that you should petition for a refund post haste.

What makes yours more valid than mine? Nothing really. I only came here to gauge the reactions of other people to the game when compared to my criticism of it. If you came here hoping to change it just by saying, "Lol, no you're wrong." You're going to need a lot more than what you've offered. It's a very random game, and there are people who believe like I do not just here but elsewhere. It not only makes defeat feel as though it wasn't an error in play style, but it also cheapens any victory you have because it doesn't feel had fought and won. Did I win this time because I'm actually good or because I can cheese the game with my three burst mk IIs? I mean who can help jumping into suns on their first few jumps of a game? No one, that's purely random and will end a game fast. Sure you don't lose a lot of progress. That's not a valid point. The point is it's just bad luck. What's there to master outside of the ship combat? Nothing, you've got to hope the jump points break your way, that's it.

 

[Inkidu]

Yes running away is supposed to make you weaker. I fail to see what is wrong with that as you take the easy way out you get less of a reward. It is not very hard to keep the enemies weapon system out while you charge your FTL drive. Honestly, from reading this you just seem to be using bad tactics and not going for the best possible out come of scenario.

Try reading my initial post. I don't advocate running away, because it does make you weaker. If you're too lazy to read two pages of writing then I can't help you

Yeah sometimes you get no stores with decent stuff that is a Rogue like. The game is not hard to finish and does not require any special knowledge or tactics. Sure you can go with some certain tactics that will certain make some fights like the final boss easier but they are unnecessary.

Not my point. My point is that it's too random. Your success or failure relies entirely on luck of the draw.

You should really lay out what thought process you go through when you get a distress event and give a couple of examples of how you reacted after you knew some of the possible outcomes and the state of your ship at the time. Also what weapons you are going for and battle tactics.

It doesn't matter. Unless you've got a blue option it's a coin toss.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Yes running away is supposed to make you weaker. I fail to see what is wrong with that as you take the easy way out you get less of a reward. It is not very hard to keep the enemies weapon system out while you charge your FTL drive. Honestly, from reading this you just seem to be using bad tactics and not going for the best possible out come of scenario.

Try reading my initial post. I don't advocate running away, because it does make you weaker. If you're too lazy to read two pages of writing then I can't help you

Yeah sometimes you get no stores with decent stuff that is a Rogue like. The game is not hard to finish and does not require any special knowledge or tactics. Sure you can go with some certain tactics that will certain make some fights like the final boss easier but they are unnecessary.

Not my point. My point is that it's too random. Your success or failure relies entirely on luck of the draw.

You should really lay out what thought process you go through when you get a distress event and give a couple of examples of how you reacted after you knew some of the possible outcomes and the state of your ship at the time. Also what weapons you are going for and battle tactics.

It doesn't matter. Unless you've got a blue option it's a coin toss.

You haven't said a single thing in 2 pages that really gives anyone any incline on how to help you with this game. All you have done is say you don't like the random distress events as they are too luck based. You've even said you're doing fine with ship combat which is entirely untrue and mentioned apparently "OP" but highly inefficient weapon combos that will cheese you through the game. It won't and you're not doing yourself any favours in this thread.

If you can't finish the game after having a firm grasp on ship to ship combat you are either the unluckiest person to ever have the misfortune to put the thing on your HDD or else you don't have a firm grasp on the games battle mechanics and weapon combinations.

Your point about escaping was it gains you nothing and you can't lick your wounds. You complain about this and I say well that's nice but it isn't how FTL mechanically works. In FTL if you make the choice to run away you give up scrap and other rewards at the expense of dying. If that isn't good enough to run every now and then, I've been doing it wrong.

It does matter it matters a lot actually. Do you let the enemy ship go for their offer or kill them anyway? Do you go into this Asteroid field and risk the damage for the reward? There are plenty of things to consider aside is this blue. If you think that is all there is to the risk and reward to it you also don't grasp it fully. while it may be "just a coin toss" you don't seem to be considering is doing this event worth the loss for the potential gain.

So yeah if me taking the time to read through 2 pages of posts at 4 in the morning to help someone play a game only to be told I'm lazy and not putting in any effort well fuck me I'm lazy then.

 

[Inkidu]

Yes running away is supposed to make you weaker. I fail to see what is wrong with that as you take the easy way out you get less of a reward. It is not very hard to keep the enemies weapon system out while you charge your FTL drive. Honestly, from reading this you just seem to be using bad tactics and not going for the best possible out come of scenario.

Try reading my initial post. I don't advocate running away, because it does make you weaker. If you're too lazy to read two pages of writing then I can't help you

Yeah sometimes you get no stores with decent stuff that is a Rogue like. The game is not hard to finish and does not require any special knowledge or tactics. Sure you can go with some certain tactics that will certain make some fights like the final boss easier but they are unnecessary.

Not my point. My point is that it's too random. Your success or failure relies entirely on luck of the draw.

You should really lay out what thought process you go through when you get a distress event and give a couple of examples of how you reacted after you knew some of the possible outcomes and the state of your ship at the time. Also what weapons you are going for and battle tactics.

It doesn't matter. Unless you've got a blue option it's a coin toss.

You haven't said a single thing in 2 pages that really gives anyone any incline on how to help you with this game. All you have done is say you don't like the random distress events as they are too luck based. You've even said you're doing fine with ship combat which is entirely untrue and mentioned apparently "OP" but highly inefficient weapon combos that will cheese you through the game. It won't and you're not doing yourself any favours in this thread.

If you can't finish the game after having a firm grasp on ship to ship combat you are either the unluckiest person to ever have the misfortune to put the thing on your HDD or else you don't have a firm grasp on the games battle mechanics and weapon combinations.

Your point about escaping was it gains you nothing and you can't lick your wounds. You complain about this and I say well that's nice but it isn't how FTL mechanically works. In FTL if you make the choice to run away you give up scrap and other rewards at the expense of dying. If that isn't good enough to run every now and then, I've been doing it wrong.

It does matter it matters a lot actually. Do you let the enemy ship go for their offer or kill them anyway? Do you go into this Asteroid field and risk the damage for the reward? There are plenty of things to consider aside is this blue. If you think that is all there is to the risk and reward to it you also don't grasp it fully. while it may be "just a coin toss" you don't seem to be considering is doing this event worth the loss for the potential gain.

So yeah if me taking the time to read through 2 pages of posts at 4 in the morning to help someone play a game only to be told I'm lazy and not putting in any effort well fuck me I'm lazy then.

I only asked for one thing and that was how to make the sector portion of the game a little less random and you can't do that not really, I don't need help with the ship combat. I've got a very firm grasp on how ship combat works. It's intuitive and very rewarding, where I get absolutely screwed is every other part of the game where if the game decides you lose you'll lose. The amount of things beyond your control basically means you're looking some kind of golden probability where everything breaks your way. So yeah, I might be the unluckiest person in the world, but that's my point.

It is just a coin toss because you're not even guaranteed to leave the event alone some of the time. Ever tried hiding from a ship? How many times does that work out for you? About half. The game relies entirely on chance. It's more like playing poker than anything else.

EDIT: Oh, If you want to help someone at four in the morning then you'd better do it right, or just go to bed because you're going to be no help to anyone.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

It does matter it matters a lot actually. Do you let the enemy ship go for their offer or kill them anyway? Do you go into this Asteroid field and risk the damage for the reward? There are plenty of things to consider aside is this blue. If you think that is all there is to the risk and reward to it you also don't grasp it fully. while it may be "just a coin toss" you don't seem to be considering is doing this event worth the loss for the potential gain.

Pahahaha, Hardly much of the choice are involved.

If you are used to the combat of FTL you are likely to come out on top in every combat. That is, you will gain something from it. With that in mind, let me explain.


Optional combat

Spoiler

Are you about to die?
1. If yes, don't fight. = nothing gained
2. If no, fight. = Medium gain
3. If enemy ship has 2 missile weapons? Not even worth it.
4. Otherwise, fight. = medium reward

Letting the ship go

Spoiler

1. You lack fuel and enemy is offering fuel = take yes.
2. You lack drone parts and enemy is offering drone parts = take yes.
3. You lack missiles and enemy is offering missiles = take yes.
If not, kill them. Killing them is basically "reset loot" option for me.

Nope, there is no choice involved. only optimal path.

Distress and other stuff like zoltan ship asking to research you

Spoiler

Edit3: Yeah, Didn't included "answering distress call" option
Replace the yes and no with 'asnwer the call' and 'don't answer the call'.

Possible paths when pressed 'yes'
1. Combat = medium~high profit
2. Reward = Medium(?) profit
3. Combat with handicap = you will at least break even.

Possible paths when pressed 'no'
1. No reward.
2. Combat = medium reward.

Possibility-wise, first option is still more profitable. Still no choice, only optimal path.

Risk of the crew

Spoiler

This is the dumbest choice I've ever seen. Unless you are in sector 1 and want to take early advantage or bust, the answer is obvious no.
you are risking a crew member worth +45 scraps for the scaling reward which is not even worth it until sector 3 because rewards are scales as sector goes higher, while risk scales up insanely high. In the later stages, this is really dumb because failing the RNG means there is +50%(assuming you are not a melee combat ship, full crew.) that it will kill experienced crew member. Not to mention crew members are hard to replace(and expensive).

This one was obvious. I like it when the path is clear.


I don't even install long range scans because being able to see the danger is less impressive than overcoming the danger and taking the loot. In short I can't see Astroid field, but still, enemy has same handicap as you do. It's not really a loss.

So in the end, if you know what you are doing, there is only right path and wrong path. If you like to give yourself a handicap, I wouldn't judge. but I wouldn't say that it is a good play.

Edit: And I really don't like it when I lose just because those pacifist shops decided not to sell weapons.

Edit2: And my point is that illusion of choice is a lie when you are good. It only matters when you choose the wrong one. But if you are sensible person why would choose the wrong option?

 

[Zenn3k]

There's no point in running away (like other roguelikes) because it'll only make you weaker instead of giving you a chance to heal since everything is based on scrap and the largest amounts of scrap are based on.

This is wrong, you should run when you are obviously outmatched, run right away.

 

[Pink Gregory]

In other roguelikes like Nethack or ADOM you can run away, bottleneck, you can take it one step at a time withdraw and it doesn't necessarily make you weaker, but running away in FTL simply hurts you. Even if you run away in XCOM you can at least possibly get a promotion for a troop in FTL it's just a loss. So there's not question that you're more at the mercy of the RNG in FTL. It relies on it a lot more than XCOM or any other roguelike I've ever played.

More at, yes. Completely at, no.

I've finished FTL many times. As have a lot of other people. I never felt like my successful runs were informed entirely by luck, just as very few of my unsuccessful runs were completely outside of my control. It's a Roguelike. Encountering failure states is part and parcel of the experience.

I'm sorry the game is annoying you. There is some luck involved. You're most certainly not entirely at the whim of the RNG, though. If FTL has a problem, it is that it is a somewhat tactically shallow game with a fairly clear set of good decisions and bad decisions in terms of how you kit out your ship and deal with encounters. That's something I'd like to see addressed in a sequel. I'm not going to hack on it too hard for this, though, as it was an indie project and sold for $10 at its most expensive.

Well there is going to be the 'Advanced Edition' update soon, when it releases for iOS, but I think that's just going to be more events, rather than new mechanics.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

In other roguelikes like Nethack or ADOM you can run away, bottleneck, you can take it one step at a time withdraw and it doesn't necessarily make you weaker, but running away in FTL simply hurts you. Even if you run away in XCOM you can at least possibly get a promotion for a troop in FTL it's just a loss. So there's not question that you're more at the mercy of the RNG in FTL. It relies on it a lot more than XCOM or any other roguelike I've ever played.

More at, yes. Completely at, no.

I've finished FTL many times. As have a lot of other people. I never felt like my successful runs were informed entirely by luck, just as very few of my unsuccessful runs were completely outside of my control. It's a Roguelike. Encountering failure states is part and parcel of the experience.

I'm sorry the game is annoying you. There is some luck involved. You're most certainly not entirely at the whim of the RNG, though. If FTL has a problem, it is that it is a somewhat tactically shallow game with a fairly clear set of good decisions and bad decisions in terms of how you kit out your ship and deal with encounters. That's something I'd like to see addressed in a sequel. I'm not going to hack on it too hard for this, though, as it was an indie project and sold for $10 at its most expensive.

Well there is going to be the 'Advanced Edition' update soon, when it releases for iOS, but I think that's just going to be more events, rather than new mechanics.

Oh no, there's new weapon systems. I saw the video for it and it showed some sort of device you can launch that will attach itself to the enemy ship. Who knows what else will be in there.

 

[uchytjes]

snip

After reading through the comments on the thread, I see that you are having some problems with events. As such, let me give you a few tips:

- Explore. Don't rush. Think of a sector as a dungeon: avoid the exit until you are forced there and loot everything.

- Diversify. More crew = more backups in case of bad events = more species with special abilities that help in certain "blue" events.

- Find a playstyle. I personally love playing an Engi cruiser. I actually win about 25% of the time with it now.

- Use easy. Swallow your pride and learn the situations with easy mode, then knock it up to normal when you're good and ready.

- Defense. If you can kill an enemy ship and not get hit, you've almost mastered the game.

- Missiles will fuck you up. If your enemy has missiles, put all power towards killing their weapons. Simple as that.

- Lasers aren't that good. If their lasers can't penetrate your shields, you're basically invincible.

- AI is stupid. You have the ability to time your shots, the AI doesn't. Take advantage of that.

- Enemy Ships. Generally, enemy ships' shapes correspond to what they do. Mantis ships focus on boarding, zolton cruisers rely on their extra sheilding, those slugs really like beam weaponry, rocks use missiles.

- Every ship is viable. Just different starting playstyles.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

Why must there always be one?

Ok, the whole point of any game with RNG every is favour. What do I mean?

XCOM, for example:

Is the height in my favour?
Is the cover in my favour?
Is the gun in my favour?
Do I have attachments that give my favour?
Do my soldiers give better favour than the rookies?

You can replace favour with odds, points, help or whatever. The whole point of a RNG game is to through everything you can into your favour, to unbalance it into your favour. It's literally game goal 1.

FTL:
I need to destroy these mantis ships, and I have a teleporter. I'll turn these melee's into my favour by buying a mantis.
I need a teleporter. I'll make it more likely that I get one by going to all of the shops.
I need some fuel, I'll make the choice to take fuel instead of fighting.

And so on. Yes, the RNG can sometimes bugger you over, but that's because you didn't balance it enough. It's just like missing a shot in a shooter, or not realising the enemy strength in a RTS. You are never perfect, so although you got that super-aim, super-stable gun, you may still miss. Even though you scanned the enemy base, they still had invisible soldiers hidden in the ground. The only reason you can't control the people in XCOM, or even FTL (Although you actually have a lot more skill involved in FTL) is because of the way the game is played. You don't go to play XCOM by switching soldiers and moving along. That game is called Ghost Recon. Also, that game is brillant and I love it.

Besides, there is a lot of skill involved that is not decided by RNG. Tell me, did you get angry at any point because the enemy quickly regen'd shields just as you hit, and this kept happening? Well then, disable your secondary gun and rearm it 1 second later than the other gun. Your timing means as their shields get hit, the second shot goes through and all of a sudden you are doing damage. The RNG has nothing to do with that. In XCOM, you could activate certain fighter abilities that guarantee hits and grenades that guarantee damage and cover destruction. I mean, hell even D&D has things that are skill based, rather than rolled. "I jump on the table and stab him from above, negating his shield." That is skill in a game that is literally based on dice.

If you cry about a RNG, unless the game is literally just click dice and if you get this much, you win, then you need to have a better look at what you are doing.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

I am afraid you are blaming your incompetence on the game OP. I have FTL too and it is quite difficult at times but it is not luck based you can usually defeat anyone provided that you have good strategy. If you get owned by some ship it is most likely a consequence of your bad decisions during the combat or even before that when you upgraded your ship or picked a bad weapon.
Only luck based elements are the ship unlocking (i unlocked only 3 ships in all my playthroughs) and store invetory although you can always find useful stuff in there and if you do not well you better adapt or die.

 

[tzimize]

I like roguelikes, but damn this one might as well be luck-based: The game. It goes beyond just hits and misses in combat. You're either doing really well your you're doing really badly. It's got a very unstable equilibrium to it. There's no point in running away (like other roguelikes) because it'll only make you weaker instead of giving you a chance to heal since everything is based on scrap and the largest amounts of scrap are based on.

You're at the utter and complete mercy of the RNG more so than any other game I've played. Sure there are little things you can do, but they don't add up to much. The problem I'm finding is that when a game relies too much on luck or a RNG then it boils down to two things for me.

"Well, it's not my fault, just bad luck."
"Well, I just got lucky, no real skill involved."

It really dampens that sense of understanding and mastery than comes from games like this. There's not much you can learn, especially when it's just a run of bad luck. It doesn't feel like I'm trying to beat a game, it feels like I'm trying to get then golden run. That statistical probability where everything goes my way. You can go through a whole game never getting a weapon or even, and other games you could (I imagine, haven't beaten it yet) get four burst mk II lasers and a weapon pre-igniter and shred just about anything in the game.

Generally I think fuel limitation and an advancing wall of doom was pretty petty overkill on the developers part. I've played plenty of roguelikes. I mean yeah Nethack you learn things, don't go down stairs while incumbered. In FTL it's well you jumped into a solar-flare sun without any reasonable expectation of knowing and you're going to have to fight a tough ship and... oh, this is the first jump of the game too.

So I'm wondering what other people think about the game, because I'm just frustrated and it's not that fun kind of roguelike frustration.

I think its absolutely brilliant.

If you want a couple of advice:

1: Upgrade the medbay to level 2 early.
2: Try to have 75 scrap in hand in case someone sells a teleporter (probably best investment in the game). If you disable enemy ships by crew-force then you get more scrap and resources from it.
3: If you find a smart bomb, buy it. Its the best weapon in game. Perfect for disabling shields, taking out a medbay, etc.
4: Fly into nebulas, this gives you more time, which equals more jumps, which equals more resources.
5: If you're desperate, level your crew. There are situations when you have decent shield and the enemy cant penetrate your defenses. Use these opportunities to just soak experience on shield-crew and engine/pilot crew.

Its not very hard. On easy difficulty I win more or less every time. Normal difficulty on the other hand...is pretty brutal

 

[Sansha]

A funny thing happened to me on the very first time I played - I won. The point of the game is to do a little bit better each time until you finally win... since I won the first time, I lost interest in the game. However...

The only aspect of the game that I do feel that way about is in regards to unlocking other ships because not only do the events to unlock them happen only in certain sectors, some require specific things on your ship to do. Let me give an example with unlocking the Mantis ship.

Requirements

1. Be in the Mantis Homeworlds

2. Have a teleporter

3. Have a level 2 or higher med bay

4. Encounter the thief KazaaakplethKilik

5. Don't destroy his ship but instead just kill the crew

6. Check the ship for survivors

7. Bring KazaaakplethKilik (Who you find still alive on the ship) to your medbay to save him.

These are a lot of things that need to happen in order for you to get the ship. If you didn't know that this is how you unlock it then it could take you forever to unlock the ship. And there are lots of unique events in the game already so there's no way to know that the KazaaakplethKilik one is special.

But as to the actual fighting mechanics and such, I don't agree, I've found myself in control of the situations I find myself in most of the time.

... once I did this and got the Mantis ship, the game is infinitely more fun - except the final battle. I'm able to wipe out the largest of pirate ships in seconds by dropping four Mantis combatists on board. They fucking tear through crew and systems with no effort... but in the boss battle, this doesn't work.

 

[Elamdri]

Sorry Ink, I just flat out disagree.

Perhaps it's because I only use the ships I've got the strategy down for, but if I spin up a normal difficulty game in the Mantis 4-man teleport cruiser or the Zoltan-B, I'm probably going to complete the game.

Even if I don't beat the game, I almost always reach S7.

Keep playing. Seriously. You'll crack it in the end.

All I've got is the starter ship and the Engi cruiser. Has anyone beat it with the starter ship or do they just unlock something else.

Though no doubt I'll beat it. The way luck is a factor there is one statistical probability where unless I just let them shoot me down I'll win.

I've beaten it with the starter cruiser.

Quickly you will learn that some strategies work better than others. Teleportation is by far one of the strongest strategies, especially if you're lucky enough to pick up mantis crew.

Stealth Technology is also very helpful and makes the 2nd phase of the last boss very easy.

Having a drone that shoots down missiles is very helpful because late game missiles are a big threat.

Committing one crewmember to each system is great because an expert crew member is a big bonus.

Buying certain items like long range scanners helps you plan your jumps to maximize your bonuses

Buying Rank 2 doors is a lifesaver.

Repair Drones are cheating.

Always better to have more crew. (Diversity is a plus)

Learn what each event does (FUUUUCK giant spiders, it was nice knowing you colonists)

 

[Terminal Blue]

Generally I think fuel limitation and an advancing wall of doom was pretty petty overkill on the developers part. I've played plenty of roguelikes. I mean yeah Nethack you learn things, don't go down stairs while incumbered. In FTL it's well you jumped into a solar-flare sun without any reasonable expectation of knowing and you're going to have to fight a tough ship and... oh, this is the first jump of the game too.

It's worth noting I think that a complete run of FTL takes about half an hour, whereas a complete run of most roguelikes will take hours or even days.

This means that FTL cannot rely on YASD to create challenge, whereas in most roguelikes staving off YASD is 90% of the challenge. There's not going to be a point where you get lazy and take a stupid risk or make a noob error in FTL, because the game is so short that there isn't room for the player's concentration to lapse.

Basically, FTL kind of has to fuck you, because you're not going to fuck yourself within that timeframe.

The thing is, that perfect run is never going to happen. I mean, the game is short, but it's not that short. Something is going to go wrong on every run, and the real test is going to be how well you handle it. Actually, this will probably happen in most roguelikes. There will be a point where you've got yourself curbstomped to 1hp and are desperately running around hoping nothing kills you before you get enough health back to fight your way to safety. The difference is that in most Roguelikes you'll feel like it's your fault.

But this relies on a false premise that roguelikes are not intentionally designed to push the player to make mistakes or to test their concentration to the limit. I mean, these games are really hard. Infamously hard, in fact. It's not like just knowing the rules or knowing how the game works is enough to beat it, because the system is still stacked against you. That's what a roguelike is. That's how it works. Losing is fun.

FTL makes the terrible mistake of looking you in the eye while it's kicking you in the balls, and yeah.. that's a weakness in roguelike terms. But then it's not built like a standard roguelike and I really don't see what they could have done differently. I think it's worth noting as well that most roguelikes don't do as well as FTL, and part of that can probably be owed to the decision to focus on fast paced "slot machine" gameplay rather than slower YASD based endurance challenge. Because the latter really isn't for everyone.

Incidentally, if you want to play something more conventional with modern polish, I highly recommend Sword of the Stars: The Pit.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I disagree. By far the majority of my failures in FTL have been because of poor strategy, whether that was chancing another nebula instead of restocking on missiles, a failed attack strategy leaving me with no course of action against a heavily shielded foe, allowing the Flagship to go full AI, detouring for a distant objective or teleporting a not fully healed crew member onto an enemy ship or (and this happens a lot) forgetting to shut off my Fire Bomb, a lot of it is my fault. There are of course instances where RNG is the only factor - you take a shot and it either hits or misses - and that may make it seem like it is 100% RNG, and in that moment, it is. But no RNG destroys you completely. Good strategy puts you in a position where you can be prepared for a bit of bad RNG and still win.

 

[Inkidu]

I am afraid you are blaming your incompetence on the game OP. I have FTL too and it is quite difficult at times but it is not luck based you can usually defeat anyone provided that you have good strategy. If you get owned by some ship it is most likely a consequence of your bad decisions during the combat or even before that when you upgraded your ship or picked a bad weapon.
Only luck based elements are the ship unlocking (i unlocked only 3 ships in all my playthroughs) and store invetory although you can always find useful stuff in there and if you do not well you better adapt or die.

Someone didn't really read. SHIP COMBAT ISN'T MY PROBLEM.

Maybe putting it in big letters will help. If the limited number of sectors don't break your way. No rewards, filler sectors, and the like. It is very easy to end up hilariously underpowered in the later sectors because the early sectors just didn't give you enough either because they broke in a light pattern or were filled with filler points or no reward events. If I read they jumped away one more time...

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I only asked for one thing and that was how to make the sector portion of the game a little less random and you can't do that not really, I don't need help with the ship combat. I've got a very firm grasp on how ship combat works. It's intuitive and very rewarding, where I get absolutely screwed is every other part of the game where if the game decides you lose you'll lose. The amount of things beyond your control basically means you're looking some kind of golden probability where everything breaks your way. So yeah, I might be the unluckiest person in the world, but that's my point.

It is just a coin toss because you're not even guaranteed to leave the event alone some of the time. Ever tried hiding from a ship? How many times does that work out for you? About half. The game relies entirely on chance. It's more like playing poker than anything else.

EDIT: Oh, If you want to help someone at four in the morning then you'd better do it right, or just go to bed because you're going to be no help to anyone.

Plenty of people have told you how to do that and there is an RNG free option for many of the common events in the game and by that I mean an RNG free white coloured event. So if you can't see that and still think everything is coin toss then yeah you are t he on t hat is beyond help. I gave you the chance to help the people helping you by giving them some real information to go off to correct stuff you may be doing wrong. You've done nothing but be dismissive in most of this thread and just blamed the game's RNG. I've seen you respond to around two comments helpful constructively or at all. To anyone's help in this thread of which is there is fucking plenty of good advice and strategies you don't seem to be giving any feedback so people can actually keep helping.

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There is plenty of choice you've just outlined which choice you think is the best. That is part of the risk assessment portion of playing the game. If you're at the point where the enemy has 2 missile weapons it is safe to say you have enough firepower to actually reliably keep their systems down after the first barrage so yes it can be good to fight that if you think it is worth it depending on the reward. It also completely depends in what way you are about to die and what event it is.

As for letting ships go unless they offer you ridiculous stuff like 7 missiles there is often a different choice if you want to dice roll. For example, you completely forgotten the fact that killing them always get you more scrap and even more if you kill their crew. Is this scrap worth more to me now than those supplies? Yeah sometimes it is clear cut but not always and even more so in the case you don't use one of the supplies. That is the choice involved.

There are no wrong choices only riskier ones for more rewards. If you consider high risk = wrong and play the game by that law. Then fine fair enough, not a bad way to play the game. As far as I'm concerned there are plenty of little choices to make that aren't obviously best case only scenario in the game.