In this episode of the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable we talk about the amazing indie rogue-like FTL! During this season we will be doing entire episodes about certain video games we love and we decided to kick this off with style!
Show Notes & Seek Times:
What We are Playing & Drinking
FTL: Faster Than Light
Make sure to checkout both our Interviews with the amazing people behind FTL:
Interview with FTL score composer Ben Prunty:
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1552
Interview with FTL designer Matthew Davis:
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1181
More about FTL: Advanced Edition:
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1732
Show Notes & Seek Times:
What We are Playing & Drinking
- 0:29m CapnCurry: Skyrim
- 1:43m WhiteboySlim: GTA V Online & Starbound
- 2:56m Travis: GTA V Online & FTL
- 3:34m jdodson: BioShock Infinite Burial at Sea Part 1, Pokemon Blue & Starbound
FTL: Faster Than Light
- 7:24m - What is FTL?
- 9:20m - What our win counts are? What game stats do we have?
- 15:45m - What ships have we unlocked and what do we have yet to get?
- 19:15m - What are the first few items we get for the ship when we start the game off?
- 30.44m - In game races, what do they do and which ones to we like?
- 37.30m - What strategies do we like and if we have a viable boarding party strategy?
- 44.50m - What should people NEVER do & a tip to take down the Rebel Flagship?
- 48:25m - What do we think of the new FTL: Advanced Edition?
Make sure to checkout both our Interviews with the amazing people behind FTL:
Interview with FTL score composer Ben Prunty:
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1552
Interview with FTL designer Matthew Davis:
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1181
More about FTL: Advanced Edition:
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1732
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No wonder I saw that Travis and Tim were playing hours ago!
Capn, tell me about your upgraded gaming rig. Mine is quite old, I've been told I should upgrade since I can now afford to. I looked into some components and got a bit overwhelmed.
Travis, what is the DRM-free version? Does that mean it's free? Hearing you guys talk about the game makes me want to play it.
DRM free means it doesn't require Steam or some external server to authenticate to to run it. You can get a DRM free version by purchasing it through the FTL website using the Humble Widget which will also net you a Steam copy. That said, the Steam copy does sync your ships and stats so if you reformat, some if your progress is saved.
Also love to hear about CapnCurrys new rig!
My gaming rig is actually a Macbook Pro, dual-booting into Windows. The good news is that it's a perfectly respectable gaming machine in a laptop form factor. The bad news is that the price tag on the sucker is probably in the neighborhood of $3,000 - I say "probably," because it was bought and provided to me by the company I work for.
If you have three grand to drop on a gaming rig, you can certainly find a better one than a Macbook pro. For what it's worth, though, this is the base model: http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=ME294LL/A&step=config
Ah right, dual booting into Windows on the Mac w bootcamp. I install games on my Macboock direct but I bet installing Win 7 native on the Mac would get a bit more oomph from the hardware.
I have plenty to drop on a gaming rig, but I'm not one to buy a computer, I prefer to build them. I have no desire for a Mac or laptop. I have nothing against Apple, really, but I'm predominately a Windows user and have barely used anything Apple at all.
Oh, Jon, when you talked about the FTL score, it reminded me of how I feel about the Minecraft music. It is wonderful and music that I would enjoy listening to if I was programming.
I should do a few posts about some of my fav. game scores. Hmmm. Yeah.
I listened whilst working, so I might have missed part of the conversation about this, but what are any of your thoughts as far as types of Sectors to go to (Civilian vs Rebel) and inside the sectors, do you avoid any types of stops(I personally hate the nebulas)?
I usually go to Civilian but thats a bit safer and you won't get certain ship events or other cool stuff.
My stats: 18 hours (probably around 12 hours in Normal, until talking to Jon and finding out that it's socially acceptable to play in Easy). No Federation kills, yet.
I think one thing everyone can take away from the roundtable is that we all think it's ok to play on easy :D
There is no shame in playing on Easy, especially in this game.
I don't like the sectors that are entirely nebulae (I had to look up the plural of nebula...) but when there is a nebula in an otherwise normal sector I always head for them to slow down the rebels and give myself more time in a sector.
Otherwise I kinda go where ever. A couple of the ships can only be unlocked from events that take place in hostile sectors though, so keep that in mind.
And even though everyone said not to... I tried the spider event, and lost a crew member. At least it was early on in the game :)
The spider event has become one of those things where logically, I know it's not "supposed" to be any worse than anything else, but when I lose a crew member I always feel like I should have known better. I know I've had positive outcomes with it but I can't even remember what the reward is for it.
Hey, are they taking requests for the expansion? If I had an option to fire a torpedo and nuke the spiders from orbit, I'd probably take it regardless of what the loot odds looked like. :)
"Nuke planet from orbit" :D
We need to be sure..
About 28 hours in, and I recorded my first win! Some significant stats: 229 piloted evasions(human) and 9 kills(mantis, when I got a teleporter for fun, I still don't have the mantis ship).
I'm finding as I'm playing that instead of maxing out my shields, I'm using three shields and increasing my engines until I'm around 50% evasion. That plus the timing the cloak for when they shoot really helps.
This whole conversation is making think of getting FTL. I'd prefer to play a free demo (before buying so that I can be sure I want the game), but there doesn't seem to be one.
Yeah, playing a demo is good for sure. But FTL might be a "blind buy" and it makes more sense when it's on scale, which is often. Oh wait, I have a copy of it for you Greg, if you want it. Left over from a bundle. FEZ too. You can have both if your interested.
Oh! That's awesome! I'm not sure about Fez, but sure I'll take FTL. Are we friends on Steam? Nope, what a shame. Well send me a friend request. http://steamcommunity.com/id/gawoodruff
I could give you some $ for it, but I've already given you $ (Cheerful Ghost official paid member here). Hahahahahaha! Travis hooked me up with Terraria.
Nah it's fine, consider it a gift :D
You guys are awesome! I'm glad I was able to donate to the site, I felt like it was totally worth it and I'm glad that I was able to help keep the site alive.
Awesome, I'm glad I came back to this discussion now that I've been playing. Adym, you've said what Tim said in my discussion, pretty much, about raising the evade %. That's something I'm going to work on.
At first, I was avoiding the nebulae, I'm working on getting out of that habit. However, I don't like them because I often find that some of my systems are disabled and I have to re-route power to be able to jump. I usually try Civilian sectors, but sometimes also go for Engi or Rock. I sometimes choose the Pirate sectors to, especially as opposed to Rebel.
Here are my stats: http://i.imgur.com/b9u0eOn.jpg