They can repair damage to individual systems mid-battle, but they can't fix hull damage that needs to be done at a store. Fighting other ships doesn't look glamorous, it's more strategy and tactics than action, but there's layers of depth that only become apparent after many hours of play, with different weapons fulfilling different roles, and shield strength often settling a battle.ĭuring conflict your crew - initially just three members - scurries around at your behest. The key thing is you never know what you're going to get, and so you must prepare for every possible outcome as best you can. Sometimes there's nothing there and there's not much to do but make another jump, other times you'll hop into a battle next to a burning sun, forced to dance with rockets while solar flares scorch the hull of your ship. You can either spend it on crew, parts or repairs at the many stores dotted across the galaxy, or you can use it to directly improve your ship's systems and energy output.Įach turn sees you drop into a new random encounter. Scrap is both currency and the means of upgrading and improving your ship. There's four resources that can be collected during your journey: fuel, missiles, drone parts, and scrap. Another necessity is to make sure you upgrade as often as possible when the opportunity arises. Different ships require changing tactics, but one universal truth is the requirement to closely monitor what's happening in battle, tweaking and adjusting settings to suit each exchange. It's very intuitive, and if there's any doubt as to how to navigate the touch-screen menus, there's a handy tutorial that will ease in new players and veterans alike.Īs before, each ship has different strengths and weaknesses, and each model (you unlock new vessels the further you get with each) comes with different weapons and systems. When you do get into battles with other ships - which, let's face it, happens all the time - tapping on either your ship or your opponent's highlights the craft and allows you to more easily identify what's going on and what needs to be done. Swiping across a subsystem reveals more specific details, such such as damage and effect. Tapping on one of the systems - the weapons were the ones most often used - brings up more information and allows you to easily access subsystems (in this case, different weapons). None of our deaths were down to troubles with the interface (as before, our deaths are usually linked to a distinct lack of oxygen). We played on an iPad Mini and, despite the smaller screen size, it didn't feel too small or tricky to issue commands. It's an intuitive adaptation that makes the most of the iPad's touch screen. Those already fluent in the systems of FTL will take to the iPad version like a duck to water, so to speak. Then we'll move forward to the new content that appears across both versions. There's two versions of the game now, so first we'll cover the functionality of the iPad version, and examine how the game manages the transition from monitor to tablet. The narrative that underpins this plethora of random and unexpected events is a do or die mission the Federation is under threat and you have information vital to its survival that must be taken across eight increasingly dangerous sectors. You jump through systems, stumbling upon random encounters, battling enemies via tactical fire fights, developing your ship and expanding your crew. We really liked FTL before, but thanks to the changes made by Subset Games, now we absolutely love it.įor those who're blissfully unaware of what FTL is, it's a roguelike RPG space adventure that brilliantly facilitates the starship captain fantasy. There's plenty of tweaks and adjustments, and that's on top of a selection of new scenarios and content that breathes freshness into what was already a good game. Released alongside the Advanced Edition on PC and Mac, the iPad version of FTL: Faster Than Light includes all of the updates and improvements found in the new-look version launched on home computers.
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