SUGGESTIONS and ideas for improving FTL

General discussion about the game.
Revvwm
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 12:43 pm

SUGGESTIONS and ideas for improving FTL

Postby Revvwm » Fri Nov 23, 2012 1:01 pm

Here are some features I really hope to see considered by the devs:

  • The auto fire should be available for each individual weapon.

  • Add a clickable button somewhere to pause the game, or at least a configurable bind key (mouse button 3 would be awesome!)

  • Make health bars clearer, especially when boarding an enemy ships. Some sort of small numeric display would be ideal (like the "-x" appearing on hits).

  • add an "speed up o2 / health regeneration" button before each FTL jump when there is no more danger (it's so annoying to have to wait for those to regenerate, what a waste of time!)

  • there should be some sort of bonus for playing normal mode: if it's harder, there should be higher reward, at least a fair risk/reward equation (I don't see any incentive to play normal mode).

  • there is no point in leaving enemy boarding robots when the enemy ship is dead. At least crew members should not have to kill them before starting to repair the room they're in. It doesn't make sense as they won't reactivate anyway.

  • In events where only enemy characters board the ship, it would be nice to have some sort of surrender event when only one guy is left and he has no chance of surviving.

  • Add a configurable hotkey for cloak.

  • Engies could be more sensitive to fires but would be more resistant to suffocation.

  • Level 3 sensors should allow you to know exactly which weapons and bots the enemy ship is carrying.

  • There should be a way to get cheap new crew members when arriving at the 8th zone! How many people do they have in the fleet anyway? This kind of nonsense is a little bit frustrating.


Big fan of the game, I hope these are not too much to ask for. I would really appreciate some feedback from the devs about those ideas. :)
EdenNov
Posts: 82
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 7:36 pm

Re: SUGGESTIONS for improving FTL

Postby EdenNov » Fri Nov 23, 2012 1:42 pm

Revvwm wrote:
  • add an "speed up o2 / health regeneration" button before each FTL jump when there is no more danger (it's so annoying to have to wait for those to regenerate, what a waste of time!)

No. If you want it faster, get the upgrades. The first thing that needs to be fixed is the cloaking's cool down. The rest is meaningless in comparison.
Revvwm wrote:

  • there should be some sort of bonus for playing normal mode: if it's harder, there should be higher reward, at least a fair risk/reward equation (I don't see any incentive to play normal mode).

There already is: x1.25 score.
Revvwm wrote:

  • Engies could be more sensitive to fires but would be more resistant to suffocation.

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever (especially since there already are races that are fire-resistant and suffocation-resistant).
Revvwm wrote:

  • Level 3 sensors should allow you to know exactly which weapons and bots the enemy ship is carrying.

You can tell just by looking. You don't even need sensors.
Revvwm wrote:

  • There should be a way to get cheap new crew members when arriving at the 8th zone! How many people do they have in the fleet anyway? This kind of nonsense is a little bit frustrating.

Never ran into that problem myself. In fact, I usually hire ~10 crew members each run, without buying any (try getting the teleport early).
ZiMMy
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2012 11:14 am

Re: SUGGESTIONS and ideas for improving FTL

Postby ZiMMy » Fri Nov 23, 2012 2:08 pm

Revvwm wrote:
  • The auto fire should be available for each individual weapon.


This is really necessary.

Revvwm wrote:
  • Add a clickable button somewhere to pause the game, or at least a configurable bind key (mouse button 3 would be awesome!)


Why u no satisfied with space key?
Sorry for my really bad english.
UltraMantis
Posts: 2141
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:17 pm

Re: SUGGESTIONS and ideas for improving FTL

Postby UltraMantis » Fri Nov 23, 2012 2:42 pm

Welcome to the forum Revvwm, you make excellent suggestions. Some have already been mentioned and by far the most usefull one would be individual autofire.

I guess you would like to swap the spacebar with the mouse button to keep your hand off the keyboard. Presonally it's not a big problem and the weapons are also available on the number keys so the keyb is usefull. It can help target autofiring weapons a bit faster.

Agree with the healthbars being uninformative in a big melee. Your crew attacking hard to kill boarding drones that pose no threat instead of repairing hull breaches or system damage is even worse. I hope that is addresed in the future.

As for Normal mode, it doesn't offer a much bigger reward but it isn't much harder than Easy. They're both pretty hard with enough bad luck.

I'm not sure why you would like extra crew at The Last Stand. Unless you want trained crew, which the game never gives you. Rookies are mostly useless that late in the game, although Shields and Weapons are trained very quickly so they could be usefull. Collecting crew is just like collecting weapons and upgrades. It's part of the gameplay even if it isn't allways logical.

The Engi idea is great and it would only nerf the Engi a little. They would be overpowered when draining oxygen from their ship, but would be royally screwed if they had to fight in a barbecued room. The Rockmen are indeed immune to fire, but there's no race i know of that is suffocation resistant ?? The secret race?

I don't understand what you meant about Level 3 sensors. The weapons can be recognised with experience playing the game, though some look alike. And by bots do you mean Attack/Defense Drones? The Attack drone MkII moves and fires much faster than the MkI so you can easily tell them apart. The MkII is also a little beefier. As for Defense Drones, the MkII will react to incoming laser fire as well as missiles/asteroids/boarding drones that the MkI tries to shoot down. If it shoots down your lasers, you know it's a MkII. It's also a little beefier than the MkI, just like the Attack Drones. The main problem with your suggestion is finding enough room to display the text for the weapon descriptions.
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EdenNov
Posts: 82
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 7:36 pm

Re: SUGGESTIONS and ideas for improving FTL

Postby EdenNov » Fri Nov 23, 2012 3:50 pm

UltraMantis wrote:but there's no race i know of that is suffocation resistant ?? The secret race?

Yes. They lose health at 50% the normal rate, which makes them the best automated-ship boarding-party.
Also, Ghosts, I hear.
ExtraCheesyPie
Posts: 145
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:37 pm

Re: SUGGESTIONS and ideas for improving FTL

Postby ExtraCheesyPie » Fri Nov 23, 2012 5:04 pm

EdenNov wrote:
UltraMantis wrote:but there's no race i know of that is suffocation resistant ?? The secret race?

Yes. They lose health at 50% the normal rate, which makes them the best automated-ship boarding-party.
Also, Ghosts, I hear.


I'm sorry, but whats a ghost anyways? I keep hearing of them, but I don't know.

The closest guess I have is that it's the rebel Flagship AI that activates if you kill everyone
I hate FTL...

But I love it at the same time...
EdenNov
Posts: 82
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 7:36 pm

Re: SUGGESTIONS and ideas for improving FTL

Postby EdenNov » Fri Nov 23, 2012 7:00 pm

ExtraCheesyPie wrote:
EdenNov wrote:
UltraMantis wrote:but there's no race i know of that is suffocation resistant ?? The secret race?

Yes. They lose health at 50% the normal rate, which makes them the best automated-ship boarding-party.
Also, Ghosts, I hear.


I'm sorry, but whats a ghost anyways? I keep hearing of them, but I don't know.

The closest guess I have is that it's the rebel Flagship AI that activates if you kill everyone

It's a race hidden in the code which currently doesn't make an appearance in the game. They have 50 hp and are completely immune to suffocation.
There's a mod that replaces humans with them.
Klarth
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2012 11:14 am

Re: SUGGESTIONS and ideas for improving FTL

Postby Klarth » Fri Nov 23, 2012 7:29 pm

Configurable keyboard shortcuts for more things would be really nice; having them only visible through a menu can help reduce clutter.

Nearly all enemy weapons have unique art allowing you to identify what they are armed with. Missile Launchers could do with more varied art - Leto and Artemis looking the same is probably the more crucial one early on (enemy Artemis requires 2 power and is easier to shut down, while you need to fully destroy the weapon control to shut down Leto). All bomb teleporters look the same until they fire the bomb, but I think only Slugs and Auto-ships have anything other than small bombs.

Ghosts are a non-player race that only appears in a couple of non-race-specific events. They seem to be enabled, though I've never encountered them through normal play.
Todes_Schnitzel
Posts: 65
Joined: Sat Nov 03, 2012 10:55 pm

Re: SUGGESTIONS and ideas for improving FTL

Postby Todes_Schnitzel » Fri Nov 23, 2012 10:08 pm

Revvwm wrote:

Level 3 sensors should allow you to know exactly which weapons and bots the enemy ship is carrying.

You can tell just by looking. You don't even need sensors.

No!! All bombs have the same looking and some Missile launche.
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EdenNov
Posts: 82
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 7:36 pm

Re: SUGGESTIONS and ideas for improving FTL

Postby EdenNov » Fri Nov 23, 2012 10:19 pm

I'm pretty sure the bomb thing was intentional, and you can tell which missile it is because of their recharge time, appearance and power usage (or through Diversity Mod).