I’ve gone on record a number of times praising this lovely “little” gem and it still remains to be one of my favorite games of all time. As if it were some sort of holiday where the gifts just keep on coming, the developers have released a free expansion that will take you for a wild ride. The Advanced Edition makes things a bit harder, even on the easy difficulty level, but adds a number of new (and welcome) features. Luckily, you can choose to toggle these features on or off before starting a new game.
FTL Advanced Edition
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Some of these new features include but are not limited to:
Mind Control System: Temporarily turn enemies into allies. Force a boarder to repair the damage they just did, or have the enemy pilot sabotage their own helm.
Hacking System: Lockdown and disrupt enemy systems. Unique effects for each system, ranging from forcing a teleporter remove boarders to making the medbay damage instead of heal.
New Sector and Events: Our writer Tom Jubert has returned along with special guest writer Chris Avellone (of Planescape fame), who managed to find some time for us between his work on Project Eternity and Wasteland 2. They’ve been helping us add a new sector and scatter new events throughout the rest of the game.
New Weapons and Effects: Many new weapons that take advantage of new mechanics: overcharging to increase the number of volleys, stun effects to freeze crew, and area effect targeting, to name a few.
New Race: on FTL writer Tom Jubert’s blog, he specifies that there will be a new race that will be closely tied to the new sector, which has been tentatively named the “Abandoned Sector”.
Clone Bay is a system that replaces the Medbay. Clones are generated when crewmembers die as result of combat (for a small crew skill penalty) or events such as Giant Alien Spiders or Escape Pod Floating Nearby. Death can still be permanent, should the system be damaged mid-cloning. Although the replacement of the med-bay means the crew can’t heal normally, the clonebay will restore a slight amount of health per jump. All type C ships come with a clone bay installed and old ships can replace their medbay for one at the store, usually for 50 scrap.
Hacking is a system that sends a drone to a chosen enemy system at the cost of a drone part. Once there, the drone closes the door to the room it’s hacking and grants vision inside of it to the player. The player is then allowed to start a “hacking pulse” with varied effects depending on the system.
Mind Control is a system that turns an enemy into an ally for a certain period of time. A more upgraded version of the system allows for longer mind control as well as health and combat bonuses. Vision of crew is required in order to make use of the system and Slugs are immune to this effect.
Backup battery is a subsystem that grants the player 4 extra reactor power (once fully upgraded) for 30 seconds with a cooldown of 25 seconds. Being a subsystem, it can be allowed on the ship without taking room from other systems.
Other additions include a more detailed version of reward boxes, enabling the player to better know what they’ll get on the outcome of an event and the addition of a hard mode, with lower scrap rewards and “other tweaks”.
(Source: FTL Official Website and Wikia)
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If I haven’t convinced you to buy FTL by now, then I don’t know what will. Still, you may just get a kick out of watching me get my behind handed to me as I attempt to relearn the game. For that, simply take a gander at the videos below. Alternatively, check out my review of the base game and strategy guide here:
http://www.dadsgamingaddiction.com/ftl-faster-than-light/
http://www.dadsgamingaddiction.com/ftl-general-tips-strategies/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zijCiAX9bqg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkx4ieW4dKI