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The game I will be analyzing is Faster Than Light. In Faster Than Light you play as a scout for the Galactic Federation that has learned of an oncoming rebel attack and your mission is to get to the Federation to warn of the imminent war. The player travels to different planets fighting pirates and rebels, answering distress beacons, and scavenging from abandon ships. While you are making your way the Federation there is a fleet of rebels creeping closer and closer to your vessel. The fleet ships are much more powerful than the player ensuring that the player can't stay at any certain sector, farming for resources, for too long, creating a sense of agency. FTL is in the Genre of Rougelike and revolves around randomly generated "dungeons," or in this case "sectors," and encounters. Because FTL is a Rougelike game every time a player starts a new game there is a new experience. Rougelikes, by design, are meant to be difficult because a big element of Rougelikes is luck. So one playthrough a player might find that they are unstoppable because they get some lucky encounters that stacked them with important resources but the next playthrough they might find they can't get to the next sector. In fact, many reviews of FTL recommend that new players start on the easy difficulty than the normal difficulty as the enemies in FTL start getting very powerful at the middle and end game and Warping away from a fight is encouraged. Death in FTL is common but constant failure is one of the things that make people continue to play FTL and many other Rougelikes.One of the core mechanics of FTL is its numerous Systems that the player must manage in combat. The main combat Systems are the: Reactor, which determines how much Energy the player's ship has, the Shield System, which determines how many projectiles the player's shield can block before their ship is exposed, the Weapons System, which determines how many and how powerful the player's weapon equips are, and, in some cases, the Drone System, that manages what kind and how many drones the player's ship uses. These are the main Systems the player will be focused on during battle, maintaining and repairing the damage they take and diverting power to and from the various other Sub-Systems. During battle when a ship’s Systems take damage they lose energy, until repaired, making them weaker and giving the enemy a temporary advantage. For example, if an enemy damages the Shield System you temporary lose your shield and become very vulnerable to attacks. However, if an enemy targets the Weapon System you lose function in one of your weapons, greatly reduces your damage output. Also, depending on your enemy’s weapons, your ship will take different damage in the form of fires and breaches. If a fire starts in one of your ships rooms it will damage any crewmember operating the System and force them to put out the fire. An enemy’s weapons can also Breach your ship and suck the air out of the room and make for a longer repair. In FTL the combat is in real time and decisions usually have to be made on the fly but when things get too hectic, like one System has a breach in it and another has a fire, you game allows the player to pause and give commands to their crew to do when the player unpauses. This gives the player the option to do everything in realtime or play the game more turn-based, as attacks come in waves as each weapon has a cooldown time before they can be used again.Another of the core mechanics of the game is managing resources such as: energy, fuel, missiles, drones, and scrap metal. In FTL their are many Systems that have to be manage during combat that can't be used if you do not have the right amount of power connect to them. For example when a player first starts the game one of the fixed amounts of energy units is put into the Medbay Sub-System. But because the Medbay is only needed when your crew is hurt most players take the energy unit from the Medbay and put it into the Engine System, which increases your evasion and allows for faster Warp Drive. As the player progresses though their mission, gets better equipment and augmentations for their ship, and fights stronger enemies it is imperative that they upgrade their ships Systems and Reactor, which allow for more Energy to power up their Shields, Weapons, and other Systems. Their are different type of weapons in FTL like: Lasers, basic weapons that fire multiple times and take down one shield unit, Beams, that do a lot of damage but can't damage shields, Ion blasters, that does not damage ships but disables them for a short period of time, and Missiles, that cost one missile every attack but bypasses shields. Drones are also used as a main means to attack enemies but also cost one drone every use. While missiles and drones are very powerful they cost precious resources that can be scarce and cost Scrap Metal. Scrap Metal is FTL's currency and is used to buy weapons, missiles, crewmembers, and ship augmentations. The player must make a choice to spend scrap on other resources or use them to upgrade their ship's Systems. If a player spends too much scrape on power weapons and missiles they won't have enough to spend on upgrading their Weapons System which allows them to equip their newly purchases weapons. Conversely if a player uses too much scrap to upgrade their weapon system they wont have enough money to buy powerful weapons their upgrade allowed them to equip. So managing Scrap Metal becomes a balancing act between short and long-term power.While you are traversing through the universe and different sectors you will need to recruit more people from many different races. Some sectors are even controlled by specific races and are filled with specific ships with different abilities. There is a total of six races in FTL: the Rockmen, the Mantis, the Engi, the Zoltan, the Slugmen, and the Humans. The Rockmen have the most health of any race and are immune to fires but are very slow. The ships they use are armored and have a change to negate Hull Damage, the Health Points of a ship. The Rockmen are religious zealots that are quick to attack anyone that doesn't take their beliefs seriously. The Mantis race is fast and does more damage than any other race but the body that makes them so effective at fighting makes them very poor at repair. Their ships are fitted with Crew Teleporters to invade your ship and assault you from the inside as well as the out. The Matis race are militaristic and predatory and will attack every and anyone they see. The Engi is race of pacifist robot and can repair faster than any race but deal much less damage in close quarters combat. Engi ships rely on Ion weapons to cripple a ship’s Shield System and Drones to capitalize and pick apart hostile enemies. The Engi race is enigmatic and hermetic which lead other races to not know how to communicate with them. The Zoltan are an enlightened race and are very technologically advanced. The Zoltan have a very unique ability in that they can give any System they man an every Energy Unit but have very little health and explode and hurt nearby crewmembers when they die. With their advanced technological research the Zoltan created a ship that has a secondary shield that recharges after every battle. When you complete the game you unlock a new ship, a new crew, and a new play style. The new ship and crew changes the option the player gets when they stumble across a situation they've encountered before. For example, having an Engi on your crew allows you to communicate with other Engi that wouldn't be possible in previous playthroughs.In conclusion, while being difficult and having a steep learning curve FTL provides the player with a rich and unique experience every time they play. It is something that can be play for a couple of minutes to get to the next sector or it can be played for hours trying out different strategies multiple times. It can give they player the feeling of being an unbeatable space captain one moment and small defenseless scout in a big unforgiving universe the next. The battles are challenging and intense and exploration is deep and intriguing. It allows you to customize your ship the way you want for a play style that is tailored to you. FTL is a balanced, entertaining, and well-made game. ................
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