The FTL Coffee Shop - (FTL playthrough pt1)

So my girlfriend is at work, I have finished most (read: none) of the housework, dinner is bubbling away nicely on the stove and endless Seinfeld repeats are bubbling in the background: it's time for an adventure!

Faster Than Light is a polished roguelike-ish game set in space. You control all the little ins and outs of a spacecraft, customising the weapons and systems as you fight your way through hordes of progressively tougher enemies to get to the Big Baddie and save the Federation. Or something. Story is rarely foremost in roguelike games. 

Pictured: storyline.

A wide variety of weapons are available to blast our enemies, in addition to automated drones to attack or defend. You can even go full pirate and board the enemy craft like sci-fi Johnny Depps to mercilessly dismember enemy crew. Any and all of these options are viable to see you through and win the day, but all will require care and strategic management of your limited resources.

BTW, space-dismemberment is exactly as fatal and unpleasant as planet-dismemberment.

As with many popular games, there are all sorts of challenges common amongst the community. To be honest, my skill level is low enough that FTL is hard enough without additional limitations placed on me. BUT, it’s always fun to try. So how about we speed through known space with nothing but our original one bar of energy for weapons? That gives me options for self-teleporting bombs and a basic laser, but not much else. That should make it considerably tougher/more fun than the base game, but not put undue strain on my mediocre talents.

Roguelikes are already known for their difficulty, and for espousing the mantra “losing is fun”. So, I’m off to have the most amount of lose I can!

I’m a fan of boarding actions, and to hear the lamentations of my enemies as I steal their goodies. So we’ll try a boarding-themed run, and choose the Mantis Cruiser A: one of the more basic boarding vessels, allowing me to teleport up to two crew at a time. (Note to experienced players: I haven’t unlocked all the ships yet, so I’m just using what I have).

There are numerous races we may come across in our travels: the ubiquitous humans, the stalwart Rockmen, the rare and psychic Slugs, the cybernetic Engi etc. We are Mantis - something like a cross between an actual praying mantis and Edgar from the Men in Black movie. Basically disgruntled sociopaths with swords for arms and poor impulse control. 

We also have a single Engi, who are the opposite of Mantis. They are just about useless in hand-to-hand combat, but are ridiculously good at repairing things. God only knows why he's hanging around with a bunch of insects, but I warrant we'll be glad to have him before the day is through. 

Seinfeld is playing in the background so it’s only appropriate my crew are named Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. I reckon Elaine and Kramer would be best in a fight, so they’ll be my attackers. As the crew obviously spends lots of time in their ship, our trusty vessel will be named “The Coffee Shop”.

Red ones go faster. It's just science. 

Mantis Cruisers have a starting limitation of not coming equipped with sensors of any types, something that is pretty standard fare for just about every other ship, but other than that it's a pretty standard setup. No sensors mean we won't be able to see inside an enemy ship to see where the crew is, or what systems they have installed. Which means priority number one will be getting some. Priority two is getting some Mind Control, allowing us to temporarily hijack an enemy crew to use for our own purposes: beating up his mates, and making him cook dinner. 

Normal difficulty, because, again, I’m just not very good a player. Advanced content, because Teleporters + Mind Control = SUPER FUN HAPPY TIME.

Jerry the pilot, George the shieldsman, and Kramer and Elaine the two buccaneers. 

As far as I know, the "plot" is that you’re part of a interstellar Federation besieged by civil war, and at risk of total collapse. You are carrying some vaguely-described data that will somehow quell millions of heavily armed insurrectionists and fix the economic disparity problems from which the galaxy so clearly suffers.

And so we’re off, to save the Federation! Kramer and Elaine all ready to go, itching to give what-for to those no-good rebel scum.

Straight off the bat we find some rogue rebels harassing innocents. Seems like a fairly cut-and-dry moral decision to begin with, no? Not on my watch, you bastards. Time to take you out.

Unusually for an enemy ship this early, it contains a medbay, which heals any friendly crew within. This is a problem because it means that my fighters will be whittled down in health while the baddies can simply retreat to that room and heal up indefinitely. So clearly the first priority will be to teleport a high explosive directly amidst the medical instruments. That’s a…less clear-cut decision to make. Does the Geneva convention extend into space?

“Don’t worry, Billy, this leukaemia is very treatable using our advanced technology. It’ll just be a few days up here in hospital and you’ll be right as rain. I don’t want you to worry about a thing, here in sick bay. Extensive interstellar treaties protect us from unwarranted aggression to this very day.”

“Oh thank you, Doctor! I’m so excited to be able to run again and feel the grass beneath my feet as I frolic in the sun! Say, what is that increasingly urgent beeping noise? And why are your crewmates yelling and screaming through the windows?”

In space, you can't hear Billy's screams.

Heh heh heh. Sorry Billy. It’s for a good cause, I promise you: the Federation! They exist to prevent the rebels doing things like this, didn’t you know? If it wasn’t for us, there’d be nobody to stop all manner of wartime atrocities being committed.

FTL offers you plenty of opportunities to be amoral. The choices you make can be as noble or ignoble as you desire. There is no long-term consequence for any yes/no decision within the game, leaving you free to strap orphans to your ship as armour or leave civilians to starve as you steal their supplies and abandon them on a barren, lifeless world…as long as you maintain ostensible devotion to the nebulous, almost ethereal concept of Federation. Which doesn’t bear any similarities to any historical religious organisations at all.

We cruise around the first few jump points, finding a store with both Sensors AND Mind Control in it. And not even nearly enough scrap to buy them. The gods laugh at our plight.

Oh well, on to butcher some of our own kind: a Mantis Interceptor.

People just showing up and opening fire will become a common theme.

No teleporters of their own, but the crew will be mantis as well, giving my guys a run for their money. This situation will require grace, finesse, and nuance to overcome. 

Or flensing, chitinous blades of death: whatever. We slaughter the crew and ransack the ship, scoring a Stun Bomb from it, which is a variation of the Ion Bomb, stunning crew, locking the system and sealing the doors. I’ve never tried it with boarders. Let’s give it a shot!

After investigating a battlefield full of wreckage, rebel fighters plunge out of the depths unexpectedly, ruining our afternoon. Much like Newman. Not today, Newmans, and Kramer and Elaine make short work of the pudgy rebels and we capture a decent haul of scrap and fuel.

As with everything in life, hubris bites you in the arse long before you’ve had long to enjoy the fruits of your arrogance. An automated (and thus crewless) rebel ship is the next baddie we find. Shit.

It’s armed with a charge ion and a basic beam weapon, with one level of shields. This is where the boys are culled from the men: do you flee an attacker who has a sporting chance of doing a serious amount of damage to you, or do you take the damage and risk the rewards?

We decide to risk it all.

Because it has no crew, it has no need for oxygen. Which is kind of necessary even for tough ne'er-do-wells like the Seinfeld gang. So we just have to destroy a ship one damage at a time using a basic laser.

On a related note, it’s super painful to destroy a ship entirely by single damage laser. 

We’re sitting pretty at 72 scrap in sector 1, which isn’t bad at all. We cut the engines for an hour or so to upgrade the Coffee Shop to Level 2 shields, rendering us virtually invulnerable this early on. 

Slavers soon turn up with their iron shackles and immoral worldview. They can’t hurt me with my shiny new shields, so I have all the time in the world for boarding actions. They do have Level 2 doors however, so I might have to be a bit cunning…

Fortunately for us they have Engi crew members, who can't fight for toffee. Being at least partially cybernetic, they also don’t feel emotions like humans do. They don’t feel fear as my warriors materialise in their life support and begin to lay waste to those crucial oxygen recyclers before being whipped back to the Coffee Shop, their damage done. 

They should though, I think. They really should. Their slow suffocation is viewed impassively through the portholes. 

We score a Backup DNA Bank from the lifeless hulk and roar off into the black.

I’ve never really used the Cloning Bay. The DNA bank seems like it would make it super useful however, so maybe we might invest in it. I can’t see any reason Elaine and Kramer would die, though. I’m feeling pretty good and confident.

What was that I said just before about hubris?

Shit.

Note the hacking drone.

Shit.

He hacks my weapons at least, and not my shields. Still, he’s got a three-laser battery, plus the regular damage from the asteroids, so he breaks through my shields a few times. Including weapons - my only hope of destroying the automated ship.

Screw it, RUN AWAY!

What is another notable time the Seinfeld crew ran from something after picking a fight?

Bob and Cedric are apparently in control of automated drones.

Anyway, our hasty retreat gives us a few options.

This is what the map looks like. Try to make it to the Exit before the danger redness!

Confession time: I can’t actually resist the Distress beacons. My weapons are broken, so I’m vulnerable but damnit, I have a duty to the fine citizens of the empire!

Oh, the agony of choice. There is a very real chance this will lead to hull damage, material loss, or even outright crew death, none of which we can really afford. On the other hand, free stuff?

To hell with it: I need to know!

Oh thank God - it’s just some decaying corpses and live explosives. Couldn’t be happier with that outcome!

We soon come across a rebel ship transporting something. They don’t want to give it up and instead would rather flee. I must know. I must have it.

We pursue, and after a short, bloody battle we eagerly tear open the sealed hold to find a healing burst. Not really worth it, but I do like the "pursue and destroy" mantra we seem to have adopted. 

And just like that, the next fight is an automated fighter at a fire nova location. Bob and Cedric have caught us, but this time the sky is filled with scorching plasma. RUN.

To the Exit beacon. Bought some cheap fuel. I like to imagine George was just idly listening to the local chatter, heard about this deal and hooked us up.

I’m always torn between which sectors to travel to. Obviously red ones are more dangerous but offer greater rewards, but the chances of coming across that specific string of encounters that kills you is correspondingly higher. There are no second chances or save games in roguelikes, FTL included. Death is death.

Seems strange that all the vastness of space can be reduced to a maximum of four options. Probably a union thing.

Rockmen are tougher, and thus less vulnerable to my mantis claws. We’ll head to the squishy human areas, and find some more Newmans!

First jump in the next sector: Piloting upgrade offer for 13 scrap. I’m so glad I’ve got George on board - cheapness is a sense!

Teleported onto a station to get long-range data on the sector. It doesn’t look super good.

Tip: the pink stuff is bad.

I avoid ion storms wherever possible, but I suppose with a boarding team it’s less important to have weapons powered, so it’s probably doable. We can’t afford to go too far north before getting back to the exit in time. I decide to just hang out down the south and do as many nodes as possible. We’ll probably end up backtracking but that's the way the space-cookie disintegrates. 

Next few nodes are uneventful and pretty pointless. No scrap, no fights. Bah. What a waste of a good cookie. We reluctantly turn our ship towards the beckoning pink clouds, clogging our sensors and causing unreadable outputs even at this range.

No sooner are we engulfed in the fog when another mantis ship looms out of the storm and makes threatening gestures regarding The Coffee Shop. Get back to Reggie’s, you scum!

Mantis are much tougher opponents than humans, but they didn’t reckon with my battle-hardened crew. Quickly they are brutalised into submission, and we score a new crewmember! He’s a human, and thus inferior in every way to my existing crew. I send the newly-christened Banya to the shields and grit my teeth through his talk of reps and sets and hugeness.

We soldier on, and find a black market trader in the nebula, offering an unknown weapon for 45 scrap. We’re not interested in weapons in general, but do notice that his weapons cannot penetrate our shields. It would be a shame not to take advantage of this sitting duck, no? Especially out here in this dangerous, uncharted, and unchartable section of wild space...

You’re mine, you slime.

There is some sober debate in the mess hall that night regarding our actions. Were they justified in the greater context of our undeniably critical mission? Was this merchant, black marketeer though he was, deserving of death and oblivion simply because his material wealth may be of use to a greater cause? Where does "overriding cause" become "moral carte blanche"? 

We press on. Apparently very little came of the debate, because over the next few points considerable numbers of enemy crew meet their violent end at the claws of my men. Pangs of ethical crisis are clearly not enough to overcome the crucial nature of the mission. We are fighting the good fight: our activities are simply a means to an end.

At least, that's what Kramer and Elaine tell each other as they set upon vessel after vessel, butchering crew and stealing everything of value. 

The very last point provides a powerful (and energy-draining) defence drone MKII on a rebel ship but little else of interest. But crucially this pointless detour burnt up six unnecessary fuel: fuel that we really could not afford to spare. Space-curses! My poor navigation has caused us to backtrack significantly and possibly is the first link in the chain of our demise.

So we enter the Mantis Homeworlds with three fuel, relying on stores and/or the kindness of strangers. When you’re travelling through a region whose inhabitants are 7-foot tall, hive-mind armoured insects whose sole evolutionary purpose is to eviscerate things, barter probably isn’t too likely. We have three remaining jumps, hoping against hope to find an encounter or a store to let us limp a few more light-years towards our goal.

On that note, being in moderate trouble and not needing to take any more risks, I take a risk and pry open a life-pod we find floating in the void. A wild-eyed man bursts out and assumes a combat stance.

I've woken up like that before, I won't lie.

Johnson doesn’t seem like a good name. Who else is wild-eyed and darts furtively around the place like a man possessed? Who else is likely to have bested Mantis opponents in ritual combat?

J Peterman it is!

He's been saved from the endless vacuum only to be plunged into perhaps a more painful fate: we have reached crisis point with fuel supplies. Plenty of food, plenty of bombs, plenty of on-board entertainment, but nothing our engines can use.

Just hypothetically, if we were to shove Peterman into the fuel tank, how far would we get? Before you answer, bear in mind that there are no bad ideas in brainstorming. Just think about it, and let me know.

And keep watch on Peterman. 

(part 2)