'Iron Man' Game Play

[Zhadum]

I'm new to this forum, so if this subject has been covered, please ignore.
Anyway, in the past I've played various games where players try to
play an 'Iron Man' version. In other words, a way to play the game
by limiting one's advantages. In this game, I can see an obvious possibility – 
Try to win the game on easy, BUT, with no pause at all. Play and win in
realtime only. Then, of course try higher levels. There are also other
possibilities, such as limiting certain weapons, using only
certain weapons, no stops at shops, and so on. Easy level on some of
these of course.
I haven't played this game enough to get to this level of play; I'm having
too much fun playing it as is, but I know some players on here have
probably beaten the game on hardest level many times and are looking
for new challenges. So, just putting it out there.

[stylesrj]

Well the game is already played in "Iron Man Mode" otherwise I'd be doing what I do in my X-COM games and save-scum like crazy to get the best outcome out of those giant alien spiders (no joke!)

And there a stream a little bit back by Dolphinchemist where it was a no-pause run on Hard with all the ships. Haven't watched it myself, because I don't have good timing to catch streams but I'm assuming it was a success as I'm not getting bombarded every day with a plague of updates shouting "Come join my stream as I do this run with this particular ship and condition" any more.

[Obz3hL33t]

By the classic Firaxis definition of "Iron Man" (which these days is more likely to be called "PermaDeath" -- the Internet has spoken!) FTL comes out of the box with Ironman a mandatory setting.

Playing X-Com (classic) Ironman-style is the only way to play; every agent's death is a horrifying tragedy, made even worse by the first available information you get on whether said agent lived or died from that plasma shot sailing out of the fog of war with the accuracy of an infernal thunderbolt from an angry god: the dying scream. I haven't played the Firaxis reboot, and TFTD was such an obvious retread of the original with some of the graphics and names changed (was changing the name of the mystery metal from Elerium to Sodoffnium really how they make it new and exciting?) with added retarded stupidity thrown in like nobody being allowed to have real guns during surface battles. WTF? Even the pre-alien-tech X-Com had g-dammed real guns -- and rockets, too,just like the impoverished living-in-caves Muj in Soviet-invasion-era Afghanistan who were better-armed for surface battles than the feckless TFTD X-Com crew. I deleted this donkey turd from the hard drive back when that would've meant re-installing from floppies and never looked back.

Many have told me that was a mistake, so maybe someday I'll get around to playing it. I predict deleting it all over again when I'm forced to bring harpoons to a gunfight. You might as well be Aquaman fighting space whales on the moon:
"But ... it's called the SEA of Tranquility for a reason! I'm unstoppable! Look, I'm about to telepathically control that space whale as we speak ..."
"Go home, Aquaman."

Anyway to answer your question, play the game in Hard Mode without hax with really crappy ships like Engi-B or Slug-B then if you need more challenge after that gimme a call and I'll think of something. "Restart until giant spiders eat one of your crew on the first jump" sounds punishing.