The concept is good, but...

[Firellius]

The execution has some really poor elements which are no less than obscenely frustrating. The game was fun for the first five, six runs, but after that it just becomes a repetitive bore. Sure, you've got the Kestrel and the Engi cruiser, but unlocking the rest is a painstaking effort where more than 90% of your runs just scream 'FAILURE' in your face.

1) The fleet pressure is an element which should've been optional. Mods can disable it, thankfully, but it should've been available for disable in the standard game.

2) Easy mode is not easy at all.

3) Having a miss chance of around (Or even upwards of) 50% is a gruesomely frustrating game element that takes away from the fun. RNG is a horrible element in any game.

4) Missiles are nice for breaking through shields. Too bad the player has limited ammo while the ships he or she faces do not. Game element stacked against the player.

5) Effort-reward relation. Did your best for half an hour for the longest run ever? Too bad, you accomplished nothing. Lack of between run progress cuts down on the feeling of accomplishment and reward, leaving you empty handed after every. Single. Run.

[Dontmindme]

Addressing these in order...

Preamble) Most of the ship unlocks aren't so bad. It's pretty obvious you need a homeworld and as you progress and have an option to jump to one, you do it. Not saying certain ships might be elusive, but I found unlocks pretty regular at first. it's only after you have most things unlocked that you seem never to find the last couple you do not have.

1) Without fleet pressure, where would there be game balance or even a challenge? You'd be maxed out on scrap by Sector 4...

2) Easy mode isn't supposed to be an "I Win" button. I understand it is often that way in other games, but honestly, those are the games I play once on Easy mode, cakewalk them and never play them again.

3) What do you propose, auto-hit? Would you really like every enemy missile to hit you no matter what? At least this game the luck factor and percentages are displayed right out front and you know what it takes to improve one's chances.

4) Both missiles and bombs are limited, each ship gets around 8 (my vary by sector/difficulty).

5) Wins and achievements mark progress for me. But even at first, each failed attempt I learned to play better and better.

If I may suggest one thing, rather than blaming the game for your lack of success, maybe you'd be better served by thinking about what you might have done better each and every attempt. It didn't take me long to develop a workable strategy (without consulting any guides). I realized I needed to get better at boarding and multi-tasking. Better at decision-making, be it where to station crew or where to target weapons or where and what order to spend scrap.

[Firellius]

After about 20 runs, I'm still stuck on just the Kestrel and the Engi cruiser. Everything else continues to elude because I hardly ever encounter homeworlds, and even when I do, the events barely ever trigger. In the rare instances that they -do- trigger, the miss chance (Which as far as I know can NOT be reduced by any means at all) ruins an encounter and allows the enemy to get away or depletes the ammunition I need to break through the enemy shields. I've had three opportunities to unlock new ships and the last two were both taken down by the miss chance. (Latest attempt, I had eight missiles and only one actually landed a hit.)

Easy mode at least shouldn't make every run make you feel like you did something horribly, horribly wrong. Which unfortunately does occur. I get the impression I should spend more time in sectors before advancing, but then the rebel fleet says otherwise.

[Dontmindme]

To that last point, yes, you really should stay in each sector only jumping to the exit just before the rebel fleet. You can play great tactically, but without the scrap, your ship will fall behind. That may explain many of your problems. Miss chance means far less when you have more and better weapons with more shots. The better the ship, more likely to beat the ships you need to beat to unlock ships and on and on.

The rebel fleet distance behind you resets each sector. There is no benefit for leaving a sector early (in terms of gaining distance on the enemy). Each new sector, the fleet starts the same distance behind you.

I'll usually "surf" beacons ahead of where the fleet is going and plan to hit the exit either just ahead of them (or more often, jumping back one jump and fighting a single rebel fleet battle).

In terms of miss chance, there are things that can be done. Boarders and damage sometimes can pull the enemy crew out of the pilot seat. Just like your ship, no pilot is no evasion (or very little evasion if pilot is upgraded). Not as helpful for autoships obviously. But also knocking out piloting or engines also eliminates enemy evasion even on autoships.

[BKT]

I've had three opportunities to unlock new ships and the last two were both taken down by the miss chance. (Latest attempt, I had eight missiles and only one actually landed a hit.)

I guess you're talking about the Stealth ship quest since it's the simplest ship-unlock quest that involves fighting enemy ships that will try to escape. If that the case, I remember that at least one of the enemy is Rebel Rigger... Are you sure there wasn't any Defense drone floating around the enemy ship?

At any rate— just focus on beating the game first (which also unlock Fed cruiser) ... You could unlock 3 ships (Stealth, Zoltan, Rock) just by playing normally. After that, the remaining 3 (Mantis, Slug, Crystal) will be easier to get once you're more experienced with the game.

[Firellius]

I guess you're talking about the Stealth ship quest since it's the simplest ship-unlock quest that involves fighting enemy ships that will try to escape. If that the case, I remember that at least one of the enemy is Rebel Rigger... Are you sure there wasn't any Defense drone floating around the enemy ship?

No, the "Eight missiles, one hit" debacle was with the slug cruiser. Missiles did reach the target without getting intercepted, but then all but one of them missed completely. As a result, I didn't take down the shield system, which then resulted in a three layered shield barrier that I couldn't get through because I didn't get the scrap I needed to expand the ship. (The gains are pretty low in the first place, and then I lose most of that to fuel costs)

[5thHorseman]

No, the "Eight missiles, one hit" debacle was with the slug cruiser. Missiles did reach the target without getting intercepted, but then all but one of them missed completely. As a result, I didn't take down the shield system, which then resulted in a three layered shield barrier that I couldn't get through because I didn't get the scrap I needed to expand the ship. (The gains are pretty low in the first place, and then I lose most of that to fuel costs)

I used to have similar problems, so I stopped using missiles. That and several dozen other strategical decisions (along with quite a few tactical ones I tend to make) have caused me to not only unlock most every ship, but to beat the game more often than not with most any ship I play.

In my opinion, there is only one really good reason to use missiles in this game: You were given them at the start and haven't found something else yet. Every other use is marginal at best.

The #1 most important thing in this game is to not take damage. Here is my personal checklist of things to do. I try to follow it with most every ship:

Before the end of sector 1, 2 shields (4 bars)
Before the end of sector 2, 4 engines.
Before the end of sector 3, 3 shields (6 bars)
Before the end of sector 4, 5 engines.

THEN I start thinking about upgrading other things, like weapons and whatnot. If I get lucky in the first sector and get my shields up quick and still have 50-100 scrap available, sure I'll upgrade my weapons by one to get that lucky Ion Blast or Heavy Laser that I found on line. But until my defense is up to snuff I won't even consider it. Unless I really want to

Most of the time I don't reach these milestones, and I end up not getting my 4th engine until midway through sector 3 or something. No biggie, as long as you keep trying.

If I may humbly suggest, I've beaten the game on camera with every non-Engi ship (those are coming) on Normal and while I get into (and out of) some sticky situations, for the most part I walk over the bad guys because I stick to what I've said above. Check out my thread here.

But the most important part of this game is, when you lose, DO NOT BLAME RANDOM NUMBERS. Look at what you did, not just in that battle but all game. Were you taking lots of damage? You obviously didn't have enough defense. Were you not able to hit enemy ships? You should have gotten more or better weapons. Sure, there are runs where you come across an enemy that hits you a lot and hard, and runs where you can't find a weapon to save your life (literally) but those truly are rare, and you can still win even then.

[mr silencer]

hey you dont have to be mad or anything, you cant save midgame for a reason, if you need help get disable fleet mod or shearch for overpowered ship mods, id suggest the zoltan cruiser one

[CrashSanders]

Let's see... I've spent 60 hours in the game. Numerous runs. Did I got bored? A few times, maybe, but I always return. And the funniest thing is, for a long time my only unlocked ship was Stealth. Then I've unlocked Engi ship and after a few runs successfully beat the game (which gave me Federation cruiser). The next one to unlock was Mantis as I remember correctly, then Slug. Mantis is my favorite so far, I even managed to unlock it's layout B lately. So, what's I'm trying to say: this game requires a lot of patience. And that's all. Al you complainers forget that FTL: Faster Than Light is a rogue-like game, so it meant to throw failure in your face and expects you to become stronger, get some more coffee along with patience and go again. For me, the joy is to seek new combinations of weapons, to play aggressive boarding and to have victory by this. Last time I did a horrible mistake leaving my boarding squad (three mantises and one rock, all highly trained for hand-to-hand combat) on the dying Rebel ship. Now that was FAILURE all over my face.

[zeek]

The game is meant to be difficult. It's what makes victory feel like an accomplishment. I actually wish they had one more step up on the difficulty level because I can win too consistently now. You really do get better over time. You start to learn all sorts of silly tricks. Like sometimes I would disable my own shields before an ion blast would hit me so I could turn them back on and take a laser hit. There are all kinds of little efficiencies you can master that will give you an edge.

As you say the deck is stacked against you. You have to take on ship after ship and you're trying to get a perfect knockout each time. If you take some damage you may end up behind even when you win the fight. Remember you're wasting 1 fuel just to get to a new beacon. So, you need to earn some scrap just to offset that cost from the get go. Then if you take too much damage that eats into your profits quickly as well.

Don't worry about losing. I played for around 200 hours to unlock all the ships, win with all of them and get all the achievements all on normal mode. The game is outstanding IMO.