First let me say I love Star Trek (Obviously!), Firefly, BSG and those shows. So this game looks interested, but im no masochist, Permadeath is a major turn off to me as its a stupid concept.

I dont mind a challenge, as long as its fair but i've been hearing this game can be really cheap, like going from things going great to dead in less then 3sec and having to start over. Not fun at all in my opinion.

Yes that can happen. Frequently. Part of it is learning to balance your choices and think long term but you will die, repeatedly, with no way of stopping it practically every time. Winning, if you do manage it at all, will take a lot of failures.

Some of us enjoy this style of game, but it's not for everyone.

It's important to note that a winning game takes 2 hours or less. So it doesn't take long to play, lose, or start over. And yes, I think it's hugely fun, but I like roguelikes, so it's up my alley.

It is like those shows in that you control your crew, man stations, send them to repair and do stuff. But it isn't a big epic ship voyage. It's similar to roguelike with the emphasis being that it's really hard and inifinitely replayable.

Your crew do have names, but they are mostly you generic minions, although they do have skills.

I decided I'll probably buy it if there is modding capacity, because then at least people could fix the game to be more fun for someone like me that wants a non disposable ship and crew.

I dont really understand why anyone would make a Starship simulator where the ship and its crew are all disposable.

FTL is a strategy/tactics game, more than anything else. I wouldn't say that your crew members are expendable -- in fact, the loss of a crew member hits very close to home -- but that the difficulty is sometimes unfair.

For instance, you start with three crew. In a nebula, one of the random missions is a boarding party that suddenly attacks you, consisting of 4 crew. As these crew work as a single unit, there is absolutely positively no way you are going to win a fight against them unless you camp out in your medical bay, and even then it's a gamble because they still outnumber you. Good luck if you have to go through a contested area. It's not until sector 4 or 5 that you'll have enough crew of various types that you have the potential of repelling boarders. So, not so bad, in principle... but this mission can occur in the very first sector. Which means you'll have to start over. If you spent more than 5 seconds customising your crew before the game started, that's all wasted -- giving you the feeling that your crew are expendable, or more specifically that it is a waste of time to try customising them because eventually they *may* die.

Is the game fun? Yes, very. Is it frustrating and unfair? Yes, frequently, detracting from the fun. Is it worth $10? Might be worth about $5.

You can use the doors to suffocate enemy boarding partys. Camp in the medibay (its nearly impossible to get overhelm just by a boarding party) and let the deadly nothingness do the work.

Again, it's similar to roguelikes. Also, the games are short, so while, yes, losing a crewmember at teh wrong time can be painful, the game will be over in 10 minutes anyway.

No, modding will not make the game to your liking. It's obviously not your style of game. Again, think roguelike. If you don't know what a roguelike it, don't buy this game. You'll be wasting your money.

Also, dealing with boarding parties is indeed doable with your starting crew. Run away when your injured, vent the atmospere in areas they are in and you are not, and fight in the medbay if at all possible.

And yes, the game can be unfair at times. Again, it's like roguelikes. So what. In 10 minutes you'll probably be as far into the game again anyway.

Yet another age-old problem easily solved by simply giving the player a choice.

Maybe it was the fact that no one bought Infinite Space or remembers Starflight. Instead they've decided to woo those all devoted Flotilla players. Oh well, at least collecting achievements and trading ships will be fun.

I've never played roguelike or anything so im not sure what it is.

Again, im not against challenge, but i like the idea of my Stalwart crew of Federation officers overcoming adversity time and time again. On Firefly or Star Trek or BSG, theres not a new Ship and Crew featured every week. Times get hard yes, people die but they are not all disposable.

This game revolves around not having persistent adventures with your ship and crew and thats a shame, like they missed the entire point of the Sci Fi they wanted to base their game on.

I just hope someone sees the success of this game and makes their own version but with the emphasis of playing Captain of one ship and crew that has adventures for a long time to come.

Suffice to say, Thanks I wont be buying this game. I was really hoping modding could fix these problems.

Even if a round can be really short i got attached to every of my crewmembers (they have names, the starting members even have the same names and you could change them by yourself if you want to). I was a bit sad if anyone of them got hurt or even died during a mission or fight and was happy if they survived a boarding maneuver or a hard fight.
They dont start with special abilities but if you have them long enough in one room they process and gain a bonus (e.g. a skilled crewman in the machine room raises your evasion chances).

Well, if permadeath really bothersome, you could always "save" by making a copy of the save file and restore it when you die. Wish there was an option for playing non-ironman games but i can work around it. And yes, I still have fun playing it this way.

Do you know where the game stores save games? With the trainer from the other thread I'd gladly buy this if i could circumvent perma death like that.

Save games are stored in the Documents/My Games/FasterThanLight folder. Just make a backup of your continue.sav file.

If you circumvent permadeath, you will finish the game in an hour or two. Then what.

And no, these things aren't "problems" they are features. Some of us love high difficulty permadeath games. Again, roguelikes. Just pass on this game and go play something else and let the rest of us have our fun.