So far I quite like it all! None of the new stuff feels overpowered, Hacking and mindcontrol are fairly easy to deal with, and become a new focus as oppose to only targeting the weapons rooms. And if you have them yourself, it feels like you have been given other viable options.

I can't tell yet if the new systems are underpowered or right as they should be. With the clonebay, enemy boarding actions started getting pretty dicey later in the game because my crew were all consistently unhealthy. I had to pay valuable scrap to get them healed more between jumps, and even then they started dying too much, and the loss of skill and clone delay felt like penalties that couldn't stop the attrition.

The hacking felt very useful at times, and other times not so much. It kinda felt like if I was able to take on an enemy ship without hacking, using hacks just makes it a very fast win, whereas if I came up against an enemy a little more powerful than me, I would still end up losing, or winning with a lot of damage.

Mind control was fun as hell to play around with, but it didn't feel like a battle-winner at any point.

Backup battery I couldn't find much use for. It was an occasional situational aid.

I'm not sure. Using them all together makes for a very interesting alternative way of playing, but then again, I sort of felt like I would have done a lot better with a medbay and spending the scrap on weapons instead of the new systems. Then again, after only one involved game I haven't the experience to know for sure yet.


Tried the new Lanius ship and got to the flagship, and was crushed instantaneously, haha. Still, it was a fun run. Didn't get to use any new weapons other than the chain laser and ion stunner, of which the former in particular was awesome. New sectors and text events were noticeable and a great change.

The biggest new changes for me I think is the fact that there are a bunch of new enemy ship layouts, making beam weapon tactics in particular a complete overhaul.. i'm looking forward to using that sometime. Also, the AI has been, I felt, markedly improved. They're much smarter, and battles are definitely a little tougher than before.

Anyway, looking forward to more games. Not won over by the new systems yet, but at leas some of the new weapons look boss.

I don't have the C versions of the ships. I wonder how they're gotten.

From what I understand from the 'List' ship menu in the game itself, you have to either win the game or just get to sector 8 (not sure which) in the B layout of a ship to unlock the C layout. Should unlock in easy or normal. Gonna try one now and see which it is.

You just have to get to sector 8, it'll unlock as soon as you get to the Sector and it doesn't matter if you win or lose. I unlocked the Kestrel C even though I died on the last phase of the Flagship.

Yeah, I'm not sold on the clone bay. I think it was primarily added as something to make your boarding actions more dicey, but it doesn't seem worth it to install on your own ship because you really need that skill. Maybe it works well with an all-human ship, so you can just re skill everyone quickly, but I doubt it.

Hacking seemed like a good way of using drone parts. I found that with the Lanius cruiser, hacking the weapons would stop the enemy getting off a quick missile before I could hit the weapons bay, making it through the fight virtually unscathed.

Mind control was hellishly evil. Try using it on the pilot - evasion goes down to 0% and he gets zerged by the other crew.

As for the backup battery, for 30 scrap it seemed a really good investment. It works really well as a way to power systems with long cool downs, rather than having to lock power into them which you can't reroute elsewhere. Combines well with the mind control and hacking.

The backup battery, though I didn't use it much, was pretty much a life-saver those times I did use it. Plus it just makes sense somehow to have a backup battery.

The hacking is cool for delaying weapons fire or trashing drones, but not that great against shields (it's easier to use lasers to take them out IMO). Hacking drones can also be shot down, making it useless against certain ship configs (until the defense drones are dealt with anyway).

The mind control isn't bad. I've used it on enemy boarders once or twice, so they attacked each other instead of my systems. One time my mind-controlled guy managed to win against his buddy, and then conveniently moved to a room right near an airlock... ;)

At the moment I personally hate the clone bay and much prefer the med-bay. I reckon it's purpose is to allow one to take more risks with those events that can insta-kill crew-members, but the fact that it doesn't heal (except when jumping) really means it's only useful for people who don't board. Although I think there are more missile-based "healing" weapons available now (or at least they seem to be more common), which could work well with a clone bay in a boarding config - though I've always hated using those in the past.

BUT...

...the best bit for me is the new weaponry - primarily the new "chaining" laser weapons, the ones that fire faster with each subsequent shot.

There's one in particular which I happened to stumble upon on my first playthrough in AE, around 3rd or 4th sector - it cost 90 scrap I think, and I ended up selling two other weapons just to buy it. I can't remember exactly what it was called - something like "Vindicator" or "Eradicator". It takes five shots to get to its full speed - I think it starts with a 17 cooldown or something - but after five shots it fires so fast, you can leave it on auto-fire and it will burn through ALL SHIELD LAYERS faster than they can be re-raised by a manned shield station!

I had some ships dodging almost every second shot I fired, and it still managed to kill them! MU HA HA HA HA!

Well clone bay is great for those side missions where you lose people. I don't know, I find it perfectly viable. You just have to keep it powered more often between jumps and it becomes important to upgrade it so it dishes out more heath. Also the loss in skill isn't that bad and quickly gained back even with non humans. Usually I don't loose people that often. I find it changes things up nicely and causes you to think.

Even if you are fairly careful and have a medbay there are situations in combat where you are just going to loose someone, so in this case the clonebay is better.

Well i haven't gone through some of the new advanced features, rather i played through it on normal mode, but the improved interface and updated system allows for a better gameplay. I think they decided 'every system should be man-able' which unlike the previous version i played before manning the detection or door subsystems was a waste of time; Now however it gives a use to them making a much better reactive and thought out feel that wasn't there before.

Other improvements like saving the default positions and having them quickly return to them was a nice touch. I'm not sure what all they added but i can say it's worth having.

I'll try out the advanced features later, but i haven't actually played through the original FTL much.

The list of updated features is here:

http://www.gog.com/forum/ftl_advanced_edition/ftl_faster_than_light_is_now_ftl_advanced_edition_pc_mac

Holy hell, Hacking is OP. Last fight with the Torus the end ship hacked the bridge and murdered my pilot and I couldn't beat the door down fast enough to get someone back in. I don't think you can attack your own ship to get the hack drone off. I like that you can put crews in your scanner and door rooms to beef them up which makes extra crew useful instead of standing around. I dislike strongly most of the new weapons. The chain ones are ok, the Charge weapons are kind of terrible. I can't see the bonus of adding 2 second to each shot charge so I can fire it early rather then just getting a burst or heavy laser mark 2 or 3. Clone bay seems inferior to the med-bay. Flak cannon is awesome and easily the most balanced new weapon. I like the anti drone...drone. Overall it feels like there is more rock, paper, scissor combinations to prepare against but ultimately it seems like too much kitchen sink but I'll have to play more to see if it's just adjusting to the new content.

Oh, I so love mind control. Upgrade it once or twice (it's really worth it) target the strongest fighter on their ship and see him/her tear through systems and people like nothing.

I'm with you on that one. What's worse is that they're really annoying to use - if you target them before they finish charging (which is what I typically do when I don't require synced shots) then you waste their potential. Same thing if you use auto-fire. I payed some Lanius guys 50 scrap for them to build me a weapon and what I got was a crappy charge laser.
Yeah this is a pretty cool feature, especially since they made door upgrades more expensive now. Normally I'd get door upgrades reasonably early on so I don't get trashed by boarders or fire, but now I can just man the controls when the shit hits the fan and they temporarily upgrade. Even better for the scanners since I normally don't upgrade those till much later in the game.

Well the medical bay and O2 aren't man-able it seems... Medical I can understand, but O2? Well at the same time I understand. It's not like it's a good tactical location...