I really like some aspects of this game:

The Crew, their experience and they way you can send them around in your ship giving them essential tasks.
The Combat is nice, a bit repetitve but nice.
The Ship Design and the story it's interesting and very palpable

but I hate:
The randomness, there is no recognisable difficulty scaling, nothing that gives a single clue or suggest a course of
action is just plain luck if it was a good idea to follow one route instead of the other. This really bothers me to no end as it takes away the "power of being in charge" and leaves you into spamming new games after you have been obliterated

The lacking savegame button: Sorry, whoever didn't want me to have fun with my game the way I want to play it and to replay certain fights, go burn in hell! I can name the Captain of the ship Captain Doublecock but I can't save at a specific point to replay a battle or learn from my mistakes.
The missing learning curving: here have this new item, oh your ship was destroyed sorry, try 100 new playthroughs maybe the same item with a similiar situation will arise.
The "not learning from your mistakes but instead just get frustrated and try again" kind of approach this game offers. I'm working at school or with schools kids everyday, I don't want that specific situation back which I suffered from all my school-life.

So in other words I want a "very easy" button to enjoy the game, they way I want to play it and I want to have a Savegame Mod that allows me to play different strategies to learn something. Is there anything like that out there? Or I am just doomed to leave this game on the shelf and sigh while looking at the cute crew who is dying while trying to put a fire on the engine deck?

The game is really meant to be that way... you play and die multiple times, while unlocking new ships and learning as you go.
It's not the kind of title where your objective is simply beating the final stage and say you have "completed the game", it's just enjoying every single voyage, where a failure can still mean a new ship for you next trip, or some new knowledge on what defeated you and how you can counter it.... it's just that you can't apply this information in the same game you are playing, but that is the nature of roguelike games.

So, i really disagree about the "missing learning curve" and "not learning from mistakes" part... yes, the random gods might sometimes screw you up a bit if you are unluck in the very first sectors, but aside from that, i knew everytime why i failed:

- Argh... damn those boarders! i should have at least reinforced doors to lvl 2 (very cheap, very effective)
- Argh... damn the sun glare! i should have micromanaged pause/venting better, or bail off the fight as soon as the FTL was charged
- Argh... damn those costly shield upgrades! Maybe i should focus more on the engine at first, avoidance seems better overall
- Argh... damn those long stealth recharge! Maybe i don't need it at max power every time, a short steath/recharge cycle might actually be more usefull in some instances.
- Argh... damn the power shortage! But do i really need to have support systems powered all the time? I just noticed oxygen deplete quite slowly, and medbay during combat is not used so often...

Now, assuming you are playing on Easy, some simple precautions like the examples above (and plenty of other tips in the past topics) really get you very far... having said that, if you really want an easier experience, just try a few mods (see http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=11)

There are a few mods that gives you some bonus scrap/equipment/crew at the start; they don't alter the gameplay too much, but they help pushing a few core updates very fast, that give you a great return in the first couple of sector (the ones where you are more at the mercy of the RNG)

Some that slows down fleet pursuit or even disable it (not recommended, really cheapens the whole concept)

You can also have some more powerful ships, or some modified weaponry (and even when they are not really powerful, they are a ton of fun to try out)

Lastly, if you REALLY need to have a save system, you can just "save scum"... use "Save & Quit" from time to time and then make a backup copy of

<your document folder>\My Games\FasterThanLight\continue.sav

I won't advise it, it will ruin the game pretty fast IMO

I find, the most important thing to learn is to know what dangers you may encounter, so that you can prepare yourself for them.
If you don't know what may come, then of course you are just blindly jumping ahead fully at the mercy of the RNG.

But that is where the "learn from the last playthrough to become better at the next one"-thing comes to mind. You know what killed you the last time, so you at least know a bit about what to expect in space.
It may be frustrating at first, because you will fail at the beginning in almost every play, but dying in sector 5 shouldn't be seen as a failure, because reaching sector 5 for the first time, is already an achievement.

Mods and save-scumming may make the game easier, but it doesn't change the fact, that the game is build around randomness and your goal is to survive and build a ship that may survive everything (or at least most of) the game throws at you. (Or knowing to avoid those things, that could be fatal)

The problem with allowing constant saving is that the game would have to become harder. It would then become like all those difficult games where you are allowed to save, but at each mini-boss, you have to die half a dozen attempts before you learn the tricks to get through it.

In terms of randomness, it really isn't that random. Every encounter for a specific sector the ships seem to get build points. Yes, sometimes those points may go into an area of weakness for you and make a difficult fight, but in the grand scheme of things, you need to learn how to deal with what's thrown at you.

Here's the thing, if you learn how to fight off boarders, build your offenses and defenses progressively, even on normal, that starting ship can give you about a 80-90% win rate if not more..

Here's some basic tactics for the Kestral A to get started. This is what I do to win almost every time with that ship.
First 20 scrap = shield 1.5 (this allows your shield to take one damage without going defenseless)
Next 30 scrap = shield 2
Next 20 scrap = power bar (The trick with power is to have enough power to power everything except your MedBay and O2. I'll only power my MedBay during battle to heal up crew as necessary. And for O2, I'll power that at the expense of the engines, but if there is an incoming volley, I';ll cut O2 and transfer that power to engines. After the volley, repower O2)
Next 20 scrap = optional 20 power (I usually hold off on this and start battles with O2 off to fire an initial missile volley.)
After this I wait for 80 scrap before hitting a store. First purchase planned being teleporter (since boarding victories give you more scrap) but there are a few items I'll buy first if sold at the store. Burst Laser II, Autoloader, Scrap Recovery Arm, and maybe Ion Blast II as these are strong items that are not often available. You may find other items that you love.

And then I continue amassing at least 80 scrap before hitting stores, spending it wisely. As scrap goes higher than 80 between stores, I'll upgrade stations with the extra. Shields 3 by sector 3 or 4. Engines are very nice. Obviously weapon control and power as needed. I personally don't worry about doors 2, but that is because I'm good enough to handle any boarding party without worrying about it so much. Essentially I try to keep at least 80 scrap on hand so that I can maximize my store opportunities and thus minimize any luck.

One big strategy hint. Don't jump out of a sector too early. While you will want to leave a sector before the rebels catch you, you also don't want to leave before you have gathered as much scrap as you can amass. The enemies get stronger each sector (and not by how many beacons you've hit), so the more scrap you gain, the stronger your ship is before you reach next sector and harder foes.

By the boss I want:
Sufficiently powerful weapons that can break through it's shields. (There are various combinations of viable weapons)
Shields 3 minimum
Engines 5 minimum
Teleporter 1, primarily to disable the guns.
Defensive Drone I (just one) to knock down missiles and boarding drones.
Cloak (just 1 level is enough).

Beyond that is gravy. The above should be enough to beat the final boss every time (in fact, can be done with less than that)

Making smart decisions keeps you ahead of the enemy ship power curve and minimizes the possibilities of bad luck.

^Some good advice. I didn't see this mentioned yet: make sure 'show beacon paths on hover' is enabled for planning your path.

If you want to take all the mystery out, the ftl wiki covers every possible outcome for your choices at text events.

Both will make the game considerably easier, but also more boring.
I never played on Easy, never used "Show beacon paths" and only used a Wiki to know what to look for to unlock the last two ships that I missed. To be honest, I had more fun unlocking ships by surprise, so I shouldn't have done that either.
Take the game for what it is, a rogue like and accept the challenge and this will improve your FTL expierence.
Otherwise forget about rouge likes in general, they may not be your genre.

More information on rouge-like games are here:
- English Wikipedia
- German Wikipedia

You can backup the save folder after saving to have a perament save point.

But the other things are really your personal problem, or why cant you learn from your mistakes? Everytime I lost I found out what I did wrong and avoided it the next time. Now I almost never lose because I raely make mistakes.

If you can't learn how to play this game then you really need to rethink playing any game besides checkers.

Try actually using your brain.

The "randomness" is actually what makes this game so interesting for me. That's the way life goes as well - especially if you're in the military or police force or "space force" - you have to be ready for anything and everything. If you're getting your butt handed to you, there's no (great) shame in busting a retreat.

Actually one of my biggest mistakes early on was getting too comfortable with beating everything no matter what, so when I did occasionally encounter something that was kicking my behind, I stubbornly fought it, only to either die or be so severely damaged that I was screwed.

The thing is I've played this so much now that I look at the AI, think that it's actually really stupid. How dumb does a captain have to be to fire his beam laser at my fully-shielded ship, then follow that up with a burst laser? Did they just grab someone off the street and put them in a ship, so they always fire a weapon immediately after it charges, with no coordination?

I think about this and wonder if it would make the game ridiculously difficult if the AI wasn't this thick. It would make it harder no doubt (possibly by a fair bit), but I don't think it would become impossible. It would make certain fights very tough, but that makes sense - if something's outgunning you you'd expect the fight to be tough.

Additionally, there's this strange thing that only AI ships do where a burst laser hits multiple rooms (not just one target) - unless it's my imagination. At any rate, the AI definitely doesn't concentrate its firepower - it attacks rooms pretty much at random, when you'd think that it would have some kind of strategy (e.g. go for the shields first, then take out your weapons, etc.). Ideally this would be slightly different depending on the individual ship you're fighting, with certain races and ship builds having a predeliction for certain tactics (this kind of happens now, but it's very basic).

Now having the AI concentrate its firepower would make things MUCH tougher, much more than simply synching its weapons. I can forgive the AI for not doing this - not concentrating firepower could just mean a "green" captain, and doing so might make things crazy, plus require more dev effort - but not synching its weapons (at all) is just plain retarded IMO, and shouldn't be a difficult thing to fix.

I'd get a mod or mod this part myself, but the AI is something that's currently not possible to change via mods...

That was deliberate, the programmer said this:

"If the AI was as smart as you, the game would just be "whoever shoots the weapon system first." Which is also why competitive multiplayer, in my opinion, would neverw work. "

https://getsatisfaction.com/ftlgame/topics/enemy_ai_with_targeting_logic

Yeah that does make sense, given that there are limited tactics one can use. Also makes it possible to defeat a more powerful enemy easier.

I still don't see why the AI couldn't at least coordinate its weapons though. It just seems so very stupid for the AI to fire a beam laser when it's 100% guaranteed to not actually do any damage whatsoever. Doesn't kill the game (I just pretend their pilots are a bit thick), but still...

In that thread though the coder did mention the possibility of opening up modding for the AI in future - so there's hope yet!

I agree with the competitive multiplayer part - unless of course a ton of extra features/tactics/etc. are added. Not sure how that would go though, or how to balance things, or even how to entirely remove the "whoever fires first wins" thing, but whoever figures it out and makes a game using it will most likely get even more attention than this game already has. :)

I could see a competitive multiplayer mode where you don't directly fight with each other. Sort of like Tetris, where you own progress makes it harder for the opponent.

For me, it's not a question of whether or not I can "learn the game", but whether I want to invest the incredible amount of time to do so by having to restart a brand new game every time some random event ends my game after hours of progress. With my current backlog of unplayed games, the answer to this for me is definitely not.

So, I use the scum-save (or whatever it's called) technique for this and other "Rogue-like" games that seem to think they're so edgy and hip by making games like this where the player can get permadeath'ed and has to start all over. If that rubs anyone (including the devs) the wrong way, so be it.

FWIW, I've just started playing FTL, and I'm enjoying it so far, but would have experienced a "game over" situation around 5 times already if I hadn't been scum-saving. That would have been unacceptable to me, and it would have been uninstalled by now if I hadn't been using this technique.

To each his own, but my time is simply more valuable to me than being one of the cool kids that "learned the hard way".

It's not a question of "beeing cool", it's just the way the genre is designed on... in this game in particular, multiple playthrough are also required since you can't unlock every ship/alternate design in one run... given that you have to restart anyway to have it fully completed, what's the point in cheating?! every time you die you also get the chance to unlock something else...

FTL isn't even one of those die hard roguelike where you can literally waste dozen of hours upon an unlucky death: it requires 90-120 minutes at most, from start to finish, and you are not gonna get some flashy cinematics or anything from beating it... like they say for some other games "it's the journey, not the destination"

If you rob yourself even the satisfaction of having a good run, why bother playing at all?

My thoughts exactly!

Personally I love this type of challenge, since it forces one to think carefully about the consequences of your actions, lest you make a costly mistake. Not so much that you die right there, but that you do something that will make it so much more difficult later on (e.g. taking lots of damage and using all your money for repairs so you can't upgrade your weapons at the next shop).

Also length-wise, it's probably in-between most old-school action games (where you couldn't save at all - you had to play in one sitting - although the arcadey ones tended to have "continue" options) and other more traditional rouge-likes. Personally I think the length is about right for this - short enough to play in one sitting, long enough to be satisfying, plus you can save if you have to.

I would totally advice against save-scumming unless you absolutely positively can't take it anymore. I admit, I DID use it on a very small number of occasions, but that was because I was going nuts trying to get that Crystal Ship unlock, so I did that so I could actually find the proper beacon on the Rock homeworld...

But once you start doing it (save-scumming), you could get tempted to do it again and again. You'll start coming up with excuses for it, like "I wasn't concentrating, that one doesn't count" - and before you know it you've ruined the experience for yourself. Even if you don't realise it at the time...