History VideoGame / FTLFasterThanLight

* FinalDeath: For crew members and for the ship itself. On the plus side, destroyed systems can always be repaired.

* PermaDeath: Another standard for {{Roguelikes}}. Applies to both individual crew members and your ship as a whole. If a crewman dies, you must continue on without them -- if your ship is destroyed, GameOver.

* EnergyBeings: The Zoltan. They can even power your subsystems, but are more fragile than the other races.

* ExactlyWhatItSaysontheTin: The Slug, Mantis and Rockmen alien races are literally races of giant slugs, mantises and men made out of rock.

* ExplosiveDecompression: Averted. Hull breaches and open airlock doors will cause air to leak out complete with hissing sound effect, but won't affect your crew until asphyxia starts draining their health.

* AerithAndBob: Crew names range from normal names like Alex or Elizabeth to stuff like Luaan Ti and GMFaux.

* ExplosiveDecompression: Averted. Hull breeches and open airlock doors will cause air to leak out complete with hissing sound effect, but won't affect your crew until asphyxia starts draining their health.

* KillItWithFire: There are several weapons designed to light an enemy ship on fire. Fire destroys equipment, consumes oxygen, hurt crew members and worst of all, spreads. That small fire in the security room can quickly turn into a blaze consuming half the ship.

* LawofAlienNames: Played with since the default name pool seems to apply to all characters regardless of species. This sometimes creates weird situations like having a female human called Pipaluk and a male Engi called Elizabeth on the same ship.

* PunchClockVillain: Numerous encounters qualify. Of particular note are Rebel ships whose captain will say that he'd ''rather'' fight for the Federation given the chance, but since they lost and [[OldSoldier fighting is all he knows how to do]], he'll continue to fight [[IFightForTheStrongestSide on the Rebel's side]].

* ScratchDamage: Every shot that hit a ship will do at least one hull damage, providing it penetrates any shields. The exception is bomb-type weapons, which eschew damage in favor of making the enemy crew's live absolutely miserable in various ways.

* WeaksauceWeakness: Averted with the FinalBoss. The Rebel Flagship has four weapon control stations, so you can;t just take its entire arsenal offline with one ion beam and proceed to administer DeathOfAThousandCuts.

* VariableMix: Each music track that plays has two (or more?) versions: calm and spacey most of the time, and incorporating more rhythm and percussion when you're squaring off against a hostile vessel.

* GodzillaThreshold: When your ship is suddenly by more attackers than you even have crew, suddenly setting off a firebomb inside your own ship seems like a good alternative.

* KilledOffForReal: Any of your crew who die? Yeah, they're gone forever. You will never see them again.

* {{BFG}}: Some weapons, like the Glaive Beam, are several times the size of their more basic counterparts, with damage output to match. The final boss [has no less than ''four'' {{BFG}}s; triple-barreled missile, ion and laser weapons, along with a powerful beam.

* EnergyBeings: The Zoltan. They can even power your subsystems.

* HyperspeedAmbush: Everyone in space apparently uses the same hyperspace beacon coordinates so it's not uncommon to find yourself in an ambush after a jump. Pirates and Slavers would also occasionally set up fake distress beacons to lure in victims.
* HyperspeedEscape: If a battle gets two tough and the player waits long enough for the engines to get ready again he can jump to hyperspace mid-battle.

* SoleSurvivor: Players can come across distress beacons set up by other (often slightly deranged) spacemen who survived crashing into an alien world. These survivors can be brought aboard the ship and [[spoiler: either become new crewmates or hurl themselves out of the airlock]].

* SingleGenderRace: The Engi and the Slugs; possibly the Mantis as well.

The player controls the crew of a small spaceship affiliated with TheFederation, which is currently on the losing end of a massive rebellion. The objective is to deliver an important message to the remains of the Federation fleet in a distant sector. Unfortunately, as those familiar with Roguelikes will suspect, this is [[NintendoHard far, FAR from easy]]: the galaxy is an extremely dangerous place for a lone vessel, filled with dangers such as pirates, deadly environmental hazards, rebel scouts, hostile alien races, and others. Not to mention that the vast rebel fleet is in hot pursuit...

''FTL'''s gameplay involves the player's ship "jumping" between waypoints in a randomly generated galaxy, each of them containing a RandomEvent (usually involving combat). You then switch to a cross-section view of your ship, showing the crew along with its various rooms and contained subsystems, such as shields, oxygen, weapons, etc. During combat, you can then order your weapons to target certain enemy ship rooms or systems (the most useful ones being shields and weapons, in order to cripple them). Despite your ship being mostly automated, you can also order your crew to man certain stations to increase effectiveness, as well as repair sections of ship, fight fires or engage in combat with boarders. It's also necessary to manage power: you can divert power from one system to another, prompting choices such as to whether pursue evasive actions and divert all power to the engines or go aggressive and focus on weaponry. Along the way you'll collect scrap, the game's currency and use it to upgrade your ship's systems, get repairs, fuel and -- if you're lucky -- some fancier things like new weaponry or whole new systems such as cloaking devices, teleporters and more.

!!This game contains examples of

* AdvancingWallOfDoom: The Rebel fleet, which gradually replaces waypoints with encounters with powerful rebel ships that give no rewards for destroying.

* AttackDrone: Comes in several flavours (anti-ship, anti-personnel, dedicated drone BoardingParty), but needs the appropriate subsystem to even start using.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: [[FinalBoss The Rebel Flagship]]. Justified, in that it's a ''ship'' built to protect the most senior staff of the fleet.

* {{BFG}}: Some weapons, like the Glaive Beam, are several times the size of their more basic counterparts, with damage output to match. The final boss [[spoiler: has no less than ''four'' {{BFG}}s; triple-barreled missile, ion and laser weapons, along with a powerful beam]].
* BoardingParty: Be it through the airlock, teleportation, or in the middle of your ship via drill-based drop pods, boarding parties will screw new players over...until certain strategies are adopted (See VideoGameCrueltyPotential).
* CowardlyBoss: [[spoiler:Justified. The Rebel Flagship is attempting to complete a mission that doesn't involve your destruction.]]
* DeflectorShields

* ExcusePlot: There are Rebels. They hate you. And that's the extent of the main story.

* HumansAreAverage: Humans are the only crew race to have [[TheMario no inherent advantages or disadvantages]]. The game describes them as 'common and uninteresting'.

* MechanicalLifeforms: The Engi race.

* PermaDeath: Another standard for {{Roguelikes}}, but even if your ship survives, important crew will die permanently.
* PsychicPowers: The slugs, allowing you to view the enemy's ship in greater detail even when your sensors are down.
* RandomEvent: For better or for worse, at least from the player's perspective.

* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized
* SingleGenderRace: Seemingly every race apart from the humans.
** Although a quest involves delivering a female Rock to her husband; Zoltan are sometimes referred to as "wise men". In most other cases, aliens are referred to as "it".
* StealthInSpace: A cloaking device is one of the subsystems you can pick up. Normally you have to break cloak to fire, but another subsystem allows you to fire through cloak.
* SubsystemDamage: All subsystems can be individually disabled. If the door controls go down, you won't be able to open or close the doors (Which can be a bit of a problem if the airlocks have been opened, see VideoGameCrueltyPotential). If sensors go down, you won't be able to see unoccupied rooms on your ship, or, if you have the right upgrades, the enemy's crew. [[OhCrap If the oxygen generator goes down...]]

* UngratefulBastard: It is possible to ride to the rescue of some harassed ship only to have it jump away without offering anything as thanks.

* VideoGameCaringPotential: Heavily damaged enemies will often attempt to surrender, and in some cases will offer more in compensation than you would have earned by simply destroying them. Many of the game's [[RandomEvent random events]] also allow you to attend to distress beacons and assist people in trouble.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Faced with the issue of a boarding party on your ship? No problem - open the airlock and suffocate them all! [[spoiler: You might as well - most of the boarding parties can take so much damage that you'll want to soften them up by way of asphyxiation.]]
** Of course, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero things can go awry if a boarding party knocks out your door controls while you attempt this strategy]].
** Many of the in-game achievements actively encourage cruelty. One requires you to entirely drain an enemy ship of oxygen; another requires [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill every single square of an enemy ship's interior]] [[KillItWithFire to be on fire at once]].

* XMeetsY: Described as "''{{Firefly}}'' by way of ''{{Spelunky}}''"