History YMMV / FTLFasterThanLight

* AwesomeMusic: [[http://benprunty.bandcamp.com/album/ftl Heck, just have a listen for yourself.]]

* MostWonderfulSound:

** Quite a few people have the Flagship's AI as the Rebellion's Commander-In-Cheif.

** One of the Flagship's pod gunners is considered a double-agent due to the strategy of leaving them alive to prevent the AI from taking over.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdPxS2rrW9Q Slug Battle]] has a nice war-drums feel with shouting vocals.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1J-2nIovYw Cosmos Battle]] has a low synth riff with a very similar tempo to Guns N' Roses Locomotive.

** Also from ''Advanced Edition'', the [[GatlingGood Vulcan Cannon]]. It's extremely rare, starts by firing one shot every 11 seconds, and takes 4 power, but it is the ''only'' weapon you will ever need to destroy anything. The time between its shots drops by two seconds with each firing, so eventually it fires 1 shot per ''second''; the fastest enemy shields will recharge is 1.5 seconds. Battles are reduced to setting the Vulcan to autofire on the shields and breaking it apart, then destroying enemy systems at your leisure and occasionally reminding the enemy crew the futility of repairing the shield with another shot. Not even several misses in a row can stop the onslaught for more than a brief moment.

** The Stealth B ship, DA-SR12. Like the Stealth A ship, it starts with a cloaking device and the shield system must be purchased separately for 150 scrap. Its main differences are that it has only level 2 engines instead of level 4, has level 2 cloaking, and its only weapon is the [[AwesomeButImpractical Glaive Beam]], a beam that does 3 damage per room, but takes ''25 seconds'' to charge (about 23 if you have a zero-level gunner) and uses 4 bars of energy. Even the Federation Cruisers' Artillery Beam fires faster when maxed out. If your weapons and/or your cloaking get hit in the early game, your best choice is simply to restart.

** The Repair Arm augment. Any moderately savvy player knows to ''never'' buy this piece of garbage, since it steals 15% of your scrap to do something that is both cheaper at a store and which should at best be occasionally necessary if you know what you're doing. What makes it fit this trope is that you can be [[PowerupLetdown "awarded"]] the augment as part of a random event, forcing you to rush to a store to dump the thing. Depending on how far along you are, this can either be a small scrap gain, or a small to moderate scrap loss.

** As far as crew examples go, [[PunyEarthlings humans]]. They trigger no blue events, [[MasterOfNone have no special abilities]], and are only effective in combat when against Zoltans or Engi. Slugs have the same stats as humans, but also have telepathy (which was further improved in Advanced Edition) and can trigger blue events. The Advanced Edition mercifully gave them [[HumansAdvanceSwiftly slightly faster skill progression]] and a new blue option.

* ItWasHisSled: The Crystal race is supposed to be a WalkingSpoiler, but the [[LuckBasedMission heavily luck-based requirements]] to unlock their sector and ship are [[ThatOneSidequest so notorious]] that it's anything but a secret now.

** The Rock Cruiser Type B, "Shivan". It has four Rockman crew by default, making it very tanky and resilient to boarding. Its Heavy Pierce Laser can dominate early sectors before the enemies get over one layer of shielding, as it charges fairly fast, ignores one layer of shielding, and does as much damage as an Artemis missile without using ammo or being countered by Defense Drones. It also comes with Fire Bombs, which in of themselves are fairly useful due to their ability to set fires and hurt enemy crew while ignoring shields. Once you install a teleporter however, the combination of a fireproof Rockman boarding party with Fire Bombs will essentially allow you to easily defeat any ship that isn't a drone, or crewed by Lanius.

*** The flagship's triple missile launcher is notorious for this reason. At best, a defense drone of any make can take down two missiles, and while you can cloak to dodge them, this only works every other time due to the longer cloak recharge. Unless you're fast with your teleporter, odds are a missile is going to connect. On the final stage, it's practically a guarantee since the Zoltan shield takes so long to get through.
** BoardingDrone will cause a breach in whatever room they land in and wreak havoc until you take them out (or the drone control system). Considering they are immune to asphyxiation, has a Rockman's health and Mantis' damage, this is easier said than done. And of, if you manage to take them out, the enemy most likely will send ''another one''. Considering that the Rebel Flagship has both missiles and Boarding Drone, getting a Defense Drone is almost mandatory to complete the game. Previously, the enemy can send the drone without cooldown (although limited by the number of drone parts), almost ensuring that at least one will get through. ''Advanced Edition'' added a cooldown on their launching, making them slightly easier to take care of.
** The hacking and mind control subsystems in ''Advanced Edition''. The hacking drone can be fired at any system and reverses the function of the system it hits (oxygen drains, medbay damages, weapons and shields lose charge, dodge is shut off). Not only that, the room it hits is locked down and has to be broken into. It also doesn't suffer from the drone-cooldown added to prevent drone-spam, so your enemy is going to fire it like it's a machine gun until they hit you. The mind control system co-opts one of your crewmembers and causes them to turn against you, usually attacking whoever or whatever is in the room with them. This can potentially shut off your ability to dodge or damage critical systems. In both cases, you can only hope you can knock the system offline before it does too much damage. On the plus side, these two are every bit as gamebreaking under your control.

*** The flagship got ''even cheaper'' with ''Advanced Edition''. Now the first round has the hacking subsystem which needs to be shot down by a defense drone, and the flagship shoots them really fast. Worse, its missiles are almost guaranteed to distract your defense drone long enough to let the hacking drone hit you, which can be deadly depending on what it hits (if it hits weapons, shields, or engines/pilot, jump away from the battle as soon as possible; you've basically lost otherwise). The third round gets the mind control system hidden behind the massive Zoltan shield, which means you'll have a crewmember running around under enemy control for a significant period.

** As far as crew examples go, [[PunyEarthlings humans]]. They trigger only one blue event, [[MasterOfNone have no special abilities]], and are only effective in combat when against Zoltans or Engi. Slugs have the same stats as humans, but also have telepathy (which was further improved in Advanced Edition) and can trigger blue events. The Advanced Edition mercifully gave them [[HumansAdvanceSwiftly slightly faster skill progression]] and a new blue option.

** As far as crew examples go, [[PunyEarthlings humans]]. They trigger no blue events, [[MasterOfNone have no special abilities]], and are only effective in combat when against Zoltans or Engi. Slugs have the same stats as humans, but also have telepathy (which was further improved in Advanced Edition) and can trigger blue events. The Advanced Edition mercifully gave them [[HumansAdvanceSwiftly slightly faster skill progression]] and a new blue option.

** [[spoiler:The Crystal race]], though their Game Breaker properties are justified by the sheer difficulty involved in [[LuckBasedMission unlocking them]]. Their lockdown ability prevents entry and escape from a room, which can be used to contain enemy boarders, trap enemy crew inside a room, or prevent them from accessing a room while you hammer away at its occupants and systems. Extra hp allows them to hold their own against most opponents (excepting Mantis, Rockmen, and Boarding Drones) without suffering any drawbacks save for a slightly reduced movement speed.

** [[spoiler:The Crystal people.]] Their ability to lock down a room, preventing anyone from entering or leaving makes whoever you are facing in the room outnumbered, outgunned and unable to escape, ensuring a certain death. Combined with their extra HP and tolerable speed, and you have the ultimate boarding crew. Their Type B ship takes this even further, with a four-capacity teleporter right next to a medbay, and you start with three crew. Their Type A ship is no slouch, either, possessing weapons that bypass one layer of shielding and don't require ammo. Their Game Breaker property is heavily justified though, as the way to unlock them in vanilla ''FTL'' requires a horrendous amount of {{luck|BasedMission}}.

*** All three Zoltan cruisers. The Zoltans are the most fragile race and moving them around results in ship systems losing or redistributing power, resulting in weapons getting canceled, cloaks getting deactivated, shields dropping, etc. Their Zoltan Shield augment can prevent enemy ships from using their teleporters or launching boarding drones while it's active, but the ''Advanced Edition'' introduces a special augment that allows enemies (and the player) to get past it, and several random events involve its use. On the other hand, it also gave Zoltans the special ability to explode when they die for a little crew damage, giving at least a little hope to the Zoltan Type C with its clone bay.

** The fact that many elements of the game are random does not sit well with some players. Case in point: In one run, you may end up finding four Burst Laser II's, allowing you to cheese the FinalBoss with 12-shot [[BeamSpam laser spam]]. In another run, you may be stuck with default weaponry or at the least ineffective weapons at stores that prevent you from damaging the flagship at all unless you also invest in a teleporter.

** The Rock Cruiser Type B, "Shivan". Its Heavy Pierce Laser can dominate early sectors before the enemies get over one layer of shielding and stays useful through the endgame. It charges fairly fast, ignores one layer of shielding, does as much damage as an Artemis missile without using ammo or being vulnerable Defense Drones. Once you find a teleporter, the combination of a fireproof Rockman boarding party and Fire Bombs becomes even more powerful.

** The Mantis Cruiser Type B "Basilisk", with its starting 4-man teleporter, boarding drone and level 2 shields. It doesn't come with weapons, but you do not need them. There are only two types of ship it cannot beat outright, one of which is easily corrected once you've got some scrap to upgrade your teleporter one level. Almost every encounter can be won simply by beaming over your entire crew to kill off the opposition while your shields soak up any damage they can do. This also gains a lot more scrap than blowing ships up, making it much easier to improve the ship. For AI ships, you can use your boarding drone to destroy systems slowly (AI-Scout) or a combination of the level 2 teleport and drone (AI-Assault). With all that extra scrap, you can easily buy weapons to disable ships you can't kill by boarding. By far, this ship is the easiest one to get to the endgame with because it affords a considerable early game advantage. Its only disadvantage is Zoltan ships, which can't be breached with the teleporter while their shield is up (unless the RandomNumberGod blesses you with a special bypass augment).

** Ion Blast II combined with one or more Ion Blast I. It only takes a few quick salvos to take down even level 4 shields, after which you can keep two or more systems more-or-less constantly disabled, then just relax and take your time finishing off the enemy. Especially good in combination with beam weapons, or with teleported crew.
*** It's also the best weapon for leveling up your crew's Weapons skill.

** ''Advanced Edition'' adds the hacking and mind control subsystems, which completely unbalance the game once you get them. Forget needing a teleporter, just launch a hacking drone at the oxygen and suffocate the ship. Use mind control to make the crew kill each other. The downside, of course, is that it's almost as easy for the enemy to do this to you with the same.
*** The Lanius B Cruiser gives you a clonebay, mind control, a teleporter, advanced version of the Flak Mk 1 (only cost 1 energy to operate ''and'' has lower recharge time to boot) and ''two Lanius''. Who drain oxygen from rooms. If you can't be hurt by the enemy, then it's triviality to use the flak to destroy the enemy oxygen room, teleport the Lanius in, fight for however long it takes to drain the oxygen out of that room, followed by the rest of the ship soon enough.
** Also from ''Advanced Edition'', the [[GatlingGood Vulcan Cannon]]. It's extremely rare, starts slow, and takes 4 power, but it is the ''only'' weapon you will need. The time between its shots drops by two seconds with each firing, so eventually it fires 1 shot per ''second''; the fastest enemy shields will recharge is 1.5 seconds. Battles are reduced to setting the Vulcan to autofire on the shields and breaking it apart, then destroying enemy systems at your leisure and occasionally reminding the enemy crew the futility of repairing the shield with another shot. Not even several misses in a row can stop the onslaught for more than a brief moment. Pairing it up with a Glaive Beam (difficult, considering that arming the two together will take eight bars of power, the maximum your weapons system is allowed to have) will require a small fortune in scrap and either luck or starting with the Stealth Cruiser B, but will give you an unlimited ammo weapons set that will melt anything that you point it at, provided you can survive long enough for the Vulcan to spin up and the Glaive to charge. That, or ''[[UpToEleven 2 Vulcans]]''.

** Also from ''Advanced Edition'', the [[GatlingGood Vulcan Cannon]]. It's extremely rare, starts slow, and takes 4 power, but it is the ''only'' weapon you will need. The time between its shots drops by two seconds with each firing, so eventually it fires 1 shot per ''second''; the fastest enemy shields will recharge is 1.5 seconds. Battles are reduced to setting the Vulcan to autofire on the shields and breaking it apart, then destroying enemy systems at your leisure and occasionally reminding the enemy crew the futility of repairing the shield with another shot. Not even several misses in a row can stop the onslaught for more than a brief moment. Pairing it up with a Glaive Beam (difficult, considering that arming the two together will take eight bars of power, the maximum your weapons system is allowed to have) will require a small fortune in scrap and either luck or starting with the Stealth Cruiser B, but will give you an unlimited ammo weapons set that will melt anything that you point it at, provided you can survive long enough for the Vulcan to spin up and the Glaive to charge.

* HellIsThatNoise: In no particular order:
** The generic 'bad things are happening' siren.
** The sound of missiles firing, especially the 'thunkthunkthunk' of the Flagship's triple missile launcher.
** The 'shhhhhhhhWHAAAM' that solar flares and ion pulsars make.
** The lonely beeps of the distress beacon.
** The FTL jump sound when it's the enemy ship escaping and not you.
** The music changing to its "battle" variant, particularly if your ship is in some sort of critical condition.
** The 'krakPSSSHHH' of your hull being breached.
** The 'sheesheeshee' of an enemy's crew teleporter.
** Most of all, the distinct '[[LimitBreak WARNING: POWER SURGE DETECTED]]' klaxon.
** The warning alarm when you have an unpowered or destroyed clonebay and crew about to die because of it.

* MemeticMutation: [[GiantSpider Giant alien spiders]] are [[SeriousBusiness no joke]].[[labelnote:Explanation]]One random event features a ship crew under attack by giant spiders. This is the first option, word-for-word.[[/labelnote]]

** One particularly crazy one involves using absolutely no oxygen on your ship at all. You'd think everyone would quickly die from asphyxiation, but apparently a level 2 Medbay completely nullifies the damage taken from asphyxiation. It's still ridiculously difficult, since the Medbay is only so big, and you need someone at the helm to jump the ship from point to point. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNHfxwbETaM It's been done]], however crazy it sounds.

* {{Fannon}}: Nobody but the devs depict the FTL engine as a jump drive (essentially, the ship teleports), but either a warp drive or a hyperdrive, so as to get some downtime that doesn't involve sitting around nav beacon 180,000,000 doing nothing.