Subset Games Forum

Hey all, I'm new to the forums and to the game, so bear with me.

I know the game is supposed to be difficult, and it is. Extremely difficult. I fnd just making it to Sector 8 is a challenge, and making it there with the right equipment to take out the boss has continually eluded me, but I digress.

I'm trying to unlock the Zoltan B-Variant, since the Fed Frigate variant is so much better than the original. One of the achievements is to not upgrade the Reactor untill Sector 5. Now I know what the secret to this is - Zoltan crew. I've tried several times so far and found no matter what approach I take, I just need that extra power.

So finally I got a game where I had found 2 extra Zoltan crew before leaving Sector 1. I was on my way. I saved my game right after warping into the second sector, which was a Rock Sector. Everything was going swimmingly untill I ran into a Rock ship with a Teleporter. Three Rockmen appeared in my engine room and started ripping through my ship, my puny Zoltan no match for them in melee, the five of them cycling off between melee and running to the medbay, leaving my ship woefully powerless to fight the Rock ship. Just as I was getting the upper hand in melee, a missile hit a corridor two of my wounded crewmen were running through, openning a hull breach, killing them instantly. By the time I'd killed the invaders, my shields, engine and weapons were all disabled, half my crew was dead, and my hull was critical. It was Game Over, Man. Rather than play out the defeat, I just closed out the game, hoping my save file would be there. Sadly, it wasn't.

Now, I know the game is short, and the appeal is to make it hard and have people play through many times, and I have found the game very interesting and enjoyed some of the playthroughs. But I also really suck at the game, and setbacks like those really kill my mojo to play. I read the Rock, Paper, Shotgun review of the game where they asked for a Hard difficulty for all the fans of 'Roguelikes' and I'm all for that, I guess I just wish they'd also make a Very Easy that might be more forgiving with Saving and Loading.

Sorry for the complaining, I just went from on top fo the moon to laying face down in a gutter and wanted to share my perspective on it.

The primary fun in this game is to learn from your mistakes. To see what you did wrong etc. To do better next time.
Maybe you learned to use the venting strategy after this play through... maybe after the next?

I'm not sure players should be fooled into thinking the game is supposed to be savescummed as such an option would seem to indicate that.

That being said there is always the option of after saving to go to the location of your save file (mydocuments/mygames/FasterThanLight) and copy the continue.sav file. That would mean that you can use it again after the game deletes your current file when you start up the game again.