History VideoGame / FTLFasterThanLight

** The Burst Laser series, which fires 2, 3, or 5 single-damage shots, may not sound exciting compared to the bigger guns and missiles, but it doesn't need ammo and chews through shields better than anything short of a missile aimed at the shield generator or a fully warmed-up Chain Vulcan. The Burst II model is especially practical, using the same amount of power as Burst I to fire three lasers instead of two. With 4 Burst Laser II's, you can output MoreDakka than the freaking ''[[FinalBoss Rebel Flagship]]'' '''using its [[LimitBreak Power Surge]]''' (though this veers into AwesomeButImpractical by requiring 8 bars of power and actually finding and equipping 4 Burst Laser Mark II's, leaving no room to use other weapons).

** The Kestrel Tupe B ship, the Red-Tail, starts off with four Basic Lasers, single-shot lasers with a charge time of 10 seconds. While each one is weak on their own, four of them at the same time allows you to inflict more damage than a Burst Laser II, but with less recharge time. In fact, it's not even necessary to target the shields on single-shield enemies for the first two sectors since you can still do pretty reasonable damage with three lasers; sometimes you can even shut down an enemy's weapons before they can fire ''at all''. Later on, swap them out for Burst Laser I's or II's to pile up the damage some more. Crewmembers manning weapons gaining experience each time ''each weapon fires'' — meaning you often max out the gunner before Sector 3 or 4 — is a bonus.

** If you're lucky enough to find four Burst Laser Mark II's (and crazy enough to equip them all and upgrade your ship enough to supply the eight bars of power they'll collectively need), you can launch precisely 1.5 times more dakka than the Rebel Flagship's [[LimitBreak Power Surge]] in a single AlphaStrike. Sadly, you cannot equip four Flak Mark II's to launch 3.5 the Flagship's level of dakka, as you cannot upgrade your weapons system enough.

* AWinnerIsYou: Right after finishing off the Rebel Flagship, [[spoiler:the game immediately cuts to text that reads: "''Thanks to the valiant effort of [ship name] And her successful crew: [names of crewmembers] The Rebel's flagship was destroyed, throwing their fleet into chaos and ensuring a Federation victory''". Then the credits roll.]]

* AdvancingWallOfDoom: The Rebel fleet, which after three jumps moves across each sector from left to right, replacing any jump beacon it overlaps with a fight against a powerful rebel ship that gives only one unit of fuel when defeated. Certain events can slow the wall or even speed it up; don't let those rebel scouts get away!
* AbnormalAmmo: Crystal weapons fire, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin crystals]].

* AlmostOutOfOxygen: It could happen to you, or to the enemies, if someone's oxygen generator gets busted. Short of sending Lanius crewmen through a teleporter, oxygen starvation is typically too slow-acting to take a ship's crew down.[[note]]With the notable exception of a certain class of Slug ship, which lacks a door to the Oxygen system and therefore can't repair it ''at all''.[[/note]] Enemies will tend to flee rooms that have no oxygen (since they take constant damage), even if this means allowing your crew to destroy their systems.

** Crystal weapons and piercing lasers have the property of piercing a single layer of shields. Not as powerful as a missile, true, but they have unlimited ammo.

** The Burst Laser series. A gun that fires 2, 3, or 5 single-damage shots may not sound exciting compared to the bigger guns and missiles, but it doesn't need ammo and chews through shields better than anything short of a missile aimed at the shield generator or a fully warmed-up Chain Vulcan. The Burst II model is especially practical, using the same amount of power as Burst I to fire three lasers instead of two. With 4 Burst Laser II's, you can output MoreDakka than the freaking ''[[FinalBoss Rebel Flagship]]'' '''using its [[LimitBreak Power Surge]]''' (though this veers into AwesomeButImpractical by requiring 8 bars of power and actually finding and equipping 4 Burst Laser Mark II's, leaving no room to use other weapons).

* ChargeAttack: ''Advanced Edition'' introduced Charger weapons, volley gun versions of regular weapons. Rather than getting more powerful the longer they charge, they fire +1 shot for every level of charge they have. They come in missile launcher, laser, and Ion flavours.
** Chain weapons fire faster or hit harder the more often they're fired. The Chain Vulcan, the ultimate iteration of the series, can rip through shields and start punching holes in ''anything'', up to and including the FinalBoss.

* DeathRay: The Anti-Bio Beam, which does no damage to ships or systems, but can kill almost any crew member in two hits. Very helpful for defeating an enemy ship while leaving the ship itself intact and thus preserving more salvageable material. The Slug Cruiser Type A is built around the use of this weapon with supporting Dual Lasers and Breach Bomb, to clear out enemy crew without destroying their ships.

** The Lanius in the ''Advanced Edition'' are a race of this. They commonly reside in abandoned sectors in the wake of interstellar conflicts, the evidence of which "[[SarcasmMode mysteriously]]" disappear.

** The Human type B ship, the Red-Tail, starts off with four Basic Lasers, single-shot lasers with a charge time of 10 seconds. While each one is weak on their own, four of them at the same time allows you to inflict more damage than a Burst Laser II, but with less recharge time. In fact, it's not even necessary to target the shields on single-shield enemies for the first two sectors since you can still do pretty reasonable damage with three lasers; sometimes you can even shut down an enemy's weapons before they can fire ''at all''. Later on, swap them out for Burst Laser I's or II's to pile up the damage some more. Crewmembers manning weapons gaining experience each time ''each weapon fires'' — meaning you often max out the gunner before Sector 3 or 4 — is a bonus.

* EliteMook: Some of the heavier enemies you come across; Zoltan Energy Bombers, Mantis Bombers, Slug Assaults, and the rarely-seen Rock Assaults all qualify. And the Rebels have the [[AdvancingWallOfDoom massive fleet of Elite Fighters chasing you the whole time]].

* EscortMission: Some ships you encounter along the way will give you some payment if you agree to lead them to a certain area in space and usually fight someone for them when you get there. Luckily you don't have to actually take care of said spaceships and they don't mind if you agree to help and don't bother jumping to their destination.

* ExclusiveEnemyEquipment: Generally, anything the enemy uses, you can too. Except for the Flagship's triple-barrelled guns. There are also some ships with five layers of shielding, although these are rare. Finally, there are some events that require enemies to board your ship, despite you having a Zoltan Supershield; your captain is unsure of how they do this. The latter is available as an Augment called the "Zoltan Shield Bypass Unit" in ''Advanced Edition''.

* GameMod: Although the game doesn't have official modding tools, the files are very open, simple, and easy to work with. Images are .png files, and most data is held in .xml or .txt files. Modders have already successfully modified ship layouts and added new weapons. The official game forums have a [[http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=11 subforum dedicated to modding the game]].
** [[VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLightCaptainsEdition Captain's Edition even has it's own Tropes page!]]
** [[VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLightMultiverse Multiverse now as well !]]

* GatheringSteam: "Chain" weapons, such as the Chain Laser, Chain Ion, and Chain Vulcan get progressively better each time they fire in an encounter. Depending on the weapon, getting better implies either shooting faster and faster or getting more powerful. In exchange, their first shot is nearly always weak and/or has a very long charge time. On the first shot, the Chain Laser is just a slower Burst Laser I, while after the third, it's a much faster one, going from a 16 second initial cooldown to a final cooldown of 7 seconds. By the fourth shot, the Chain Ion has gone from one ion damage to four, though its cooldown never changes from 14 seconds. The Chain Vulcan takes 11.1 seconds to charge a measely one shot, but after five shots, each shot has a cooldown of 1.1 seconds, so fast that it can overwhelm any amount of shields through raw rate of fire. If any chain weapon loses power, it loses all its steam and has to start over from square one.

* GradualGrinder: The Federation Cruiser ship. It starts with a special beam weapon that takes an extremely long time to charge, but ignores all defenses. The strategy is typically to raise your defenses as much as possible and wait for the beam to destroy the enemy for you.

* GunboatDiplomacy: There are a few events where if you have enough levels in weapons, you have the option to power up your weapons at someone to get what you want. In one case, there is a struggling ship trying to move cargo which puts up the last of its shields when it sees you. You power up your weapons as a show of force, but you don't get the items for free — you just open a store. Curiously, this event is marked "store" on the map, so your threatening gesture is automatic.

** The Mantis, giant alien [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin mantises]] that are stated to be the most aggressive and antagonistic race in the game. However, they aren't [[HiveMind hive-minded]], nor are they concerned with consuming everything, and [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch have plenty of reasonable members you can recruit]].

* ImmuneToMindControl: Beings from the Slug race are telepathic, which, on top of being able to influence minds themselves, renders them immune to mind control.

* LastStand: [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Sector 8]], where you and the Federation [[spoiler:face down the massively advanced Rebel Flagship]]. It's even ''called'' "The Last Stand" in-game.

* MacrossMissileMassacre: Finally shows up in ''Advanced Edition'' with the aptly named "Swarm Missile Launcher." When fully charged, it fires three missiles for the cost of one. Additionally, an augment named "Explosive Replicator" encourages this attitude by duplicating your missiles half the time, extending your ammo by 50%.

* MookMaker: Cloning bays, which regenerate a crewmember when they die. A problem if one uses antipersonnel tactics instead of regular weapons. Also, Drone Control Systems allow you to turn Drone Parts into MechaMooks of various flavors.

* SuicidalOverconfidence: It is not uncommon to encounter an enemy ship that is incapable of harming you (such as a Rebel Rigger with only a Mini-Beam and a Beam Drone, provided you have any amount of shielding at all), yet will make no effort to charge up their FTL drive and escape or offer surrender even if you reduce them to critical health and make it clear that there's no point in them continuing the fight.

* SuicidalOverconfidence: It is not uncommon to encounter an enemy ship that is incapable of harming you (such as a Rebel Rigger with only a Mini-Beam and a Beam Drone, provided you have any amount of shielding at all), yet will make no effort to charge up their FTL drive and escape even if you reduce them to critical health and make it clear that there's no point in them continuing the fight.

** By extension of the above, the Type B Stealth Cruiser, [=DA-SR12=], is this. A sleek, shiny vessel, it sacrifices the engine power, the Titanium Systems Casing augmentation, and the weak but efficient combo of a Mini Beam and Dual Lasers used by the Type A for a Glaive Beam and level 2 cloak. The Glaive Beam is rightfully considered to be the game's [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Beam]], as its damage per shot is the greatest in the game; its obscene damage output can often kill pretty much any ship in the first sector (as well as the second and third). However, it takes so outrageously long to charge that they're practically guaranteed to get at least one clear shot off before that happens, even if you time your cloak perfectly. If that shot hits your weapons room and you haven't upgraded it (and you likely haven’t if you're saving your scrap to buy a shield system), [[ShootTheShaggyDog your Glaive Beam goes offline and you have to start charging it all over again]]. God help you if the enemy has [[AlwaysAccurateAttack beam weapons]]; if they have [[BeamSpam beam]] ''[[FrickinLaserBeams drones]]'', YouAreAlreadyDead. Put together, this basically makes the first sector a LuckBasedMission until you can find some shields.

* FrickinLaserBeams: Of both the "incremental bursts that are actually projectiles" and the "slice through a ship's armor like a knife" varieties.

* HitScan: All beam weapons work this way, and as such, hit their targets instantaneously.

** The Scrap Recovery Arm boosts your scrap collection by 10%. Doesn't seem like much, but the scrap bonuses add up over time, and it's much more pronounced in later sectors when defeated ships dole out more scrap. If you somehow manage to pick up a second SRA, the boost stacks up. Having one also adds a blue option to a relatively common event, resulting in a nice pile of scrap if you happen to get it.

* CoolButInefficient: The Repair Arm repairs a few points of hull automatically at each jump point, at the cost of 15% of your earned scrap. Over time, this adds up to far more scrap than you would have spent if you just repaired your ship at a store or waited for an event which is cheap/free. Furthermore, if the player is taking enough damage that the augment is actually reasonably spending the scrap it's stealing, then keeping the hull intact is the least of the problems they're facing. If you are [[PowerupLetdown "awarded"]] it as part of a random event, you are well-advised [[ThatOneDisadvantage to dump it as quickly as possible]]. As of the Advanced Edition, it is significantly more efficient: it will repair your hull every time you receive a scrap reward (so if an event rewards you twice, it will repair you twice), and it will stop taking its percentage of scrap once your hull is fully repaired.

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: When you approach the "Great Eye" in a Zoltan sector, one of the possible outcomes is a crew member aging in reverse, then disappearing. You're uncertain what happened to that crew member because [[DeaderThanDead even a Clone Bay won't bring them back]], and you hope that they've transcended physical existence.

** Basic lasers are dull, firing only a single laser beam and doing a relatively pitiful one damage on a hit. However, the Kestrel's B-type layout, the Red Tail, comes with ''four of them'', which, combined with their single power requirement and a decently trained weapons officer, will chew through anything with two or less shields. It's only when enemies start getting three shields that you need to seriously consider upgrading (by that point, enemies will have engines powerful enough to reliably dodge at least one of your shots from almost every salvo).

* TeleportersAndTransporters: Used for boarding actions and bomb weapons.

In November 2013, the developers announced ''[[http://www.ftlgame.com/?p=598 FTL: Advanced Edition]]'', a free ExpansionPack that adds new equipment, events, weapons, ships (for both the player and enemies), and various other goodies, as well as an [[IOSGames iPad]] port. Both ''Advanced Edition'' and the port were released on April 3rd, 2014.

* WarIsHell: The fall of TheFederation has left the galaxy in quite a [[ApocalypseAnarchy difficult]] [[CrapsackWorld state]]. Even ignoring the Rebels' penchant for [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized constant and vicious attacks on peaceful settlements]], [[DidNotThinkthisThrough they aren't powerful enough to control the galaxy alone]], and without the strength of a properly organized military, [[SpacePirates space pirates are running amok]] and [[EvilPowerVacuum various factions, "good" and "bad" are vying for power]]. [[SuicideMission And you need to trudge through that mess for 8 sectors to even have a chance at winning]].

* AlphaStrike: A common and often necessary tactic for overwhelming the enemy. Assuming that a ship's weapon systems are upgraded so that it can power several weapons simultaneously, carefully timing their shots such that they happen closely together in a tight salvo can knock out shields, overwhelm defense drones, and leave the enemy crew dealing with more damage control at once than it can comfortably handle. This is also a necessary tactic to employ beam weapons, which cannot penetrate shielding on their own. The Weapon Pre-igniter ship augment lets you launch one the moment a battle starts, and there's an achievement for using it to blow up an enemy ship with the first volley. Your enemies will rarely do this, since they normally fire each weapon the moment it is charged, even if waiting for the rest of their weapons to charge would be a lot more effective. However, cloaked enemy ships will sometimes charge all their weapons and hold their fire while cloaking, so that when they uncloak, they release a barrage of fire.

* AWorldHalfFull: You can change the falaxy for the better... if you can somehow win the FinalBattle.

*** Zoltan B and C (Noether and Cerenkov respectively) are named after physicians.

Not to be confused with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTL_Games the developer,]] which was best known for its own Roguelike, ''VideoGame/DungeonMaster'', and its sequels. Also not to be confused with the trope FasterThanLightTravel, even though this game [[{{CaptainObvious}} obviously]] uses it for getting around.

* CripplingOverspecialisation: Many ships start out this way. In particular:

** Boarding Drones against AI-run Auto-Scouts, for ships that don't start with any real weapons, like the Mantis Cruiser Type B. They will slowly but surely kill every system on the ship, doing one point of damage every time they take the system down, until the ship itself blows up after losing its last hull point. This doesn't work on the scout's larger Auto-Assault cousins, though, which are compartmentalized and thus prevent boarding drones from being able to move around within them. To beat those, you need to have a level 2 teleporter so your crew can get in and out without dying, leaving the drone to deal the final blow.