Ever since Subset Games launched FTL: Faster Than Light on PC back in September of 2012, we’ve dreamed of having it on the iPad. A few weeks after its launch, Subset even told us that they “would like to get it onto tablets at some point in the future," but weren’t sure of its feasibility. Well, last November they confirmed that FTL would be coming to the iPad, but that wasn’t all, as the original game would be getting a huge content update called FTL: Advanced Edition and all that awesome new stuff would be in the iPad version too. Sweet! This week, Subset Games has detailed many of the new features of FTL: Advanced Edition in a new blog post.
One of the new systems in FTL: Advanced Edition is Hacking, which will allow you to send a hacking drone to a system on an enemy’s ship and gain vital information on it as well as affect that system to your benefit. Another new system is Mind Control, which allows you to temporarily turn an enemy into an ally and make them do things like turn on their fellow shipmates or man an enemy weapon. There’s also a new Backup Battery which will give you more power when you need it, but only temporarily and at a cost of a cool down period and the use of a new 4th subsystem slot. Finally, there’s the previously unannounced new Clone Bay, which is an alternative to the current Medbay. With it, when a crew member dies a clone of them will be generated to replace them, but with lowered skill levels than the original crew member had.
There are even more improvements in FTL: Advanced Edition, like better visuals and the highly-requested Hard mode for the truly masochistic players. This Hard mode will include “More challenging enemy generation, lower scrap rewards, and other small tweaks should help keep the game interesting for anyone who might be bored of Normal" according to Subset’s blog post. Unfortunately, the one thing they didn’t detail in the post is a specific release date for FTL: Advanced Edition, but they promise that once they do have an idea of when everything will be ready they’ll be sure to let everyone know.
