When comparing 0 A.D. vs FTL: Faster Than Light, the Slant community recommends FTL: Faster Than Light for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Linux?” FTL: Faster Than Light is ranked 15th while 0 A.D. is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose FTL: Faster Than Light is:
The rougelike game design combined with the huge amount of choices that can be made in both encounters as well as ship management makes FTL a highly strategic game as you never quite know what the game is going to throw at you. There are many decisions that can be made in the game, such as what parts of an enemy ship to target (their shields, their weapons) or where to concentrate your defensive strategies, such as powering up an ion engine to run, or powering up ones shields to stay and fight. These choices can all effect the final outcome of the game, so it is up to the player to make the best decisions at their disposal. There are also many choices of ships to use and equipment layouts for each that can be tweaked. Depending on the ship used and what equipment is used or where it is place can greatly affect how the game will play out as well as how the game will need to be played. If choosing a fast ship with low shield power, it will be best to outrun a lot of encounters. Where as if choosing a slow ship with good gun capabilities and a high shield power, a good strategy would be to go in guns blazing for each encounter.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Free, Real-Time Strategy title actively being developed
Still currently in development, 0 A.D. is currently in Alpha stages and completely free. For those willing to wade through the multiple bugs, essentially testing the title, this game will scratch the itch of any RTS fan on a shoestring budget.
Pro Multi-platform support
The game will run on any Operating System, whether it be Linux, OSX, or Windows, which is great for people who dual-boot or use multiple OS's across their devices. No matter the OS used, one can install and play this game.
Pro Addictive Age of Empires style gameplay
This game can be seen as a spiritual successor to Age of Empires, thus it will provide similar gameplay to those who are familiar with the AoE series.
Pro Straightforward RTS gameplay
0 A.D. brings recognizable, straightforward, Real-Time Strategy gameplay to the players. With a mini-map in the bottom corner, resources shown in a bar at the bottom, and unit selection through double clicking, all of the major elements found in most RTS games is here, making for a very familiar game for those that are used to the genre.
Pro Code is open-source
Even if the current developer team chooses to no longer work on the game, others can keep contributing to the source code and modify it.
Pro Active development
By being in active development the game allows for frequent bug fixes as well as frequent new content. While it is still in alpha, the state of the game playability is pretty good with new features being added all the time.
Pro Allows for highly strategic gameplay
The rougelike game design combined with the huge amount of choices that can be made in both encounters as well as ship management makes FTL a highly strategic game as you never quite know what the game is going to throw at you.
There are many decisions that can be made in the game, such as what parts of an enemy ship to target (their shields, their weapons) or where to concentrate your defensive strategies, such as powering up an ion engine to run, or powering up ones shields to stay and fight. These choices can all effect the final outcome of the game, so it is up to the player to make the best decisions at their disposal.
There are also many choices of ships to use and equipment layouts for each that can be tweaked. Depending on the ship used and what equipment is used or where it is place can greatly affect how the game will play out as well as how the game will need to be played. If choosing a fast ship with low shield power, it will be best to outrun a lot of encounters. Where as if choosing a slow ship with good gun capabilities and a high shield power, a good strategy would be to go in guns blazing for each encounter.
Pro Stress free timely decision making
The game can be paused at any time, which allows for one to contemplate their next move in the game. This makes for a less stressful experience since one can leisurely make their decisions without it impacting the gameplay.
Pro Great touch controls
Even though the game was designed to be played with a keyboard and mouse originally the touch controls work exceptional well. Some could argue better that keyboard and mouse. The gameplay and design lends itself very well to the touch screen, which makes playing the game a joy on iOS.
Pro Has modding support
There are multiple mods available for FTL that can greatly change up the gameplay and looks of the game. This adds a lot of replayability to the title.
Pro Morality based decisions
The game works a lot like a text adventure in a roguelike wrapper. The decisions asked of the player during this adventure can affect much of the stories plot, making for an interactive story through choices such as telling aliens you are a god in order to potentially receive less trouble in your encounter with them, to abducting aliens in order to sell them for a profit. One choice may appeal to the player more than another, it also provides a way to role play as a morally bankrupt space captain. All in all though this is all up to the player, which can be really fun to see what may happen.
Pro iOS version includes extra content over the PC version
The PC version of the game had extra DLC that one could pay for to extend the games gameplay. This content is included in the iOS version for the singular price of $9.99. So could be argued the iOS version is the better deal for the price.
Cons
Con Currently in alpha
0 A.D. is an ongoing open source project that is as of yet feature complete.
Con Slow development
0 A.D. is an ongoing open source project that is as of yet feature incomplete. This game is still in Alpha version 23 Ken Wood as of September 2020.
Con Not suitable for small phones
There is a lot of valuable information shown on the screen. This amount of info (and resultant impact on decision-making) is what makes the game so fullfilling. The downside is that there is no way you could easily track all of the information on a small phone. iPads or other larger screens are strongly recommended for this game.
Con Can be pretty difficult
The amount of choices to be made (many not being good ones) and the randomization of the game makes for a situation that may be too difficult for some. This is not a game that you will beat in one play session nor 10, it takes a lot of time to get in a good run that results in winning, which some people may not have patience for.
Con Lackluster interface on iPad
The weapons panel often covers up vital information on ones crew health. The problem being that this panel needs to be on screen when in a battle, which is also the exact time that crew health is very important.
Con Late game battles are long and boring
In the later parts of the game battles are very long which can make for a bit of a boring experience, especially for those that would rather be exploring than spending so much time on battles.