Both look intriguing. I have little experience with neither roguelikes, nor 4X titles, but uh, I enjoy SF and space stuff.

To those who've played both, which do you prefer?

FTL by a long shot, but that's my opinion.

I haven't played either, but I want to get both games. I ended up buying FTL for $9 since it's on sale on their website.

FTL and Endless Space are 2 completely different games, though you are probably aware of this. I havn't personally played Endless Space, but I know the 4X genre well soooo...

I would answer your question with a counter-question:

Do you want a completely random, unforgiving ( on normal difficulty ) experience that'll last you about 5 minutes to 2 hours per playthrough, or a game about managing your empire where a single game will probably take 6 to 40 hours ?

Don't get me wrong, I'm really enjoying FTL - but it's not a fair game at all. If RNG decides to throw a strong enemy at you, you just can't do anything but sit there and watch your last hour go down the drain. I love roguelikes, heck, I'm even developing one, but most roguelikes always provide you with means of escape if things go south. FTL does not. You can be doing absolutely amazing, and then be matched up against your perfect counter-build that you simply cannot damage with your loadout and can blast your ship to pieces before your FTL comes back online. I suppose I wish FTL was a bit more about skill than it is about randomness but as long as you can accept that and deal with it, you'll get your money's worth and then some.

If you want a game that makes you feel like the worst gamer in the world, but gives you the most fun, go for FTL.

Honestly, I thought I was OK at games and had a decent brain for good strategy, but then 2 minutes into that game and a bloody alien bug jumped on my ship and I hid my dudes in the medic bay and wept like a small child as my ship went down. And i've done that the last 4/5 times I've played it. The S.S. Muppet and Crew of Kermit, Piggy and Fozzy are the worst spaceship team ever.

One thing I can tell you for sure, if you get Endless Space it will make your mac burn with the heat of 1000 suns; so much so on my macbook pro that I decided I didn't feel comfortable continuing to play is lest I break something. I'll be giving FTL a shot later tonight but based on the images, I don't think it's going to be all that taxing on the system.

I really like both for different reasons.

FTL the runs are much shorter than ES, but of course the trade off is that ES has many many many times more facets to it.

ES is a much more intricate game (not that FTL lacks strategy and hidden depth) and thus you will feel lost with a lot of stuff at first (and hell i still am)

Both games look really nice for what the aesthetic is for (I still love the amoeba in ES)

I would say I have played more ES overall, but since I have had both, more FTL, but that is probably because the new game smell is there.

Watch some lets plays so get some more context if you like.

@BrockNRolla said:

One thing I can tell you for sure, if you get Endless Space it will make your mac burn with the heat of 1000 suns; so much so on my macbook pro that I decided I didn't feel comfortable continuing to play is lest I break something. I'll be giving FTL a shot later tonight but based on the images, I don't think it's going to be all that taxing on the system.

SMC Fan control is your ally

FTL is short and unfair even on roguelike terms just like Bio2hazard said. It's still fun for multiple hours though but I can see Endless Space being fun for even longer and it doesn't seem as straight in your face frustratingly unfair.

@Bio2hazard said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm really enjoying FTL - but it's not a fair game at all. If RNG decides to throw a strong enemy at you, you just can't do anything but sit there and watch your last hour go down the drain. I love roguelikes, heck, I'm even developing one, but most roguelikes always provide you with means of escape if things go south. FTL does not. You can be doing absolutely amazing, and then be matched up against your perfect counter-build that you simply cannot damage with your loadout and can blast your ship to pieces before your FTL comes back online. I suppose I wish FTL was a bit more about skill than it is about randomness but as long as you can accept that and deal with it, you'll get your money's worth and then some.

Well you can run away from enemies, but that does involve surviving for a bit, and possibly having upgraded your engines a few levels. You'd be surprised some of the stuff you can pull through when you know the tricks to handle things. Boarders for example--the best way to handle them is to vent the air out of a large portion of your ship and corral them into your medbay where your guys will be healed and they will not. In general, some shield and engine upgrades will go a long way to boosting your survivability. Don't underestimate the dodge chance on your engines. It can save your life, especially from missiles.

Also, consider upgrading some systems even if the effects aren't too important to you, because each upgrade also gives the system an additional hitpoint before it goes offline completely.

@EToaster: You don't have enough scrap to account for every scenario. If you spend all your scrap on defensive measures, you won't have the firepower to survive when enemies are starting to have 2 or 3 shield bubbles. In general, meeting a enemy energy fighter or energy bomber - the ones that have high tech equipment, a shield health bar and 2+ shield bubbles, you can get fucked up really fast.

I know about venting your rooms, boarders in general give me very little problems. Main problem is doing amazing for a hour, and then jumping into a encounter where I get blown up before I can flee.

As far as upgrading your engines, that's just tipping the RNG slightly in your favor. The first time I maxed out my engines ? I got the achievement that involves getting hit 5 times in a row while having maxed out engines and a ** engineer manning them. RNG is a bitch.

Pretty much all your suggestions involve a lot of scrap, and unfortunately unless you get lucky and get the scrap gathering arm in sector 1 or 2, you won't ever have that much scrap. At this point, I start out the game pulling power away from med bay and into engines for the extra dodge, upgrading shields ASAP and generally trying to disable the enemies weapon systems first. Easy mode is easy, I win almost every time. Normal? Goes well until about sector 3, where I randomly get into encounters that take me from 30 hull to 10 hull by the time I can warp out. Generally feel like out-of-depth opponents with too much shield for me to damage, with way too much firepower.

As a example, I encountered a guy with 2 anti-ship drones AND 2 ship weapons ( one of which a cutter beam, the other a launcher ) in sector 3. My 2 shield bubbles were constantly down due to the 2 anti-ship drones and the launcher and beam was just wrecking my ship.

In short, yes, there is a few things you can do to improve your chances, that much is definitely true. But I still stand by my point that it's mostly RNG and if RNG decides you are fucked, you are fucked - with no way out. I would like the game a lot more if you got a limited amount of items that'd insta-charge your FTL, or something you can do. There is a reason why in most roguelikes having a save is so key ( and most roguelikes have gazillions of them: teleport scrolls, potions of invisibility, blindness potions you can chuck at enemies, summon and wall creation scrolls that put a obstacle between you and a enemy and the list goes on... )

I've played both on the Mac - I've had more fun with FTL, at 1/3 the price. The space combat is a much more fleshed out system in FTL than it is in Endless Space, even if it has simplistic graphics in comparison.