This is the only gripe i have with this game. Distances between stars can't be counted and thus you can never be sure whether you will reach that star or not.
It caused me a few deaths already.
It's more or less a guess whether you will make it there or not. I rather choose a safe approach now and leave the system a turn sooner, rather than risk having to track back into a rebel zone.

I don't see whats so special about it, for me its just another strategy game like Imperialism,Warcraft or Civilization, when you play badly, you lose, reloading won't help much. Everytime I lose FTL it is because of bad strategy or stupid mistakes, not random events. (Well maybe except with Stealth Ship Layout B).
Every complicated game that requires difficult strategic understanding has its forum full of complaints that it is too hard,yet elsewhere these same people complain that all games are becoming casual.
This game is not "hard" like some Action game, it simply requires strategic planning.

Then I'd advise stop playing this game and go watch Star Trek 2. The graphics are better, the music is better, the plot is better, your crew members have more personality, the bad guys are better defined and more menacing, and it will only take 2 hours of your time.

A video game without challenge is a crappy movie that requires you to diddle with the remote between each scene. Instead of getting further because you sat on your ass long enough to get the stat numbers high enough to overcome the stat numbers of the latest obstacles, in games like FTL you get further because you, the player, have become more skilled and learned from your mistakes.

You really should check your dates before replying. The Lord Riker guy never bought or played the game and hasn't posted anything in this forum in quit a while. Chances are he'll never read your reply (although it is still possible he will, but it won't mean anything since he's never played the game.)

So what, this is an internet forum, dates are irrelevant, what is written here will be read for a long time, so we might as well correct it.

I was addressing mischief maker who was specifically talking to riker and telling him to stop playing the game, which would be hard to do, since he never started.

Ya know, just pointing that out.

Permadeath goes well with the game design.

Each game is new and self-contained so it's not like you die and have to start from scratch doing the exact same thing.

Rather, the game ends one way or the other (with success or failure) and you start a new one.

In a way, dying is a blessing when you have a bad run and you're limping and barely surviving for 2-3 sectors, because you get to start over rather than have to constantly re-try a game where there stars just didn't align at all for you.

It breaks some bad habits of constantly banging your head against a wall and re-fighting an uphill battle, because you refuse to acknowledge defeat.

Some people are stubborn that way, but it doesn't necessarily makes them happy.

I'm also surprised how people can't stand permadeath after having invested less than 2 hours in a characters. Most hardcore games (like roguelikes) kill off your character and erase your saves after you've given days, weeks, months, to it.

Fortunately, the new patch now takes care of this problem, see:

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/ftl_faster_than_light/patch_1023/post14

After installing the patch, just make sure to enable "Show beacon paths on hover: enabled" as Judaslscariot mentions. This enables you to plan out your exploration of the new system from the beginning upon entering it, helping to avoid dead ends, or screwing yourself over ;-)