Void War

If you filed the serial numbers off of both FTL and Warhammer 40k and put them in a blender together, you would get Void War. This isn't a complaint, because the resulting product is amazing. A lot of FTL-likes lose the plot because they decide to distinguish themselves by making things way too complicated. They have fractional numerical damage, or a free-roam galaxy, or they go 3D, or something. Void War knows that you don't need to completely change what works, just improve on it. The changes that it makes to the base formula are mainly things like balance changes, QoL improvements, or just plain 'nice to have's. Its big changes are overhauls to the really simple systems, but they still remain easily understandable because the underlying formula remains the same. For instance, crew. There's no maximum crew limit. You have a 'commander' character, but they otherwise function like normal crew, just with some unique ability. Crew HP is typically much lower than in FTL, as low as 10-15, capping out around 140 for the really tanky "dude in full power armor" crew members, and averaging 50-60. To balance this, ship weapons usually only do chip damage to crew members unless it's a weapon specifically for injuring crew. This means not every character is good in hand-to-hand combat and some are exceptionally squishy and must be guarded in case of boarders. Crew can also equip items that can change how much damage they do or give them special abilities, but these are all very straightforward and immediately understandable. Crew don't have FTL's skill XP so losing a crew member is less devastating and you can arrange crew more flexibly. Healing is extremely limited. There is no infinite healing source; it's always a limited number per jumps, or the one item that lets you heal per melee kill. This is an anti-stalling mechanic to prevent a fight from going on forever. You are encouraged to win quickly and decisively, not by attrition. Some crew can use psionic powers. These are inevitably the squishiest crew members and they can be interrupted while casting. These powers never miss, giving another potential way to avoid a fight stalling forever against an evasive foe. There are multiple possible final bosses, and you won't know which one it is until you get to the final sector, so you have to have a more general build going than just "here's what I need for the flagship". These are 1 big fight instead of 3 separate ones and they pose a huge challenge. When you install a system you can pick which room it goes into! I wish FTL let you do this. It also has better difficulty adjustment than FTL. Instead of just "more scrap" or "less scrap" it has a whole series of gradual increments (think Peglin's crucible levels) to gradually up the challenge in more interesting ways. Solid recommend for any FTL enjoyers. It's got a demo too if you're undecided!