The FTL: Faster Than Light website has details on FTL: Advanced Edition, the upcoming free expansion for the throwback space strategy game (thanks nin via Shacknews). They note that player ships will still be limited to eight systems, and outline some of the new options of ways to outfit your ship, explaining the workings of clones, hacking, mind control, and the backup battery. They also outline plans for visual improvements and a new hard mode for the already difficult game:

Visual Improvements: As we’ve mentioned before, along with the new content we’ll also putting in a host of minor tweaks and improvements to the game. One example would be the new and improved reward boxes, making event outcomes more clear.

Hard Mode: For our more masochistic fans, we’ve also added an additional Hard difficulty to the game. 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.