Hooray, I
finally beat the game! (On Easy
)
Used the Bulwark (or, in my game, "Big Bertha"). Managed to have an incredible run of luck in the first few sectors - got plenty of scrap and managed to purchase the teleporter, cloaking and drone control very quickly. Got a hull repair drone in the second sector, and a defence drone (mk. I) in the third. Picked up a hull laser I fairly early on, which paired well with the hull missiles.
Then it was boarding, boarding, boarding. Grabbed a mantis crew member later on, upgraded my teleporter, and went to town. I had scrap falling out of the vents of my ship by mid-sector 7.
By the time I reached the flagship, I had fully upgraded my shields, engines, cloak and doors, had at least level 2 in all other systems, and was armed with a Hull Missile (Mk. I), Hull Laser I, Hermes missile and (the luckiest find I ever had in sector 7) a Burst Laser III. Without that, it would've been a struggle. With it, not a problem.
First thing was to take out the flagship's weapon systems with my boarders. Not a problem, easy pickings. My shields could handle everything except the triple torpedo launcher, which my cloak dodged easily. Then the piece-de-resistance - launched the Hermes and Hull missiles simultaneously into...the medibay. Forget the shields, forget the engines or the sensors - the medibay.
It caught fire. And I gleefully beamed in my rockmen boarding party and simply had them sit in the medibay pounding the hell out of any crewman foolish enough to walk in. Then I also beamed in my mantis crewmember (outside the fiery medibay) and had him run around killing the weakened puny humans.
Somewhat stupidly, I killed all the crew at this point. I didn't plan ahead particularly, and forgot the warnings about the ship becoming self-repairing. But oh well. Beamed my party back out after destroying the shields, and promptly blew up stage one.
Stage two was a bit more aggravating - the boarding drone kept popping up in my shield room with my lone Engi, but I fought it off quickly enough while blowing up the drone control with my missiles (and suppressing shields and weaponry repairs with them immediately afterwards). Boarders popped back on board briefly to keep key systems (drone control and shields mainly) down while I dodged enemy drone swarms with my cloak and hit the ship with lasers when I had the chance. Beamed my guys back out just before the final shot. Phase three.
Phase three...was easy. No enemy crew means no boarding action. Just beamed my guys over, took out the shields, then the cockpit to stop it dodging, then the engines for kicks, and then simply went to town with the lasers again - cloaking to avoid the superweapon when needed (although the few times my cloak didn't recharge quick enough weren't a problem - fully upgraded shields and engines meant I either absorbed or dodged all the shots without issue!)
Beamed my guys back over and finished the flagship off with a single hull missile to an empty compartment - from the same hull missile launcher I'd been using since the start of the game.
Feeling immensely satisfied right now.