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[Moogie]

I'm having trouble getting anywhere with the Stealth and Rock ships. Their extremely limited weapon/system beginnings make the first couple of sectors a mad search for better armament.

Stealth ship: Sustain hull damage in practically every fight. Any ships you destroy only pay for the repair costs. Unless you find an epic weapon at random, you're SOL.
Rock ship: Missiles run out. See above, except scrap goes towards buying more missiles.

It ends up that I reach sector 3 and still have almost no upgrades, no shields, and the same shitty weapons. :/

A tip with the stealth ship, if you wait until they've fired first you can use the stealth to all but guarantee you'll dodge the first shot, which can give you time to charge your weapons and shoot out their weapons system.

Assuming the RNG winds are favourable, you should hopefully be able to get shields by sector 3.

I get that, but... what, so you save up a massive 150 scrap for Shields by sector 3. But by then you're already outgunned. I still think it requires some massive RNG luck to even have a hope of getting far with that ship. It's just so poorly equipped to start. (And I realise that's probably the point: to be difficult)

[Pnx]

It takes pretty good RNG luck with just about any ship, some of them more than others. I will agree with you though, the stealth ship's lack of shields and crappy armaments does make it very difficult to play.

[EuchreJack]

Overall, I feel what makes the Kestrel so powerful is that it is the most balanced ship.  All other ships have a "I MUST fix X, or I'm boned".  With the Kestrel, you just have to improve what you've already got: There is less chance of the RNG killing you by not providing something critical.

[Sirus]

I'm in the middle of my oddest game so far

I decided at the outset that I would go for the Kitted Out achievement (load the Kestral with all special rooms). I lost a crew member early on, saved a new one from pirates, and then lost another of the original crew trying to fight space spiders. Both times, it was the pilot who was lost. Yet I was finding several drone designs (which helped tremendously in buying the rooms), several times I'd jump into a sector and get rewarded with free stuff (including a scrap-collecting arm! for free!), and now I have a crystal crew member and pretty much nothing but friendly sectors in the way. Oh yeah, and I got the achievement. Mission accomplished!

[Azurestrike]

I know people have probably figured out how to grind piloting/engines, shields and weapons, but did you know there's a way to grind combat in an insane yet, if properly done, low risk way that can get all crew members to max combat? (with the possible exception of zoltans since I haven't tested if it works for them yet)

It involves a teleporter and an unmanned ship.

Connect the dots and you'll see why I call it insane.

EDIT: It's possible to grind repair 'safely' but it consumes too many resources for me to recommend it, but if anyone really wants to do it, I recommend a firebomb, working door control systems and standing still in a store beacon with a decent amount of scrap.

[Sirus]

Well, my oddest game ever came to an inglorious end. Seems the RNG got tired of being merciful and pulled out all the stops <_<;

Location: Nebula sector. Status: Out of fuel. I wait around for a turn, and a big Slug ship shows up, with 3 shields and weapons, plus the requisite teleporter. The boarders were more-or-less easily dealt with thanks to the Crystal Alien's ability, but the ship itself was a major pain, single-handedly bringing me down to around 25% hull, making me waste my entire stock of 15 missiles because everything kept missing, and warping away when it was down to three hull points, giving me nothing in return.
Wait again, a ship shows up. Long-range scanners reveal that it is indeed hostile, so I cloak away.
Wait again, with the distress beacon on. No one shows up at all.
Wait once more. A ship offers to trade some fuel for drone parts, which I happily accept.

Ready to warp out, checking the nearby systems for plasma storms, and the game tells me that the rebels are NOT, in fact, being slowed down by this particular nebula sector. In fact, they're right on my tail and would have been on me if I had been forced to wait again.

So I warp right into a big Mantis ship. Fewer shields, but more weapons and I'm still completely out of missiles, leaving me only with a burst laser. Two Manti board right in the middle of the shield room, forcing my crew member to run for it while I desperately attempt to drain air. They make a beeline for the bridge, and in the meanwhile continuous weapon fire has wrecked my weapons room, the life support, and damaged the shields enough that they no longer work. I died without dealing a single point of hull damage to the Mantis ship or even killing the boarding party. Yay.

[Knirisk]

I think the Stealth Cruiser is just bad, to be honest. I even got lucky as far as the RNG is concerned, finding a Halberd early on made some engagements extremely easy. I just wait for them to fire first, then I cloak and retaliate with a super-powerful beam. Easy, right? For a time, yeah. I even managed to succeed so far as picking up a shield generator is concerned. Everything is going good until I hit a Mantis bomber and it instantly teleports two Manti onto my cruiser. Normally, with the Kestrel, this isn't too much of a problem.

The Stealth Cruiser, however, is a different story. When boarders occupy some of the rooms on the Stealth Cruiser (the cockpit especially!), they either slow or stop its functions completely, which pretty much cannot happen to the ship at all, or it gets trashed.

Rghhh... I knew I should've installed that Anti-Personnel Drone.

[Silfurdreki]

I think the main problem with the stealth cruiser is the sheer amount of crippling weaknesses. Sure, the cloak and long-range sensors are really nice, but that doesn't help you in combat at all. It can also handle missiles a tiny bit better than your average (non defence drone equipped) ship, but in return, boarders on the bridge, any offensive drone and beam weapons mess you up so badly that almost all scrap goes toward repairing hull damage! If you get an enemy Zoltan ship with a beam or two in the first two or three sectors, you're more or less screwed.

It's really a shame, I really like the idea (and looks!) of the stealth cruiser.

Also: something that would be really quite useful is a to have a semitransparent ring indicating your jump range around a node you're hovering your mouse over on the map. It would reduce the frustration of going into a dead end in which you just barely cannot make the last jump and are forced to go through many jumps of rebel ships to get to the exit.

[Zangi]

Damn you RNG...  Damn you.  First you take my non-humans... then another... and the last.   Also, I did fairly well for 2 sectors out of 3 with only 1 crew member left as Plan B starter ship.

[Knirisk]

I think the main problem with the stealth cruiser is the sheer amount of crippling weaknesses.

It definitely needs something that can help alleviate its weaknesses. Right now, the best cure seems to be "become the Kestrel" other than sheer RNG fortune. Also, if you decide to try attempting a playstyle similar to the standard loadout you get with the Stealth Cruiser, it eventually gets pretty bad because the beam weapons can't deal with shields very well, and practically every ship carries around lots of shields.

Now, if missiles were less costly to use, then that could help solve the Stealth Cruiser's problem of dealing with shields. I suppose you could use drones while cloaking, but, again, that's the Engi ship.

To solve the beam weapon problem, you get weapons to either eliminate or bypass shields. To solve the defense issue, you buy shields. The Kestrel has neither of those problems. I like the idea of the Stealth Cruiser, but it needs some way to solve its issues without just being another ship entirely.

EDIT: Actually, I just had an idea. It means a bit of rebalancing of the enemies, but if more heavy-damage/light-defense ships were around, it would help justify the decision of the Stealth Cruiser. The cloak essentially IS an invulnerability button on a timer, but shields shrug off a lot of weapons much better than the cloak. For the Stealth Cruiser's cloak to be as useful as shields, it needs to have some sort of edge that shields don't have.

[Silfurdreki]

EDIT: Actually, I just had an idea. It means a bit of rebalancing of the enemies, but if more heavy-damage/light-defense ships were around, it would help justify the decision of the Stealth Cruiser. The cloak essentially IS an invulnerability button on a timer, but shields shrug off a lot of weapons much better than the cloak. For the Stealth Cruiser's cloak to be as useful as shields, it needs to have some sort of edge that shields don't have.

For starters, I think the cloak system should be possible to man, similar to the shield system (you could even have them use the same skill) to reduce cooldown. I don't really know what actions should give experience, though, maybe just activations? Or perhaps activations that result in enemy weapons not recharging, to combat gaming of the experience system. Also make evasions with the cloak give piloting/engine experience, to help reduce the damage taken outside of cloak.

Also, I think reducing the price of the shield system could help immensely. The stealth cruiser is the only ship that starts without one, IIRC, so it would not uspet game balance for the other ships.

[GlyphGryph]

Argh, finally got a Crystalman, and no Rock Homeworlds in site. Getting this off requires a HUGE string of good luck on map placements, doesn't it?

(Also, we all blew up.)

[Sean Mirrsen]

My current run as the stealthship is... fun. I couldn't yet buy shields. Because I can't amass enough scrap to get them before I have a more immediate need. Thus, The Paper Swan is currently decked out with a teleporter and a beam drone, as well as an Ion Blast II in addition to its two starting weapons. Stealth at maximum, engines getting there. But no shields. So far, didn't need them. I haven't yet run into four-shield enemies though, but usually once I decloak the enemy is missing its shields and has at least three points of hull and system damage - from the small beam and the drone. I really need one of those MkII Burst Lasers...

[a1s]

When boarders occupy some of the rooms on the Stealth Cruiser (the cockpit especially!), they either slow or stop its functions completely, which pretty much cannot happen to the ship at all, or it gets trashed.

You know that stupid cockpit upgrade that you never buy? (because, let's be honest, who ever leaves the cockpit unmanned?!) Buy it. Now you can vent the boarders into space- the door is right there.

[Sean Mirrsen]

When boarders occupy some of the rooms on the Stealth Cruiser (the cockpit especially!), they either slow or stop its functions completely, which pretty much cannot happen to the ship at all, or it gets trashed.

You know that stupid cockpit upgrade that you never buy? (because, let's be honest, who ever leaves the cockpit unmanned?!) Buy it. Now you can vent the boarders into space- the door is right there.

I buy that upgrade just for the extra cockpit hardening. Same goes for lots of other systems when I've got no power to use on them - it's just padding extra HP on the system so it doesn't get taken out in one hit.