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[monk12]

Took me four Last Stands to beat the final boss the first time, three if you disregard the crappy ship that got blown away before even getting to the Flagship. Since the first win, I'm something like 4/5. My successful runs all tend to rely on boarding parties- last night I set a new personal best with the Mantis cruiser.

[GreatJustice]

Plus MF'ing boarding drones (see "crew mostly Engi and Zoltan").

If the drone room is damaged at all (i.e. anything but grey) the boarding drone will lose power; it seems to be lowest priority. Try to let it move into an adjacent room before depowering it so you can repair the hull breach without having to micromanage destroying the drone first.

I know...problem was that I was relying on paired Breach Missiles to do any damage. Defense Drone(s) kept shooting them down, so no way to hit the drone controls.

Had another close run last night, with the Stealth Ship. Breezed through the first two stages with full cloak, stealth weapons and a pre-igniter. Weapons loadout was Ion Burst II, Hull Laser II, Breach Bomb.

Phase I: No damage taken, took out all the forward weapon sections, then focused on shields till they were down and used hull laser on empty sections to wipe out the hull.

Phase II: Took about 50% hull damage, but managed to cut the crew down to 1 guy in the upper right weapon section before taking out the ship.

Phase III: FUCK. The upper right weapon section is what fell off, so now the crew is dead. Suddenly the evasion seems through the roof, and I'm missing with my bombs like crazy. And can't seem to drop the shield down with the rapid-fire ion burst fast enough to get my hull laser to penetrate. Couple of sprays of that "super-weapon" Death Blossom laser and I'm toast.

This game embodies Final Boss like a....well, like a boss.

Depends on the loadout.

My second try with a Mantis B, I had a full mantis boarding party, 2 engi, 2 zoltan, a fully powered stealth system, full shields, almost full engines, a burst laser mkIII, and a hull missile. The first part didn't so much as scratch my paint job, the second did a tiny bit of damage (when I didn't time my stealth right), and the third did modest damage before I figured out the "super attack" timing. The only real weakness was a power shortage, else it would have swept everything in about two seconds.

Anyhow, how did you get the pre-igniter? It seems the only times I see it are when I'm fresh out of scrap, and it would be perfect alongside the BLM3 and a Glaive beam.

[gogis]

Strange. I defeat the boss about 3 times out of four. Reaching him is the difficulty.

3 out of 4 is incredibly low representation. Talk after 10+ takedowns
It's definitely easier to reach boss, than to defeat him. All normal ships require basic cookie cutter setup, while boss require counters to everything. Especially counters to dumb luck (dodges). I once lost with perfect ship, because I had no hull repair bot and in one stage he dodged 4 rounds straight to 6 laser shots, so i couldnt breach and glaive him (glaive is 3 damage and i penetrated 0-1 shield). This ship, frankly, still top 1 in hiscore table.

[10ebbor10]

3 times out of four as 75%, not as in the fact that I reached him only 4 times.

[GlyphGryph]

I can't disagree more. I have trouble with the first 4 sectors, but if I can get TO the boss? I can beat him 4 times out of 5 without breaking a sweat, and losing on that 5th try is usually a matter of getting caught up on /other/ ships, like a high-shield drone when I'm running a boarding-focused ship, or screwing up my jumps so I can't get to his final form in time, rather than actually being defeated by him in combat.

But honestly I don't see why he's that difficult. His first form isn't hard if you can take down his weapons fast enough, his second and third forms are trivially easy if you have a defense drone to shoot down missiles/boarding drones and cloak to deal with swarm/superlaser (and not that hard without them).

Note: Defense drones will not just shoot down incoming missiles, but ALSO incoming boarding drones. Good thing to know.

Also for those saying leave the laser room guy alive... Its definitely easier if you leave a guy alive of course, but I don't see why you'd leave the laser room guy alive instead of a generic mook in the center of the ship. Do you like having extra incoming bullets weakening your shields? o_O

[Jim Groovester]

A generic mook in the center of the ship can repair the shields and helm. If you have a weak weapon loadout keeping those down is probably more valuable than not getting pinged by three lasers every ten seconds or so.

Anyhow, how did you get the pre-igniter? It seems the only times I see it are when I'm fresh out of scrap, and it would be perfect alongside the BLM3 and a Glaive beam.

It's unfortunately random. If you come across it consider yourself lucky. This is why it's a good idea to keep a good chunk of scrap around when you're wandering beacons, so that you can have enough in case you come across a store carrying one.

[Micro102]

Well, i just found out that it's possible to get a crescent shaped series of beacons, meaning you can get stuck at a point twice as far away from the exit as the beginning.

[10ebbor10]

Well, i just found out that it's possible to get a crescent shaped series of beacons, meaning you can get stuck at a point twice as far away from the exit as the beginning.

Yeah, I know that feeling.

[GlyphGryph]

Which is why the trip planner is so great. Use it so you don't get caught going down dead-ends

[RedKing]

I was impressed with myself last night. Sector 6 or so, got stuck in a cluster of beacons that I *thought* would link to the exit but didn't. With the Rebel fleet bearing down on me. Wound up having to fight my way through half the sector to get over to the exit beacon, something like 4-5 Rebel elite fighters in a row. Barely took a scratch.

Thought that meant I was ready for the big boy. Once again, Phase 3 proved to be my doom (though poor timing with the cloak in Phase 2 let the drone swarm do way too much hull damage to me. Didn't have a chance after that.)

Was using the Zoltan B cruiser, pretty quickly on I had three Ion Blasts and a Pike Beam. Skated through the first four sectors or so with nary a scratch. Initial volley could drop shields, ionize weapons and piloting, and then proceed to cut through the ship like a boss. Wound up playing that entire game without using missiles or bombs. Though towards the late-game, my dual-Mantis boarding party (including the legendary Mantis guy) was my best weapon.


Honestly, this pretty much describes my feelings about FTL at this point (even though I'm still having a lot of fun playing it):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[sluissa]

I often get to the point where I know the whole mission is a lost cause... I really would prefer an option to surrender or maybe go find a nice planet somewhere to live and wait for it all to blow over... Or perhaps an option to warn the federation fleet... but not try to make a suicidal last stand... just tell them to run away and regroup while I look around for some better weapons to save their asses with.

[10ebbor10]

I often get to the point where I know the whole mission is a lost cause... I really would prefer an option to surrender or maybe go find a nice planet somewhere to live and wait for it all to blow over... Or perhaps an option to warn the federation fleet... but not try to make a suicidal last stand... just tell them to run away and regroup while I look around for some better weapons to save their asses with.

Point is, you're the warning. If they could just have mailed the secret information, they certainly would have done it.

[GlyphGryph]

RedKing.... /how/? The last form is literally like the easiest form! Since all it has that's dangerous is the laser spam, and cloaking or decent engines + shield makes it trivial to avoid/survive!

I suppose if you had a ton of damage and couldn't repair it, and were out of drones and missiles... but it always seemed to me like a last gasp, that can only really kill you through attrition.

[sluissa]

I often get to the point where I know the whole mission is a lost cause... I really would prefer an option to surrender or maybe go find a nice planet somewhere to live and wait for it all to blow over... Or perhaps an option to warn the federation fleet... but not try to make a suicidal last stand... just tell them to run away and regroup while I look around for some better weapons to save their asses with.

Point is, you're the warning. If they could just have mailed the secret information, they certainly would have done it.

I get that... but how is it AT ALL a good idea to say, "Hey, this guy rolled into town venting air, most of his systems damaged, crew down to two from, what I understand at one point was 7, his weapons are decent, but he's out of missiles and drones. Thanks for the warning... now that we know about it... mind taking care of it for us? Oh sure, we'll slap some duct tape on your hull and top your tanks off. You're welcome. Now get to it, you're our only hope... this huge fleet of powerful battleships? Oh, we're defenseless here. We better stay back."

[RedKing]

More to the point, I wish the game would let ME in on the flagship's weakness that I just told the Federation about.

RedKing.... /how/? The last form is literally like the easiest form! Since all it has that's dangerous is the laser spam, and cloaking or decent engines + shield makes it trivial to avoid/survive!

I suppose if you had a ton of damage and couldn't repair it, and were out of drones and missiles... but it always seemed to me like a last gasp, that can only really kill you through attrition.

I dunno, but the last 4 times I've tried it's been Phase 3 that kills me. Maybe it has a faster recharge or something, just seems like I can't dodge everything fast enough and then systems start failing and fire and alarms and OH GOD NOOOOOOOO

* RedKing huddles in the corner