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[WealthyRadish]

Oh god, on the first run I did after getting the game, I ran into the crystal ship quest. I picked the weapon. Neh.

[GlyphGryph]

Yes, yes, it is amazing. The Stealth A is a bit difficult, but the Stealth B and it's starting glaive beam is just glorious.

It's how I pulled off the no-shield win, because bloody hell, you just don't need one for the first few sectors (assuming you avoid asteroid fields).

And Tarran, I've tried it a number of times, finally beat the game with the B version, but by god it was the most painful ship I've flown. I hate pretty much everything about it. It's just... terrible.

Only ship I never beat the game with (with at least one variant) was the Slug ship... because I could never fucking unlock it. Damned RNG! Why no slug!?

Which means I have no idea how good it is or not.

[PanH]

Oh god, on the first run I did after getting the game, I ran into the crystal ship quest. I picked the weapon. Neh.

Much more complex than simply get the pod. I got it fairly easily, but it's luck. On the other hand, never get past the phase 2.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You also need to meet Zoltan scientists, then get to Rock Homeworld and get into a hidden sector.

[Tarran]

Well, out of my 49 games, it currently occupies the 4th high score slot, beneath the Kestrel, Engi, and Zoltan ships, and above another Kestrel run, so I don't have any problems with it. Pretty sure that run also got to the endboss.

[GlyphGryph]

Unless you beat the endboss, it doesn't count.

It's actually pretty weird, I've got no clue how scores are calculated. All my many wins, and my best scores are still games where I /failed/ to beat the endboss. Is crazy.

[Dermonster]

I think my best score is 79??

[Tarran]

Unless you beat the endboss, it doesn't count.

To you, maybe not.

To me with only 1 win (sob), it does.

It's actually pretty weird, I've got no clue how scores are calculated. All my many wins, and my best scores are still games where I /failed/ to beat the endboss. Is crazy.

Maybe it's calculated by your possessions, or by what you achieved.

[Jim Groovester]

It's actually pretty weird, I've got no clue how scores are calculated. All my many wins, and my best scores are still games where I /failed/ to beat the endboss. Is crazy.

Maybe it's calculated by your possessions, or by what you achieved.

There's a simple formula for it. It counts the number of beacons visited, ships destroyed, and scrap collected, I believe.

I think it's 10 * becaons + 20 * ships destroyed + scrap. Then if you're on normal everything gets a 25% boost.

[GlyphGryph]

Aaaah, that makes sense. I think my top score was the game where I dicked around trying to see how long I could survive against the rebel fleet in sector before last.

Didn't leave me in good shape, but must have been worth a ton of points.

[sluissa]

I gave the infinite space mod a try today (after looking up the link again in this thread... the official forums seriously need organization). Didn't have long to actually play around with it, but from what I can tell, it's EXACTLY what I want to make this game better... I am curious if you can actually unlock ships with it installed, but a couple of sectors in with the Red Tail and I'm having a blast!

[Leafsnail]

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

My favourite explanation is that the flagship controls all the unmanned ships remotely, hence all the droid stuff they activate in the second form.  Taking that down would help a lot considering there are unmanned ships which are legitimately tougher than the flagship.

[lemon10]

My explanation is that you know the exact phase frequency of the flagships shields, reducing it from a shield 8 to a shield 4 ship.

Of course that is completely unsupported, but does make a bit of sense that it would have stronger shields then the regular ships you run into.

[Dermonster]

It can recharge the FTL burst recharge only zoltan shield in the middle of battle.

Say what you will, but the Rebels must be scientific geniuses.

[Lightning4]

Woo. After running through on easy many times and dying horribly, I juuuust manged to squeak out a victory with the Kestrel, in addition to completing two of the Kestrel's achievements. After having my best attempt reach Phase 2, I was more than a little surprised to find out it's a three phase fight.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had A Burst Laser II, Burst Laser I, Ion Cannon, and a Hermes missile launcher.
3 layer shields, and something like 50% evade.
Cloak was the big factor. Even at level 1, it was a huge help.
Defense Drone MkIIs are very powerful as well.
Two Zoltans powering my systems freed up some energy for other uses.
I even had boarding and could've used it, but never did. Most of the good boarding races I had were tied up controlling my subsystems.
Probably the only flaw of the playthrough was the complete lack of augments. I didn't buy any, and never came across any. The ones I did see up for sale weren't ones I wanted.

I basically just hammered its shields into paste, then went on to the other systems if there was any hull left. Ion went towards drones or weapons if the shields were weak. I engaged cloak to mitigate the drone/energy bolt spam whenever those triggered. I sometimes missed the cue, but didn't get hurt too badly.

Then I decided to give the Fed Cruiser a whirl on normal. I went for both achievements and killed an enemy with the artillery beam, maxed it, and didn't upgrade weapons until after sector 5 (to be fair, I never really FOUND weapons until then).

Somehow, I beat him again. It... wasn't even a contest. I just... annihilated him. I really have no idea how I did it. I really don't.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Weapons: Max level Artillery Beam, Burst Laser II, Burst Laser I.
3 layer shields, 51% evade.
Same thing as the previous kill actually, didn't do anything really exotic. Just shot at it until it stopped existing.
I didn't even have cloak this time around. Evasion helped me here, though it sure felt I like I dodged more shots than I should've been able to.
The lasers were surprisingly effective due to the fire rate. Once its shields started letting shots through, it started to fall. The artillery beam really sealed the deal, some good swipes helped cripple its shields and other subsystems. The beam is especially effective against the flagship since it'll almost always swipe across a whole lot of rooms, dealing massive damage.
Phase 1 was the worst, I took a good 50% damage. Artillery Beam did most of the damage to it. After a series of repairs with hull repair drones, I chased him.
Phases 2 and 3 weren't even a contest. I barely took damage in phase 2. Phase 3 was a bit messy, but he ended up killing his own boarders indirectly after I evacuated the air in the boarded sections. Lasers and beams burned the flagship down pretty quickly.
In both phases my lasers managed to overwhelm its shields. Once shots started leaking in, the shields stopped being effective. In tandem with my artillery beam, the flagship went down pretty quickly. I went after subsystems whenever I could, though I don't think I targeted much beyond the drone control room.

I did have the weapon reload augment, and the shield regen augment. So those helped.

TL;DR: Artillery Beam, yo.

[Sirus]

Reminds me of my first two wins. First time was with the Engi cruiser, and by the skin of my teeth. The second time was with the Fed cruiser and maxed-out artillery beam. Had over 75% hull when Phase 3 ended.