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[Darkmere]

Eh, this is basically a roguelike, so I think taking every advantage I can get is 100% ok. Especially since I'm still learning the game.

This. It's not like the game even pretends to be fair, especially with enemy ship budgets.

[Mr Space Cat]

I don't know is killing skill THAT important for boarders?

Along with all the other benefits people mentioned, the high killing/fighting ability makes the drawbacks of the cloning bay pretty insignificant. Once they max out fighting, they can easily remax fighting due to their already pretty big advantage against enemy crew. If your boarding party's only job is to board and fight, they'll be doing their job so much there won't be a lack of exp to bring them back to max after an occasional death and recloning. You can just throw your boarders into suicide runs against enemy crew with minimal losses.

The skill is especially noticeable for groups of mantis or rockmen boarders. Mantis tear through enemy crew like hot butter, rockmen can dish out good damage while tanking more damage due to their high hp, giving them an all around advantage against enemy crew, etc.

[BFEL]

Ok, so I have pretty much made it to the Final Stand. I'm currently waiting to actually go to that sector though because I want some opinions on what I should use the 120 or so scrap I have on.

Spoiler: The Kestrel+Crew (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Pimp My Ride, FTL Edition (click to show/hide)

This is my first time, so please be gentle.

I would like to know what I'm facing before I blunder in and blow up spectacularly. Note that everyone but Markus has max Pilot, Engineering, and Shield skill.

What do you think my chances are right now? Oh and I have no drones, that drone control system was basically a massive waste.

[mosshadow]

I dont think you can win. Because I went in last night with a Pike beam, a quad laser, a artemis launcher, fire and defense drones and one weapon I forgot and I was only able to destroy the first level of the enemy ship because i had trouble penetrating the 4 shields. That was on easy.

[EnigmaticHat]

Well... OK, so you have 6 projectiles and a beam, which means without powering the beam you'll MAYBE get 2 hits on one system every time you fire.  But with the halberd + something else you'll get only 3 damage per volley and every projectile needs to hit.  If you could fire all your weapons at once you'd be able to get about 6 damage in per volley even if you got 4/6 hits in with your other weapons.

Either way its going to take you a while to kill the boss, especially with its first stage's cloak.  So having 3 shield layers and no cloak or defense drones is a bad place to be.

The strategy I would use would upgrade hacking to 3, hack the first stage's shields, charge the halberd beam and flak, wait for the boss to cloak for a second time, then hack its shields, fire the flak 1, and halberd the shit out of the boss the moment its shields go down.  Same with the second stage except you have to fire flak 1 then hacking once in order to overwhelm the defense drone and get the hack through.

However I would also see that as kind of a desperation move.  You have 3 shield bars and 5 weapon bars, I don't think you're prepared for the flagship personally.

[monk12]

Yeah, not sure if that's winnable. Not very much in the way of defense, not nearly enough offense to compensate.

If it was me, I want the next two weapons system upgrades ASAP, so you can have all your weapons online at the same time. That requires 165 Scrap, so buy the first slot now and then you should have enough after you beat the next random encounter on your way to the boss- note that Repair Stations in the final sector also give a bit of scrap if you need it.

It will help a lot if you can manage to find both the scrap and a Sector 8 Store with a Defense Drone. If you can't find that, pump whatever remaining scrap you can into your shields just before the final boss; if you're on Easy you might be able to get that much scrap (any Augments?)

I'd go into the fight in full DPS race mode; let every weapon charge and hack the enemy pilot's room. When you're ready for your salvo, hack the pilot to cut his evasion to nothing, use the laser and flak to drop the shields, use the halberd to deal as much damage as possible. I forget the exact layout of the Rebel Flagship, but hopefully that beam can slice the shield room and also a weapon.

Good luck!

[Mephansteras]

I'd say go to the Final Sector and hope there is a Shop in between you and the Boss you can hit.You're really going to want some Drones to help you out, or another weapon system. Preferably a Missile, since that'll let you punch through shields to try and take out the triple-missile launcher or knock down the shields a bit. Teleporter would work too, although you don't have great crew for that.

 Because...yeah, that is not a winning ship layout right now.

Which is ok, really. The boss is a tough fight, and you learn a TON fighting it even if you don't win.

[BFEL]

However I would also see that as kind of a desperation move.  You have 3 shield bars and 5 weapon bars, I don't think you're prepared for the flagship personally.

That's pretty much what I thought. But FTL isn't exactly a "go back and grind till you ARE ready" type of game

Well at least I unlocked that Engi ship. Hopefully that's less suck then the Kestrel is.

Yeah, not sure if that's winnable. Not very much in the way of defense, not nearly enough offense to compensate.

If it was me, I want the next two weapons system upgrades ASAP, so you can have all your weapons online at the same time. That requires 165 Scrap, so buy the first slot now and then you should have enough after you beat the next random encounter on your way to the boss- note that Repair Stations in the final sector also give a bit of scrap if you need it.

It will help a lot if you can manage to find both the scrap and a Sector 8 Store with a Defense Drone. If you can't find that, pump whatever remaining scrap you can into your shields just before the final boss; if you're on Easy you might be able to get that much scrap (any Augments?)

I'd go into the fight in full DPS race mode; let every weapon charge and hack the enemy pilot's room. When you're ready for your salvo, hack the pilot to cut his evasion to nothing, use the laser and flak to drop the shields, use the halberd to deal as much damage as possible. I forget the exact layout of the Rebel Flagship, but hopefully that beam can slice the shield room and also a weapon.

Good luck!

Wait there's MOAR events before the boss fight? That skews things ever so slightly in my favor.
I'm on easy with the extra scrap augment, the one that lets you see where things are even if your sensors go down, and the one that charges your weapons 10% faster.

[monk12]

Yeah, not sure if that's winnable. Not very much in the way of defense, not nearly enough offense to compensate.

If it was me, I want the next two weapons system upgrades ASAP, so you can have all your weapons online at the same time. That requires 165 Scrap, so buy the first slot now and then you should have enough after you beat the next random encounter on your way to the boss- note that Repair Stations in the final sector also give a bit of scrap if you need it.

It will help a lot if you can manage to find both the scrap and a Sector 8 Store with a Defense Drone. If you can't find that, pump whatever remaining scrap you can into your shields just before the final boss; if you're on Easy you might be able to get that much scrap (any Augments?)

I'd go into the fight in full DPS race mode; let every weapon charge and hack the enemy pilot's room. When you're ready for your salvo, hack the pilot to cut his evasion to nothing, use the laser and flak to drop the shields, use the halberd to deal as much damage as possible. I forget the exact layout of the Rebel Flagship, but hopefully that beam can slice the shield room and also a weapon.

Good luck!

Wait there's MOAR events before the boss fight? That skews things ever so slightly in my favor.
I'm on easy with the extra scrap augment, the one that lets you see where things are even if your sensors go down, and the one that charges your weapons 10% faster.

Yes, in Sector 8 you race to the Federation Base instead of the Sector Exit. The encounters along the way are skewed to fighting Rebels, but some jumps are labeled Repair Station, which restore a bit of your hull and give you a small pile of each supply. It's tricky to do last minute grinding there, however, since the rebel ships are all really tough, and instead of a wave that advances behind you the jumps get conquered at random. The Rebel Flagship takes a few turns to get to the Federation Base, and if it stays there for 3 turns you lose.

The extra scrap augment helps a lot, actually; if you can deal with the rebel ships in Sector 8 you might want to go for broke looking for that store to get either a cloak or some drones; once you find the store you can probably sell all those augments to try and fill out your wishlist (though keep that Reloader if at all possible.) Even so, you're definitely caught in a bit of a numbers game since you really want both the defense options and all your weapons online.

And good news, the Engi ship is actually really good! The Kestral B is also a pretty good ship, but I wouldn't bother with the Engi B.

[Darkmere]

Both Kestrels are really strong, you just got screwed by the RNG for shop stocks this run. Don't give up, there's always the next game if things go south badly.

[BFEL]

Both Kestrels are really strong, you just got screwed by the RNG for shop stocks this run. Don't give up, there's always the next game if things go south badly.

Pretty much this. There were many points where I had over 300 scrap and nothing decent to spend it on.

Wanna know something funny? In my first game ever, I got the Glaive thing as a random drop pretty much right away
Died to a Zoltan boarding party (which I actually just threw open all the airlocks and doors so they would presumably die with me.)

[EnigmaticHat]

Screwed by shops?  Your weapon loadout is fine, you just can't power it.

[BFEL]

Quick unrelated question: I went to the Zoltan Homeworlds because I wanted their ship. Nothing even hinting at it popped up. What went wrong?

[Leafsnail]

Yeah I've won games with far worse weapon loadouts than that.  Stage 2 will be a bit of a pain but at the end of the day all you need is for 4 out of 6 shots to connect, that's not at all un-doable.

e: Also I didn't realize before but the engi B loadout isn't quite as shit as I thought early on, since the heavy ion keeps the enemy shields down long enough for you to fire twice with your laser.  It still becomes awful the second enemies gets a second shield pip though.

Also don't buy drone control if you don't have access to any drones you want to use

[Chiefwaffles]

To unlock a ship, you need to do a quest for it, and most of these quests are in their ships' race's homeworlds sector.

For the Zoltan ship, you'll ...

Spoiler: Actual Spoiler? (click to show/hide)

Find a "Zoltan Peace Envoy" somewhere in the Zoltan Homeworlds, and follow the most peaceful+passive dialog for both it+the quest marker to unlock the Zoltan ship.
The Wiki(s) have a guide for ship unlocks.