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[Jim Groovester]

It can miss, and it takes forever to charge up, and it costs a missile.

I don't know if they changed this fun aspect of it for the AE, but it can even miss when you target your own ship.

[Leafsnail]

I don't think they miss anymore, at least not against your own ship.

And I'm not sure if I'd agree with "forever", it's usually ready by the time you need it.

[EnigmaticHat]

You don't need to replace it, but once you have the medbay its better to sell it IMO because I don't typically power it.

Pretty sure it can't miss your own ship at least.

[Leafsnail]

I did have a pretty good Hard run with Engi B though recently, basically if you can get hold of any other ion weapon you can start doing real damage.

[EnigmaticHat]

Ion + Ion + a way to kill hull reliably is a near guaranteed win.

Its due to an effect I call stabilizing the ion.  Basically every time an already drained system gets hit, not only does the current ion count increase, but the cooldown for the system recovering resets.  So if you stagger two ion blast MK 1s, the first hit does 1 damage, and every one after that does around 1.5 damage.  AND because the cooldown is constantly being reset if you get consecutive hits the system simply does not recover.

Its why the Zoltan B is such a great ship even though it can unavoidably die in the first two sectors.  Its starting weapon loadout will tear a 4 shield ship to pieces given adequate defenses.  Its also why Ion Blast MK 2 is my pick for best weapon in the (pre-AE) game, because it fires so fast it will invoke this effect on its own.

[Urist Imiknorris]

That last point is why the Torus is amazing.

[Arcvasti]

Ion + Ion + a way to kill hull reliably is a near guaranteed win.

Its due to an effect I call stabilizing the ion.  Basically every time an already drained system gets hit, not only does the current ion count increase, but the cooldown for the system recovering resets.  So if you stagger two ion blast MK 1s, the first hit does 1 damage, and every one after that does around 1.5 damage.  AND because the cooldown is constantly being reset if you get consecutive hits the system simply does not recover.

Its why the Zoltan B is such a great ship even though it can unavoidably die in the first two sectors.  Its starting weapon loadout will tear a 4 shield ship to pieces given adequate defenses.  Its also why Ion Blast MK 2 is my pick for best weapon in the (pre-AE) game, because it fires so fast it will invoke this effect on its own.

I'm currently playing Zoltan B and I got a third Ion blast I in the first sector. Triple Ion FTW! Once I get some better defenses, there's not all that much that's going to stand against me.
**Cackles maniacally**

[Leafsnail]

Charge Ion seems really good, by the way.  It can self-stack damage for 1 less power than the Ion Blast II.  The charging part is almost entirely irrelevant but that doesn't matter.

[EnigmaticHat]

The way I use it you start with a full charge and then afterwards launch single charged attacks.  Gives you a bit of a buffer against misses.

One of my better attempts to beat the game as Slug B used two charge ions, it would start out fights with a hail of 6 ion blasts.  Still didn't win.  Granted it got that pretty lategame.

[Rolan7]

Whenever I get ion blasts I want to try for o2-deprivation victories.  I'm not sure it's practical, though, since you need to stunlock their shields and O2, plus their cockpit so they don't dodge potentially half the shots.  Then they're still firing at you the entire time, so...

[Darkmere]

Whenever I get ion blasts I want to try for o2-deprivation victories.  I'm not sure it's practical, though, since you need to stunlock their shields and O2, plus their cockpit so they don't dodge potentially half the shots.  Then they're still firing at you the entire time, so...

Every time I have an ion weapon or two I get this idea. Grand total successes: 0.
I've tried the same thing with hacking, and have never found a single ship with less than 2 bars powering their oxygen scrubbers.

[Leafsnail]

It's a silly tactic that doesn't work, just get a beam.

Speaking of which I'm having a great run with Zoltan B, in terms of weapons I've just added in a Heavy Ion and upgraded the Pike to a Halberd to disable and then deal massive damage to everything.  I'll take a shot at the flagship tomorrow.

[Lightningfalcon]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Vulkan didn't really impress me all that much, and it nearly lost me the game. I found it in the seventh secetor, and by then I had two Flak guns, the halberd beam, and a heavy laser that I could operate all at once.   I would just hit the cockpit with the hacking module, turn it on, and their shields disappeared, with a minimum extra 2 damage to one of their systems.  I could then hit either the  cockpit or weapons with a combined heavy laser and halberd beam, and the enemy ship was instantly disabled.  And since I had a weapon pre-igniter, there wasn't much they could do to stop it.  With the vulcan however I was unable to use this tactic.   I dread to think how terrible it would be without the pre-igniter.   
As it was the rebel flagship was close.  Just two damage to my weapons systems and I would have almost no damage output.   As you can see the entire front half of my ship has seen better times, and I just gave up trying to repair it.   Thanks to all the scrap I saved due to my awesome weapons (Before I got the vulkan), I was able to upgrade all my subsystems, which very much saved me.   I was able to ignore repairing parts like my oxygen generator, nad was able to vent out different areas despite door damage.   Plus, with super blast doors, you can just ignore intruders and vent them out.   

[Neonivek]

Vulkan didn't really impress me all that much, and it nearly lost me the game. I found it in the seventh secetor, and by then I had two Flak guns, the halberd beam, and a heavy laser that I could operate all at once

Why did you disassemble a winning combination?

[Lightningfalcon]

Vulkan didn't really impress me all that much, and it nearly lost me the game. I found it in the seventh secetor, and by then I had two Flak guns, the halberd beam, and a heavy laser that I could operate all at once

Why did you disassemble a winning combination?

I kept hearing about the awesomeness of the vulcan and so I decided to try it out.   I had to sell one of my flak guns to get it, so that's why I didn't go back to it.