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[kilakan]

There's also the fact that missles tend to be designed to punch partially through armor and then explode.

[Leafsnail]

All decent points from Neonivek, and I think we do see a few cases where enemy ships bombard planets.

[Darkmere]

There's one event where a mining colony wants to trade your scrap for your missile warheads so they can do some blasting. You can offer to fire a missile from orbit (which implies this can be done) but they refuse and say they need 5-15 warheads for their current job. Seems like in-universe confirmation to me.

[i2amroy]

Finally beat the boss on normal with Zoltan B, after selling literally all of my weapons and my zoltan shield to pick up a vulcan in sector 6. OF course all it did unlock was Zoltan C since I've already got the mantis ship, but it was still a nice win  (and a close one too, the question just came down to if my vulcan would land a hit or the intruders would destroy a system first since I won with only 1 hp).

[Jim Groovester]

I'm not sure selling the Zoltan Shield is worth the Vulcan. I guess it depends on how terrible your weapons were beforehand.

[i2amroy]

I'm not sure selling the Zoltan Shield is worth the Vulcan. I guess it depends on how terrible your weapons were beforehand.

It was really bad. Like... basic lasers and pike beam bad. Besides, I already had triple shield at the time, so it wasn't that big of an overall defense downgrade against anything but mass missiles (which zoltan shield only helps a little against anyways).

[Mageziya]

The shield also delays teleporters, mindcontrol, boarding drones, and hacking.

AE actually made the shield more useful to have.

[EnigmaticHat]

Zoltan B's starting loadout is almost as effective as a Vulcan, especially early game where it will kill or cripple ships faster than the Vulcan would.

[Neonivek]

Zoltan B's starting loadout is almost as effective as a Vulcan, especially early game where it will kill or cripple ships faster than the Vulcan would.

Yeah but a Vulcan, IF you can keep it in the air long enough, is a game ender.

[Arcvasti]

Yeah but a Vulcan, IF you can keep it in the air long enough, is a game ender.

So are double Ion blasts and any damaging weapon.

[Neonivek]

Yeah but a Vulcan, IF you can keep it in the air long enough, is a game ender.

So are double Ion blasts and any damaging weapon.

Unless you miss.

It is why Ion strategies fall flat against the final boss in my experience.

[EnigmaticHat]

So I finally unlocked Mantis B after over a year of hearing everyone say how awesome it is.  I loaded it up on hard mode... and died pretty quickly.  Loaded it up on normal and was crippled early, limping along to the fifth sector.  This was partly due to some really bad play (I chose going to a single unexplored beacon over reaching the exit before the fleet.  I also lost a boarder early).

I tried again on normal.  Not only did I win, but I purchased every upgrade possible.  There was literally no more upgrades I could get without replacing a system.  I had to dismiss 9 crew members.  I gathered over 2400 scrap.  I had a flagship killing weapon setup (albeit only barely) AND four max fighter skill mantis crew, a boarding drone, and a maxed out mind control.  Not bad for my third try.

Still don't think its OP for hard mode.  Its weak in the beginning* and has a hard time attacking the flagship**, both of which are bad news in hard mode.

*vulnerable to several fairly common events, has to buy a lot of systems before it can do normal things.

**hard mode flagship spawns with the missile and heavy laser systems connected to the helm, meaning you need a way to take out the medbay and to survive the flagship's weapons for a good amount of overall time.  You also have to make a hard choice between cloak and MC because Mantis B starts with only 1 free system slot.  Note that I don't use boarding against the flagship very often, so there may be an easy way I'm missing.

[Arcvasti]

I used hacking last time I won with a boarding ship. Hack the medbay and the crew dies quickly. I've always found Mantis B sort of meh personally. Same with Crystal B. Boarding just doesn't feel that fun, even if it works.

[EnigmaticHat]

It can be fun if you use Kestral A/B, Rock B, or a ship that isn't at all meant to board (I once used Zoltan C as a boarding ship on hard mode).  Basically something that can transition into a boarding ship but isn't primarily a boarding ship.

The primary boarding ships are a bit dull, because most boarding fights aren't about disabling the ship, they're about killing the crew.  So the only time you need to give orders is when your boarder's health gets low and the teleporter still has 10 second left to charge.  Then the Benny Hill music starts playing...

[Arcvasti]

It can be fun if you use Kestral A/B, Rock B, or a ship that isn't at all meant to board (I once used Zoltan C as a boarding ship on hard mode).  Basically something that can transition into a boarding ship but isn't primarily a boarding ship.

I'll have to remember to try that at some point. Sounds interesting.

The primary boarding ships are a bit dull, because most boarding fights aren't about disabling the ship, they're about killing the crew.  So the only time you need to give orders is when your boarder's health gets low and the teleporter still has 10 second left to charge.  Then the Benny Hill music starts playing...

Sounds about right. Most fun I've ever had with a boarding ship was fighting the Flagship, because of the abnormally high level of tactics it required.