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[Neonivek]

General opinion is that maxing engines is very scrap inefficient, because the later upgrades are super expensive for not much more benefit.  Particularly with a cloak, which makes more than 40% (?) evade mostly pointless.

I only had so much evasion because I picked up two Scrap Recovery arms early game. It was amazing.

Huh, I didn't know they stacked.

[Fikes]

Every time we have these arguments about what augment/weapon/ship sucks/is amazing it just reminds me how good FTL is. Everyone always brings up good points about the values of either side.

THAT BEING SAID.

I still don't care for rock plating. It may be pretty good mid or late game, but it doesn't help much early game. Long range sensors or Zoltan shields are much better. Even if you assume rock plating blocks 20% of the HULL damage, there is still that chance that a laser hits and resets your weapons. If your weapons go off line before you can shoot or if they go off line long enough for the enemy to repair their shields/cloak/engines that 20% of hull damage you blocked becomes useless. Not only that but the zoltan shield flat blocks 100% of damage for 5 hits which often includes a missile (only one of 3 ways to reliably avoid missile damage) making it almost impossible for the enemy to do system damage before you can.

Again, I want to say that I lean toward systems that avoid any dice what soever because I generally roll poorly.

[penguinofhonor]

The vulcan laser thing is absolutely amazing. It's really vulnerable to getting broken, though. Make sure it's your leftmost weapon. It looks like it has an 11 second warmup, but it's really like 30 because the first three or so shots are useless.

[Arcvasti]

The Vulcan is awesome. Although I personally prefer having two Ion Blast IIs and a Beam of some sort in my ideal build, just wrecking the Flagship with ONE WEAPON is pretty neat.

[penguinofhonor]

Second victory! My first advanced mode victory, actually. I used the Kestrel Cruiser C and learned the amazing power of the chain ion (4 ion damage is crazy) and getting two scrap arms in the first sector.

Boarding is really strong against the flagship. Drop two crew in one of the little weapon rooms and that weapon is guaranteed to get knocked out.

[EnigmaticHat]

Second victory! My first advanced mode victory, actually. I used the Kestrel Cruiser C and learned the amazing power of the chain ion (4 ion damage is crazy) and getting two scrap arms in the first sector.

Boarding is really strong against the flagship. Drop two crew in one of the little weapon rooms and that weapon is guaranteed to get knocked out.

Just make sure you don't damage the ship enough for it to jump with the crew in the rooms.

Or play on hard.  The missile and beam systems are connected to the main section of the ship.

[Urist Imiknorris]

If you're on Hard, you want to pray.

[penguinofhonor]

Third victory! Zoltan Cruiser B, with a halberd beam, an Ion Blast II, an Ion Blast I, and an Ion Stunner (I was very dedicated to my strategy). I unlocked the Lanius and Mantis cruisers too, so I guess I'll be trying those out tomorrow.

Or play on hard.  The missile and beam systems are connected to the main section of the ship.

I have never been more terrified.

[RedWarrior0]

Third victory! Zoltan Cruiser B, with a halberd beam, an Ion Blast II, an Ion Blast I, and an Ion Stunner (I was very dedicated to my strategy). I unlocked the Lanius and Mantis cruisers too, so I guess I'll be trying those out tomorrow.

Or play on hard.  The missile and beam systems are connected to the main section of the ship.

I have never been more terrified.

Nah, AI can't repair breaches, and you need to repair breaches before systems. So you breach the appropriate system room and kill all their dudes.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Third victory! Zoltan Cruiser B, with a halberd beam, an Ion Blast II, an Ion Blast I, and an Ion Stunner (I was very dedicated to my strategy). I unlocked the Lanius and Mantis cruisers too, so I guess I'll be trying those out tomorrow.

The Lanius cruiser is pretty sweet, especially the B layout.

[EnigmaticHat]

Third victory! Zoltan Cruiser B, with a halberd beam, an Ion Blast II, an Ion Blast I, and an Ion Stunner (I was very dedicated to my strategy). I unlocked the Lanius and Mantis cruisers too, so I guess I'll be trying those out tomorrow.

Or play on hard.  The missile and beam systems are connected to the main section of the ship.

I have never been more terrified.

Nah, AI can't repair breaches, and you need to repair breaches before systems. So you breach the appropriate system room and kill all their dudes.

I don't play boarding often, but as I understand it most boarding strategies are based on the premise that you can take your time wiping out the crew because you disable the missile launcher first (missile launcher alone can kill most ships given enough time).  The flagship has 3 systems that make boarding a pain: cloak (which prevents recall of boarders), blast doors, and medbay.  And to get through the third form's supershield in a timely manner you'll need either good weapons, an attack drone, or a lucky find of a supershield bypass.  Hacking makes it easier because you can mess with the medbay, but still.

If anyone who actually kills the flagship with boarding could chime in here, are there boarding strategies that reliably work on hard mode?

[Arcvasti]

Third victory! Zoltan Cruiser B, with a halberd beam, an Ion Blast II, an Ion Blast I, and an Ion Stunner (I was very dedicated to my strategy). I unlocked the Lanius and Mantis cruisers too, so I guess I'll be trying those out tomorrow.

Or play on hard.  The missile and beam systems are connected to the main section of the ship.

I have never been more terrified.

Nah, AI can't repair breaches, and you need to repair breaches before systems. So you breach the appropriate system room and kill all their dudes.

I don't play boarding often, but as I understand it most boarding strategies are based on the premise that you can take your time wiping out the crew because you disable the missile launcher first (missile launcher alone can kill most ships given enough time).  The flagship has 3 systems that make boarding a pain: cloak (which prevents recall of boarders), blast doors, and medbay.  And to get through the third form's supershield in a timely manner you'll need either good weapons, an attack drone, or a lucky find of a supershield bypass.  Hacking makes it easier because you can mess with the medbay, but still.

If anyone who actually kills the flagship with boarding could chime in here, are there boarding strategies that reliably work on hard mode?

I think cloaking and hacking their medbay would probably work with minimal damage to your ship. Flagship stage I doesn't have an absurdly dangerous power surge you need to cloak for, so I usually use it to dodge their missile volley. And hacking or breach bombing the medbay is usually how I go about killing most of the crew. The real problem seems to be the fact that AI will always be enabled in the last stage because beam is attached to the rest of the ship. Usually I leave him in there so my crew can wreck the shields without interference. Although getting enough scrap for boarding, cloaking, hacking and either Zoltan Shield Bypass or a good weapon on Hard might be impractical.

[EnigmaticHat]

Who cares if AI is enabled in last form?  One mantis or two humans should be able to destroy a weapon system before it can fire, if the AI repairs it from being destroyed.  Split your team between the two weapon systems and you have nothing to worry about besides mind control and getting your shit wrecked by the superweapon.

[GlyphGryph]

If anyone who actually kills the flagship with boarding could chime in here, are there boarding strategies that reliably work on hard mode?

Ion weapon to chew through super shield or bypass to bypass it and decent defenses. If you're a boarding focused ship, eliminate all of the crew in stage 1, then send over as many boarders as you can afford as soon as possible to disable the other stages as quickly as possible.

hacking kit or missile weapons (to disable their door controls and medbay) are pretty awesome. But they can only heal 3 people at a time, and any decent boarding ship should be able to manage 4-6 boarders, so you should be able to win through attrition even without disabling it early on, often by taking down the shields and then plinking it to death with whaever gun you managed to find. Once the enemy are dead, you'll probably want to board with everyone you can spare, and take down enemy everything asap. Probably only leave your pilot and maybe engine guy behind, depending on your defenses (sometimes on a 4man teleporter pad ship, I send over all 8 ASAP)

Max level teleport is, obviously, important. Don't take too many risks. Focus on disabling the enemy weaponry first.

[Leafsnail]

Another option is Mind Control, you can use that to just abduct their crew (does that still work?).  I'd say boarding is still really powerful in hard because it crushes the second form and negates the third form's most dangerous ability, it's just not the complete gamebreaker it is on lower difficulties.