VanBurenPhilips on 23/12/2012 at 23:32

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Ah, I haven't played with the subsystems much. I've been trying some runs through nebula sectors for more scrap-collecting opportunities, so that I'd be able to afford subsystems in the end, as well as all the main systems I wanted to upgrade. Amassing loads of scrap, but have come to a few nasty ends running out of fuel or missiles. My missile/fire/teleport/drone rockship bit the dust, can't believe how lucky I got with parts there, and I threw it away through greed and stupidity. I'm trying to find a similar build :)

A couple of observations:
I don't know if the AI repair priority is always the same, but I once put one of my rockmen in an enemy's shield room and another in their weapon room. It was a quest asking me not to wipe them all out, so when there was only one crewman left I moved my guys in and out of the rooms when he entered, so as not to kill him. He would always run to the shield room when it was being attacked, leaving me to do what I liked in the weapon room. If that's always what the AI does (let's say shields are high priority, maybe only O2 is higher), you could repeatedly delay their repairs of other systems by hitting the shield occasionally to draw crew away. Could be useful for missile or maybe ion builds.

There's an exploit of sorts for raising your crew skills - if you find an enemy who can't get through your shields at all, you can stop attacking it and your pilot, engine and shield crew will get skill gains for as long as the combat lasts. Not the gunner, but they seem to level up pretty quickly anyway. Plenty of sector 1 enemies fit the bill if you upgrade shields early. Not that I condone such behaviour of course.

VanBurenPhilips on 27/12/2012 at 13:08

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Congrats on your Osprey win! The type A seems like a good ship (type B starting weapon is too weak) but all my Osprey runs on Normal have come to nought. I'm dying to get my hands on a glaive beam.

Man, this game is hard work. Finally completed it on easy a few days ago, then on normal yesterday (after quite a few failed attempts). I think piling points into evasion early was probably the best decision I made; I've always gone for shields early and it does help save scrap, but this time I slightly favoured evasion and it seemed to pay off. I'll give myself some credit for tactics and I did feel satisfied with the win, but at the same time it does feel like luck is maybe the biggest factor. I've had better ships than this come to horrendous ends in 1 or 2 astonishingly unlucky encounters.

(http://imageupper.com/i/?S0200010030011G13566104031704740) http://s02.imageupper.com/1_t/3/G13566104031704740_1.jpg

That last battle was pretty awesome though. Entered the last stand with an awkward route to the flagship and three repair stations on the map. I got in a couple of scrapes and had to repair once before meeting the flagship, and after boss phase 1 the other two repair stations had gone! So I had about 90% health and no repairs for the boss battle. Triple missiles and breaching drones were by far the worst threat, I always took out the former asap, but I thought I was going to get torn apart in the second phase. The super drone attack in phase 2 did some nasty damage until I took out the ship's remaining weapons & drone control, after that it all got caught by my shields. The phase 3 super laser attack missed every shot! General tactics were to let all my weapons charge up, hit the shield with a missile, fire all lasers and hope they completely take down remaining shields, then send a fire beam through the shield room (through sickbay too is a good idea). I had to time the beam with the third shot of the hull laser for it to strike in the brief gap when their shields are fully down. Then send my rockmen into the shield room, where they'll prevent anyone from putting out the flames or repairing. The enemy crew will be quickly injured and run off to sickbay (which might be broken and/or ablaze) which helps the rockmen stick around longer, and soon their shields will be completely screwed and there'll be flames everywhere. The ship did go into autorepair eventually, but by then it was way too late. Phase 2 was the worst because I couldn't use my missile at all while they still had drone control - all 4 laser shots had to hit before I could get a fire beam in. It took a long time.

That was really rewarding, but I have to say I've had more fun on easy. My winning easy ship was also a Bulwark with (I think) everything maxed except pilot's seat and drones. Pegasus/heavy laser 2/hull laser 2/firebomb, can't remember all augs but one was Weapon Pre-igniter (LOVE this one!), defense drone 2 (never got used tbh) and hull repair, with a crew of 8 including dedicated rockman away team. It kicked arse! After never getting past boss phase 2, this one came through the whole endgame with barely a scratch. I have to stick up for the cloak - I agree that maxing it ties up 3 power that's more effective elsewhere, but lvl1 used as a guaranteed dodge against specific attacks is great and well worth 1 power. It's not quick enough to avoid every missile volley, but you can dodge every 2nd one, which is handy until you've taken that weapon out, and I think it's quick enough to dodge every special attack.

EDIT: can't stay away, I managed a successful Osprey type A run on Normal this afternoon. Had an odd selection of weapons but the fully upgraded artillery beam is ace. Just don't forget about it when you've got crew off fighting like I did. Enemy ship sliced in two with my rockmen still aboard :( Duh. Can't believe I still finished after that, I had to reshuffle crew and ended up with an away team of mantis & slug. Early & heavy investment in engines seems to be a rare reliable thing in this random game.

catbarf on 30/12/2012 at 22:14

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Any tips for surviving missiles in the early sectors? The beam weapons seem fairly easy to block with shields, but repair costs with missiles blowing two points out my hull with every shot are proving to be a real drain on my scrap.

It's been frustrating on Normal so I'm going to give Easy a shot. Might make it easier to unlock some of the better ships, I guess.

Neb on 30/12/2012 at 23:43

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Engines are underrated. There's nothing like seeing a salvo of missiles all miss while not cloaked. :cool:

VanBurenPhilips on 3/1/2013 at 14:17

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Tips for dealing with missiles early - as Kuuso says, target weapons as highest priority. Also upgrade engines early & often and have engines & pilot's seat manned at all times if possible. Some ships might be able to use missiles to take out enemy weapons quicker or a defense drone to shoot down their missiles, but you want to be careful about using up your ammo too quickly.

For boss second phase, the safest way is a defense drone* to shoot down incoming boarding drones, and a level one cloak so you can dodge every 'power surge' drone attack. I highly recommend the defense drone, but the cloak is not needed if your all-round build is good - if you have max evasion & 3 or 4 shields and you take down the flagship's weapons fairly quickly, you'll take little/no damage from the special attack. Highest priority as always is to take out the triple-missile launcher; if you don't have a defense drone then taking out their drone control asap is vital too. Once those are gone, take out the other weapons and you should be safe (furthermore, you should breeze phase 3, I've always found it the easiest)

*I've read that defense 1 can be better than defense 2 here, because defense 2 will shoot at enemy lasers, and so maybe miss a boarding drone or missile approaching at the same time. Two defense 1 drones are probably better, but really a single one should suffice unless you're having trouble taking out the triple missile launcher.