Yeah. Depending on your crew loadout, it may be to your advantage not visit any distress signals until you’ve upgraded you medbay, though if you have an engi/rock and a slug on board, you can skip this.
Scrap collection arm costs 50, can be sold for 25 if you need to. That means that it’s pure profit if you manage to collect 250 scrap while you’re carrying it. Considering that most encounters from sector 5 or so onwards will net you 40 scrap or more each…
And bldysabba? I -do- have proof that it doesn’t cripple my learning process, thanks. Want to compare high scores? Also, you did a poor job of explaining your point, if you’re just saying “Oh, you should switch to normal if you want to keep getting better at the game.” which is the biggest duh imaginable, so I suspect that wasn’t what you were saying, since it’s obvious enough that you don’t really need to say it.
I have never looked at the score. I hope you are aware that comparing our high scores wouldn’t actually shed any light on the matter right? We would have to conduct a Randomised trial of people who start on Normal and people who start on easy and compare their high scores after identical (number of) playthroughs. I say we should do it. For science!
Er… I don’t know if the trick is in your usage of ‘keep’ getting better, but what position did you think I was arguing for?
Heh. Might be tough to find. And, I quote myself “Stop playing on easy. Seriously. It’s more forgiving of mistakes, and you learn less.” I’m saying playing on normal is a faster way of getting better than playing on easy. I stand by the statement.
I played this for a while when I first got it but always got killed off by the third or fourth sector. Eventually I set it aside for other games. But reading this thread I decided to put the tips to work for me and, a few games later, made it to the rebel flagship. Granted, said flagship destroyed me in the second phase but at least I made it that far!
I was using an ion gun to disrupt the shield, a burst laser (II) to further damage the shields and then a halberd to slice across as many rooms as possible, giving preference to the weapons room and then shield room. Worked well (also had four shields and stealth) up until the end where the flagship’s own ion guns took my shields down completely and then I just got ransacked.
Yeah, and I still maintain that “more forgiving” does not actually mean “Forgiving enough that you don’t know you made a mistake” and that you don’t actually need to die immediately to realize that you did something wrong. People are sentient, they don’t need to be shocked with electric cattle prod to understand something isn’t the best way to do something.
FWIW, my preferred weapons loadout is as many burst lasers as I can get my hands on (but not the Mark III because it takes fucking forever to charge), preferably all of one type so I can set it to autofire.
I’m not actually convinced that “As many lasers as I can tape on.” isn’t one of the best strategies in the game. Most of my other strategies are the ones that come up when for whatever reason I -can’t- do that one.
I never get Burst Laser IIs. It’s always Hull Smasher this and Small Bomb that and Flak I the others.
…Speaking of which, is Flak I worth it?
Also, I’d appreciate some advice going into this last phase… I’ve got a 2-man Lanius boarding crew, level 3 cloak, hack, teleporter, reconstructive teleport, 4 shields…
…No weapons. 3 ticks into weapons, and the only actual hardware I have is a stun bomb and a chain gun. So… how boned am I? How hard should I try to aim for upping that firepower in the last stand? Or should I dump what’s left into my engine and hope that my crew can handle themselves, and that my measly offerings are enough to fend off that stupid, stupid, STUPID super shield in phase 3?
You only have so many possible weapon loadouts but, really, four Mark II Bursts with a weapon preignitor and a top notch weapons man is a happy, happy thing. Finding them all would be a miracle, but I dream of that day.
Has the game become tougher in the advanced edition? I went back to try it with Rock A, which I’d never used before, and it seems more difficult than it used to be. This could be a function of the bad starting ship, but it also seems like the enemies are stronger in the 2nd and 3rd sector than they used to be.
Rock A is kind of meh in my opinion; at least until you find a crew teleporter at which point it becomes pretty darn good. Earlier enemies are not tougher, at least as far as I can tell though.
To be fair, the final boss is every single kind of bullshit. I mean, unless you have a boarding unit, that multirocket is going to murder you. Unless you have a cloaking unit, those power surges in phase 2 and 3 are just straight-up deadly. Unless you have a hacking unit or more firepower than some pagan deities, good luck getting through those shields. It’s just all kinds of ughhhhhh.
Any tips for Stealth B? I want to try and unlock Stealth C, just for fun, but I keep running into ships with beam drones and getting mulched. One single point of damage to my weapon room and I’m screwed.
Flak Is are pretty good. A bit more micro-intensive than straight lasers since the travel time of their shots is annoying, but they fire very fast and wipe shields good (and sometimes might even do some damage when the moon is right, who knows). Follow up with beams, beam drones, ion, heavy lasers… and you’ll be happy.
Though I had 4xFlak I once. That was pretty funny as well. Felt like a Hollywood actor racking a pump-action shotgun every 10 seconds
Flak II is not so great however. It’s very slow, and while it sends 7 projectiles instead of 3 they’re still the same glancing flying dustbins that only do damage once in a while.
As for your setup : is your hacking lvl 3 ? If so, I’d probably go full on engines and try to power through even with your piddly guns. Phase I, hack their medbay, try to kill as much crew as you can (except the triple-laser weapon guy) with your boarders. Be extra careful about their cloak, since you can’t repatriate boarders while it’s active. The hacking will make it tougher for enemy crew to get inside the medbay (which should give you time to finish 'em off) and if some do make it through you can just hack it and have *it *finish them off. If everything goes swimmingly you’ll kill everyone, destroy every weapon then be free to smash the shields room and finish 'em off the old fashioned way. If their own hacking drone hits the engine, helm or shields, well, you’re fucked. But if you make it, the following phases will be much easier.
Want to compare high scores? 
