The active hack lasts a lot longer, same as upgrading your cloak (but you actually get more time-bang from your buck I think. Hack 3 seems to last for fucking ever)
Aight, I’ll pick them up more often. I’m honestly no longer sure what weapons are any good any more. Charge missiles and laser seemed meh, chain laser is decent but not stellar, stun bomb is just a total waste of space…
Works for me. Is there any way to recall a hack drone? I don’t think there is, but just to make sure I don’t miss it.
Seriously. Get hack to level 3 pretty quick; it’s so dumb. I think it’s like 12 seconds at level 3. That’s 12 seconds where their weapons are stuck at 0; 12 seconds where their shields are being drained; 12 seconds of loss of oxygen (so much fun with a Lanius boarding crew :D)… It’s amazing.
Welp, that didn’t happen. Couldn’t get past the shield, the rocket fucked up my engine, mind control stuffed my crew, and I didn’t get a single hit in.
All of my hate.
Yes, it’s worth buying up through the beginning of sector 7. You only have to earn 250 scrap to make it worthwhile, because you can sell it later for half the price unless you get unlucky with the stores. Sectors 6 and 7 often have sectors that can earn 80+ scrap fairly regularly. It increases scrap generation from all sources of scrap, not just combat. It’s easily worth it and one of the best augments.
Apparently the correct answer was “get a Vulcan, chain laser II, and hull laser I and make it to phase 3 without having to repair more than once”.
That’s certainly one way. 
Stealth B is certainly going to be something that dies in sector 1 a lot. Things that can HELP are:
[ul]
[li]Upgrading weapons system 1 notch, even if you don’t have another weapon, so that a stray laser or flick from a beam drone doesn’t knock out your glaive beam[/li][li]Upgrading Stealth to level 3 to give you less time for the preceeding to happen.[/li][/ul]
But like many of the ships (including a lot of “fan favorites” like Mantis B), expect to die a lot in sector 1 because there are all kinds of ships that can ruin you.
Edit: Oh, and yes, Flak is good, and the game is harder post expansion.
Yeah, I feel Stealth B needs to get to cloak 3 ASAP instead of saving up for its first shield (like A can). Upgrading weapons I notch (the “comfort pip” as I like to call it) is good advice as well, but since that’s pip #5 it’s also expensive… maybe after shield I ?
That said, it’s still a bitch of a ship to take to sector 8 if you don’t get lucky weapon drops.
[QUOTE=Budget Player Cadet]
Charge missiles and laser seemed meh, chain laser is decent but not stellar, stun bomb is just a total waste of space…
[/QUOTE]
Charge laser is… eh. It’s not bad, in fact it’s about on par with burst lasers as far as space/power/time efficiency goes, and it’s “modular” which can be good to switch tactics, but the micro is annoying. Chain laser I’m not a fan, since you have to constantly keep it firing to get the most out of it it’s even more micro intensive to sync it with your other weapons. Chain ion is good though. Charge missile… yeah, meh. It’s not absolutely terrible, but it’s nothing to write home about either.
Stun bomb, stunning ion and ion charger drone are just scrap as far as I’m concerned.
Don’t believe there is, no. Well, I suppose you could let your hacking room get busted/ioned. Or hell, bomb it yourself 
(cut engines first so you cannot dodge your own bomb. Small bomb would be best, since it only damages systems, not hull). But I didn’t find an easy toggle.
[QUOTE=SenorBeef]
Yes, it’s worth buying up through the beginning of sector 7. You only have to earn 250 scrap to make it worthwhile, because you can sell it later for half the price unless you get unlucky with the stores. Sectors 6 and 7 often have sectors that can earn 80+ scrap fairly regularly. It increases scrap generation from all sources of scrap, not just combat. It’s easily worth it and one of the best augments.
[/QUOTE]
Absolutely. I just had one Red-Tail game spawn me one in sector 1 shop, and a second one at the sector 2 shop. Then I dropped a defence drone II. What I’m saying is, that run was mindlessly smooth sailing :).
Lock bomb seems decent though.
Crystal Lock bomb seems like an excellent item for dealing with Medbays (and maybe clone bays if you drop it ON the clone bay, port in,and bust it.) Lots of potential there.
Stun bomb isn’t awful - I used one the other night because why not. It stuns for an pretty darn long time.
I think the biggest troll I’ve ever seen in this game is that the Stealth C doesn’t even have Stealth.
So I was playing earlier with Zoltan A. Man, that ship is fun! Throw on a cloak and you have an absolutely absurd length of time where nothing is going to touch you. Plus, three free extra energy bars from the start, and that stupidly powerful Halberd beam (WHY DID I UNDERESTIMATE THIS SO BADLY BEFORE?!). I lost my first run with that ship in a pretty funny way, too - I was in a nebula ion storm, and won the fight, and didn’t notice that my O2 was off until I heard the tell-tale “BEEP BEEP BEEP” of my Zoltan crewmen dying. I turned it back on and got to watch as they all died. Which sucked, because I was doing so well…
i tried it and yes you are right. i guess i never knew because i always microed the doors towards the Medbay rather than just simply opening everything.
as for the OP, i’d like to add that the boss is an entire load of scrap altogether. getting to Sector 8 is an accomplishment, beating the final boss without a savegame is a big deal - and you’re expected to die many, many times before that happens.
I wish you could pick which systems go in which rooms. The layout of the Lanius A is clearly deliberately awful.
God, I hate Cloning Bays.
Me too. They make a boarding-heavy strategy more or less impossible.
I disagree. They just mean that a boarding heavy strategy isn’t the “LOLWinForExtraScrap” that it was in the original game. You just need… you know, some stuff other than a teleporter and two good crew members. (Bombs+Boarding is ideal.)
On the contrary, I find it somewhat easier to board ships with a clone bay because it takes a long ass time to clone a dude, whereas a few top XP mantises wreck people in seconds. They’re like genestealers. Also because you can actually fight inside it without looking like an idiot, making it a primo place to jump into first.
Finally, Reconstructive Teleport+lvl3 TP. Board all day, erryday :). Need a pick-me-up ? TP out, TP right back in 
Cloning bays make boarding a hassle, because the fight won’t end if someone is in the process of being cloned. So the end of the fight usually goes… kill last crewman, go into cloning bay, start damaging system… crew pops out. fight crew, kill crew. resume damaging system… crew pops out. fight crew. etc. Eventually you can be worn down if you don’t have some sort of bomb.
Or what I usually do is sneak a guy off and kill the clone bay while my other boarders are fighting the crew, so it’s dead before anyone pops out of it.
Oh, I don’t mind when the ENEMY has one. I mind when I have one. They suck.
Won the game again last night. Fact is the best loadout remains a lot of Level II pulse lasers. 9-12 shots at a time and any ship is going down.
Oh, that. Yes :). I mean, I do like their effect on events. And if you have either heal bombs or reconstructive teleport they’re better than a medbay. And I will never cease to be amused by the “You’re wounded ! Go jump out the airlock, quick !” mechanic they introduce. But I do prefer regular medbays on the whole, though it could be my grumpy old psychorigid aspect at work.