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Crystal B has just three crystal members, though. They are absolutely amazing, nevertheless. I don't think I've ever lost a game with Crystal B if I can find a decent weapon for auto ships in Sector 1. And personally I jump into the weapon bay, lockdown, bust the weapons, let the angry crew come in, then lockdown when they start running for the medbay. Inadequately fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 13:45
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| # ¿ May 19, 2024 07:13 |
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I finally got around to replacing my ancient laptop and reinstalled this game. I learnt two important facts on my first run: 1) This game is a lot faster than I thought it was. 2) Pause/unpause commanding is way more important than it used to be. On the plus side, Rockmen don't move at glacial speeds now, so my next Rockman run hopefully shouldn't take the better part of a day.
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Aug 31, 2013 14:31
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Got mind control and Hacking by sector 2 as Engi A. Possibly not the best use of my scrap, but hilarious to watch. Also, the game has being incessantly throwing crewmembers at me, I've had to reject a couple already. E: Also, if all your dudes are dead but some are regenerating in the cloning bay, is it still an instant loss or do you only lose if your cloning bay is destroyed?
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Apr 4, 2014 07:57
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A fully upgraded hacking system is a thing of beauty. Shields are a complete nonfactor once it starts draining. Plus, you can use it to block off important points in their ship, then watch them pick each other off with mind control. I don't think I'd have won the damage race with the third stage of the flagship with only two Combat Drones I without it.
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Apr 4, 2014 11:59
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I really appreciate the flagship hacking my weapons first thing in the fight. Everytime it uncloaked, it activated the hacking device, leaving me perpetually unable to get a shot off. If I didn't have a fully upgraded artillery beam I'd probably have died that first round. As it is I died on the third round, there was nowhere to heal around the flagship.
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Apr 4, 2014 18:56
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Finally beat the flagship with the Fed Cruiser. Only had the burst laser, a flak cannon and a fully upgraded artillery beam, but apparently that's enough to win a damage race against the flagship on stage three. Also having the flagship lock down your oxygen with a cloning bay turned stage 1 into a hilarious meat grinder. Dudes were climbing out of the tanks, choking their way across the bridge to teleport to the flagship and die over and over again. Didn't do any lasting damage for the most part, but mind-controlling one once they headed for the medbay worked. E: upon reflection mind-controlling and teleporting them to my ship to asphyxiate one at a time would have been faster, but it probably wouldn't have been as funny. Inadequately fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 21:26
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What's the general strategy for playing Zoltan A? On my first run I had a decent setup with a pre-igniter, an automated reloader, some missiles, the halberd beam and a hacking device. Got up to sector 8, then a ship with a single defense drone proved completely impossible to scratch and tore through my ship with ease. My next run I made it to the flagship with a Flak 1, halberd beam, ion charge cannon and fire bomb, along with mind control and a hacking device. Tried every combination of those weapons I could think of, jumped away and repaired a couple of times, none of them could even touch Stage 1 of the flagship.
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Apr 5, 2014 16:44
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That was a really frustrating run. Mantis A with maxed out energy, teleporter, mind control and hacking device, along with a Flak II, Burst Laser 3 and Swarm missile launcher and a clone bay. Practically a perfect setup for crippling the boss and out-damaging it on phase 3. But the path to the boss involved me hopping through pretty much every single rebel-controlled spot in sector 8 just to get there in time, and I didn't even survive stage 1.
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Apr 6, 2014 15:16
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The very last jump before the final sector was the Zoltan quest, which gave me a free Zoltan Shield. Hooray! The game likes to give me redundant ship unlock quests on my winning runs, so I'm taking this as a good sign. E: And it was! Good thing I thought to grind up my shield and engine guys on stage 1 after I killed everyone but the three-bolt guy. Don't think I took more than two or three hits during the next two phases. Inadequately fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 06:19
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Inositol posted:So I play the game for 35 hours (according to steam) and only unlock one ship other than the starter in the process. I think I even completed the right random encounter to unlock the Zoltan ship but it didn't actually unlock. But I power through it and finally beat the boss for the first time (flying the Kestrel) but it apparently in the new expanded version that doesn't unlock the federation ship? It's kind of hard to find information since this version is so new but what possible reason could there be for that to be the case? I'm sick of playing with the starter ship over and over hoping to randomly land on the right random encounter to unlock something else. In the new version, you unlock the Fed Cruiser by either beating the boss with Engi A (or any other Engi layout), or by entering the rebel stronghold and beating the under-construction second flagship.
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Apr 7, 2014 07:56
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My first try running Slug A. One jump in, I get a random event that hands me an Ion Blaster II. Two jumps in, I find a store and buy a long-ranged scanner. I'm now in sector 4 with three shields, hacking, cloaking and drone control. If anything's going to kill this run, it's hubris.
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Apr 7, 2014 16:09
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Okay, I just unlocked the Fed Cruiser C, and what is the deal with this ship? How are you supposed to get it off the ground?
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Apr 8, 2014 04:47
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The in-game description is literally 'Only the most suicidal of infantry fly this ship.' What was the thought process that led to this design? 'We've got a ship armed only with a rock catapult. There's pretty much a 100% chance of them dying on their first engagement. Let's stick a cloning bay in there, put out a casting call for depressed dudes who like dying over and over again, and call it a day." Meanwhile, the rebels design a ship with every superweapon known to man.
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Apr 8, 2014 05:25
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Haha, I got an event where a pirate was arguing with some settlers and one of the blue options was something along the lines of '(Fire Bomb) Teach those pirates how to really threaten uncivilized settlers'. I decided to attack the pirate, but now I'm wondering how that would have gone. Maybe I'll pick that if I run into it as Rock B, seems in character.
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Apr 8, 2014 10:57
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The Rock C is one of the oddest ships I've played so far. It's like a Crystal ship lite. Picking up the two Lanius in back-to-back abandoned sectors has been paying off. The Rock and Crystalman go in and stall, the Lanius smash up any healing they have, and in between the four of them I usually take over any manned ship before their second volley.
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Apr 8, 2014 17:17
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boredsatellite posted:Hmm despite my initial liking to the ship I so far had little luck with Rock C. How are you running it? Just beat the flagship with it (on easy). I doubt my strategy is applicable for all difficulties, though. Generally, you can take down most early-sector ships with the shield-piercing crystal weapon and the swarm missile. Save up for a teleporter, and once you've got that beam your crystal guy with another rockman or fighter of your choice directly into the weapons room at the start of the fight, and lock it down while you pound on it. It starts with a cloning bay, so just fire on your own guys if necessary. Try to pick up additional fighters as fast as possible, and if you can afford it, hacking and/or mind control. I lucked out and managed to get two Lanius boarders, which allowed me to deal with AI ships and take over regular ships even faster. That said, even with the Rockman and Crystalman you can teleport to AI ships without much fear, as long as you've got the cloning bay up.
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Apr 8, 2014 19:30
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Spiderfist Island posted:I bought this on Saturday and just finished my first successful base game run Monday (Kestrel, Easy). The Lanius and all the other new content fit in pretty seamlessly aside from Mind Control and Flak (oh god, that is overpowered). Did anyone else get the "Translator" event in Advanced Edition yet? Yeah, got that event last run. Translator the Lanius was one of the best boarders I've ever had and carried me through that run easily.
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Apr 9, 2014 05:37
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I've run into that event a couple of times. Don't think I've ever had anything bad happen if I pay off the debt, the Rockmen usually end up giving me something, even if it's a low amount of scrap. I've never tried demanding they pay up, but I imagine you'd end up fighting them. Nothing bad happens if you leave, of course.
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Apr 9, 2014 10:35
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Rock C is becoming one of my favourite ships. Once you've gotten a teleporter, you barely ever need to use your weapons. And if you do, the crystal shard and swarm missile can easily carry you through the first half of the game. Plus, the layout makes it incredibly easy to kite enemies around and vent fires. It's a pity the Rock Homeworlds still hasn't turned up yet, I haven't seen it in four or five consecutive runs. By contrast, I recruited the Mantis pirate practically every run. That said, I'd prefer to do Rock C runs until the end of time than try to get Rock A and Slug B through the flagship.
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Apr 9, 2014 15:54
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Red sectors mean more hostile encounters, which potentially mean more scrap. If you're confident in your ship's capabilities, it's actually better to go into as many red sectors as possible, so that you can get more scrap to upgrade your ship. In green sectors there's a chance you might just hit neutral encounters one after the other and waste fuel.
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Apr 9, 2014 16:03
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Stealth A is complete rear end. It doesn't help that every other jump I run into a scout ship that immediately tries to run. Stealth B is also terrible. Please tell me Stealth C is somewhat useable. On the plus side, I found out if you jump as the scout ship jumps but before you get the message, the fleet doesn't advance. Good to know.
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Apr 10, 2014 03:45
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Argh, I somehow failed to get the 'dodge 9 points of damage in one cloak' achievement, even against the flagship. Now I have to do another Stealth A run. Even though I won, it doesn't feel like a victory. Also, it's funny how much of a straight-up slugfest that last phase was, for a stealth ship. A dual laser, Vulcan cannon and Combat Drone II vs the missile launcher and heavy laser. The stealth ship won, but only just. Pretty much every other system on my ship was crippled except for the weapons room, which went miraculously untouched the entire fight.
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Apr 10, 2014 06:08
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Personally I thought Mantis was one of the easier ones to get. But if you want advice, for the Battle Royale achievement, find an early sector ship that can't hurt you, weaken their crew a bit, then kill off all your crew except one Mantis, who teleports to their ship and finishes off the crew. For the one about killing five enemies, events where enemies board you without an actual ship also count, but if you want to do it with an actual ship buy a hacking system so you can lock the weapons system down and have your Mantises destroy it before it fires. And for the one where you kill the crew of twenty ships before sector 6...well, if you don't accomplish this you're probably not playing Mantis correctly.
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Apr 10, 2014 09:22
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Oh, that is some bullshit right there. Intercepted the flagship one jump away from the base, and with some clever cloaking managed to disable the weapons before any hit, then picked the ship apart without taking any damage. Then when it jumped away, the game bugged out and the flagship didn't actually jump anywhere. I had to jump to a rebel controlled sector, tank a few hits and then jump to the base where the flagship was, only to find myself back on stage one. I just want to get to phase three and dodge the superweapon to get the achievement and unlock Stealth B, goddamn.
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Apr 10, 2014 11:40
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If you have hacking try to get a hacking drone through the drone room as fast as possible, preferably alongside another volley so there's less chance of it being intercepted. If you can get it to attack you can blow up the ordinary drones every time it recharges, giving you a fair amount of breathing room.
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Apr 10, 2014 17:53
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There's an ion intruder drone. Costs three power, I think. Like the boarding drone, but instead of attacking crewmembers it moves from system to system every few seconds, letting out a 3 ion pulse that stuns any crew nearby.
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Apr 10, 2014 19:44
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Is there ever a reason to keep a medbay over a clonebay? Unless you're really good at shuffling people around to keep them healed,I find a clonebay is just so much more useful overall. A slight skill hit is far easier to take than losing a crewmember, and it supports so many more boarding strategies than a regular medbay does. Plus, if you're overrun by boarders, you can lock a guy in the door room and vent the entire ship, then play as an AI ship for a while as you wait for your crew to respawn.
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Apr 11, 2014 08:41
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Invaders will flee any room if oxygen starts getting low, so if you have a good layout you can kite them around and stall with your guys until they start choking to death. Just leave one guy in the door room to slow them down even more. With a level 2 or 3 cloning bay, if you start venting it and toss a guy in it if they start doing serious damage before low oxygen forces them to flee, you can usually slow them down long enough for your guys to respawn.
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Apr 11, 2014 10:11
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I think that with mind control and hacking, in addition to all the previous methods, there are so many ways to drop an enemy's evasion that a weapon that sacrifices accuracy for damage isn't much of a tradeoff. Also, finally unlocked all the ships! Now to only ever use the ones I like.
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Apr 13, 2014 06:49
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Every few seconds it gives you one pip of Zoltan Shield, forming one if you don't have one and strengthening it if you do. Personally I didn't think it was that useful if you don't have cloaking. Since it takes a while to charge up, it doesn't provide you with the immediate benefits of the Zoltan Shield (blocking teleport and mind control and hacking) because enemies will use these on you immediately at the start of the battle. If you take the Defense II, you can shut it down when you don't need it and turn it on when you see a missile. Not perfect, but a bit less luck-based than hoping the Shield charges up every time a missile launches. Also, ran into a friendly ASB in the abandoned sector, where it was taking potshots at the enemy Lanius. Didn't hit once, but still a nice find.
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Apr 13, 2014 16:56
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I once got the 'hostile boarders with solar flare' event three times in a row. In Sector 2. There wasn't a single room without a boarder by the end of it.
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Apr 14, 2014 05:25
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I actually think the Rock C outclasses the Crystal A, although whether it outclasses the Crystal B is up for debate. Crystal shard and Swarm makes a mockery of almost all the early sector enemies, saves on missile ammo and ensures you can slip at least a couple of missiles past a defense drone. It starts with a cloning bay, so you don't have to be so careful with your starting Crystalman when fighting. Plus, the layout makes for easily kiting enemies around and venting the ship. Basically once you can pick up a teleporter, the Rock C can take on pretty much everything up to the flagship.
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Apr 14, 2014 06:34
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Counterhacking the hacking room isn't bad for picking off crew either. You jump two guys into the door room, scare the guard off and softer up the doors, and once they're battering at the hacking room you port another two into that corridor and pick those guys off while they don't fight back because they're attacking the doors, and you can usually pick the crew off two at a time this way.
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Apr 16, 2014 15:23
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Mind Control may be of limited use sometimes, but there's pretty much never a situation where hacking isn't at least as useful as stealth, unless you're out of drone parts. At the very least against stage one of the flagship, if you get hacked in a bad spot you can counterhack immediately rather than having to take a beating as you charge up to escape.
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Apr 16, 2014 16:40
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Just had a terrible sector layout work in my favour for once. The final sector had the jump points arranged in a crescent shape, with the flagship on one corner and the base on the other. This meant the flagship had to loop around the entire sector to get to the base, and allowed me to farm for a while before meeting it halfway. In theory it also gave me the opportunity to jump ahead and repair a couple of times if I needed to, but I didn't need it because the Fed C shredded all three phases with barely a scratch. Artillery Flak, Flak I and two hull beams tore through the ship in seconds.
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Apr 17, 2014 07:17
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dorkasaurus_rex posted:Also is there an augment that like, builds missiles back up over time? I run out of missiles all the time and it's annoying. This might be one of the harder games I ever played, or at least the learning curve is crazy steep. There's no auto-replenish missiles augment, the closest is an augment that gives you a 50% chance of not using missile ammo whenever you fire one. And that's a Defense Drone Mk II, they shoot down both missiles and laser shots. Generally not actually that great, because since they can only shoot one thing at a time, a volley of shots firing all at once is enough to overwhelm it.
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Apr 18, 2014 09:59
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Honestly I've always felt you got far more out of a cloning bay than a medbay, especially with boarders. Even with the slight skill loss, you'll be doing so much fighting that they'll level up faster than they can lose skill, unless you do something like suicide boarding autodrone ships over and over. Takes away a fair amount of teleportation micromanagement, and if you can pick up Backup DNA Bank it makes it very difficult to permanently lose crew. Too many things can go wrong with teleporting crew back and forth and switching people in and out of the medbay, whereas with a clonebay it comes down to 'your clonebay is broken', and if you can pick up the Backup DNA bank, not even that.
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Apr 20, 2014 20:26
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Nope. Also, no way to direct the path or landing of a Boarding/Ion Intruder drone, no way to dictate the timing of a beam drone, etc. That's the trade-off of using drones.
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Apr 21, 2014 16:39
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If you have a cloning bay, it counts as the flagship getting destroyed, not actually jumping away. In my last run, after some trouble with the final four crewmembers, I lured them all into the cloaking room, blew up the ship and recovered my boarders.
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Apr 23, 2014 08:01
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| # ¿ May 19, 2024 07:13 |
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If you've gotten as far as messing around with the Stealth B, you should probably turn the advanced content on. It makes the game a little harder, but a lot more interesting. I wonder if there could be alternative game modes implemented sometime. Like a free-roaming mode where you have to try to liberate as many rebel-controlled beacons as possible, or something like that.
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Apr 23, 2014 13:44
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