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[gurudyne]

Sigh.

Kestral A and I made it to the final fight with an Ion 2, 2 laser cannons (6 damage a salvo!) and firebombs as well as a cloak and 3 shields. Damned second-stage flagship parked itself on my healing garage and I lost to a poorly timed drone swarm/NEVER HITTING WITH THE SALVO.

Oh well, I just unlocked the Engi ship for the first time! Took it out and...it can't damage anything without drones. Ugh, a ship dedicated to my least favorite playstyle.

 

[DopeyFish]

got to the final fight

had 2 ion guns (one heavy, one not) and a breacher missile

as well as 3 attack drones

3/4 shields

full cloak

I got punted out of space

 

[Jintor]

God damnit

got a

Spoiler

crystal golem

screwed myself over 2 zones later

fuck my life

 

[sangreal]

I had a max leveled Mantis assassination-team that just decimated every crew we came upon.

Then I met one of these automated rebel ships and thought: "I'll just teleport into their weapon control room and sabotage it! Go Mantis Team!"

I never though about the fact that automated robot ships do NOT need oxygen to function. My Mantis team did. RIP. That was pretty much the end of that run. The rest of the crews morale was severely damaged.

Haha, I made the same mistake. Actually, I've probably killed more of my boarding parties than the enemies have

God damnit

got a

Spoiler

crystal golem

screwed myself over 2 zones later

fuck my life

I got this, but didn't get to complete the quest because I didn't roll the right zones for the next (last) sector

 

[r1chard]

got to the final fight

had 2 ion guns (one heavy, one not) and a breacher missile

as well as 3 attack drones

3/4 shields

full cloak

I got punted out of space

Anyone going up against the boss with less than 4/4 shields is asking for it

 

[sangreal]

oh crap, I just messed up getting the rock ship (

Spoiler

killed them

)

 

[W1SSY]

Just picked up this game and have played it for the past couple of hours. Got all the way to the end but I had a ship with almost no firepower and all defense so I couldn't beat the final ship.

 

[Sober]

Man, got to the second last sector on easy but two big mistakes:

1) Lockdown is cool, but it got my mantis anti-boarding crew killed. This happened when 3 rocks boarded and I believe I was waiting for the FTL to spool up while over a sun. I think I just missed the flare hitting me, but I lost all 3 (the 2 mantis + crystal crew) from just combat.

2) My second last sector was a nebula so the first jump in I got boarded, no sensors so I had to guess where to send the few people I had left. The other ship sent 2 mantis on top of somehow having a bunch of fire starting weapons. Couldn't kill the fire as it spread along the entire 1/3 of my ship.

I really should go to sleep...

 

[Sarcasm]

I just had my missile hit there missile mid flight.
XD

 

[KDR_11k]

The B layout of the

Spoiler

Crystal Cruiser

is so damn fun to use.

Spoiler

No starting weapons but comes with a crew of 3 crystals, crew teleport and cloaking (plus shields). Crystals can even board automated ships due to their suffocation resistance. Still wouldn't advise trying to beat a drone without ship weapons but you can boarding-smash their shields or weapons. Lockdown offers so many tactical possibilities, whether by letting you smash a system in peace, preventing enemies from getting to the med bay, keeping enemies locked in your airless ship parts or only letting half the enemy crew that's trying to stop your boarding into the room and forcing the other half to watch as you slowly mash their friends into pulp. And of course the B layout comes with Crystal Vengeance like the A layout, it's still bloody useless but makes great vendor trash since it sells for 40 scrap.

If anyone still has trouble with boarding defense: The medbay heals your crew even in mid-combat so try to engage the boarders in the medbay room. Venting all other rooms will force them to meet you there. Even Engis can beat the toughest attackers by using the medbay combat healing.

 

[Shinjica]

The B layout of the

Spoiler

Crystal Cruiser

is so damn fun to use.

Spoiler

No starting weapons but comes with a crew of 3 crystals, crew teleport and cloaking (plus shields). Crystals can even board automated ships due to their suffocation resistance. Still wouldn't advise trying to beat a drone without ship weapons but you can boarding-smash their shields or weapons. Lockdown offers so many tactical possibilities, whether by letting you smash a system in peace, preventing enemies from getting to the med bay, keeping enemies locked in your airless ship parts or only letting half the enemy crew that's trying to stop your boarding into the room and forcing the other half to watch as you slowly mash their friends into pulp. And of course the B layout comes with Crystal Vengeance like the A layout, it's still bloody useless but makes great vendor trash since it sells for 40 scrap.

If anyone still has trouble with boarding defense: The medbay heals your crew even in mid-combat so try to engage the boarders in the medbay room. Venting all other rooms will force them to meet you there. Even Engis can beat the toughest attackers by using the medbay combat healing.

how you got that ship?

 

[KDR_11k]

Spoiler

There's several steps involved:
1. Get the event where you find a ship "encrusted with crystals" (shows up as a distress beacon) and are asked whether you want the weapon or the cryo pod. Pick the cryo pod.
2. Run into one of those Zoltan cryo sleep surveys and ask them to fix the pod.
3. As the crystalman tells you, get to the Rock homeworlds (they're red, try to have as many red sectors in your path as possible to increase your chance of reaching the Rock homeworlds).
4. On the Rock homeworlds you need to get the event where a big ring is floating in space or something like that, either way if you still have the crystalman you get the option to reactivate the portal.
5. In the crystal sector move to the quest marker.

There's your crystal ship. The B layout is easy to get.

While you're in the sector make sure to check out the stores, they sell crystal guns for 20 scrap a piece, those things ignore one shield layer and are otherwise like standard lasers with slow reload (can be intercepted by defense drones even at Mark I though!).

 

[Toma]

God damnit, I want that ship too. Cant manage to get that first event though

 

[David Incorporated Esq.]

Wow, that second stage. Any tips for dealing with the drone swarm / boarding drones? My general strategy for boarding parties is to always have the air dumped out of the ship and then lock it up tight but that doesn't work so well against robots.

 

[Toma]

Wow, that second stage. Any tips for dealing with the drone swarm / boarding drones? My general strategy for boarding parties is to always have the air dumped out of the ship and then lock it up tight but that doesn't work so well against robots.

Cant do much about the drone swarm other than resisting it, but you can be prepared with defense robot drones or with crew members that you send out on boarding missions before (and therefore gained EXP for fighting).

 

[Sajjaja]

Hey guys, I have this theory that if you play thisgame wwithout music, it becomes less addictive.

 

[Toma]

Hey guys, I have this theory that if you play thisgame wwithout music, it becomes less addictive.

I have the theory that if you play this game with blindfolds, you will be even less addicted.

 

[KDR_11k]

Wow, that second stage. Any tips for dealing with the drone swarm / boarding drones? My general strategy for boarding parties is to always have the air dumped out of the ship and then lock it up tight but that doesn't work so well against robots.

Just outnumber it. Face the drone in a four square room and engage it with four people simultaneously. Best is if you can get it into the med bay (only 3 people fit in there but the regeneration effect gives you a massive advantage). However even if you kill the drone the enemy will just launch another, the only real solution is to shut its drone systems down (I believe defense drones can shoot the breach drones down but I don't know if it's only mark IIs or if mark I will work). That DOES affect drones, the swarm that's generated by the power surges is unaffected (same goes for its phase 3 special moves, they don't care if its systems are still online) but goes away on its own after a few seconds. Cloaking obviously works best but due to the price you probably won't have cloaking available most of the times.

A boarding teleporter is supremely useful in that fight, even if you cannot engage the main crew you can safely teleport into the sectioned off weapons rooms, kill the one crewman there and break the weapons at your own leisure. Dead crew stays dead even in later stages of the fight so killing them early before the ship gets the power surge attacks gives a massive advantage. Of course it's not as easy as killing all crew to win the battle but the ship will be severely handicapped without crew and your boarding troops can smash systems at their own leisure then.

I beat the boss with that B layout ship, weapons were a burst laser mark I (also had ion and heal bombs and hull missiles but ran out of missiles in the second stage and forgot to replace the guns with the lasers I had in storage...) and one attack and defense drone (each mark I). It's simply that good at boarding. I had a massive scrap surplus (almost 300 upon entering the last stand and that's with all the upgrades I wanted applied), since the reactor is capped at 25 power bars I just threw that scrap at unused upgrades to boost the system hitpoints. Didn't even need to get repairs between the phases. Sadly my boarding troops were still on board when the ship finally exploded but since the game ended anyway that didn't really change anything. My boarding force was 2 crystals, one rock and one mantis.

 

[Toma]

Just outnumber it. Face the drone in a four square room and engage it with four people simultaneously. Best is if you can get it into the med bay (only 3 people fit in there but the regeneration effect gives you a massive advantage). However even if you kill the drone the enemy will just launch another, the only real solution is to shut its drone systems down (I believe defense drones can shoot the breach drones down but I don't know if it's only mark IIs or if mark I will work). That DOES affect drones, the swarm that's generated by the power surges is unaffected (same goes for its phase 3 special moves, they don't care if its systems are still online) but goes away on its own after a few seconds. Cloaking obviously works best but due to the price you probably won't have cloaking available most of the times.

A boarding teleporter is supremely useful in that fight, even if you cannot engage the main crew you can safely teleport into the sectioned off weapons rooms, kill the one crewman there and break the weapons at your own leisure. Dead crew stays dead even in later stages of the fight so killing them early before the ship gets the power surge attacks gives a massive advantage. Of course it's not as easy as killing all crew to win the battle but the ship will be severely handicapped without crew and your boarding troops can smash systems at their own leisure then.

I beat the boss with that B layout ship, weapons were a burst laser mark I (also had ion and heal bombs and hull missiles but ran out of missiles in the second stage and forgot to replace the guns with the lasers I had in storage...) and one attack and defense drone (each mark I). It's simply that good at boarding. I had a massive scrap surplus (almost 300 upon entering the last stand and that's with all the upgrades I wanted applied), since the reactor is capped at 25 power bars I just threw that scrap at unused upgrades to boost the system hitpoints. Didn't even need to get repairs between the phases. Sadly my boarding troops were still on board when the ship finally exploded but since the game ended anyway that didn't really change anything. My boarding force was 2 crystals, one rock and one mantis.

Oh, cool. If I kill a weapon crewmember in the first fight, they wont be able to use that weapon in the second and third? Quite awesome.

 

[flowsnake]

I was wondering why I hadn't won a fight, because I'd killed the enemy crew.

But then I realized they'd boarded me too. With a very angry Engi. Never seen the AI do that before.

 

[flowsnake]

Oh, cool. If I kill a weapon crewmember in the first fight, they wont be able to use that weapon in the second and third? Quite awesome.

The weapons repair though, so it just means their attack is slower.

Edit: Whoops, double post.

And terrible events. My mantis attack crew warped back after a grueling battle and went to the medbay just as a huge missile hit it and killed them instantly. Luckily I have a backup team of rockmen, but I'll still be sad to see them go.

 

[Toma]

The weapons repair though, so it just means their attack is slower.

Edit: Whoops, double post.

And terrible events. My mantis attack crew warped back after a grueling battle and went to the medbay just as a huge missile hit it and killed them instantly. Luckily I have a backup team of rockmen, but I'll still be sad to see them go.

Ah, unfortunate. Just 5 % slower attack isnt all that much of a help in that fight I guess. Was hoping they wouldnt be able to repair them as there is no crew in that room left to do it.

 

[O.DOGG]

Just had a great run. I managed to unlock the

Spoiler

Stealth ship

and the

Spoiler

Zoltan cruiser

in a single playtrhough and everything was going great until the

Spoiler

motherfucking Rebel mothership killed me with its third life. How the fuck am I supposed to survive this shit three times in a row?

The game is awesome. But playing it is so draining! Damn!

 

[Sinatar]

Hey guys, I have this theory that if you play thisgame wwithout music, it becomes less addictive.

I shut the in game music off and play with the Wrath of Khan soundtrack. It's baller.

 

[KDR_11k]

Ah, unfortunate. Just 5 % slower attack isnt all that much of a help in that fight I guess. Was hoping they wouldnt be able to repair them as there is no crew in that room left to do it.

If they're down to red they stop firing and I don't think they autorepair until the crew is completely wiped. I had the thing locked down so hard it was completely unable to attack.

 

[slayn]

Apparently if you and the boss kill each other it still counts as a win. I think my shot landed half a second before his so maybe that's why. Pretty weird watching my ship blow up only to have ti come up and say I win. Not that I'm complaining.

 

[electricpirate]

Easy mode victory achieved!


Using the kestral Layout A, this was supposed to be an achievement run (drop to one hull and repair in full) which wierdly ended up working, because i kept saving cash so I get to the first store with like 300 credits to make sure I can fully heal, I stock up on a cloaking system while there. So now i'm like a phoenix reborn, barely alive, but now kind of badass. This is doubled up when I find a hull smasher laser (love that breach) and pick up an Ion cannon. Now I only need missilles in really tough battles, and I can easily bring down shield level 3 dudes, and with some smart management I can put go toe to toe against sheild level 4. This is in sector 4. I buy a scrap recovery arm and FIND a goddamn pre igniter. How good? SOOOO GOOD. Now I can teleport into fights, cloak, take out an important weapon before they can even target me.

Fast foward, fully pumped shields and engine (Also, I get the "Bad luck" ahievement for taking 5 shots in a row with a maxed out engine lol), I start to get cocky, and mis a cloack. A firebomb from a mantis drops my shields specialist and boarding mantis . A second one takes out my engine guy. Shit, now things are not looking as good as I train new crew. Thankfully I found a new mantis to bulk the crew out, and a random event gives me a goddamn firebeam and ion bombs. Holy shit so good.

At on point, I take on a mantiis cruiser? why because fuck you that's why. Ion bombs disable, and I zip in and out my mantis crew to keep the cockpit down. Final boss went down easy with this build, teleport in, take out weapons, ion bomb shields, and ping away on the cockpit/shielding unit. With full engines, and a fully leveled pilot, he can't even drop my missiles, the only tough part was the damn boarding drone, but an ion bomb, and my own anti personal drone took him out. Final score was 4724.

Now on to normal with my shiny new kestral B and federation cruiser!

 

[DopeyFish]

I got my ship down to 1 health and healed and didn't get the achievement

 

[Sajjaja]

I got my ship down to 1 health and healed and didn't get the achievement

Did you heal it completely?

 

[DopeyFish]

Did you heal it completely?

Yup.

Iwas so excited when I saw I had 1 hull... A store was next jump away, clicked repair all and... Nothing

 

[electricpirate]

Yup.

Iwas so excited when I saw I had 1 hull... A store was next jump away, clicked repair all and... Nothing

did you confirm that it's one? I think you get 2 hull points per bar.

 

[Toma]

Yup.

Iwas so excited when I saw I had 1 hull... A store was next jump away, clicked repair all and... Nothing

Sure that you had enough money for the repair all thing? Maybe you were 1 scrap short or something.

Other than that, annoying yeah. Though be glad its that achievement. I found its one of the easiest to get in the game.

 

[DopeyFish]

did you confirm that it's one? I think you get 2 hull points per bar.

Really? Shit I didn't hover just saw the small single red bar and was all DD

Edit: I had like 400 scrap, I was procrastinating my upgrades

 

[djtiesto]

I bought this game just for the hell of it, being not really much into roguelikes (not for lack of trying) but it's pretty fun. I am just wondering - is there a way you can manually close down doors? Like, I was in combat, an enemy ship destroyed the remote-control door activator, then while trying to put out the fires in the various rooms by opening the airlocks, my guys lost all their oxygen.

Any good way of dealing with fires? I've been playing on easy for now, since like I said I'm terrible at the genre.

 

[flowsnake]

If they're down to red they stop firing and I don't think they autorepair until the crew is completely wiped. I had the thing locked down so hard it was completely unable to attack.

They do repair by themselves between each stage (1st->2nd and 2nd->3rd forms), but they don't other than that.

 

[Woorloog]

Hint: Do not, DO NOT use autofire when you send boarding parties.

 

[YianGaruga]

Hint: Do not, DO NOT use autofire when you send boarding parties.

I wish you could choose autofire for each weapon individually.

 

[flowsnake]

I wish you could choose autofire for each weapon individually.

That and more hotkeys (crew members, cloaking, teleporting) are the major interface improvements I'd like to see. Although since weapons and drones have hotkeys, maybe there's an actual reason for not having the others.

 

[electricpirate]

That and more hotkeys (crew members, cloaking, teleporting) are the major interface improvements I'd like to see. Although since weapons and drones have hotkeys, maybe there's an actual reason for not having the others.

Subset said that they ran out of time to do hotkeys and that they will be included in a future patch.

I'd like to see:

Crew as Q-I to bar
Stealth as S
teleport as P
System powerup as Z-? with shift to down power (drones work here with the final three keys)
autofire toggle A

I think that would cover most situations.

 

[Haunted]

Spoiler

There's several steps involved:
1. Get the event where you find a ship "encrusted with crystals" (shows up as a distress beacon) and are asked whether you want the weapon or the cryo pod. Pick the cryo pod.
2. Run into one of those Zoltan cryo sleep surveys and ask them to fix the pod.
3. As the crystalman tells you, get to the Rock homeworlds (they're red, try to have as many red sectors in your path as possible to increase your chance of reaching the Rock homeworlds).
4. On the Rock homeworlds you need to get the event where a big ring is floating in space or something like that, either way if you still have the crystalman you get the option to reactivate the portal.
5. In the crystal sector move to the quest marker.

There's your crystal ship. The B layout is easy to get.

While you're in the sector make sure to check out the stores, they sell crystal guns for 20 scrap a piece, those things ignore one shield layer and are otherwise like standard lasers with slow reload (can be intercepted by defense drones even at Mark I though!).

Getting all these events to happen in a single playthrough seems like a miniscule possibility. ;_;

 

[Haunted]

I bought this game just for the hell of it, being not really much into roguelikes (not for lack of trying) but it's pretty fun. I am just wondering - is there a way you can manually close down doors? Like, I was in combat, an enemy ship destroyed the remote-control door activator, then while trying to put out the fires in the various rooms by opening the airlocks, my guys lost all their oxygen.

Any good way of dealing with fires? I've been playing on easy for now, since like I said I'm terrible at the genre.

No, only possible with the remote control, your guys can't close doors manually (should totally be possible now that you mention it ).

The best way to dealing is fires is to vent it out into space with the doors. If it's damaged you can only send in guys to put it out manually (Rock crew and System Repair drones are especially suited as they don't take a lot of damage from fires, I think).

 

[Blizzard]

Subset said that they ran out of time to do hotkeys and that they will be included in a future patch.

I'd like to see:

Crew as Q-I to bar
Stealth as S
teleport as P
System powerup as Z-? with shift to down power (drones work here with the final three keys)
autofire toggle A

I think that would cover most situations.

It would be nice, but one good thing is that with pause, you don't need hotkeys for efficiency. And if they do add them, the ideal thing is just to add an options window where everyone can remap, so no one is disappointed in the choices.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Just got my first victory on easy, feels good.

Winning combination was a one two punch of destroying shields with ion blasts then slicing the ship with a halberd beam. Using drones to make up for crew shortages.

The two ion blasters also gave me the 4 system lockdown achievement that I needed for the alt layout. Aw yeah.

Now it's time to deal with normal mode.

 

[flowsnake]

It would be nice, but one good thing is that with pause, you don't need hotkeys for efficiency. And if they do add them, the ideal thing is just to add an options window where everyone can remap, so no one is disappointed in the choices.

Yes, that's particularly necessary for the case of different keyboard layouts.

 

[Sarcasm]

Made a quick video:

http://youtu.be/M9qFt00JyWQ?hd=1

 

[Woorloog]

Fuck, no no no no no. FUUU!
Sent two Rockmen to board an enemy ship. Experienced guys. The problem, the ship was on fire, with one hull point left. Boom.
Fuck.

It seems that for boarding actions to work, you need to upgrade the TP, 20 sec CD is way too much, too dangerous. Also, weapons that support boarding actions (namely bombs) should be used.

 

[Toma]

 

[marrec]

Oh no I just spit water all over my work laptop.

 

[Sajjaja]

What do you guys think of the pegasus missle launcher? I found it randomly but I'm having too much fun watching other crews feel the wrath of my Heavy Ion + Fire Beam xD

 

[Woorloog]

I have a feeling BSG has been quite an influence in the game. The jump effect is very much like the one in reimagined BSG.

I find it kinda odd the devs described the game as "Firefly [and something]", when it lacks sandbox and trading is very minor part in the game.
Not to mention Firefly lacking FTL drives (though the ship engines are absurdly powerful considering how fast they travel beetween planets in the series).

EDIT i intended to reinstall Morrowind today but ended up playing this... addicting.