Episode 4:
I get mad at my gunner too
But yeah their dodge was horrible. You coudln't have done anything better in that fight (other than powering the 2nd shield early but you corrected that mistake as soon as you saw that weapon could shoot twice). As was said already, your drone is not 100% perfect. Sometimes missiles will just get through.
Trying to air out the door room was probably a mistake, but you only took 1 hull damage for it. It may have gone down anyway even if you'd sent both Engi in to fight the fires. But it sucks when doors are down and half your ship is open to space
To power all 3 shields you could... buy more power?
Though I would have instead just bought one more engine, then checked out the store. My personal checklist is: 2 engines, then 2 shields, then 4 engines, then 3 shields, then 5 engines. Roughly one of those per sector.
NOOOOOO! Ion would have been epic. You can technically beat the final boss with your current ship (with upgrades, but no further purchases), but that heavy ion actually makes you a contender. Seriously, a 2nd ion is a viable beat-the-final-boss strategy. Add a cloak and you're almost guaranteed to win. Add another weapon or a 2nd attack drone and you're a shoe-in. The fire beam, though? Terrible choice for this loadout. It clashes with the attack drone. Either you want an attack drone or you want to kill the crew, not both.
Same goes for the teleporter. You have the crew for a teleporter, but not the ship. That said, a teleporter is about the best mistake you can ever make because the extra scrap is SO nice and let's face it: Nothing's more fun than boarding enemy ships.
You can't close doors that the enemy has broken through. They will close on their own eventually which is why those other 2 doors were closed while the bad guys were attacking your door control.
You should have turned on your medbay when your Zoltan and Mantis were hurt, or at least put them in different rooms. One bomb hit in your shield room and they would have DIED.
After buying the teleporter, you had an extra power in your shields. Watch for that when you run your Zoltan around.
I was drooling wondering how well a double-ion setup would have shredded that Rebel Fighter's shields... As it was, you used up an attack drone that never had a chance to do any damage because you never fired your ion blast once.
Rocks have more missiles, which is a good match for your defense drone. It's what I'd have picked.
EDIT: --------------
Episode 5:
You realized pretty quickly on your own the problem with the attack drone/telporter strategy. By using the teleporter you've essentially rendered your attack drone useless. It's not a terrible problem but if you can use the scrap selling it's not a terrible idea. However, note that it's currently the only way to kill automated ships.
You can actually swap drones back and forth all you want. Once they're out there, you don't lose a drone part for reactivating them.
You should have put your Rockman in the upper-left corner of that room, and your mantis in the upper-right. You can do this (all while paused) by selecting your mantis and telling him to leave the room, then selecting your rock man and telling him to leave the room. Then, with your Rockman still selected (and the game still paused) tell him to go back into the weapons room. Finally, tell your mantis to do the same. Because you told your Rockman to enter the room first, he'll go to that first slot and end up in the upper left. You do this because the Rockman can take more damage and you wouldn't have had to move anybody out of the room.
I'd have teleported into their medbay but I'm kinda crazy like that. I have no problem though with you running away from that fight. It was going bad and could have gone much worse
Great strategy with that mantis bomber. My only (very minor) nitpick was you could have paid more mind to your doors. Some of them closed without you noticing which could have allowed those mantises to destroy systems. No harm no foul, though
I'm not sure because the video was going fast, but you may have been able to kill that last Rockman without teleporting back. Again, no harm no foul and it usually pays to be careful like you were.
That rock scout was decked out. You're starting to see the problem with only having the Ion 2: Every miss hurts your taking their shield down. Good job on the battle, including pulling your guys back to heal. Woo, though. You got them down to 1 hull. One more drone shot and you'd have lost your boarding party!
Very good sector. You got through it with a ton of scrap. Looking forward to to seeing how you spend it!