The Torus - underpowered or misunderstood?

[Vanoi]

I actually just beat the Flagship with the Torus yesturday

3 Ion Blasts and 2 Anti-ship Drones Mk 1
3 pts in Weapons Engi Specialized in Wepaons
4 pts in Drones
Max Power
Max Shield Zoltan Specialized in Shields
Max Engine Human and Engi Specialized in Piloting and Engines
Leftover scraps was disturbed evenly to give the systems more redundency
The Auto-reloader makes the Ion Blasts recharge so fast... plus the Specialized Crew... I just focus fired the shields and move onto Stealth/Drones (for the Flagship it was kind of pointless to ion the weapons)

The trick to the Torus seems to be patience, aim for disabling shield and weapons and let the drones do the works.
Early tip for me is use 1 Ion for every shield as combat starter, once the shield is all gone. Have just one on the shield every second shot and the rest on Drones and Weapons.

[temporal]

I've actually come closest to winning normal on the Taurus more times than any other ship.

The early game is fairly easy. Two ions and a drone will kill anything in the first 2 sectors and most things in the 3rd.

The electric storm event in nebulas do give the Taurus fits early game when it doesn't have a lot of power. Usually it forces me to disable my shields to power my drone so that I can win the fight. IMO the hull damage this results in is not worth it, better to leave the shields and engines powered and GTFO.

The mid-game is where things get tricky. But if you've played it safe and saved up a reasonable amount of scrap an upgrade or two will set you straight until the late game.

I usually buy another weapon, just about anything other than a beam is good. Missile is a solid choice since I will have built up a good missile stockpile by this point.

If there are no weapons to be had there's usually drones. Adding another anti-ship drone is just fine. A defense drone is great as well. Beam drones are a little lackluster unless you already have some upgraded shield-breaking weapons.

If by sector 4 you still haven't upgraded then it might be time to consider adding another shield point and/or investing in engines for survivability. You may not be able to win too many fights but being able to run away gives you a better chance of finding an upgrade eventually. Better than hording your scrap and dying in a fire.

The engi medical augment is pretty nuts and keeps everyone standing against boarders, breaches and direct hits. Losing a crew member is a pretty big setback so a little prevention against this is great.

Don't buy a drone retrieval arm late game. If you can make it to the final sector you won't really need to worry about drone parts.

Defense drones are amazingly useful for preventing late game hull damage. I will usually have 2 combat drones and 1 defense drone but only enough power for 2 drones. I'll just switch power over when I see a missile launch.

So yeah... probably my favorite ship anyway.

[MordreadRN]

I have now had 5 playthroughs without being able to get any darn drone recovery, so by the end I usually run out of drones which makes me pretty worthless against the boss, sigh.

[abe]

Nobody has mentioned this, but my strategy with the Torus is to slowly suffocate the enemy by ion-blasting their life support.

Basically in the first 2-3 sectors, I get shields quickly and can classify enemies into two breeds: missle users - disable weapons. Beam/lasers - slowly suffocate.

It means extremely slow, drawn out battles. Normally the weapon/shield crew max out experience in the first battle or two. It takes timing - using a drone to take out the shield bubble, but not damage the hull. The extra scrap, weapons and crew make up for the extra time quickly.

[temporal]

I've tried the suffocate strategy too, but it can be very slow. You really need to upgrade your sensors as well since upgraded O2 is much more difficult to completely disable, it's good to know how much of an effect you are having.

[barelyhomosapien]

--Spoilers just incase!--

After banging my head against normal for ages (getting to the last sector once but dying before reaching the flagship...) I played the game on easy.

Despite getting stuck behind enemy lines at one point due to a fuel shortage, I had no problem eventually getting to the end and defeating the boss (all three times) and did so easily.

My setup was:

Enough shield upgrades for 3 shields with a specialist at the console

Engine upgrades to get me to about 37% dodge (with two extra bars for 47% if I had the spare power) with an Engi specialist on the engines, specialist pilot as well

Level 2 Med bay. (Great with the engi healing drones)

Level 2 Cloak (with the augment that lets you shoot while cloaked)

Level 1 Teleporter with a rockman/mantis boarding party (take that isolated weapons points!)

Ion Blast (The one with the short recharge), A heavy Laser 1, and an Ion Cannon 2 (With the weapon recharge reducing augment) with a specialist manning the station.

And a defense 2 drone.

Plus I had a full crew compliment.

I know I was probably very lucky with stuff in the stores and with drops as well, but the torus was still scarily effective!

I could beat the rebel elite fighters when I was behind the lines without taking a scratch and beat the final bosses three stages while taking less then half hull damage.

Oh, and as an additional note, using Ions against a medbay when boarding is evil! (and effective)

[JanoS]

I haven't noticed anything when using the augment that allows to fire when cloaked.

Even without it all my weapons fire. What is the benefit?

Also, about cloaking -- is the cooldown timer the same on Level 1 and Level 3 of cloak?
I mean if L1 is 5 seconds of cloak and 60s cooldown and L3 is 15 seconds of cloak and 60s cooldown, then L3 is quite often not needed. I often use cloak to avoid some strong attack, and 5 seconds are enough for that.
However after 5 seconds it is a difference whether I have to wait 60 or 70 for recharge for next strong attack.
The 10 seconds after strong attack are usually quiet.

[barelyhomosapien]

While you're cloaked enemy weapons don't charge and can't target you. So the whole time your cloaked your enemy can't attack you at all.

With the augment, you can fire and stay cloaked, while the enemy can't fire back at you. So if you've got level 3, that's 15 seconds of attacking without any return fire

Very handy.

[temporal]

The patch notes said that cloak is now +60% evade. I haven't used a cloak since reading that... does it still stop enemy weapons from charging/firing? That would mean that the evade is just for an incoming salvo.

[Volthar]

I haven't noticed anything when using the augment that allows to fire when cloaked.

Even without it all my weapons fire. What is the benefit?

Without the augment, your cloak breaks as soon as you fire a weapon. Unless I've upgraded to a level 3 cloak, I don't find the augment all that useful. That augment, a lvl 3 cloak and a preigniter makes for a killer combo though. You fire a weapon volley as soon as you warp in, hit your cloak and fire a 2nd volley in the middle of the cloak and a 3rd volley a few seconds after your cloak expires. All of that before the other guy ever gets a shot off.

Also, about cloaking -- is the cooldown timer the same on Level 1 and Level 3 of cloak?
I mean if L1 is 5 seconds of cloak and 60s cooldown and L3 is 15 seconds of cloak and 60s cooldown, then L3 is quite often not needed. I often use cloak to avoid some strong attack, and 5 seconds are enough for that.
However after 5 seconds it is a difference whether I have to wait 60 or 70 for recharge for next strong attack.
The 10 seconds after strong attack are usually quiet.

There's also the benefit that your weapons are charging and the enemy's aren't while you're cloaked.