Can you beat the game without shields?

[Unlucky Scarecrow]

Boss laser might only be halberd, can anybody confirm?

Also, shields don't do anything against missiles so any amount of evasion is better XD

Careful cloak timing will let you dodge a lot of shots. Pick which weapon you want to dodge the most, and cloak your ship just as it fires. The boosted evasion from cloaking will likely make it miss (You'll have over 100% dodge with good engines), and hopefully the cloak will recharge before the weapon is ready to fire again. Sometimes the enemy weapons will fire at the same rate (or close enough) that you can dodge multiple shots like this. This doesn't work against beams, though (I think)

[Vind]

Boss beam cuts through 2 lvl shield as i remember - 3 lvl holds it fine. I noticed then you have 3 lvl shield on boss fight the deployed drones mostly beam I and not attack I, maybe your ship max shield strenght related somehow.

[zzandrio]

I attempted this this morning. Here is a video of the full run. http://youtu.be/IiPNwiQUchs
I made it to phase 2 of the boss. I believe with better weapons and a slightly altered strategy that I can beat it without shields. I will try again and if I succeed I will post the video. This is on normal by the way. I refuse to touch easy mode.

[UltraMantis]

zzandrio i take my hat off to you. I am attempting the same feat, but i couldn't reach sector 8 yet. To actually win a round against the boss is amazing.

Didn't watch the whole thing because i'm sick of seeing FTL and stealth cruisers for a while having been denied earlier today, but i watched a few late sector battles and the boss fight. You made a lot more scrap than i made and i was picking a lot of fights. And in the boss fight i was practically cheering you on and wishing i could have sent you my Halberd. It really helped me to not have to completely strip shields.

I wish you massive luck.

[zzandrio]

Thanks!

[Vind]

Nicely done, maybe with better weapons it would be possible to survive phase 2 and 3. Still you need at least lvl 1 shield vs beam drones - they cannot miss and fire quickly.

[zzandrio]

On phase two I will have to kill their drone room very quickly, then save my stealth for the drone surge. Using my stealth before the surge was the worst thing I could have done.

[Icehawk78]

As many others have said, beam weapons will be your downfall with no shields whatsoever, given that they are unaffected by evasion.

An ideal shieldless build on one of the two Stealth ships would be as follows:

Crew:
1 Engi (Maxed captain)
5 Zoltan (At least 1 each maxed weapons/engines. Ideally, all will be maxed in one of the two, standing in one of the two rooms as well. As many as possible also maxed repairs.)
2 Mantis (Maxed fighting, possibly also repairing)*

Augments:
Weapons Pre-Igniter
Automated Reloader
Rock Plating

Energy [25/max]

Weapons [8/max]
Ion Bomb**
Glaive Beam**
Pegasus Missiles

Drones [8/max]
Defense, Mk II
Defense, Mk I***

Stealth [3/max]
Teleporter [3/max]*
Engines [8/max]
Doors [3/max]

Any other less-essential systems (Oxygen, Medbay, Piloting, Sensors) upgraded if possible, but only after everything else was.

*Optional, but gives more options. Without needing to power shields, though, you don't need to replace the Mantises with Zoltan to fully power every system, and you can still use them as a strike crew to quickly clear out unwanted enemy crews in both your ship and theirs.

**An alternate would be Breach Bomb, Mk II and a Halberd Beam, but Ion Bomb allows you to have the stronger beam, which can do more raw damage, and takes care of Zoltan shields much quicker.

***Using the Defense, Mk I allows one of your drones to prioritise targetting Missiles and Boarding Drones, while also giving you a buffer with both of your drones fully operational even if your Drone Control room is partially damaged.

Power would always be given to all three weapons (8), both drones (14), stealth (17), engines (26), and one level of oxygen (27). When on the offense, full power to teleporter (30) and medbay (31, max including all Zoltan). When not teleporting, some of that power would be rerouted to Oxygen.

Theoretically, it's certainly possible to get this build in a game, but you'd have to have the excessive luck to get all of the "give me a free crew" and "give me a free weapon" and "give me a free augmentation" lining up and giving you the crew/augmentation/weapons that you want, as well as getting enough sheer scrap just to upgrade all of the ship systems as well.

On the DA-SR 12, scrap-required purchases/upgrades would be -
System Power: 350 to max power generation
Drone control: 80 for the base system, 335 to max power
Weapons: 315 to max power
Engines: 345 to max power
Cloaking: 50 to max power
Teleporter: 75 for the base system, 90 to max power
Doors: 70 to max power

Total scrap: 1710

This is also assuming that everything that you can get from an event (ie all augmentations, your weapons, and your crew, fuel/missiles/drone parts), you do.

(For reference, my highest scrap collected in a single run was a game on Easy, where I collected a grand total of 2320 scrap, so that number isn't impossible to reach.)

[UltraMantis]

That's a fantastic loadout Icehawk. You put it together perfectly, that ship can't be beat (Stealth Cruiser). I'd swap Rock Plating for the Recovery or Repair arms, though they obviously contribute nothing in the final fight but help get you there. And good luck finding that many Zoltan.

And is it just me, or does anyone else have a problem earning scrap with the Stealth Cruiser A? I'm allways broke, allways missing crucial upgrades, and allways damaged.

[Silvereye]

Maybe u should get some RepairDrones and many Drones on Hand. So u can Repair many of ur Hull with just 2 Power needed for each Drone.

Each time u use one of that Drones, it repairs 3-5 Hull, so i always take one with me through all Stages(when i got hands on it ). U can just put it in ur Cargo and Swap after Fight to fix ur Hull and Swap back before u Jump to the Next Beacon. So u can spare some Scraps for something u need more, cause 3-5 Hull at a Station will cost 6-10 Scrap. Just buy 1 Drone for that

And for the Final Fight without Shields do with 1 or 2 Repair Drones IN Fight.