What augmentations are best?

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Twinge
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Re: What augmentations are best?

Postby Twinge » Mon Nov 04, 2013 12:53 pm

Sure what the hell, I'll throw down a tier list too; this is similar to 5thHorseman's. It's a shame augments in this game are mostly underpowered.

God Tier
Automated Reloader - Well worth it if it cost 50% more; a ridiculous bargin at 40 scrap.
Scrap Recovery Arm - Still quite profitable if you buy it in the middle of sector 5.
Zoltan Shield

Great Tier
Long-Ranged Scanners
Weapon Pre-Igniter - Only off God Tier because it's actually reasonably costed at 120.

Mediocre Tier
Shield Charge Booster - Really hard to judge; often worthless, on rare occasion quite good.
Engi Med-bot Dispersal
Slug Repair Gel
Drone Recovery Arm - Commonly overrated; you'll often be given enough Drone Parts that this won't actually be beneficial, and even if you're running short you'll still need to save 7 Drone Parts just to break even. Decent in the right circumstances.

Bad Tier
Stealth Weapons - An extra 2 seconds of cloaking here and there. Mostly only useful with Ion Blast II.
Titanium System Casing - The purpose of this augment is to sell it for 50 scrap exactly when you are buying the Shields System. Otherwise, it's mildly helpful until then and worth keeping in a Shieldless run.
Adv. FTL Navigation - Sounds cool, but nearly useless in practice; only good for hitting a repair beacon between Flagship phases.
Rock Plating

Garbage Tier
Mantis Pheremones
Reverse Ion Field - 15% effect, not the 20% the game states. This augment is still bad when it's cheaper and has 4 times the effect!
Drone Reactor Booster - It's even worse than the description states, giving a mere 25% speed boost. Still bad when it gives 100% speed boost.
FTL Recharge Booster - Upgrade Engines instead - increases your FTL charge AND evasion.
FTL Jammer - Rarely useful, and the effect is too small when you actually need it.
Crystal Vengeance - The Crystal Cruisers start with a free 40 scrap the first time you visit a store, basically. Worthless otherwise.

Ultra-Garbage Tier
Repair Arm - So bad it gets its own tier. This augment is not only bad - it's actively harmful to have. Eats a whopping 15% scrap (rounded against you!) to repair a mere 1-2 hull damage. You will never break even on buying this compared to repairing at stores. If you get it for free, sell it as quickly as possible.
Last edited by Twinge on Mon Nov 04, 2013 10:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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aaaaaa50
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Re: What augmentations are best?

Postby aaaaaa50 » Mon Nov 04, 2013 6:26 pm

You forgot the Zoltan shield and the Damaged Stasis Pod, Twinge.

On Titanium System Casing vs. Rock Plating, I think that System Casing is much more useful. Rock Plating will never save you enough hull damage to make up in scrap for the 40 you an get from just selling it. With System Casing, having a crucial system keep functioning after a hit can often save you from taking more hits.
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Twinge
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Re: What augmentations are best?

Postby Twinge » Mon Nov 04, 2013 10:05 pm

aaaaaa50 wrote:You forgot the Zoltan shield and the Damaged Stasis Pod, Twinge.

On Titanium System Casing vs. Rock Plating, I think that System Casing is much more useful. Rock Plating will never save you enough hull damage to make up in scrap for the 40 you an get from just selling it. With System Casing, having a crucial system keep functioning after a hit can often save you from taking more hits.


Zoltan Shield is in God Tier; I left Stasis Pod out because it's not an augment, it's a quest item. You either want it or you don't.

Rock Plating has the advantage of giving you 35.3 effective hull - primarily helpful against the Flagship. Not actually very good, though; I play the Rock ships so little I just didn't think about it much. Dropped to Bad.
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Jimera0
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Re: What augmentations are best?

Postby Jimera0 » Mon Dec 02, 2013 10:02 pm

I just want to elaborate on the awesomeness of the Long Range Sensors. If you're not seeing the value in them you're not using them properly.

Long Range Sensors are both a scrap producing machine and a way to avoid dangerous situations. Avoiding a sun or ion storm when you're hurting can literally save your entire run, as can avoiding an asteroid field. Or, you can actively target an asteroid field if you want to train your crew's shield skills. But the real joy of the LRS is that it turns nebula sectors into your best friends. Because fleet pursuit is slower there than in other sectors you can visit more beacons for more scrap. Additionally there are tons of blue options for LRS in nebula, many of which can net you large amounts of extra scrap, weaponry and even crew members. Finally and perhaps most importantly, it allows you easily avoid dangerous Ion storms, which are one of the biggest turn-offs to going into Nebula sectors normally.

All this and more for a measly 30 scrap. It'll earn that back for you dozens of times over, while making your trip safer to boot. By far one of my favorite augmentations.

As for other Augs, I personally like the automated reloader, Scrap Recovery Arm, and if I have offensive drones, the Drone Recovery arm. If you manage to get your hands on some good drones the Drone Recovery arm quickly becomes one of the best augments in the game, allowing you to just spam them at every encounter. Without one I find myself never using more than one drone per a battle unless I desperately need more for fear I'll run out, so getting it essentially upgrades my drone strength by either double or 1.5 depending on what drones I have. I haven't gotten to try the weapon pre-igniter much, but the time I did get it I quickly realized I had wasted 120 scrap. If your weapons all have short charge times or you rely on methods other than brute force to take down opponents it usually isn't worth the steep 120 scrap cost, especially early game. However if you DO have lots of weapons with high charge times, then it's obviously one of the best augments you can get. It's just a shame it's so damn expensive.
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Re: What augmentations are best?

Postby MightyThor2000 » Tue Dec 03, 2013 5:03 am

Are you kidding me? Pre ignitor and droid recovery arm are BY FAR the best, you just have to use them right.

First the pre ignitor with a big weapon like breech launcher or ion bomb or even fire bomb will let you essentially take out a while ship system before they can do anything, as long as the shot isn't dodged. Even with relatively fast weapons like burst lasers having the instant first shot is still a big deal. Pound their weapons and don't let up, you will take little to no dmg.

The recovery arm lets you repair for free if you have the hull repair droid. What you do is at the end of a fight or in a peaceful system before you jump launch the droid, let it repair twice then jump. Since the droid always repairs a min of 3 times you're guarunteeed to recover it. Viola, free hull repairs. This can save you a ton of cash. Also having a defense droid up means missiles are no issue either. So you save tons on repairs and droid parts if you do it right.
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Re: What augmentations are best?

Postby PeterFTL » Wed Dec 11, 2013 1:12 am

Pre-igniter is the *best*. Why? Because it's exciting to find a shop - you might get the uber-burst lasers! Because it's **hilarious** when you come out of jump, open fire, and destroy a ship in the first volley. Because it's a joy to jump in, firebomb/beam the enemy ship and board them before they realize you're even in the sector.

I love it because it's *fun*.

Oh, it's not a bad one in terms of winning, either.

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spacecadet13
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Re: What augmentations are best?

Postby spacecadet13 » Wed Dec 11, 2013 4:04 am

Meh, yeah but it's 120 scrap, and it only works for your first volley. If that misses, or doesn't get through shields, or doesn't do much damage, its got no value for the rest of the battle. Gimme an autoloader any day, except maybe, maybe, for the DA-SR12, though an autoloader is damn useful on that ship too. Levels up your gunner faster, fires every volley faster, makes every weapon/weapon loadout better. I get a Pre-ignitor by chance, more often than not its worth more as 60 scrap at the next store than it is left on the ship. I can't argue that with the right weapon loadout it can be a ton of fun though, blitzing enemy ships before they can even go "WTF?"
MightyThor2000
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Re: What augmentations are best?

Postby MightyThor2000 » Fri Dec 13, 2013 8:03 pm

Yeah preignitor is definitely a missiles/bombs required augmentation.
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5thHorseman
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Re: What augmentations are best?

Postby 5thHorseman » Fri Jan 03, 2014 9:03 am

badra100 wrote:Is It possible to get real lucky and find a zoltan shield other than in the zoltan cruiser?


Nope. You also can't find an artillery beam or some of the starting weapons like Dual Lasers.
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PatchworkAndCo
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Re: What augmentations are best?

Postby PatchworkAndCo » Wed Jan 22, 2014 10:28 pm

Augmentations are interesting, because a lot of them (not all of them) are very situational.

There is no real "best" augmentation, it all depends on ship and playstyle. The only universally good augmentations are things like Scrap Recovery Arm and Long Range Scanners. The rest can all be the best augment to have at that particular time

For instance, if you're using Engi A and you have two anti ship drones and a defense drone, all of which you heavily rely upon, the Drone Recovery Arm would be by far the best augmentation to have, but on a run when you are focused on, for example, boarding, when you aren't using any drones, the drone recovery arm would be utterly useless unless you sold it for scrap.

When using Rock A, which starts off with only missile weapons, the auto reloader would not be a great choice, as spamming missiles as soon as they are charged is not a good tactic. If, however, you are focused on burst laser spam, an autoreloader (or three) would be a perfect choice.

But... You can never build a "perfect" ship, as the items in stores are random, and you rarely get exactly what you need. Four Burst Laser II's and three autoreloaders would probably be the best combo in the game, but you never get something like that in an actual run - you have to adapt and change and tweak your strategy based on what you're given, not based on what you hope to get.

Therefore, the best augmentations are the ones which suit your ship at that particular time. But agreed, some are utterly useless. :D