The Basilisk: Putting the MAN in MANTIS

[Habalabam]

Just a quick note: Even if your teleporters gets destroyed with all your crew "stranded" on the other vessel, all is not lost. You just can't jump between ships to heal. If you kill all the other crew, then a message will pop up saying that you grabbed a shuttle.

I love having rockies pairing up with two mantis. They absorb damage while the mantis pop off shots.
Also, the rockies can go for the shield room, thus pulling all defenders while the two mantis run to pick off the medbay.

The boarding drone and bio/fire weapons offer some interesting tactical options. There are simply too many finesses to mention, which is why the AI has so many problems adapting.

[Mister Sammy]

BUMP!

[Rocketman]

Any tips on how to deal with a ship with a medbay when you don't have any weapons yet? That was the part I was most interested in but you meantion using lasers/beams/bombs to take out the medbay. If you don't have any weapons yet, is a ship with a medbay = run away like a Zoltan ship?

I've tried to take these out but only rarely was successful and usually ends up in a stalemate or I get desperate and end up losing one of my crew in the attempt and end up just restarting.

If anyone knows any tricks to take out a crew that has a Medbay when you don't have any weapons yet, that would really help, because then the only thing I can do nothing about is a Zoltan shield (that isn't in an asteroid field) and an auto-assault when I don't have an upgraded teleporter yet.

A trick I often use to take out enemy ships with medbays with no weapons only works when the enemy has no upgraded doors, or you've already broken their door system. (warning: It takes a while and requires you to beam out and in several times, and only works on level 1 medbays) First, beam all mantis/crew into a four tile room, preferably a major system like shields or weapons so everybody runs over and attacks you. Cycle your crew around to MAKE SURE you are not damaging enemy crew too fast, and just focus on a single enemy. Once that one enemy reaches about 15 health, he'll flee to the medbay. When you see him trying to run away, see if you can get another shot or two to hit him before he gets out of the room. That probably won't kill him though, so immediately move two of your mantis (preferably your highest combat level crew) and beat him to the medbay, so you are waiting when he arrives. Two mantis' (especially combat experts) continuous damage on one crew outweighs the healing of the medbay, so you can wear him down and kill him, albeit taking a bit more damage than you would otherwise. The reason you need to prevent your mantis from damaging other enemies too much is that if more than one run to the medbay at once, your mantis will be fighting 2 on 2, and it won't work. Final step: move all your mantis back to the 4 man room you started in and beam them back out. Rinse and repeat. It doesn't take as long as it sounds, and with proper use of pause and crew cycling you should be able to pull it off.

[5thHorseman]

Another trick you can use is to fight them in the shields (which they guard over anything else) and then run your two mantises into the medbay. If you do it right, the mantises can take out the medbay first before anybody needs to run there to heal.

This is HARD with a 2-man teleporter but pretty easy with the 4-man ones. And yeah, they need level-1 doors and (preferably) a level-1 medbay, but hopefully by the time you face more you'll have some weapons.

[Rocketman]

Just unlocked this ship. First playthrough topped my highscore list at 4710 or so (normal). I ended up with a s. bomb, heal burst, and B. laser Mk I. Level 3 cloak/teleporter with 6 mantis boarding crew and only a human pilot and engi engineer to support the ship while my crew was away. Killed the whole crew of the flagship without trouble (except for the laser gunner, of course). I love the basilisk!

[rocketpjs]

Basilisk is one of the best ships for a win, at least so far. I love this ship. If you make it to sector 3 with a decent setup (good shields, defense drone, 4 mantis, maybe an energy weapon to kill zoltan shields), you will kill the boss - barring random badness of course.