Did you know? List little tips and tricks here!

[PocketRat]

You can return up to 4 crew members simultaneously with the teleporter. Two will end up in the teleporter room and two will end up in an adjacent room.

It's possible to sneak a missile past a Lv.1 defense drone if the drone is at a far range from where the missile hits (had this happen to me once and I'm still not sure I totally believe it).

[UltraMantis]

It's possible to sneak a missile past a Lv.1 defense drone if the drone is at a far range from where the missile hits (had this happen to me once and I'm still not sure I totally believe it).

Firing two missiles simultaneously can sometimes confuse the drone and allow both missiles to hit.

[Ranarius Webfoot]

You can use Zoltans to free up power from the teleporter or cloak room while it's in cooldown. While it's in its cooldown (same effect as ion weapons) you cannot add or remove reactor power from the system - but when you move a Zoltan into the room, it will still "kick out" 1 reactor power from the room and replace it with the Zoltan's energy. Then, move the Zoltan back out of the room. Ta-da! You got your power back!
This only works if the system was at max power when you used it. To get more than 1 power back, you need more than 1 Zoltan to enter the room at the same time. With 3 Zoltans you can get all the power back out.

[breadsmith]

If you firebomb a room with Rockmen in it, they take damage.

[GoldenShadowGS]

You can use Zoltans to free up power from the teleporter or cloak room while it's in cooldown. While it's in its cooldown (same effect as ion weapons) you cannot add or remove reactor power from the system - but when you move a Zoltan into the room, it will still "kick out" 1 reactor power from the room and replace it with the Zoltan's energy. Then, move the Zoltan back out of the room. Ta-da! You got your power back!
This only works if the system was at max power when you used it. To get more than 1 power back, you need more than 1 Zoltan to enter the room at the same time. With 3 Zoltans you can get all the power back out.

Might already have been mentioned, But you can use this same principle to keep your shields from being disabled. Put two Zoltans in the shield room and ion weapons can never disrupt your last shield bubble.

[UltraMantis]

When repairing systems, it's important to fully repair one level before leaving the room or get someone else to continue repairs, otherwise the repair progress resets. This is sometimes difficult when the room is airless or on fire.

A disabled Sys. Repair Drone counts as someone in the room, so repair progrees will not be lost. If you have a vulnerable system, park a repair drone there.

Granted that this is not often usefull, but there will be times when you die beause you have no hope of repairing oxygen or door controll in one go. Unless you have a non-breathing drone that is also immune to fire in there to prevent progress being lost. And yes you could use the repair drone to actually repair, but what if your DC is also disabled?

This trick works best in Drone Control and Oxygen, for obvious reasons.

[Mataza]

With the crystal lockdown ability, you can stealthily assassinate enemy crew without taking out the medbay first.
Locate a room with only 1 enemy and use the lockdown ability either a second before another enemy enters the room or when your victim is about 50% hp.

This works incredibly well against pilots to reduce evasion to 0% for a small time and against the final boss. During the first phase of the boss it usually is impossible to kill the crew, because you need to disable his 4 man medbay, blast doors and/or the stealth drive(unless you're born with a 4man telepad).

[mattlistener]

Only pay scrap to recruit an 8th crewmember in sectors 7 or 8. You want that last slot open most of the time so that you can benefit from "gain a crew" events. Exception would be if it's going to make the difference in pulling off "kill the crew" combat wins that reward extra scrap 2+ times.

You don't have to get to the exit node before the rebels do. Sometimes there are 2-3 nodes to the right of it that you can explore after the rebels overtake the exit.

If you get to the exit node and fight a rebel, and there is a "safe" node still reachable from the exit node, go explore it. You've cleared the exit node, so when you jump back you'll be left alone. (This doesn't work if you cleared the exit before the rebels got there.)

[UltraMantis]

Only pay scrap to recruit an 8th crewmember in sectors 7 or 8. You want that last slot open most of the time so that you can benefit from "gain a crew" events. Exception would be if it's going to make the difference in pulling off "kill the crew" combat wins that reward extra scrap 2+ times.

You allways get those events. You are then asked to dissmiss one of the 9 crew, since 8 is max. Usually it's the Johnny-come-lately that gets spaced, but not allways.

[Dontmindme]

Against ships with 1 shield or less, training an Ion Blast II on the O2 room can suffocate the ship (giving the same scrap reward as killing the crew). You may have to throw a shot at the Med Bay to disable it temporarily if they have one.

You can get Victory by Asphyxiation achievement without killing the crew. (As above with a Med Bay, O2 gets low enough, gives the Ach, but the Med Bay keeps the crew alive so no actual victory).

You can suffocate out some ships with weapons. Especially with the Red Tail against an early 1-shield enemy. Fire 2 lasers at the O2, 1 to drop the shield, one to kill the Med Bay (Advanced tactic: if you pause quickly on a missed shot and fire a third laser it will still sneak past the shield recharge). Wait for it to be repaired and repeat til it runs out of O2. Important to fire only enough to pop the Med Bay and do the least damage to the Hull to make this work.

For boarding events, you can let the boarders do some damage to your systems. As long as they do not kill the last bar your hull takes no damage. Good for training up a guy for the repair skill.

The same can be done with fires. You can let it burn a few bars off. Send in a repair crew (or remove oxygen). Repair the bars. Wait for the fire to come back from the adjacent room. Tedious, but possible to train repair.

Remember you can take power temporarily out of systems to raise evasion. Final boss, for the drones, or missiles, or other power surges. Before they reach you, you can shut off drone power, O2, teleporters, weapons etc just long enough to maximize evasion for the one time attack, then power things back up after the shots miss.

For boarding, there are often situations where you need to take out a Med Bay, but your weapons are only barely able to get past their shields (Kestral Burst Laser II - 3 shots against a 2 bubble shield). If you send your boarding team before dropping the Med Bay, they can damage a crew, when the injured crew runs to the Med Bay, the pilot will often pull out to take his place giving you an evasion-less attack on the Med Bay.

(At least this seems to be the case to me - not 100% certain) Fighting the rebel fleet at the exit beacon seems to be an easier fight than fighting the fleet at other beacons. It is often worthwhile to at least hit extra beacons adjacent to but past the exit for the extra scrap.

Last but not least, if you tend to buy up to Shields 2 first thing, don't wait for 50 scrap, as soon as you hit 20, buy the half level. That way, if you take 1 damage to the shield room, your shield 1 will still be up. Can be life or death at the start of a game.