Weapon Pre-igniter augmentation should be debuffed?

[mqstout]

Letting enemies spawn with pre-igniters, however, could potentially create a situation where the player can't possibly overcome an encounter. If the enemy ship has a pre-igniter and weaponry identified in this thread as pairing well with the augmentation, then the player is screwed. For example, if a Sector 7 ship has a MKIII burst laser and a glaive beam pre-ignited, there's really nothing you can do to avoid being cut in half in the blink of an eye.

It could have a fairly high "build value", which has good chances of reducing the other parts of the ship. Less WPI than other augments though; I know I've seen enemies have rock plating occasionally, and certainly zoltan shields -- but I'm not sure about any others ever coming up.

[orange ninja 98]

often when you find the weapon pre-igniter you don't have enough scrap to buy other things like better shields or weapons, so no, i dont think it should be debuffed, and in fact i think there should be a better version which makes your weapons charge faster (yes i already know about the auto-reloader)

[Fangz]

Yes. I'm saying that boarding an AI ship is always the same. All dangers are predicable and calculable with 100% accuracy. Taking all those factors under consideration is easy. Your away team will rip through enemy weapons system and disable it without any distractions.

Let me put this way: All in all, AI ships are easier to board. However, the easiest ship to board is not an AI, it is a 2 zoltan crew, with no zoltan shield and no med bay (I don't recall having seen an enemy ship with just 1 crew).

On the other hand, boarding is every time a bit different. You can't say how many crew the enemy have or what race they are, because Mantis B starts without sensors. You have only 2 Mantii, and they may have 3.

This would only apply to the very beginning of the game (sector 1 - mid sector 2). As I said in my 1st post in this thread, the Mantis B has a really rough start. However, the enemy crew you'll find at this stage of the game is usually human or worse, rarely mantis (very unlikely 3 mantis). In addition to this you may bring your default crew to golden rank at the very first encounter with a ship that happens to have a med bay by just teleporting them back to your ship, healing, and then back to enemy ship until they get to golden rank.
Once you get past the early stage of the game you already have the scrap to buy sensors, crew, weapons (i.e, whatever bomb you may find to take down systems) and upgrades.

From this point on there will be only 2 types of boarding with a 4-pad teleporter ship:

1) take down med bay, board, watch the slaughter (once and a while you may have to teleport one of your guys back).

2) throw your people into the enemy ship and watch the slaughter (enemy has no med bay). You may take down the door system/weapon system beforehand for better results.

Only exception to 1) and 2) is the flagship.

Your soldiers will be occupied in combat and enemy guns will keep firing all the time

Mantis B starts with 2 shield bubbles and Def. Drone I. You will take damage for sure, but those will help a lot in keeping the damage you take to a minimum.

Management when facing passive enemy like lack of oxygen is always easier than when facing one actively chasing you around enemy deck.

Agreed. But this will rarely happen once you get a good, battle hardened crew.

[Agent_L]

In addition to this you may bring your default crew to golden rank at the very first encounter with a ship that happens to have a med bay by just teleporting them back to your ship, healing, and then back to enemy ship until they get to golden rank.

Interesting - how does this work? I thought combat xp is given only when killing someone or destroying a bar of enemy system.

[OmegaJasam]

I thought so as well. Though you can always let them repair the systems, re-break them, and thus get a lot of exp per ship. If I recall right combat doens't need much to level up.

[UglyMug]

The way I see it, this game has plenty of "screw you" moments, but they're all "fair", more or less. No challenge in FTL is completely insurmountable.

Letting enemies spawn with pre-igniters, however, could potentially create a situation where the player can't possibly overcome an encounter. If the enemy ship has a pre-igniter and weaponry identified in this thread as pairing well with the augmentation, then the player is screwed. For example, if a Sector 7 ship has a MKIII burst laser and a glaive beam pre-ignited, there's really nothing you can do to avoid being cut in half in the blink of an eye.

EDIT: Actually, the computer would mis-use the above combo. Maybe two MKIII bursts, or a handful of breach missiles. You get my point.

Cloak. I also personally think it'd be cool if certain event strings would enable encounters where either you or your opponent start with fully charged weapons. Or hell, for maximum lols, BOTH.

[FreedomFighter]

I thought so as well. Though you can always let them repair the systems, re-break them, and thus get a lot of exp per ship. If I recall right combat doens't need much to level up.

or you can use Bomb to break your own stuff and let you guy kept repair it. only if you have stockpile of missile and not plan to use them.

[Fangz]

In addition to this you may bring your default crew to golden rank at the very first encounter with a ship that happens to have a med bay by just teleporting them back to your ship, healing, and then back to enemy ship until they get to golden rank.

Interesting - how does this work? I thought combat xp is given only when killing someone or destroying a bar of enemy system.

You're right about combat xp as far as I know. To level up your crew combat skills right away with any ship that starts with a teleporter you need to find an enemy ship whose weapons cannot hurt you (easy to find early on in the game, especially once you had your shield upgraded to 2 bubbles - and Mantis B already starts with 2 bubbles + def. drone) and that has a med bay and 2 crew total. Teleport to any room in the enemy ship (the farther the room is from the med bay the better - Also, door/sensors are the best ones because they usually only have 1 bar at this point). Beat the enemy up until they go heal. Bash whatever system happens to be in this room while they're busy healing. After you're done, go back and heal up. Once they repair the system, teleport again and undo their job. If they don't, just go for another one. Rinse and repeat. Pretty much like you would have done to an auto-scout, except that you don't need rockmen/teleporter lv2 for this one. One or two encounters with a ship like this will be enough to get your boarding team to golden rank.