Engi Variant B

[Eji1700]

What am I missing? I cannot for the life of me get this thing started. Most of the other ships i've found so far take a little trick or knack to understanding how they work, and then I can get them off the ground. This one I can barely get 20 scrap in. I've yet to really even make it out of sector 1 barring a series of lucky jumps. Hitting any of the early "difficult" combat ships is a death sentence in this thing.

Issues-
Weapons. This is the big one. Both weapons Fire very very slowly and you're very screwed if one of them misses. Even when things go ok it takes a VERY long time for you to whittle an enemy down. One hit to the weapons is usually game over.

Engines- Lvl 1. It takes forever for you to jump and you cannot dodge squat. This leaves you as complete missile fodder. Combined with your weapons slow attack speed it seems like you're usually going to wind up scattered all over space as you fight losing battles of attrition. Even if you could repair all the damage you'll take, your hull gets absolutely annihilated.

Pros-
Since you've got mostly a drone crew you could easily vent the entire ship in any emergency. Boarding parties and fires shouldn't be an issue.
Lots to sell? My only ok run consisted of me ditching the drones at the very first shop for something better. Unfortunately the only thing there was an MK II(and more sys repair guys) and it only drew out fights even more.

So what am I missing? Or is this a genuinely underpowered ship?

[icepick]

It's difficult, but not underpowered. Need to ion the shields then laser the weapons.

But yeah, you're right about needing more firepower asap. Either some attack drone or additional weapons.

the one extra engine slot most ships get won't make that huge of a difference, btw. It's like 5 more dodge.

[Eji1700]

It's difficult, but not underpowered. Need to ion the shields then laser the weapons.

But yeah, you're right about needing more firepower asap. Either some attack drone or additional weapons.

the one extra engine slot most ships get won't make that huge of a difference, btw. It's like 5 more dodge.

Its also faster chage time on the FTL's it seems. I mean everything about this ship screams long drawn out battles which it just can't win. I get that you've got to ion the shields and kill the weapons, but even trying to do that can usually end in a loss. I've never felt so totally under the control of the RNG. If a shot misses, I probably die. If they hit my weapons, I probably die. Shop has crew and sub systems? I'm probably dead.

Edit-
Zoltan's seem to be an auto wipe. You cannot get through their shields fast enough, and a single decent shot from them absolutely wrecks you.

[icepick]

Well you don't have to like every ship. (shrug) Vortex is one of the few ships I've killed the boss with, though, FYI.

[Eji1700]

Well you don't have to like every ship. (shrug) Vortex is one of the few ships I've killed the boss with, though, FYI.

How do you get it started on normal though? Is it just luck of the draw until you hit a shop or can you consistently get through sector 1 with it?

[icepick]

It was on easy, heh. Dunno if I've tried on normal.

[TaiidanHeavyCruiser]

MAx out blast doors, vent oxygen to everywhere but cockpit, have a mantis and engi in there, use two system repair drones and one antipersonel, or one repair, one board, one defense, then just loadout on weapons and shields.

[Eji1700]

MAx out blast doors, vent oxygen to everywhere but cockpit, have a mantis and engi in there, use two system repair drones and one antipersonel, or one repair, one board, one defense, then just loadout on weapons and shields.

Again any ship can be powerful late game. I'm asking how you survive to the late game. Everyone starts the same in this thing and I don't think early points in doors are going to save me. Had a decent run my most recent game, but that's only because I got an early pike beam. I could use the heavy laser to drop their shields and pike beam my way through sector one. I later wound up with 2 heavy ions, 1 beam drone, and 1 anti ship drone but in the end a few lucky shots disabled my drones and I was basically done for. I feel like mentioning the only reason all this worked is because I completely stripped out my drones and the booster(the unique feature of the ship) to by a better weapon. This seems pretty counter intuitive.

My major point here is that with most of the other ships in the game you can probably get through at least 2 sectors on normal i you never purchased another item. Ship upgrades do more than enough to keep you alive, and even completely dead stock(no scrap spent period) you'd probably do ok until shield upgrades hit. Some are obviously better than others, but the engi B seems to struggle from the get go. I'm asking if that's correct or if there's something I'm missing early on.

My current average battle is-
Wait till the first Ion shot
Target their weapons on shields with the heavy laser.

If all goes well, yay I probably win.

However if the enemy lands a hit on my weapons i'm likely screwed. Likewise if that first Ion shot misses i'm stuck waiting until the recharge(13 seconds) before I can even damage my opponent's measly single shield.

[Vind]

The worst thing you cant assign repair bots and they are really stupid and repair not critical stuff most of the time. So at start you need to be really lucky to survive with 10% evade and "luck" repair crew. Why they didnt make onboard drones like crewmembers but with heal at dronebay? And the priceless thing i ever saw drone repairing door controls while dronebay was slowly burning turning off drone after a while. Basically 1 hit to dronebay which ignites it after any damaged system = you lose with the starting crew. Repair drone have only 25 hitpoints and repair as slow as usual crewmember.Also my lowest ship score 25 belong to this ship, death in first battle as AI saturated ship with missiles and drones repaired non-vital systems instead of shields, weapons and engines.

[Eji1700]

The worst thing you cant assign repair bots and they are really stupid and repair not critical stuff most of the time. So at start you need to be really lucky to survive with 10% evade and "luck" repair crew. Why they didnt make onboard drones like crewmembers but with heal at dronebay? And the priceless thing i ever saw drone repairing door controls while dronebay was slowly burning turning off drone after a while. Basically 1 hit to dronebay which ignites it after any damaged system = you lose with the starting crew. Repair drone have only 25 hitpoints and repair as slow as usual crewmember.

While I admit the drone AI is a huge problem(just died while i watched the dude heal the med bay while my weapons and shields were offline) you do get the small upside that you can vent the ship mostly without worry. Burning should rarely be an issue since you basically should have a vaccum for most of your ship. With ok micro you can close doors to rooms you need your pilot to pass through if there's emergency repairs, but it really doesn't help that you can have two bots doing diddly while your ship burns around you.

And why they start you with an antipersonnel drone I'll never know. I've yet to ever get to the point i'm being boarded without having sold my drone LONG ago. I really think the biggest flaw with this ship right now is that the easiest way to survive on it is to sell almost everything it has at the first store and buy something strong for 3 power. This totally wipes away any uniqueness it has though.