Rate the unique ship augmentations from best to worst

General discussion about the game.
AzuredreamsXT
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2012 1:31 am

Rate the unique ship augmentations from best to worst

Postby AzuredreamsXT » Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:21 pm

Just curious what the consensus, if any, is on the usefulness of the various unique augmentations.

I'd hazard something like

1 - Med Bot Dispersal
2 - Zoltan Shield
3 - Rock Plating
4 - Slug Repair Gel
5 - Titanium System Casing
6 - Mantis Pheromones
7 - Crystal Vengeance (haven't unlocked Crystal Cruiser yet so I just ranked it seventh)
Agent_L
Posts: 206
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:47 pm

Re: Rate the unique ship augmentations from best to worst

Postby Agent_L » Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:41 pm

#7 Crystal Venegance is useless. Good only for killing enemy ship with your away team still onboard. I sell it for my own safety.
#6 Mantis Pheromones - also kinda crappy, you don't need speed on your own ship + Mantii are fast enough.
#5 Slug Repair Gel - hull breaches are not a problem with Slugs. This augment could be useful on Zoltan and Mantis ships, but not on Slug.
#4 Titanium Casing - well, on shieldless ship it comes in handy. Random thus undependable, sell it if buying shields.
#3 Rock Plating - quite ok, saves you a bit of cash in the long run. Some blue options, as Kaerius pointed out, bring even more scrap. But sell it if you get other slots filled/need money.
#2 Medi Bots - Can be useful from time to time. Plus gives a blue option on infected station. Makes you lazy with
micro. Is nothing compared to lvl3 Medbay. I tend to keep it until third slot is needed.
#1 Zoltan Shield - pure win, hands down.

/edit fixed because i forgot blue options for Plating, thnx
Last edited by Agent_L on Thu Oct 11, 2012 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Icehawk78
Posts: 230
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:55 pm

Re: Rate the unique ship augmentations from best to worst

Postby Icehawk78 » Thu Oct 11, 2012 1:50 pm

Depends on what else you have in your ship.

Medbot dispersal is good if you have a lot of Engi/Zoltan crew members. Less useful with a bunch of Rockman/Mantis members.

Zoltan Shield is quite awesome in almost all situations, which is why the rest of the ship has several other limitations, but as an augment on its own, I'd likely rank this at the top, since its use isn't context-dependant.

Rock Plating is useful for ships which either have low shields or otherwise tend to take a lot of hull damage (such as not having stealth or defense drone), and can typically be thought of as practically giving your ship a bonus 4-5 hull points. Personally, though, I rarely end up taking much hull damage from any ships other than the Stealth ships, which have to wait until sector 5+ to get a Rock Plating (at which point, they've likely already picked up a defense drone and/or shields).

Slug Repair Gel I've not played enough ships with to know how useful it is, but I seem to very rarely have games where a hull breach is a serious enough problem to want to use an augmentation slot just to speed up the repair of it. Might be more useful on a ship with mostly Mantises, just to speed up any sort of repairs, since they're so slow at it normally.

Titanium System Casing is, like the Rock Plating, useful for ships which are likely to get actually hit more often, since it can prevent vital systems from shutting down just because they got hit. I'd likely place it about the same level as Rock Plating, except that the ship that most needs them (Stealth) starts with it.

Mantis Pheremones are awesome for boarding party ships, and could possibly also be useful for ships filled with Rockmen. Without either of those, it would be significantly less useful.

Crystal Vengeance I've not used yet, so I have no idea how useful it is. Seems like it'd be in the same vein as TSC/Rock Plating, since activation of its abilities require your ship to get hit.
Kaerius
Posts: 87
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:02 pm

Re: Rate the unique ship augmentations from best to worst

Postby Kaerius » Thu Oct 11, 2012 4:34 pm

Agent_L wrote:#7 Crystal Venegance is useless. Good only for killing enemy ship with your away team still onboard. I sell it for my own safety.
#6 Mantis Pheromones - also kinda crappy, you don't need speed on your own ship + Mantii are fast enough.
#5 Slug Repair Gel - hull breaches are not a problem with Slugs. This augment could be useful on Zoltan and Mantis ships, but not on Slug.
#4/3 Rock Plating - quite ok, saves you a bit of cash in the long run. But sell it if you get other slots filled/need money.
#3/4 Titanium Casing - well, on shieldless ship it comes in handy. Random thus undependable, sell it if buying shields.
#2 Medi Bots - Can be useful from time to time. Plus gives a blue option on infected station. Makes you lazy with
micro. Is nothing compared to lvl3 Medbay. I tend to keep it until third slot is needed.
#1 Zoltan Shield - pure win, hands down.

This, pretty much. Though I would say Rock plating definitely gets #3 slot over Titanium Casing, due to saving you scrap, and as an added bonus it has a few blue event options tied to it, which will get you better rewards if you run into them (like protecting a damaged ship in asteroid field).
Derakon
Posts: 111
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:05 am

Re: Rate the unique ship augmentations from best to worst

Postby Derakon » Thu Oct 11, 2012 5:01 pm

Kaerius wrote:This, pretty much. Though I would say Rock plating definitely gets #3 slot over Titanium Casing, due to saving you scrap, and as an added bonus it has a few blue event options tied to it, which will get you better rewards if you run into them (like protecting a damaged ship in asteroid field).

Blue options is one thing, but the titanium system casing also saves you scrap, and probably more of it. Think about it -- if your weapons or shield system resists system damage, then that will end the fight earlier / prevent more shots from landing, which directly affects how much hull damage you take. Especially for ships which have expensive (3+ bars) weapons, being able to resist weapons damage is a good thing.

Of course, the AI won't necessarily target your weapons system, and the rock plating covers the entire ship, but when your weapons or shields get knocked offline, it's a major problem.

Still, both augments are pretty crap on the whole. :)
Agent_L
Posts: 206
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:47 pm

Re: Rate the unique ship augmentations from best to worst

Postby Agent_L » Thu Oct 11, 2012 7:19 pm

Kaerius wrote: I would say Rock plating definitely gets #3 slot over Titanium Casing, due to saving you scrap, and as an added bonus it has a few blue event options tied to it, which will get you better rewards if you run into them (like protecting a damaged ship in asteroid field).
You're right, I just forgot about blue options. You can also ram one Mantis with it : )
Fixed.
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