Session Report

[space_commie]

Session Report

Ship: Fed Cruiser Type-B
Goal: To unlock a new ship!

I've been on a bad luck streak with unlocks. I have only the basic ships, Kestral a/b, engi a/b, stealth a, and cruiser a/b.
I just unlocked the cruiser-b and this my first game with it, we'll see if my streak of seeing no homeworlds but engi homeworlds on a run continues.

Sector 1:
Crew
Human - pilot
Zoltan - shields
Slug - engines

The 1st sector starts out in a fairly routine fashion. It has a nice run of 4 nebula planets that I hit to slow down the fleet. I get offered at least 3 different trades the most "exciting" being 2 missles for 8 fuel (which I take). I run into quite a few unshielded AI ships for easy pickings. I skip an early store to farm some extra beacons.


Sector 2: rock controlled sector instead of uncharted nebula
Crew
Human - pilot
Zoltan - shields
Slug - engines

Upgrades
Shields - 2 bubbles

This sector starts to establish a trend of no freebies, no crew and no weapons. I hit an early store to repair, I am offered teleporter, drone control or some unwanted augments ftl jammer and the like. I pick up teleportor earlier than normal, I am paranoid that I will miss out on a possible mantis ship unlock. As expected in the early sectors fights are going well, I try to conserve missles using dual laser to suppress their weapons and letting the artillery beam finish them off.

Sector 3: rebel controlled sector instead of civilian sector (choosing the route that will give me 2 sector choices).
Crew
Human - pilot
Zoltan - shields
Slug - engines

Upgrades
Shields - 2 bubbles
Medbay - 2
Teleporter - 1

About halfway through this sector I get into an exciting fight next to a star/solar flare beacon. I am boarded by 4 humans (no ship). My slug and human put on the boxing gloves and start duking it out as my ship is catching on fire all over the place. I still haven't been able to upgrade weaponry yet, and due to my slow kill rate my ship is around 40% hull before the melee combat at the sun. During the fight I am having rooms burn down, and the boarders are able to destroy some rooms when I have to run and heal. I managed to get the boarders killed and my primary systems repaired. I elect to jump with fires burning in several rooms before another flare occurs. I jump straight into an asteroid field with an AI ship inside. I manage to take it down, stabilize my ship and heal my crew with about 4 hull points remaining. I am lucky to see a store 1 jump away. I repair, but am offered drone control and the same bad augments to buy again. I manage to gather about 90 scrap and end up jumping to a store that will force me to fight my way out of the exit beacon due to the advancing fleet. Finally some weapons! Hull smasher laser 1 or pegasus missles BUT, I choose greed over common sense and take a scrap recovery arm instead (my favorite augment but probably a bad choice here).


Sector 4: Mantis controlled sector instead of rock controlled sector
Crew
Human - pilot (green)
Zoltan - shields
Slug - engines (green)

Upgrades
Shields - 2 bubbles
Engines - 4
Medbay - 2
Teleporter - 1
Doors - 2

Augments
Scrap Recovery Arm

I really start to feel the effects of poor weapons and small crew now. 2 ships escape my grasp as my leto missle launcher is my only reliable source of damage against shield 2 vessels and I do not have enough to spam them. I am boarded several times and I have to shuffle my zoltan to piloting while letting the slug and human fight off attackers. Then I jump into a plasma storm... I get the search event and find a very welcome crew member even if he is human. I also pick up my 1st freebie (defense drone 1) and then find a store which is of course offering drone control. I get the artillery mastery aheivement for going 5 sectors without a weapons upgrade... go me!


Sector 5: Engi homeworlds - only choice... the curse continues
Crew
Human - pilot (gold)
Zoltan - shields (green)
Slug - engines (gold) also fist (green)
Human2 - weapons

Upgrades
Shields - 2 bubbles
Engines - 4
Medbay - 2
Teleporter - 1
Doors - 2
Sensors - 2
Drones - 2

Augments
Scrap Recovery Arm

I resist the urge to reroll, there are still 2 sectors to unlock a new ship. There is store within 1 jump of the start, I have scrap in the bank annnnnd weapons I buy them both, an ion bomb and a heavy ion. I upgrade my weapons array until I can power my dual laser, ion bomb and heavy ion (i still have my leto launcher in case i need to do "huge" damage lolz).

and then I had to go to work... where it is slow so I wrote this report.

Right now a couple of mantis crew members would go a long way... I am also needing another shield bubble and a finisher weapon (though I will upgrade the arty beam if nothing better presents itself).

Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion... at least if its another slow night.

[space_commie]

Report Part 2.

Picking up early in sector 5.
I was able to finish up the game this morning. The freebies finally started to come my way as I actually manage to board a ship and claim a burst laser 3, and then later I obtain a burst laser 1 in an event. Crew also came my way as I have an engi join my crew and purchase another. I also purchase a repair arm and a shield recharge augment. Near the end of the sector I fought a large mantis ship. I managed to get distracted while my slug and new human were repelling boarders. They died a gruesome death. Oh well I never claimed I could play a perfect game... but then I lost my only remaining human in a similar manner on the next jump. Things aren't looking good.


Sector 6 - Mantis Controlled Sector
Crew
Engi - pilot
Engi2 - engines
Zoltan - shields (gold level)

Upgrades
Shield - 2 bubble
Engine - 4
Medbay - 2
Weapons -5
Doors - 2
Sensors - 2
Drones - 2

Augments
Scrap Recovery Arm
Repair Arm
Shield Recharger

Weapons Array
Ion bomb
burst laser 1
dual laser

I had a chance to turn things around into an epic run the last sector and blew it by letting those crew die. I head into the Mantis sector predicting death by boarding party. Fortunately the 1st time I get boarded they only send 1 mantis. My zoltan has to heal 4 or 5 times before killing him. I hit an early store and buy an anti personel drone to shore up my melee defense. It comes in handy for a few fights, but was pretty underwhelming overall. A store later in the sector offers 2 mantis and a rock, I have 80ish scrap and consider selling an augment to buy 2 mantis, but once again greed for shiny augments takes precedence and I settle for buying the rock man. I find myself always short on scrap and always put off upgrading my weapons array. I am not a big fan of the burst laser-3, and I keeping hoping to find a nice hull laser or something. I finally resign myself to equipping the BL-3, since getting through rank 4 shields is now necessary. I am able to power it, the dual laser and the ion bomb which is respectable. The defense-1 drone is awesome with this ship since it needs a way to keep missles off its hull.


Sector 7 - Pirate Controlled Sector over I forget my other option sector (BOOOO no unlocks this game)
Crew
Engi - pilot (gold)
Engi2 - engines (gold)
Zoltan - shields (gold)
Rock - weapons

Upgrades
Shield - 3 bubble
Engine - 5
Weapons - 6
Medbay - 2
Doors - 2
Sensors - 2
Drones - 2

Augments
Scrap Recovery Arm
Repair Arm
Shield Recharger

Weapons Array
Ion bomb
burst laser-3
dual laser
burst laset-1

I have a pretty uneventful run through this sector. I end up powering bl-1, bl-3 and dl on my array. My standard tatic is to wait for the bl-3 to power up and then firing a 9 shot laser strike to start most fights. My kills still feel like they are coming too slow. Somewhere in this sector I am gifted with a mantis off a slaver vessel. woo hoo too bad he's 5 sectors too late.

Sector 8 - da boss
Crew
Engi - pilot (gold)
Engi2 - engines (gold)
Zoltan - shields (gold)
Rock - weapons (green)
Mantis

Upgrades
Shield - 3 bubble
Engine - 5
Weapons - 7
Artillery Beam - 3
Medbay - 2
Doors - 2
Sensors - 2
Piloting - 2
Drones - 2

Augments
Scrap Recovery Arm
Repair Arm
Shield Recharger

Weapons Array
Ion bomb
burst laser-3
dual laser
burst laset-1

I manage to farm a kill before fighting the boss and have about 120 scrap to spend before the last jump. I upgrade artillery beam to 3 power, max my reactor and upgrade piloting to 2. I wish I had added the final point to weapons instead. I ended up powering down BL-1 to use the ion bomb. Getting the final shield bubble would have also been sweet. Overall I can't complain though, I should have the tools needed for a win. At no time during this run has my ship felt overpowered. I've fought hard to get here and now its time for some flagship beatdown. The first phase goes well, I pull my rock man off weapons and use him and the mantis to take out the missle launcher. I spend a lot of weapons resources keeping his shields suppressed and let my arty beam do most of the work. I come into phase 2 with only a few hull damage. As expected the drone waves are problematic. My engines engi is engaged on repairs full time while my boarding party attacks their weapons. I love defense drone 1 in this fight as it kills every boarding drone they send my way. I come out of the fight with my hull well into the red. I rush to a repair station and intercept the boss as he reaches the base. I am at about 80% hull, I feel like I have a good shot. I left too many dudes alive in his ship and he sends 3 boarders my way... I am waiting to get through his zoltan shield so I send my combat team in to repel boarders... they get tangled in a nasty 3 v 2 fight. I havent taken out the 3xmissle launcher and it is putting on the hurt. I take some hits from the super weapon and fires are everywhere. My weapons get trashed, arty beam damaged, my last original crew member zoltan is somehow keeping shields barely online. I finally get my mantis healed enough to make it to the teleporter... and he gets to watch through the port hole of the flagship as my cruiser explodes in flames... done in by a coup de grace from the super weapon. I like to think that he clawed his way into the ship and killed the last human on board.


So...
Mission result: Complete failure. No ship unlocks and the boss wins. Despite the slow start it was completely winnable. *sigh* so depressing. Guess I'll work on unlocking the steath-b next... not looking forward to it as I hate that ship.