[possible spoilers] Unlocking Rock B

[A_N00B]

I have unlocked the 'B' variants of all 8 ships i have unlocked, EXCEPT the Rock B, I've seen the rock b and the ship seems interesting, four rocks, a laser that can pierce shields, and a fire bomb, which seems great if the RNG blesses me with a teleporter, it also seems ideal for unlocking the unidentified cruiser, I realy do want this ship, but there is only one problem,

I HATE the Rock A, i find it to be way too dependent on missiles, and it seems i always end up running out before i can find a non-missile weapon, so my question is;

how can i unlock the Rock B?
What achievements should i go for?
How should i go for these achievements, ie; what strategy should i use?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[The Captain]

Looking back, I found it kinda tough to unlock the Rock B. If you hate the A, well, you'll just have to grit your teeth and keep trying.

Is it warm in here? I didn't actually do this one till after I got the B. Obviously, finding some kind of fire weapon would be best, and you need a teleporter. Lasers also sometimes cause fires. I don't remember getting a fire weapon, and when I did board into a flaming room, the enemy crew fled before I could kill them. /shakes fist Chicken! Come back and fight like a Rock!

Defense drones don't do anything! You have wait to fire two missiles at the same time and hope one hits; repeat until the enemy is destroyed. I think if you knock out their drone control, you still get this.

Ancestry Early on I got frustrated trying to beat the boss, so I went on an unlocking spree, just playing to unlock ships and not worrying about getting to sector 8. If you're trying to get the Crystal ship, this achievement is on the way. But I made a lot of attempts to get this - sometimes the Rock Homeworlds just aren't on your path, so restart.

The second achievement is one to get early, while you still have plenty of missiles. Obviously, the Rock A needs to acquire some energy weapons - or a teleporter, I suppose - to continue to be effective if you get low/run out of missiles. If you don't get lucky, you may be restarting a lot. Prepare yourself in advance for that.

[Pyronic]

Rock A is alright if you get a teleporter I suppose, with missiles to take out the medbay and hopefully start fires but in a less reliable, more interceptable way than the Rock B's firebomb launcher.
Rock B is a fantastic ship and there has never been a single game where I haven't grabbed a teleporter within the first 3 sectors; it's a very probable item and it would be very difficult for the RNG to screw you out of one. And it's the only ship where I've been able to attain a 6k score without farming the Rebels.

Anyway, some comments regarding the achievements needed to get it:

Is it warm in here?: The easiest way to get this would be to reach the final boss, set fire to one of his isolated weapons rooms with a bomb, missile or laser, teleport in, and kill the Rebel manning it. They have nowhere to run to, so your achievement is ensured.
But if you don't want to fight the boss to get it, then there is another way. You need to set fire to a room which provides the only access path to another room on an enemy ship, and not have that other room burning. Such rooms include the medbay-room on a Rebel Rigger or Mantis Fighter, which are the only entrances to the cockpit on both ships. Burn the medbay and pulverize the enemy crew with your Rocks 'til they flee in a nearly-dead state. Then send a Rock into the non-burning but now-isolated adjacent room (the cockpit). Enemies from other parts of the ship will run to protect that room, but have to pass through the flaming medbay where your other Rock (or two Rocks if you've brought more than one boarding pair) is standing. The other Rocks will begin attacking them as they pass through, and have a chance at killing them. If they do make it through, command your Rocks in the cockpit to begin moving somewhere else so that they don't kill the enemy in the non-burning cockpit, and the enemies have to run back through the flaming medbay and get beaten up again.
And finally, a third way. You know those Slug Interceptors whose oxygen room and engine are cut off from the rest of the ship? Find one of those, and set fire to the three central rooms (cockpit, shields, weapons) while keeping the oxygen intact. The slugs or pirates inside will have nowhere to run to. Kill them.
As for setting fires, well, the most obvious way is to firebomb them if you get one, or firebeam them after something takes the shields out. Missile bombardment and laser spam can do it, but also causes hull damage and might just kill the ship. Have level 2 sensors and exploit any fire you can get from any weapon you have and let your Rocks go to work.

Defense drones don't do anything!: Well here at least you start with the equipment you need, but it's still not easy. You need to find a ship with a defense drone - usually these will be Rebel Riggers (most common by far), Engi Scouts/Bombers, and rarely, Zoltan Energy Bombers (which would be impractically hard to fight using only missiles). Auto-Assaults also carry drone systems but I've never seen them use defense drones. Rocks and Slugs appear to lack drone technology and use cloaking instead on their stronger ships, and Mantis ships don't bother with missile defense at all. Anyway, I think the only limitation is that you can only fire missile weapons, and not fire other weapons or deploy attack drones. You can teleport, and I did teleport a pair of Rocks into the drone room of a Rigger when I got this achievement, but I used them to prevent the rebels from fixing their drone system after my missiles managed to get a hit on it, and not to actually destroy the system themselves. You definitely want as many missile launchers as you can, and if you can get a Pegasus launcher that'd be great because it fires two projectiles for the cost of 1 missile. I did it with the default launchers. Obviously, target drone control until the defense drone goes offline, and launch missiles in simultaneous volleys. Watch out for system repair drones, if they have them you can always teleport in and smash them until the enemy runs out of drone parts. One cool thing: if you have only 1 missile left, but have a volley ready to fire, you can pause, target the enemy, and have all your missile launchers fire using only that one last missile before your count goes to 0 and they all deactivate. I know this because I got the achievement on my last missile...
If you're late-game enough sometimes enemies will appear with Mk II defense drones. These guys fire faster but get distracted by lasers and ions, which makes it easier for missiles to get through and deactivate the power-hungry suckers. But I'm not sure whether the achievement needs you to not fire lasers and ions, or to just not do damage with lasers. If it's a damage-based thing then the whole achievement could be obtained by spamming ions to deactivate the drone and then missiling the ship down, so I think it is the other way. In which case, Mk IIs would make the achievement a fair bit harder, and you do want to do it earlier on. Also not sure how attack drones factor into the achievement; if they are allowed then it would be a good idea to keep one (or two) Mk I standard attack drones and use them to constantly distract the enemy Mk II defense drone. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Ancestry: Yeah, this is just luck. Know which sectors you have to go to and which events you need. If you get the special character, keep him alive. Keep your ship alive. Hope. This is one of the few achievements that continues to elude me.

Good luck on your quest to unlock the Shivan!

[A_N00B]

The funny thing is, it seems like "Is it warm in here" and "ancestry" would be much easier to unlock in the Rock B than the Rock A

[aaaaaa50]

One little piece of esoteric info about Defense Drones Don't Do Anything!: You can't get this achievement against the boss' second stage. I tried, and it didn't work. If you find yourself in a Rock ship against the final boss and you don't have that achievement, don't even bother. Technically it's a bug, but I doubt it's gonna get fixed anytime soon.

[5thHorseman]

DDDDA is easiest gotten in an asteroid field against an enemy who can't otherwise hurt you. Take out the shields and then sit back and wait Or, take down the drones and then missile the ship to death.

IIWIH is easy. Get a fire beam and a teleporter and you'll get this achievement in your next battle

Ancestry is the only ship-based achievement I've not gotten. I think I'll never get it, even with the "help" they've given us in the new patch. I just can't be bothered to try.

[966socho]

I actually unlocked Ancestry on Rock A, believe it or not. Of course, it's also the run where I unlocked the last cruiser.

[Metzelmax]

In over 200 hours of FTL I never unlocked the Crystals... ever. In the end I downloaded a hacked save file cause I never got the events in the right order

Once I even got to the zoltan research station AFTER I was in Rock homeworlds!!!!