How the heck....

[spacecadet13]

..do you win at Normal with either of the Stealth Ships and the Slug Stormwalker?

I've beaten the game on Normal with all the other ships, but these three? Sheesh. The DA-SR12 especially. To win with that it feels like you need a run of luck and an events sequence equivalent to those required to get the Crystal Ships, there is just so much that can go wrong so quickly. One hit in the wrong room (or the right one?), and your whole run is over before it really starts, and sometimes even late on, one hit can gimp you in a way that just doesn't happen with other ships, 'cept perhaps Nesasio.

It is just so damn difficult to accumulate 190 Scrap to buy shields and the energy bars; there's always something else to spend it on first. You have to upgrade your stealth and your engines first or you're doomed anyway, and you're definately gonna be paying for repairs too. Tried swapping out the Glave for other weapons, but they just don't do enough damage to make you safe, and once your stealth runs out you're exposed again and reduced to just hoping they don't hit the engine room, weapons room or helm. And against a beam drone? Save yourself time and tears and just restart, man.

With the Stormwalker and Nesasio, while I haven't won on Normal I've gotten close a few times and had enough 'good' runs that I can believe it's possible, but I'm always fatalistic when starting a run with the Stealth B; I just know I'm going to get smacked, and probably sooner rather than later.

So, if you've won on Normal with this ship (or the other two) any tips/strategies I could use? Or did you just stick at it till you got lucky?

[5thHorseman]

I've done it on video. You only need to watch the first few sectors to see the main strategies with each.

Nesasio
DA-SR 12
Stormwalker

You do need a run of luck with the DA-SR 12, but you by no means need extraordinary luck. I think you can win about 25-50% of the time doing what I did.

[The Captain]

Well, yes, with the stealth ships, perhaps a little more luck is required. I had a lot of frustratingly short runs, especially with the DA-SR 12. The funny thing is, once I won, I had one of my highest scores.

Do you cloak right away? I learned to do that, as long as the enemy doesn't cloak first (then you have to decide whether it's worth cloaking anyway or waiting until they fire). It's sort of a poor man's weapon pre-igniter, in that your weapons charge while you're cloaked, and the enemy's don't. That let me extend my runs, unless I got taken out early by a ninja beam drone. Of course with the Glaive Beam, the DA-SR 12 is still vulnerable for a while when you uncloak. Maxing your cloak helps, but then you have to save a pile of scrap to get shields. The Nesasio is pretty good to go early, weaponswise, you just have to operate that Mini Beam like a scalpel.

Next step after shields is getting better weapons to knock down enemy shields, and some luck is involved there. The RNG may hate you. But sometimes you find a Burst Laser Mk II at a store, or even floating in space. The Nesasio needs an upgrade from Mini Beam, too. The Glaive Beam is awesome, but it's also tough to have as a beginning weapon, because you eventually need shots to take down shields, at since your Weapon Control is already at level 4, it's rather expensive to upgrade for more bars, and you're not getting a whole lot of scrap early.

The Stormwalker is kind of a funny ship: it's a boarding ship with mediocre fighters, and a Healing Burst instead of a Medbay, which you do need to get. The Healing Burst is good if it doesn't miss, as you get fully healed - nice not to have to return, heal up and teleport back; it's bad because enemy evasion can cause it to miss, and it uses missiles. Acutally it sucks that both the Artemis and HB use missiles, so you do need to acquire energy weapons fairly soon, which don't require ammo. On the plus side boarding gets you more scrap than destroying. I like to get a level 2 teleporter to be able to board airless autoships. The Healing Burst can also miss on your own ship, so you've got to remember to get your dodge down to 0 before using it, and you'd like to be able to heal everyone at once - having to use it while still in combat is a tough situation.

Thanks to 5thHorseman and others who have made videos - I've learned some things while watching.

[spacecadet13]

Thanks 5th, good stuff, you've given me some useful tips on those videos - and hope!