I won!

[jimmybupt]

Finally finished normal difficulty, with a Red Tail. Wanted to play a laser bombard build but haven't seen a single burst weapon. The final build is Pegsus+Ion Bomb+Halberd Beam with maximum shield, engine, teleport and cloak. Fired the last missile in boss phase 2.

[zeek]

Congrats. You've made it over a big hurdle. Now try to win with other ships and start setting aim on the achievements. Getting them in normal is totally the way to go.

[Canadarm]

Nice! I'm in the middle of a kestrel run w/ 3 BL2 and a heavy ion. I was hoping for an ion bomb, but alas.

Specs (If anyone cares):
Max shields
6/8 Engines
3/3 o2 (powered at one bar)
8/8 weapons
2/3 medbay (not powered)
3/3 cloak

1/3 Auto pilot
2/3 Sensors
3/3 Doors

25/25 Reactor + 1 Zoltan

Crew:
Captain: Human
Shield: Zoltan
Engines: Human
Weapons Human
Repair/Combat team: 3 Engi, 1 Human

[UltraMantis]

Niceone jimmybupt! Pegasus + Ion Bomb sounds like a dream shieldcracker for the Halberd Beam. Hungry for missiles, but worth it.

You'll rarely find the weapons you would like to have, so practise putting anything you find to good use. Unless the ship starts with a mighty weapon, usually you have to play a scavenger.

[zeek]

You'll rarely find the weapons you would like to have, so practise putting anything you find to good use. Unless the ship starts with a mighty weapon, usually you have to play a scavenger.

I think it's a stroke of genius too. By limiting the weapons you'll find along the way it forces each run to be fairly unique. You can't just get used to one strategy and stick to it because you don't know if you'll find what you need.

[NineZeroZeroOne]

You'll rarely find the weapons you would like to have, so practise putting anything you find to good use. Unless the ship starts with a mighty weapon, usually you have to play a scavenger.

I think it's a stroke of genius too. By limiting the weapons you'll find along the way it forces each run to be fairly unique. You can't just get used to one strategy and stick to it because you don't know if you'll find what you need.

There's a lot of smart ideas here. The ease at which your crew can die or your ship can be destroyed makes each run that much more important. Weapon variance is big, high costs make actually acquiring the stuff feel rewarding. It keeps a lot of replay value by making it difficult to finish.
I still have yet to beat the game, though I haven't exactly logged a bunch of time on it.

[UltraMantis]

I think i mentioned this often, but the biggest boost of replayability is that there is no optimal strategy (build queue/upgrade path/must-have weapon/AI spam... you know, things that hurt many other games) because the ways you can get killed are too numerous to build an effective counter until very late in the game. The most you can do is try to keep some of your bases covered and keep hope alive.

With each ship having vulnerabilities of a different kind it makes the game worth playing over and over again. Game experience makes some challenges less threatening or almost trivial but usually you will be exposed in every playthrough and never completely safe. I also really like how various events can offer equal amounts of danger and reward. Often enought i'm willing or even forced to gamble.