How to beat the Flagship and take less than 10 hull damage

[Jimera0]

So, my first time beating the Rebel Flagship I do it while taking less than 10 hull damage. How you may ask? By being the luckiest son of a gun ever to cruise the galaxy, that's how. This is the story of how everything I needed just fell into my lap to make one of the easiest FTL runs you'll ever hear about.

The run in my Kestral started out good and just got better as time went on. Early on I find an ion blaster and a second Burst Laser II. A few weapon system upgrades and I'm shredding opponents so quickly I almost never take any damage. Then, just when that Ion Blaster is starting to do very little to my opponents I come across an Ion Blaster II. Took a few more weapon upgrades, but scrap was easy to come by so it was no issue. Soon I added an Anti-Ship II drone to my arsenal as well as a drone retrieval arm. As you can see, I was having the best luck one could hope for. I was getting everything just when I needed it. I needed an extra crew member to man the shields? Oh, well here's a mantis pod with a new crew member in it for you! Having some close calls with boarders? Oh, well that engi ship event with the fugitive mantis pops up and I actually get to keep the mantis! I never got the bad end of an event that could lose me a crew member either, meaning I kept all my crew the whole run through.

Then just as the coup de grace, I come across a cloaking system in Sector Six, giving me just enough time to install and upgrade it all the way to max before the rebel ship. And what would I find soon after buying the Cloaking System? A Stealth Weapons augmentation. Truly, this run was destined to succeed.

By the time I reached the rebel flagship I was armed to the teeth and nearly impossible to hit. I could cloak longer than the flagship could and my Ion Blaster II and Anti-Ship II were able to keep the Flagships shields low enough for my Burst Laser IIs to reliably hit them. Soon both the missile launcher and laser rooms on the flagship were down along with the crew members manning them, which made the next round a breeze. By the time I got to the third stage the Flagship was barely crewed. Cloaking allowed me to dodge the worst of the power surge barrage and before I knew it the Flagship was breaking up and the end credits were playing. I had reached the flagship before and got shredded, so I was stunned to realize I had managed to take it out with only around 9 damage to my hull. Not only had I defeated the Flagship, but I completely dominated it. And without any missiles or a crew teleporter to boot!

And that folks, is what happens when the RNG Gods decide to make you their avatar of destruction.

[hybridfive]

Congratulations on the win!

For an additional challenge, figure out how to beat the Flagship and take less than 3 hull damage. That's the high-end victory condition. My hint is that it requires all additional subsystems. So your (new) Cruiser won't get there.

[5thHorseman]

10 damage? 3 damage? Try 0 damage. Takes a rare mix of luck and... well more luck to get all the stuff you need for that other luck to be possible, but it's doable.

[jep]

There have to be some people getting some amazing luck. Somebody has to balance out MY runs...

[LeadHead]

I find it funny how people can get massive full stacked crews, whereas I can't even find 2 mantises in the same run.

[5thHorseman]

I was going to post this when I did it but I forgot.

Here is the best I've ever done against the boss (and recorded). Each link is to the same video but at different times, so you just have to click the one where you want to start watching:
Starting the fight with the final boss.
Destroying Phase 2, heading in to phase 3
The finish.

If you watch to the end, you'll see the full stats of the ship and the run.

[Ora_unit_SR388]

Bonus challenge: Beat the flagship loosing 3 hull with the vortex.

[RAD-82]

Bonus challenge: Beat the flagship loosing 3 hull with the vortex.

I guess I failed this challenge when I played the Vortex, because I lost less than 3 hull. I did get lucky at some point and dodged 3 missiles while uncloaked.

Edit:

{something something}

Well done! It seems like I'm not the one who enjoys having fire weapon on flagship fight. I think fire weapons in general are underated as they can easily cause havoc in enemies ship, damaging system, killing crew and letting you have even more fun!

Earlier this week, I did my first Shivan run. I still had my firebomb when I reached the flagship. I was surprised at how effective it was when I used it on the medbay. Unfortunately, I was unaware of how effective it was, and ended up sending one of my extra Rock crew to their death to try and keep the fire going. He was an unnecessary loss since I could've just used more bombs instead. As for this topic of hull damage, I don't remember how I did. I know I did get hit.

Today, I did my first DA-SR 12 run. When I got to the last sector, I had my original Glaive beam, a Burst I, and a small bomb. I jumped right to the store, and because of my Shivan experience, I immediately bought a firebomb when I saw it. Pairing that with my small bomb made killing the flagship crew easy without the use of boarders; I did have a Rock and Mantis available for boarding. As for this topic of hull damage, I only took hits during the second phase during a drone surge. I'm pretty sure it was less than 10, but more than what the Shivan took.