Which Systems on which Ships?

[Jacke]

So in my Easy Stealth B game, I'm in Sector 5, Rebel Controlled, and things are now fairly easy. Have 2 Shields, level 5 Engines, level 3 Cloak, level 2 Hacking, Medbay, and Oxygen, and level 3 Sensors and Doors. Weapons are the Glaive Beam, Small Bomb, and when I have more Weapons levels and Reactor, a Laser Charger II.

And I can't believe it too me until this run and almost the end of Sector 4 before I figured out I should guard the Glaive Beam charging by unlocking the 5th level of Weapons, even before I had a weapon or power for it. Of course, now I have the Small Bomb, Weapons room hits are hurting more again.

Pirates and Rebel ships in Sector 5 so far aren't as tough as earlier Rock, Mantis, and especially Slug ships in the last 2 Sectors. And now I have Hacking, ships with Drone Control tend to put out a Defense I Drone and an Anti-Drone, which burned a lot of my Hacking Drones until I learned it was a fairly solid defense.

Which lead to my last two opponents, a Pirate and now a Rebel. Pirate launched a Hacking Drone--straight at my Medbay. Too bad with just a Heavy Laser, a Beam, and a Beam Drone, they couldn't crack my 2 Shields. I was tempted and I gave in: had all 4 of my crew, 2 Humans and 2 Zoltan, grind out gold ratings in Piloting, Engines, Weapons, and Shields. Then 2 jumps later and there's a Rebel--who had someone desert to my ship. Took a chance and he's now the 3rd Human on my crew, coming with green ratings in Piloting and Weapons. The Rebel had the standard Defense I and Anti-Drone to guard against my hacking. Just finishing off grinding my new crew up to quad-gold ratings. And he shot down all their drones too.

FTL Basic Edition had the asteroid scam to grind up Piloting and Engines fixed. Suspect this should be dealt with too.

So I think Easy at Sector 5 is too easy for me. Too bad too many ships are so frustrating in their early game and you depend on luck to get a good game going. And that gets worse as you go to Normal and Hard difficulty.

Well, spoke too soon. Sector 6, Rock Homeworlds, is mighty tougher, even with level 3 Shields. Need better weapons. Havng the Pre-Igniter with the Glaive Beam and Small Bomb helps, but they have level 3 Shields too.

Just filled out my full 8 spots in the crew with a 4th Human, 3rd Zoltan, and a Slug. Bought Mind Control, the last System. Again, more of a disruption so far as I'm mostly using vacuum to deal with boarders. Need to get more Scrap to fill out my upgrades.

Cloaking > Hacking > Mind Control > Boarding > Drones.

In Sector 4, Slug Controlled Nebula, it was a good thing I had Hacking (as well as level 2 Medbay and Oxygen), 'cause those Slugs are sneaky. As for combat, assuming it's not a ship with Defensive Drones, Hacking works better against some Systems than others; Weapons and Shields appear to be good targets.