Subset Games Forum

I think perhaps I got a little lucky the first couple of times I beat the boss - not too lucky, though. I picked up a few good weapons. I didn't buy a teleporter or stealth in any of my early wins... I just focused on burst/beam weapons. I didn't even have drone control the first couple of times I won, either, I just focused firepower on missiles first, then shields. The Halberd beam can hit both.

Personally, I think the best all purpose weapon loadout is 2*burst II, Halberd, Ion bomb. That's if you can find it, obviously. Burst II lasers are the best weapons in the game bar none, IMO, since they're always useful. I never use high power (burst III, glaive beam) weapons, because they take forever to charge, and are less efficient. They can be ok with a pre-igniter, but 2*burst II will always be better than a burst III, and they take the same power.

Also... to win, you've got to use basic weapon strategy, and not use autofire - ie. wait for all your weapons to charge, then use your Ions then bursts then beams. Ions are pretty useless unless you know what you're doing with them - a single basic ion cannon is essentially useless - all it is is a slow firing burst laser most of the time. 2 can be used effectively.

I recently won with a burst laser I, basic laser, fire bomb, ion bomb. That run I couldn't find any weapons anywhere - I did find some beam weapons, but they were useless since I couldn't get any shields down reliably. I managed to take out the main crew of the boss ship only after lots of fires, lots of boarding, and the death of my 4 mantis boarders (I was in the red tail, so 2 boarders at a time). Once the main part of the ship was empty, I could just teleport anyone over to take down the shields.

I managed to beat the boss on my ninth game, first attempt, normal mode, Kestrel, without any guides, tips or anything like that. Suffice to say, I was over the moon that night.

I needed about 1 or 2 runs to beat the scrap out of
and and frist run with the vortex

I was extremely lucky...with no cloaking, teleporter, or pre-igniter I beat the boss on my first try with the Kestrel, first game ever. Four shields, 6 or 7 engines (can't remember), 2 burst laser mk II, and an Ion Blast Mk. II. I entered the second and last stages with less than 50% hull...luck

Are you spending a lot of scrap on missiles? I made that mistake when I was new. I maybe buy 5 in a game if I am unlucky, usually I don't have to buy any. You don't even need to use them usually until sector 3 unless the enemy ship has a perfect set up. 2 points of damage is still cheaper than 1 missile. Other than that, most of the game is just trial and error and luck. But if you are playing on Easy then this shouldn't really be a difference maker, it would just effectively mean you were playing on Normal.

My biggest failures still come from the random events that take a crew members. You have to be very cautious of those sometimes (I lost my Zoltan Lvl 2 Gunner in sector 8 being greedy because I had a full crew, but he was by far the most important and it essentially cost me the game.

Here is the most important tip. Take out their weapons systems. Honestly, even if you are doing 1 point of damage to their weapons systems per turn because their shield system is not being damaged, if it is enough to keep them from causing you damage, that is the way to go. The only thing you have to watch out for is them jumping, so if they start charging hit them there once and it should delay long enough for you to kill them. Taking out shields is great, but if you have 1 laser that shoots 3 shots, and they have 1 shield, there is no reason to ever use a missile.

You are going to enjoy winning quite a bit.

(and to answer the original question, I'd say it took me about 15-20 games to win. I'd say it took me 10 on easy to get to the boss, then 5-10 on normal to win. Maybe a few more that I don't remember because they were so short.)

dipkin wrote:I was extremely lucky...with no cloaking, teleporter, or pre-igniter I beat the boss on my first try with the Kestrel, first game ever. Four shields, 6 or 7 engines (can't remember), 2 burst laser mk II, and an Ion Blast Mk. II. I entered the second and last stages with less than 50% hull...luck

That should do it. Do you remember if you had picked up Drones?

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Lifeforcer wrote:

dipkin wrote:I was extremely lucky...with no cloaking, teleporter, or pre-igniter I beat the boss on my first try with the Kestrel, first game ever. Four shields, 6 or 7 engines (can't remember), 2 burst laser mk II, and an Ion Blast Mk. II. I entered the second and last stages with less than 50% hull...luck

That should do it. Do you remember if you had picked up Drones?

I didn't have drones. I actually beat it again yesterday with the Federation Cruiser type B, with 2 burst laser Mk. II and a dual laser, no cloaking, no pre-igniter, no drones

PROOF!

First win came to me after, like, 54 hours of playing. I've got Torus and some drones and been pretty happy. Not so long ago, after my time in FTL went beyond 60+ hours, I made another win with the Osprey. Kept rebel flagship busy with ion blast mkII and original burst laser mkII. Artillery beam did the rest.