Has anyone won on normal or better with Rock A since AE?

[5thHorseman]

I have a question though, do you often skip fights or go to civilian sectors just to get by? I try to do every fight I can.

In Normal mode I tend to favor red sectors and rarely run. In Hard mode I tend to favor green sectors (Unless I feel strong, but we're in Hard Mode, I never feel strong ) and run when it looks like I'll take a heavy beating.

Note: I'd run in Normal mode too if it looked like I'd take a heavy beating, but that is just a lot less likely in Normal mode.

(All in AE. I won't play anything but AE since it came out)

[itg]

I won on hard with it, after two losses. It's definitely weaker in AE, since the most reliable plan was to buy a teleporter and go boarding, and that doesn't work quite as well anymore (although it does still work), and half the time the hull missile doesn't have any empty rooms to hit. It also doesn't perform well in hard mode, since enemy evasion is higher and there is an annoyingly high number of 11-hull ships, which force you to use missiles inefficiently (not sure if that's a hard mode thing or an AE thing, but I suspect the former).

[slattikarma]

My top 4 high scores with victory on Normal are all with ROCK A (in AE). Maybe I'm just weird, but I find it one of the more easier ships to play.

I play the first couple sectors with the missiles, accepting any surrenders that come to keep my missile stocks high. After getting Level 2 shields, I convert the ship into a boarding ship and then try and get an alternative weapon for dealing with auto-scouts.

Then I find you are set. You have a boarding capable crew and a missile weapon which can take out any medbay/clonebay room which may hinder your boarding party. If you can get a fire bomb weapon, then that combined with your rock boarding party is almost unstoppable.

I then aim for Defence drones or cloaking for some missile defence, and after that... I just tear through the final few sectors.

[shadowcrust]

While in FTL Classic boarding was the best way to win and achieve a decent score with all and any ships, this has very much changed for AE, at least on Hard. In AE Hard, boarding doesn't give significantly more scrap (often, you just get lots of fuel and a meagre scrap reward), and is risky, as enemy ships frequently have reinforced doors and jump away when scared and almost always carry at least one missile launcher, so you either need to complement your boarding party with strong weapons to deactivate missiles, cloak missiles - not really possible for extended fights with most missile launchers, evade missiles or have a Defense Drone installed to avoid substantial damage or the loss of your boarders because the enemy missile happened to find your teleporter. Losing your boarding party is extremely bad, as crew is very hard to come by.

Then, the teleporter occupies one of the eight possible installed system places, and since pretty much all other systems are more valuable for ensuring survival, it's better not to buy a teleporter on a ship not coming with a teleporter. Incidentally, teleporters are more expensive now as well.

I still wanted to get a teleporter for my Bulwark run, to get the fire boarding achievement and unlock the Shivan. And here comes the next reason why boarding is no longer a viable option for ships not having a teleporter preinstalled: teleporters are not found in shops very often anymore. Run in case found the first teleporter for display in sector 5.

In the end, I got cloaking and hacking instead of a teleporter, and still managed to scrape by, but didn't unlock the Shivan.

So if you don't find many non-depletive weapons, you can also go for hacking the shields to let your few laser or beam weapons through. If you don't find *any* non-missile weapons before running out of missiles, getting a teleporter may still be the best option. If you don't get any of these and run out of missiles because they are miss-iles, then you are just having a very bad run and can hope for better luck next time

[Bloody_Lemon]

I tried multiple times on Hard and finally won with my normal "the more weapons the better combo". This ship is an abomination, only rivaled by Stealth B which recently wrecked my statistics so bad before I just gave up :/

The worst rage-inducing moment is Hard improved engines + shield overcharger, especially in the first sector. If you get particularly unlucky, you just have to burn ~10 of rockets in 1 fight which is absurd.

As for Stealth B - you hit a ship with a beam weapon before you have level 3 cloak and it consistently fires in the cloak/weapon rooms, 50% of the time from left to the right, 50% of the time from right to the left. I'm not exaggerating, it happens practically 90% of the beam shots thanks to supposedly better targeting on Hard.

[itg]

The trick with Stealth B is to upgrade cloaking to level 3 with your first 50 scrap, then cloak first thing every fight, unless there are combat drones. You're guaranteed to fire first against basically every weapon in the first couple sectors.

[Bloody_Lemon]

The trick with Stealth B is to upgrade cloaking to level 3 with your first 50 scrap, then cloak first thing every fight, unless there are combat drones. You're guaranteed to fire first against basically every weapon in the first couple sectors.

Trust me, I know.
It just goes like:
1) Hmm, no-ship beacons according to Long-Range Scanners, I'll check these first to see if I can get scrap without a fight - "you are not sure what the purpose of this beacon is".

2) Ok, I got level 3 cloak, now I can fire first - wait, beam drones. Let's see if I can make it hit a useless system first to prolong cloak protection - yes, first hid med-bay, next one is going for the weapons, better cloak. Decloak - first hit on weapons.

3) Or rather Mantis-ship pirate with the U-layout (new in AE)/Rebel ship with crapload of hull and all 1x2 rooms (likewise new in AE) where weapons and shields are on different parts of the ship. I can hit the shields first to do more damage and try to kill it with 1 shot - now, only 3 rooms per beam and it has more than 8 hull. And it has BL2 and mini-beam which means hitting it in the weapons won't disable minibeam.

4) My personal favourite. Shieldless 7-hull auto-scout with minibeam and basic laser? Sounds simple enough for level 3 cloak? Wrong, because it also has cloak.

Maybe just a streak of bad luck, but I gave up :/

I am not even listing Artemis-through-75%-evasion-into-weapon-room-and-starting-a-fire. I'm sure you know the classics

[Elhazzared]

I actually used to have some decent runs in the stealth B pre Ae. Ever since AE I cannot have a decent run in it.

Cloak 3 first? Yup, always the smart choice.

Cloak first? Wrong, most enemies have weapons that if I cloak first, they will still manage to fire before I'm ready to fire.

Drone boats? Well, pick the stealth B and they show ever other beacon. Pick any ship that has shields and see no drone boats for the whole run most of the times.

It isn't just that the stealth B isn't particularly good, especialy when it starts only on level 2 cloak and it desperatly needs 3 to even stand a chance. It's that the game RGN is designed to take your ship into mind before giving you the random encounters. That is why when you grab the stealth B or even A you will find loads of drone boats (most of those beams to add insult to injury) and ships with very fast firing weapons for the most part.

Right now it's the only ship I need to play a bit longer to get the C variant, even the god aweful slug B has managed to win me a game today.

[slattikarma]

DON'T CLOAK FIRST THING!!!! (on stealth B).

I'm sorry but this is not good advice at all.

With no enemy drones, you cloak moments before the first volley of enemy fire is about to hit you. Alternatively, if the first volley is weak but a stronger volley will follow shortly after, you wait for that volley. Then, once your cloak finishes, you should be able to disable their weapons before their next volley. In early sectors, with one or two shields, if you can hit both the shields and weapons in one beam, hit the shields first, so there will be less shields by the time you hit the weapons bay, and cross through as many rooms possible to try and destroy the ship in one hit.

With enemy drones, you wait until the drone is literally about to fire/beam and then hit cloak, those precious few seconds could be all the difference in getting your glaive charged in time before the next volley.

[project_mercy]

As for Stealth B - you hit a ship with a beam weapon before you have level 3 cloak and it consistently fires in the cloak/weapon rooms, 50% of the time from left to the right, 50% of the time from right to the left. I'm not exaggerating, it happens practically 90% of the beam shots thanks to supposedly better targeting on Hard.

I think it's due to there being no shields. When shields are there, there's some computation that says "maybe I can get by with.. " some crazy plan like blowing out O2 or whatever. But when it says "OMG, ZEH SHIELDS ARE DOWN! SHOOT ZEH WEAPONZ" and on it starts spraying. Conjecture on my part, but whenever shields are down it seems to seem less "random" about blasting things.