Final Boss Guide (Spoilers)

[magicwalker]

I beat the boss last night in the Adjudicator.

Halberd, Hull Smasher Mk I, Heavy Laser I, Ion Bomb
4 shields
-2 from max engines
repair drone and anti-personnel drone
only had four crew members
Augments: Preigniter, Weapon cooldown reduction, Zoltan Shield


I beat the boss with about 10 health remaining, took the majority of damage in the second stage. Boarding drones were not really an issue, because of my antipersonnel and a mantis crewmember. Ion bomb sure is money on this boss, especially with preigniter - you can get 4 ion dmg on the shield right out the gate, I had no other way of handling its shield otherwise.

[A_N00B]

*NOTE* if you destroy the med bay and, using a four pad teleporter, put 4 mantises (I think they need to be "gold" level in combat, but i'm not sure) into their 4 space med bay, they can kill the entire "main" crew (non-weapons people) without having to be teleported out or moved.

I've won twice using this method, so i'm sure it works very well

DIE PATHETIC HUMAN CREW

[whythisname]

Great guide, it helped me a lot to beat the boss ^^

I used the Red-Tail, equipped with a Burst Laser M3, Fire Beam and a Heavy laser M1. I also had a Breach bomb launcher, but I barely had any munition left by the time I arrived at the boss

I think the most important thing though was a good Cloaking system. To me the boss fight just looks impossible without it.

[UltraMantis]

Congratz on beating the boss. It gets easier with practise.

[postman]

I think the most important thing though was a good Cloaking system. To me the boss fight just looks impossible without it.

I just played through on Normal without Cloaking, but I had fully upgraded shields and engines. I did have teleportation to take out the missiles, and the boss only hit me with one of those. None of the other power surges (drones/lasers) hurt me and I finished with 29/30 hull.

My first win was on the Kestrel without Cloaking OR Teleportation... definitely doable.

[greetingsfromoslo]

Has anyone had luck without stealth?

Every time I go against him with stealth, the fight doesn't tend to be that hard. If I don't have stealth, I get crushed on the second stage. Those drones are more than enough to tear through rank 4 shields, and the beams will hit enough systems before shields come back on to make recovery near impossible.

Even that you made it that far without stealth is impressive! My guess is that you had to waste a lot scrap on repairs and defense systems, thus less on actual heavy weapons? The damage toll without stealth adds up in the long run, especially with escalating repair prices, and really make the case why it's such a vital and - counterintuitively - economic sound upgrade that must be obtained as early as possible.

[Fluffywolf]

Pre-igniter + third level cloak and two burst mark II laser weapons and two pike or hull beams can kill the boss in the first and second phase before he has a chance to do anything about it.

You'll be getting some damage in third though, would be good to have defense drones or something like that in that phase because his missiles will tear you up if he shoots them at your shield and weapon systems in the first volley. Once you get through the super shield and you still have your shields and weapons, then you should be fine though.

[skyestalimit]

Kestrel type B

Just upgrade all the basic lasers in bigger, nastier versions. (had the 4 power 5 shots laser, a dual laser and two hvy lasers)
Get a defense drone.
Add two auto-reloaders (the 15% faster reload thing)
No teleport, no cloak.

Brute force method. If it is not working, it is because you aren't using enough of it.

[wissenschaft]

I can't believe I won the game, well, on easy but still. I had 2 max melee Mantis and was dumb enough to try boarding a late game rebel ship in sector 8. Sigh. No way to take out the med bay and I foolishly though I could just overwhelm them with numbers....instead I got one of my eltie Mantis killed. Even after I won he still had the high score for number of kills any of my crew ever had in any playthrough. *Cries* I shall miss you.

I was also SO unlucky that I only found 0 weapons in shops. Thats right, ZERO. I did find through events a Hull Laser MK 3 and a breach missile. I assume the final boss would have at least 1 defense drone so I sold the breach missile.

Kestrel type B

1x Hull Laser MK 3
3x Basic Lasers
lvl 4 Shields with max crew bonus
lvl 4 Engines with max crew bonus
lvl 4 drone control - 1 Defense Drone, 1 Anti-Ship Drone, 1 Hull Drone

Auto Reloader
Drone Recovery

Crew - the starting crew + 1 of each of the other races (including the crystal guy but sadly didn't run into the rock homeworld)

Seriously, thats all I had. I doubt I could have beaten this on normal but thanks to the ton of cash you can get on easy I was able to upgrade my systems a lot. Only had lvl 2 sensors and lvl 2 doors.

Oddly enough my first encounter with the final boss w/ Torus (which I lost by trying to retreat to a repair base and returning too late) had a higher score than this victory (both were on easy).

My strategy was simple, I use my rock man to replace my lost mantis and just teleported to take the missile weapon out first. Once that was gone I was invincible. I didn't even kill the whole crew. Only managed to destroy 2 weapons before my Lasers destroyed the ship. I think once the Shield System is down the Hull Lasers do the double damage vs an empty room. Either that or I underestimate just how ridiculously OP laser spam is.

Phase 2 Drone spam was hardly noticed with my maxed out shields and Phase 3 was a joke. I forgot to switch out my Hull Drone for my Anti-Ship Drone. I was about to panic thinking that I wouldn't be able to get past the Battleships Shields but Nope. Gun downed the ship the fastest of all the phases. My hull was actually healing mid battle because I just spammed the hull bot. Only managed to kill 2 more crew while destroying the teleporter before I had to evac my troops before the battleship blew up.

In total that was only 4 enemy crew I managed to kill. I never faced any boarding drones but 2 humans did teleport onto my ship. I think that you might not face any boarding drones if theres still enough enemy crew to teleport in. Either that or I was lucky with my 1 defense drone shooting them all down.

Any way, main lessons learned:

1) Forget power expensive weapons. Spaming 4 fast firing weapons will overwhelm even the final bosses shields.
2) Cloak is an expensive upgrade that is COMPLETELY unnecessary. Use your boarding party to eliminate the missile launch and Ion weapons and hardly anything will get through your shields.
3) Don't bother killing all the crew, ALSO NOT NEEDED. Weapons that can speed up hull damage allow you to burst down the boss.
4) The first time I faced the boss with torus I was foolish enough to try using the Glave Beam. Costs way too much power and takes far too long to fire; couldn't use both it and effectively get through the shields with my other weapons. Beam Weapons are best as low power versions. I think the Hull Beam is probably the best with 2 power and fast charge time. Though Beams are best simply to keep the shield system permanently down which allows Hull Lasers and the like to obliterate the boss quickly.

Also, I unlocked this victory the Adjucator. I will try to get the type B of both the Fed ship and the Adjucator. I feel the most pressing issue I have all game long is the need FOR MOAR POWER. So a ship that starts with 3 Zoltans looks awesome if I can just get some tougher crew for boarding teams.

The Zoltan Cruiser type B looks especially good because of the great starting weapons and the fact that it actually starts with the shield system which eliminates the need to buy an expensive system on normal unlike the stealth ship. 2 Ion type I's only cost 2 power and will eat through shields and shut down multiple systems with ease. The Pike Beam, while being a bit slow and low damage, is more than good enough to constantly damage multiple systems. Best of all it costs only 2 power. If you can find a cheap power 1 bomb than your set for weapon systems. This saves you the cost of having to to upgrade your weapon systems which is great because every scrap you can save is a huge deal on normal.

Edit: Just got the Noether. Ouch, get that first shield requires 100 scrap. That is painful.....but at least the starting weapons should carry me through the game. Just got to pray for some Mantis or Rock crew.

[wissenschaft]

Beat the final boss on easy again with the Stealth Ship A:

Hull Beam
Ion Bomb
Dual Laser

Drones:
1x Defense
1x Anti Ship

Transporter:

2x Mantis

LOL, took a bunch more damage this time.The only close call was when a boarding drone breached my cockpit. However my Rock crewman was able to beat it and fix the breach. My lone Engi was running around trying to repair desperately. Cloak level 3 is really REALLY useful in surviving those surge attacks, without cloak I'd have been dead. Playing the stealth ship has taught my how to use cloak successfully.

It took me a few retries to win however the winning run start off with me getting a ton of ship kills in sector 1 which gave me a great start. The funnest part of this run is that all I wanted to do was unlock the Stealth ship type B. lol.

Score: a little over 4k

I now want to try the Stealth B - Starting with a Zoltan and the most powerful Beam in the game is very tempting. It will be even harder than the type A especially on normal but the beam should eat the boss alive as long as I get a way to eliminate its shields.

My 2 victories just go to show you that you don't need too much to beat the final boss in terms of weapons. I think 2 burst laser Mk 1 + 2 Anti-Ship Drones is enough to beat through the shields given enough time.