Best Weapon Combos

[Dirka]

I think my ideal boss weapon setup would now be four swarm launchers, assuming you had enough ammo to use them.

That would be absolutely hilarious!

[ZackD. FTL]

Last night I was using Zoltan A and an easy combo is glaive beam and flak 2 because you flak the shields, pause and rake the glaive beam across the shields continuously until the flagship is dead and you get an easy victory. *The recharge on flak 2 and flagship cloak is about same which is very anoying so wait for flagship to cloak then shoot.*

[ZackD. FTL]

It is pretty O.P. to have this setup but mix a chain vulcan and glaive beam, I timed it and in total I beat the boss in 3 min 27 sec.

The chain vulcan wreaks the shields when full speed autofired at shields and they never come back up.

After 1 shield left, use glaive beam to take out cloak, drones, then board and mind control when they are use to fry them and it will DISTROY the boss.

[Rashidashidashibu]

If you could get 2 dual lasers or atleast one dual laser and a blast laser II + ion blast that'll only cost you 4 reactor slots (if you got blast laser II and dual laser) but 3 if both dual laser. Add any type of weapon you want and you're good to go.

[Nukeknockout]

I think my ideal boss weapon setup would now be four swarm launchers, assuming you had enough ammo to use them.

That would be absolutely hilarious!

I'd argue three Hull Missiles and a Swarm would be stronger. Hulls have a much faster refire rate and deal more damage - and you still have the Swarm to get past round 2s drones. Or, two Pegasus and a Hull

But four Swarms is probably the closest we're coming to a proper rocket barrage xD

I actually got through the boss with a Charge Laser II, Charge Ion, and Swarm. Round two was the hardest - it's really less about the exact gun and more about how you use it. That said, one of these days I want a Chain Ion, Ion Blast II, Breach Bomb II, and Heavy Laser I. Wouldn't matter if I couldn't power them all at the same time xP Not because I think it'd be effective, but because I think it'd be awesome.

If I were mentioning what I think is the best weapon combo, then that's BL2 + BL2 + Breach II + Pike Beam. Destroying systems is better than disabling them, more than enough firepower to handle any target, and enough versatility to board targets as well.

[Aphid]

I had an insane run with the stealth cruiser A. It had (amongst other things)

Weapons:
Two vulcans

Augments
Zoltan shields
Weapon auto-loader
Stealth weapons

Drones
Shield boost drone

Important upgrades
Stealth L3
Max engines
Batteries

The run felt like using a gatling gun against a roman army. The ship needs some time to get going, but if you can survive the required ~25 seconds it plunks out lasers at almost 3 shots per second. You get 15 of those seconds for free with cloak, and usually another few from the zoltan shields.
It melted the boss in about 40 seconds each time.

Strategy would be to put the vulcans on the enemy shields, power engines, and release a drone when your shield gets damaged. Then, when the other ship powers through your shield, dodge some stuff with stealth. During stealth you get another 2-3 shield bars. The delay tactic will usually get you through. Also, zoltan shields means no hacking or boarders so it pretty much comes down to firepower. Suffice to say it wasn't pretty.

I suppose hacking would make it even more nasty because you can discharge the enemy weapons or drone bay for another 10 seconds against ships that have a lot of that. It's more situational though, arguably (vulnerable to defense drones and hacking itself).

[Rashidashidashibu]

I had an insane run with the stealth cruiser A. It had (amongst other things)

Weapons:
Two vulcans

Augments
Zoltan shields
Weapon auto-loader
Stealth weapons

Drones
Shield boost drone

Important upgrades
Stealth L3
Max engines
Batteries
The run felt like using a gatling gun against a roman army. The ship needs some time to get going, but if you can survive the required ~25 seconds it plunks out lasers at almost 3 shots per second. You get 15 of those seconds for free with cloak, and usually another few from the zoltan shields.
It melted the boss in about 40 seconds each

Damn! Cloaking with stealth weapons plus the vulcans would be amazing. Gotta try it out. Amazing set up man.

[Lutzie]

It’s taken some time and about 20 finishes of the game, but yesterday I finally managed to get 2 BL mk 3s and a pre-igniter, and by sector 3 too. Needless to say that any ship I encountered got battered pronto, and the end boss didn’t fare much better either.
However my missus has been one better and had 4x BLmk2s on the Osprey, with a pre-igniter. 12 shots right from the start. :-/

Other favourites include twin Ion Blast II’s and… well anything else really.

Next I want to try twin Vulcans with auto loaders. Lots of auto loaders.

[5thHorseman]

Next I want to try twin Vulcans with auto loaders. Lots of auto loaders.

A pre-igniter actually makes the Vulcan get to the 1.1 s rate faster than a reloader, because the first shot is the longest. (36.6 - 11.1 versus 36.6 - [0.3 * 36.6 = 10.98]), assuming no weapons skills, but that only makes it harder to calculate.

That's why you want a pre-igniter and 2 auto reloaders. Duh!

[Tharsis]

My best run was with a gatling laser, 4-shot charge laser, and an ion bomb. witn pre-igniter, stealth weapons, and auto loader

the boss didnt stand a chance.