Subset Games Forum

Hello everyone, I just game back to this game recently because of the steam trading card beta, having only played about 15 hours, and remembered how fun it is. However, I also realized that I only ever played on easy and won most of the time. Because of this, I decided to start playing on normal.

I have about 55 games played now, around 40 being normal and have yet to win a single time, only once even coming close. A fair share, probably around half of these, are restarts from early in sector 1 due to bad luck right off the bat. I would like, if possible, a few tips on the ships that I like to use right now.

First off, the fed cruiser A, the only ship that has made it to the boss and almost beat it. I had level 4 shields, level 3 engine, two defense drones lv1 and maxed the artillery beam. I thought focusing on defense and using only the beam would be an effective, if terribly slow, way to get through the game my first time. However for my options for sector 7, there were two nebulas. After picking one, almost at the exit there was a slug ship that had an event disabling my oxygen, and my ship was much too slow to kill it. I ended up having to put my shield, engine and pilot crewmembers in the med bay as everyone else died. Because of the I lost to the third stage of the boss, who was almost dead, because all the hull breaches and fires could not be repaired without taking a vital crewmember off a defensive system and opening myself up. How could I have prevented this?

Secondly, the other ship I have been using lately is the rock cruiser B. I like the idea of this ship, as it comes with a fire bomb(I never get one, or any reliable weapon with A) and 3 rockmen. Boarding seems like a smart way to get lots of scrap, and handle the boss. I need upgrade tips and boarding tips for this ship. The ship has a strong early game, and I suspect a strong late game but mid game really ruins me.

Upgrade-wise, I always get level 2 shields for it first. Then I usually buy a crew teleporter, or/and a drone bay to fend off missles. However, this means by sectors 3/4 where enemies often have two shields and a med bay, I can't board them properly, or get through the shields and damage the med bay with just a pierce laser. I never have enough scrap for a good weapon or even find one, and the one time I found a burst laser mk1 and used it, my defense were too weak to manage fighting in late sector 4. How should I be upgrading this ship? In what order?

Also how do you board effectively with it? As mentioned earlier, once the enemy has both level two shields and a medbay, the teleporter stops getting me the scrap I need and I fall behind. How do I effectively board under these conditions?

I know this is a long post, but hopefully the experienced players here will help me out. I know dying is a big part of this genre, but I don't feel I should be doing quite this bad.

Here is my personal checklist of things to do. I try to follow it with most every ship:

Before the end of sector 1, 2 shields (4 bars)
Before the end of sector 2, 4 engines.
Before the end of sector 3, 3 shields (6 bars)
Before the end of sector 4, 5 engines.

THEN I start thinking about upgrading other things, like weapons and whatnot. If I get lucky in the first sector and get my shields up quick and still have 50-100 scrap available, sure I'll upgrade my weapons by one to get that lucky Ion Blast or Heavy Laser on line. But until my defense if up to snuff I won't even consider it. Unless I really want to

Most of the time I don't reach these milestones, and I end up not getting my 4th engine until midway through sector 3 or something. No biggie, as long as you keep trying.

Try to get 2 of these 3 things before you meet the flagship: Teleporter, Cloak, Defense Drones. A cloak and a level 5 engine will make you unhittable while the cloak is on, and you'll be dodging 1/3 to 1/2 of all shots fired when it's off. Add in a defense drone and you're essentially safe from most everything but the occasional lucky shot (and bombs, but those generally aren't a big deal as most don't damage hull). 2 mantises and a teleporter are your friend, make it a priority early so by the time you get to the later sectors your mantises are fully leveled up, and they will be killing machines.

Ions are great in groups, but not so great by themselves. 2 Ions will eventually take down any shield so long as your opponent doesn't dodge too many of them. An Ion and an Ion 2 will reliably take down ANY shield eventually. Once those are down, you can use your other weapons to actually damage the ship.

If I may humbly suggest, I've beaten the game on camera with every non-Engi ship (those are coming) on Normal and while I get into (and out of) some sticky situations, for the most part I walk over the bad guys because I stick to what I've said above. Check out my thread here.

IceMage88 wrote:A fair share, probably around half of these, are restarts from early in sector 1 due to bad luck right off the bat.

Don't write things off to bad luck. Skillfull play and knowledge of event results can pull you through most challenges. Always try to think about what happened and what you can do better next time. IMO the only ship that can generally be screwed over by luck in Sector 1 is the DA-SR 12 (Stealth B), and even then it's uncommon. (The Vortex can also be screwed by luck by ~Sector 3 because of its terrible starting armaments, but it should have a reasonable Sector 1.)

IceMage88 wrote:level 3 engine, [...] focusing on defense.

Don't underestimate Engines - they're hugely important for defense, especially when you're on the Fed. Cruiser and cannot get Cloaking. Defense Drones do make upgrading Engines less important, certainly, but they're still a strong upgrade and they stack nicely with Shields. I suggest level 4 Engines at an absolute minimum for the boss fight in all situations; generally level 5 is the way to go. (Higher engines are significantly less effective dodge for the price.)

IceMage88 wrote:Once the enemy has both level two shields and a medbay[...] How do I effectively board under these conditions?

Utilize utility weapons like the Fire Bomb to disable the Medbay. (Other good options, dpeneding on the ship and what you've found/bought: Small Bomb, Artemis Missile, Breach Bombs. Strong laser volleys can do the trick as well, and an Ion Bomb can work well enough too.) For example, you can Fire Bomb the Medbay and then send over 2 Rockmen boarders on top of it - the enemy crew will be unable to repair the Medbay and will take fire damage while they fight you.

I'll go ahead and copy over a recent post I made about general tips here as well.

Pause often. Helps with almost all situations.

Ensure you're maximizing your scrap income from a sector by visiting as many beacons as possible before going to the next. Normally this means you're leaving a sector right as the rebel line covers the exit beacon; you can often also grab an extra beacon and then come back to the exit to fight the rebel elite once - this is pretty low risk with cloaking and upgraded engines (or a defense drone and upgraded engines). Manning Engines also increases your FTL charge speed.

Don't visit a store if you aren't going to be buying anything. If you only have 30 scrap it's a waste of a beacon unless you desperately need fuel.

Early upgrades to prioritize, depending on the ship: Tier 2 Shields, Blast Doors, Engines (Level 3-4 or so). I would generally suggest against upgrading Pilot, Oxygen, or Medbay before Sector 8 (though there are valid reasons to do so). I suggest against Sensors 2 (or buying Sensors on ships without them), but they're not useless. Never buy Sensors 3, Medbay 3, or Oxygen 3.

(**Some players really like getting Sensors 2, Medbay 2, and Pilot 2 for increased blue options in several events. I don't think it's worth the opportunity cost - the lost scrap up front - but feel free to try it and judge for yourself.)

If necessary, skimp on power for some time - if you can power everything with your Medbay and Oxygen both unpowered, you're mostly good to go - fights generally go quickly enough your O2 won't run out. Just remember to let it fill before going to the next fight.

I tend to prefer leaving a scrap buffer on hand so I can afford what I want from stores - Reloaders, Burst Laser 2s, and Ion Bombs are generally auto-buys. A scrap buffer is money not spent on defenses, though, so do this situationally.

Avoid using Heavy Ion or Defense II Drones in most cases. Also never use Repair Arm or Reverse Ion Field (sell 'em if you get them). Never buy FTL Jammer, FTL Recharge Booster, or Adv. FTL Nav - but it's reasonable to use these if you get them for free. Beam Drones are generally a fair bit worse than Anti-Ship Drones. Missile weapons in general are are fairly weak; sometimes useful, but other options are usually better.

And speaking of crappy equipment - Crystal Vengeance & Drone Booster should be sold at the first shop you find. System Casing should be sold as soon as you can buy shields.

Don't always take blue event options just because they're available - know what events do. For example, Cloaking options are usually a bad choice because it attempts to escape fights - when you usually want fights for more scrap.

Know how to aim beam weapons. Time shots with pause carefully so other weapons take the shields down first. Then, generally start by aiming from the side closest to the Shields and hit as many rooms as possible. Standard beams can hit 4 rooms on most ships, and 5 rooms on some ships (e.g. Rebel Rigger).

IceMage88 wrote:First off, the fed cruiser A, the only ship that has made it to the boss and almost beat it. I had level 4 shields, level 3 engine, two defense drones lv1 and maxed the artillery beam. I thought focusing on defense and using only the beam would be an effective, if terribly slow, way to get through the game my first time. However for my options for sector 7, there were two nebulas. After picking one, almost at the exit there was a slug ship that had an event disabling my oxygen, and my ship was much too slow to kill it. I ended up having to put my shield, engine and pilot crewmembers in the med bay as everyone else died. Because of the I lost to the third stage of the boss, who was almost dead, because all the hull breaches and fires could not be repaired without taking a vital crewmember off a defensive system and opening myself up. How could I have prevented this?

Did you really only have level 3 engines??? I wouldn't say that is focusing on defense. Fed can't get a cloak, so I shoot for level 6. More engine means faster jump, too, and I think if you could have, you should have jumped away from that no oxygen encounter rather than lose crew. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

You can vent the ship to handle fires, but you still might need to take crew away from vital stations to repair. Say if your door control gets taken out, you might need to fix that to help with fires. You can try to time things to leave you the most time to repair: say, once the enemy has fired missiles, then move your engineer to do repairs; once lasers have fired, move your shield officer. Have you noticed that when your shields get ionized, the shield officer is inactive? Don't leave him idle, put him on damage control.

I would say "never say 'never'."

Twinge wrote:Don't visit a store if you aren't going to be buying anything. If you only have 30 scrap it's a waste of a beacon unless you desperately need fuel.

Or desperately need repairs (though you don't always need to repair your ship to full health). Or if you're fleeing a battle, it's a safe beacon.

Early upgrades to prioritize, depending on the ship: Tier 2 Shields, Blast Doors, Engines (Level 3-4 or so). I would generally suggest against upgrading Pilot, Oxygen, or Medbay before Sector 8 (though there are valid reasons to do so). I suggest against Sensors 2 (or buying Sensors on ships without them), but they're not useless. Never buy Sensors 3, Medbay 3, or Oxygen 3.

If you're a boarding ship, level 2 Sensors show you what the enemy has for crew and where they are - I think that's pretty important. If you only have one boarding team, upgrading to level 2 Medbay increases your healing speed so you can send them back to the fight sooner - especially when your boarders have over 100 HP. These may not be your top priorities, but I wouldn't wait till the end of the game, either.

I usually stick with just a single Defense Drone I. Having two usually just means they target the same thing anyway. Without a cloak, you really want more than 3 engines. 5 is a sweet spot but I'm not afraid of going for more. Manage your power carefully. Don't power your Medbay for example with no one there. You should even temporarily turn off the O2 before the boss specials so you can charge up more engines/shields. Oxygen 2 is actually very nice to have available for hull breaches. It's enough to let you repair them without suffocating.

Generally speaking, after I get shields 2 for any ship, I wait until I have 80+ scrap before hitting a store and I always try to keep a 80+ buffer only dipping below that when buying something useful in a store. That way, I'm always on the lookout for the opportunity buy (and have the scrap available). So any Scrap Recovery Arms, Auto Reloaders, Burst Laser MKII's available I can buy them. Mid-game if weapons are starting to get weak, I might also jump at Burst I's or even Hull Lasers if I'm starting to have trouble getting through shields.

Maximizing beacons is very good if not necessary. Hit all nebulas if possible for extra chances; try not to have to backtrack at all; and hit the exit at the last second if not jumping back into the exit for one extra beacon. FYI, a rebel fleet battle on the exit beacon is much easier than encountering the fleet elsewhere, so one extra jump should be survivable.

Beyond that, minimizing damage taken goes a long way to increasing spare scrap. Its very easy to fall into the Fed A Artillery Beam trap. While you can, in theory, defeat anything with it, leaving them alive that long often means taking more than usual damage. Your other weapons can save you a bunch of scrap just from finishing other ships off quicker or helping disable enemy weapons and/or medbays for your boarding crews.

I'm currently playing the Rock Cruiser A on normal with a boarding strategy. I'm now entering the last sector with Transporter 3, medbay 2, sensor 2, a defense drone and fully upgraded shields+engine.

My strategy has been:
1. If no medbay, board them
2. If medbay, put a missile in it then board them
3. If medbay + def drone, board them but be smarter

Before I had the defense drone I frequently used my first missile to disable any enemy missile.
For scenario 3, I now have one mantis and 3 rock as my total boarding team. They are enough to overpower enemies even with a medbay. I beam over two rocks first to start wearing them down. Preferrably so there is a 4 room the enemies must pass on their way to the medbay. Then I can beam the Mantis & third rock to that room and kill them as they run past. Or I could beam the second boarding party somewhere else to start destroying systems. Picking the rooms farthest away from the medbay helps with that.

Also, if they are weak fighters (not mantis) I can just put all my 4 fighters in the same room and eventually win even if they heal. Some rotation may be needed if they have lots of crew, there the transport 3 really helps. Mantis are actually easier to fight since they are so helpful with always letting me have two kills for free before I even board them.

Well... I'm going to say I disagree with loads of the advice here.

The rock II ship (which I assume you were referring to) needs weapons, and needs them early. I'd prioritise buying some form of weapon as early as possible. The rebels in sector 1 have 2 shields, and usually a medbay, so this ship in its standard form is very vulnerable to them. Any kind of beam weapon will do, even a heavy laser is useful, since you can use it to take down 1 shield, then use the penetrating laser immediately after. Small bombs are wonderful for taking out healing, and ion bombs are brilliant too for shields, if you can spare the missiles. Don't use missiles and droids you don't need to - I've got to the boss with 50 of each in the past.

However you look at it, you've still got to cope with drones, too.

I've used a tactic in the past which involves dropping a small bomb on the medbay (or shields if the don't have a medbay), and a fire bomb on the weapons, then transporting the rockmen to the medbay. They'll make them their focus, and their weapons burn away. You can always transport the rockmen back to heal - with the fires and no weapons, they're a sitting duck (drones sometime scupper this a little though). It's worth using 2 points in the transporter - the quickness really helps sometimes.

I recently got a win with a ship that had 6 shield and 2 engine bars... so it's not the be all and end all. I will personally usually try to upgrade my shields before engines... but that may be personal preference.

I haven't unlocked the Rock Cruiser B myself and have been out of luck getting any bombs, which btw I think would go well together with a boarding strategy.

But it sounds like the base strategy with the B should be set fire to their medbay and beam your rock crew in. That way they will fight you instead of extinguishing the fire and it will both hurt their crew and take out the medbay at the same time.