How stealth ships survive beam drones

[hybridfive]

I've been doing a lot of play with Stealth A recently. I've been doing data collection on enemy systems distributions, so I've chosen a ship that can easily get sensors 3 and not suffer too greatly. Stealth A fit the bill.

In playing, I've notice that the beam drone will somewhat telegraph what system it plans to hit. After the drone fires (or fails to fire, when cloaked), it jets off in a random direction. The beam will, generally speaking, hit a room on the opposite side of the ship. So if it moves to 5 o'clock, it will probably hit the sensors or medbay. 1 o'clock, probably doors or cloak. 3 and 9 o'clock are somewhat harder to predict, but generally fall in the middle, if not the other side of the ship.

The key is to take some of the hits, if the drone is pointed towards a non-essential part of the ship. Take that hit to sensors / medbay. Cloak when it looks like it's going to hit weapons, or the cloaking system if you're still at level 1. That gives you better durability, and a better chance of getting your damage in.

[UltraMantis]

Good tip. Beam anything is a pain while you're shieldless. There's really no way to avoid taking damage but you can and should try to avoid the worst of it.

[5thHorseman]

I never noticed the distance factor (I actually paid attention with the laser drones and it didn't seem to matter, so figured the beams were the same) but I frequently pause right as they're at their apex and eyeball a line from their gun to guess what rooms they're possibly going to hit. If it's weapons or cloak I cloak, if it's not and 8 or so seconds hasn't gone by, I let it through.

Interesting about the distance though. So if he's on the bottom of the screen on the DA-SR 12, I should be confident that he won't beam the 2 most critical systems even if he's aimed right at them?