Last guy, stage 2... really? (spoilers)

[CEO]

Well that wasnt fun.

Got my butt handed to me in stage 2 after stage one went fairly well. Some tweaks to difficulty scaling would be nice here. I couldnt hit the guy.

That sucked to get that close to the end and fail when i had no clue that i was in trouble till that fight.

Make easy easier =P

[Gorlom]

Roguelike!

It's easy enough when you get the tactics down for it (and don't get unlucky with weapon finds)

BTW there is a stage 3 too

(maybe the staage 2 and 3 could be switched around?)

[Pentekont]

I died about 10 times before I was able to beat the boss.

Destroy his weapons using missiles, bombs or teleport your crew.

Use cloaking on level 3 + max shields to 4 or max your engines.

It is hard but, when you do it for the first time, you will fell like a true boss

[azurereaver]

you can hit him fine if you use a boarding party to take out all but one weapon (leave one enemy trapped manning the inner left laser gun is my strategy of choice), and then use your boarders to take out the helm and shields. On stage 2 (if you've killed all the central crew on stage 1 this is easy) taking out the drone control doesn't stop the special attack/power surge swarm but it helps since it disables his defense, boarding, beam, and anti-ship drones.

important to note that a defense drone of your own will stop his boarding drone from boarding you.

extended strategy full of spoilers:
to beat the boss you need a teleporter, a bomb or missile weapon, and a beam weapon or anti-ship drone (or enough missiles to waste taking down a zoltan shield repeatedly). Cloak, full shields, and a defense drone are optional but REALLY help.
Stage 1:
use your cloak to dodge the missile barrages
Use boarders to take out the middle right weapon (3 missile launcher)
Use boarders to take out the left weapon (3 ion)
Use boarders to take out the right weapon (beam)
Leave the middle left weapon and trapped crew member alone (3 laser)
At this point he can't hurt you if you have 4 shields, take your time killing off all of the crew in the middle section with your boarders, a well timed missile in to their medbay as they run there to heal can secure this. Be careful about the cloak making it so you can't beam your crew back to heal them. Attacking their security room/door control first helps. Having a crew member with lockdown helps.
Once you have killed the central crew you are free to break the shield room and destroy stage 1 with an energy weapon.
repair all systems/crew and wait for teleporter and cloak timer before chasing

Stage 2:
save your cloak and use it as the special weapon fires from his ship
take out all unmanned weapon rooms with boarders (leave the one guy from stage 1 alone)
take out drone room and shields with boarders (you can speed this up with a missile/bomb if you like, take out the helm too if you're missing a lot)
use lasers/beams to destroy the ship
repair all systems/crew and wait for teleporter and cloak timer before chasing
equipping the anti-ship drone can be useful to take down stage 3's z shield

Stage 3:
save your cloak and use it as the special weapon fires from his ship
use anti-ship drone and/or energy weapons (or missiles if it is all you have) to take down the z shield
use boarders to take down right weapon (leaving the one enemy crew member on the left alive till the bitter end)
use boarders to take down shields/helm
take down z shield again
use weapons/antiship drone to blow up ship

You win.

It really is pretty easy once you have a proper strategy to follow and know what to expect.

[CEO]

Ya, i was going for his drone control, it was the only shot i had. I still had the original weapons my ship came with ... explored as much as i could each zone and never found any more (edit - i take that back, i had the healing gun and 2 damage drones).

Only 2 crew too (due to dang spiders 2x which i posted about elsewhere), so boarding was never an option.

[CEO]

Is it bad that i dont like that the final boss is so scripted?

I wish his troops and weapons were randomized. Seems unroguelike to be able to follow a plan, knowing what is coming.

[icepick]

Well YOU having random stuff is hard enough.

Just because you know what's coming doesn't make it easier, really.

[Gorlom]

Is it bad that i dont like that the final boss is so scripted?

I wish his troops and weapons were randomized. Seems unroguelike to be able to follow a plan, knowing what is coming.

Think the devs have considered it but decided that finding a boss that was especially good vs your particular build that run was too big of a downside that it wouldn't be fun.

[Maze1125]

Is it bad that i dont like that the final boss is so scripted?

I wish his troops and weapons were randomized. Seems unroguelike to be able to follow a plan, knowing what is coming.

Most Roguelikes I know of have a pre-defined final boss.
In fact, most Roguelikes have pre-defined enemies through-out the entire game, with only the levels and loot being random. FTL is pretty rare in the fact that most of the enemies you face are randomised.

[Simbert]

Basically, you need a stable defense, and a way to deal with level 4 shields. And if you don't have that, i don't see how you would reach him, as you meet a lot of guys with lvl 4 shields before him.

So far, i had no problem killing him whenever i reached him.

The first time, i had the Engi ship with the standard Ion Weapon, Blast Lasers, Small Bombs, Shields lvl 3, about 40% dodge and a lvl 2 antiship drone.

The second time, i had the Federation Cruiser with some laser i forgot, double missiles, a defensive drone, shields 4, 40% dodge and a boarding teleporter

Just now, i had the stealth cruiser with stealth lvl 2, shields 3, 40% dodge, Blast laser, heavy laser lvl 2 and the long beam laser. That was a bit more annoying because i had to wait till at least 4 out of 5 shots of the 2 lasers hit to breach his shield and put some damage onto the generator. I would really recommend having some sort of bombs or lasers.

I never felt the need to do something cheesy like killing off all his crew in phase 1.