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I'm not seeing a crazy good use for this, originally I thought it'd be great for keeping an enemy's shields down, but it seems they recharge so damn quick it's hard to get a shot in.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

I just beat the boss using an Ion tactics ship. I find that this strategy only really works well (from my experience, I'm sure there are ways to pull it off) with the Engi ship.

You start with one Ion cannon and one anti-ship drone. From there, I added an additional Ion cannon, a Hull Laser and two more anti-ship drones. For augmentations I had the +scrap, drone recovery and the healing aug that you start with.

Basically I would start a fight by targeting both their shields and weapons with an Ion cannon and use the hull laser on whatever is necessary. The attack drones will take the shield down initially and from there the Ion cannon will keep them down with the drones and hull laser doing the majority of the damage to the ship.

As you'll be running 3 drones constantly it is really necessary to get the aug that recovers drones after a fight or you will either run out quickly and not have much to attack with or you will be spending all of your scrap on buying drones which will prevent shield and engine upgrades.

Of course, this really all comes down to whether or not you can get the right parts. I didn't have much trouble at the end but I had 4 shields as well as 40% evade.

Good luck!

You need to shoot in volleys instead of whenever the weapon recharges; the starting ship's laser can get through shields pretty easily, and then you can ion blast whatever system you want if you shoot it RIGHT after. I actually do the opposite and use it to knock off a shield so a laser can get through.

The ion blast 2 on its own, or usually supplemented with an additional ion blast 1/2 or a heavy ion, can be used to "lock down" enemy systems, this is most commonly used on shield, and weapons if the shields are down. In most cases an ion blast 2 can keep shields suppressed long enough to get a hit on the enemy shield system

In all cases, when using ion blasts to strip shields, destroying the ability of an enemy ship to dodge is going to be pretty high on your priority list.

A bomb, a missile, targeting the helm first, etc., will all greatly increase the ability to a) remove shields and b) lock down other systems as needed. Once they can't dodge, you can alternate shots between the shield generator and another system and lock it down, as well (assuming 2x ion blast or 1x ion blast II).

That said, my favorite 8-weapon combo is an ion blast II, ion blast, and a pair of 2-power beams. Pike/hull/fire in any combo (but with a limit on 1 fire beam).

kilnborn wrote:In all cases, when using ion blasts to strip shields, destroying the ability of an enemy ship to dodge is going to be pretty high on your priority list.

A bomb, a missile, targeting the helm first, etc., will all greatly increase the ability to a) remove shields and b) lock down other systems as needed. Once they can't dodge, you can alternate shots between the shield generator and another system and lock it down, as well (assuming 2x ion blast or 1x ion blast II).

That said, my favorite 8-weapon combo is an ion blast II, ion blast, and a pair of 2-power beams. Pike/hull/fire in any combo (but with a limit on 1 fire beam).

Funny, my favorite 8-weapon combo is exactly what you won't do Ion Blast 2, Ion Blast, and 2 fire beams is one of the most beautiful loadouts in the game. You can even take down automated ships with them but I don't recommend it.

I am not by any means recommending this as a strategy, but if you ever get the opportunity just try it for a few battles. It is so much fun it's worth the damage you'll take.

Any combination of 2 ion weapons (or an ion blast II) is theoretically capable of disabling a ship's shields entirely.

However, more ion means more disable, since you have to account for evasion.