Subset Games Forum

I was playing Zoltan A on Easy and had a pretty overpowered ship. I got through the first two stage of the boss without taking a single point of hull damage. I prepared for an easy third stage.

As the fight started, I had my Mind Control ready to un-mind control my own guy that gets mind controlled instantly. But oddly enough, the boss ship didn't mind control anybody like it usually does. The first power surge alarm sounded and I felt confident with my 4 layers of shields, elite pilot, and 49% dodge chance.

Green laser bursts fly out, then - what?! how did so many of them hit me? Instantly I'm down to ~50% hull, multiple systems are on fire, the pilot room is breached with system destroyed and...oh, my pilot is mind controlled. No wonder we didn't dodge anything. I was hit by every single laser that wasn't taken by my shields, despite having lvl2 autopilot and level 7 engines.

So it seems like now the boss is mind controlling your pilot a split second before the lasers hit, giving you basically no chance to un-mind-control him - I mean mayyybe if I was expecting it, I could have paused right before the lasers hit and reversed the mind control, but I've never seen the boss do that. In earlier playthroughs I always had the chance to mind control my own guy back, or distract them with another crewmember, or even just get rid of them if I had to.

It also seems like the boss mind control lasts longer than it used to and the mind-controllee is stronger.

If you don't have stealth, is lvl3 pilot system basically a requirement for beating the end boss now? If your pilot gets mind controlled your evade drops to practically zero and even with four shields you're toast on the first power surge.

Mind Control (and Hacking, and Boarding) doesn't work through Zoltan Shields, so that's why the boss didn't MC anyone right away. I assume the first laser/missile of that volley took down the last bar of your Zoltan Shield, allowing the Flagship to use its MC, and it unfortunately hit your pilot. So yes, you could have been expecting the MC to come as soon as some shot took the last shield, paused, and reversed the MC.

Also, the Flagship has level 3 Mind Control, so their target gets +30 HP and a damage boost (I don't know how much though). Same duration, but it probably seems longer as the controllee is dealing more damage and you have to save the system they're damaging/rotate crew more quickly.

Yes that must be exactly what happened! Boss couldn't mind control instantly because I had zoltan shield. First lasers of power surge knock out zoltan shield. Boss instantly mind controls pilot now that zoltan shield is down. So I needed to un mind control him literally in the instant between the zoltan shield going down and the other lasers hitting.

I'm still amazed I subsequently took that many hits with 4 shield layers and high engines, but chalk it up to RNG I guess. My theory is the other lasers then took out my shields, then the other laser destroyed my pilot deck, then with my evade 0% every other laser was able to hit. Perfect storm.

Definitely a weird Achilles heel of the zoltan shield I never thought of.

Would having a deadhead pilot in the cabin work, or would he be busy fighting the mind controlled guy? I can't remember how piloting works if there is an enemy in the cabin.

I think the MCed pilot would count as having nobody in the room, so you'll have 0 evade chance if you haven't upgraded the system.

If you put someone else in there to fight him, they will give you part of your evade back.