Decisions, decisions, decisions

[shadowcrust]

Now this is rarely the case in Hard AE, but sometimes the games throws nice stuff at you. I already had several good sets of weapon combos available when I came across a store that carries Halberd and Fire Beam and Swarm Missiles. This is sector 6, I've got about 6 jumps left.

Which combo would you take for a) going to the final battle and b) for each flagship phase?

I was very partial towards taking the Halberd Beam and swapping it with the Anti-Bio Beam, as it increases damage per second significantly - however, it will not allow for easy crewicides and (I think not by much, but still) decrease scrap rewards and thus lowering the all-important score Considering the first flagship, I'd go for the Fire Beam to eradicate most of the enemy crew and also conveniently damage systems, and I could still keep the Breach I. The Breach II is much better than the I, but also takes two power bars, so is not so combinable with the available weapons. I'd want to keep the Vulcan and the Dual Laser, so three weapon bars are left to distribute. I also like using the Hull Laser I with the Breach I to maximise the laser barrage and still do a little breaching here and there, but it's also not so useful for killing off crew.

So what would you do?





I haven't decided yet, but after lengthy considerations I lean towards keeping the Anti-Bio Beam and the Breach I equipped, maybe swapping the Anti-Bio with the Hull Laser I in phases two and three.

[Levgre]

I do the boss battles straightforward, just killing it as fast as possible. So Vulcan, burst laser, breach 1, breach 2, make sure to knock out the stealth so the Vulcan can charge faster to insta-win mode. Buying the Halberd isn't necessary, and should be able to sink enough scrap into maxing stealth, shields, and putting a buffer on some systems.

Not too interesting a situation since it should be an easy win, regardless.

[shadowcrust]

Not too interesting a situation since it should be an easy win, regardless.

Yar, it's a solid ship, but I've lost with better ones already The interesting thing is not to find a winning combo (pretty much all of them are, even the Vulcan + Dual alone would be enough), but to find the best winning combo, both for scrap collection on the way to the flagship, as well as for the flagship battles.

I hadn't considered using both Breach Bombs for the final, but it's a sensible proposal - but more for phase 2 than for phase 1, since I'd like to kill as many enemy crew members as possible during the first phase to keep the PITA in phase 3 at a low level, since I don't have a fighting crew (yet).

[shadowcrust]

Only bought an Engi at the aforementioned shop and then stumbled into a shop carrying a Burst Laser Mk II, which I compulsive-obsessively had to buy by selling Breach II, Hull Laser I and the Anti-Bio Beam - I was too lazy for micromanaging the Vulcan with the Anti-Bio Beam anyway