Rock Ship strategy?

[GoldenShadowGS]

I always seem to run out of missiles by the end of Sector 1 or 2, then I can sometimes slip through by avoiding fights or putting everything into engines and shields to jump out of any fights which are unavoidable. How do you do it?

[darkwolf]

Restart, wait for good random generalization to get you laser weapons, teleporter, or more missles.

Or... Focus on unlocking achievements early on to unlock rockship B

Or... focus on maximizing missles. Taking all bribes that give you decent missles and using the hull damage missle in empty spaces to minimize missles used to destory ships.

[Unlucky Scarecrow]

Buy a crew teleporter or a laser/beam weapon as soon as you can. No, really.

As for making your supplies last longer in the meantime, don't be afraid to accept bribes by enemies; It means less missiles you have to fire at them to end the fight, especially if missiles are part of the bribe.

Always use your Hull Missile on empty rooms, and if you think you can do it without taking a lot of damage, avoid using the Artemis Missile whenever you can. This point is moot if there are no systemless rooms, but if you can get away with using a single Hull Missle instead of two Artemis Missiles, do it.

If you encounter defense drones, always always hit the drone bay first. Turn off autofire (or just cancel the targets by selecting and deselecting a weapon) and pause the game when all of your missiles are ready for launch, so you can fire them in a single volley. One defense drone won't be able to cover two missiles launched simultaneously.

The cockpit and engine room are good targets, to minimize missiles wasted by misses. Hit these areas if the opponents weapons aren't a very big threat (But if you receive too much damage, the scrap cost to repair will be more than the scrap cost to buy more missiles, so choose wisely)

If a fight looks like it will eat too many missiles, running is also an option.

[UltraMantis]

Unlucky Scarecrow gives good avice.

I'll add some observations as well. Buy missiles at every chance but dont run out of fuel. Ignore Cloak and Drones, grab the Teleporter ASAP. Upgrade it to level 2 for Rockmen and 3 for other boarders. That way you can survive airless boarding. Proceed to board the hell out of anything rather than destroy. You get more scraps and a slightly higher chance of collecting a weapon. Then buy missiles. Keep around 20 at all time.

Upgrade Shield to level 2 and then pump your scraps into engines and energy. Upgrade the Medbay as well. Since you will mostly be boarding you will earn scraps and collect crewmembers galore. Rockmen, Mantis and Humans should be your boarders. Engi are great for manning stations, Zoltan are ok.

Many ships have no medbay so you can take them over without wasting ammo. Those that have a medbay are usually very easy to takeover as well. Assuming you have 4 boarders, beam 2 Rockmen into a small room and have them beat the tar out of the enemy. When your teleport activates again, beam over the 2nd team (unless the Rockmen are close to death and wont survive long) and move all 4 into a large room. When the enemy crew take a beating they will go for the Medbay. Once there you slam a missile into the medbay, hopefull killing some crew and disableing the room. Then just keep them from repairing the bay and you've won.

Towards the end you should have highly upgraded engine, max shields, max teleport, advanced medbay and 5-6 weapon system upgrades. What weapons you'll use comes down to chance but any burst laser is recommended. Remember to buy missiles.

Buy the Repair Arm Augment as well. It lowers your scrap earnings but you will earn plenty if your board. It lets you repair a bit every time you get scraps so you wont need stores for repairs...

This strategy relies on boarding to earn scrap and then spends it on upgrades that keep the ship alive while you rock n sock anything in the sky.

[Aufklarer]

I just recorded a playthrough for you tube in the kestrel, I didnt need to buy a single missile.

Its all about threat assessment, the majority of battles in sector 1-2 enemy ships rarely have more than 1 shield so the burst laser just pummels enemy weapons systems into submission leaving you no requirement to use missiles. I typically hammer weapon systems with lasers and only really start to use missiles when they have 2 or more shields and even then its only 1-2 missiles to bring them down to one shield. Once you have beaten the shields enough to suppress their weapons and go back to lasers you can turn off the missiles and leave it on green (ready to fire).

As always suggested trade where necessary if your low, but be aware what is a good deal and what isnt as the scrap reward for killing something in later sectors 40-50 maybe is better than what they offer.

[UltraMantis]

Bulwark (Rockman ship) starts with 2 rocket launchers. No lasers. You have to use them untill you get an alternative. Boarding being the best since it earns well and Rockmen are good survivors due to their 150hp.

[Aufklarer]

agh my bad i missed the part about the rock ship specifically Its very late here