What were your most unusual/ridiculous fights ever?

[progressiveasian]

I just had one hell of a match when facing off against the Rebel flagship as the Basilisk (Mantis Ship B).

I had a particularly good run during the past few sectors and I was able to get all of the standard defensive upgrades with maxed shields, maxed engines, maxed reactor, a level 2 defense drone, and even stealth. My weapons department was rather pitiful in comparison with only a small bomb and a heal bomb in stock, but it was sufficient for my 4 mantis boarding crew strategy. I actually breezed through pretty much everything including the first 2 flagship stages, until I realized in the final stage that teleporters don't work on Zoltan shields.

Although my nearly impenetrable defense system of drones, shields, and stealth allowed me to duck through each enemy barrage mostly unscathed, slowly cracking at the zoltan shield with only bombs was arduous work as well. Moments before the last shred of those shields failed, a lucky missile found its way into my oxygen bay, destroying it completely as well as lighting several fires. Caught in the rush of stopping the sudden on-board fire, I prioritized saving my ship over destroying the enemy's, but the moment I looked back again, those darned zoltan shields were back in place, fully powered and as menacing as ever.

By now I only had a handful of bombs left, hardly enough to afford more than a few mis-fires. My slugman, manning the weapons, took extra care to land each shot on target, but by then I knew that no matter how many blessings the RNG gods were to give, it was impossible to enjoy a full crew victory. Prior to their departure, I personally assured each one of my Mantis boarders that they would be victors, that once the battle was over, they would be memorialized and they will be able to return to their original peaceful lives of casual raidings and quiet assassinations. I said these sweet words to them despite knowing that their doom was inevitable, that it was a one way trip once those zoltan shields come back again.

The moment a breach was made in those shields, the crew jumped in and tore through the ship in their fearsome, almost maniacal, mantis manner. Without a crew to stop them (the enemy crew was wiped out during the very first confrontation), the ship's systems quickly gave way to the unrelenting assault. Before the last sliver of hull casing was torn away, I felt the urge to shout out to them, to stop them before the final blow was landed, hoping that there was some miraculous way to destroy the flagship while saving them. But of course, with no more bombs and the zoltan shield standing defiantly in the way, I could do nothing but watch them with the rest of the crew in silent resignation.

The flagship broke apart in a breathtaking explosion of fire and light signifying its defeat, but it was one at a cost. With four of my best crew members lost in the smoldering remains of the ship, victory felt hollow. A great commemoration was held by the Federation and honors were given out to each crew member with their names emblazoned forever in the credits list, but sadly, only the handful of remaining survivors were given awards, and not the real heroes that sacrificed their lives for such a victory.

[IgnanMagus]

I was using The Osprey (Federation Cruiser A), and was on the second stage of the flagship, the one with all those drones . I only had one drone deployed, a Defense Mk. II, and it and my Lv. 4 shields were my only defense; my only weapons were 2 Burst Laser Mk. II, and a Lv. 4 Artillery Beam. I was getting owned by the vast amounts of drones, an Engi crewmember was killed by Boarding Drone, and our ship had Critical Hull alarms blaring throughout. So, my crewmembers, in the spirit of a brave knight of old, from the days of King Arthur, bravely ran away. (Brave brave brave brave Sir Robin!) Our ship randomly jumped to the nearest beacon, and found a planet with some six-legged horse like animals on it. Our Slug crewmember was able to read one of the horse-thing's minds, and we discovered an Engi crash site. We reactivated the Engi, had him fix up the drone control system, and got our defense drone working again. We then jumped back to the flagship, and we beat stage 2. The Federation Flyer(my ship's name) was still badly damaged from our first attempt at the flagship stage 2, but we still relentlessly pushed onwards. Unfortunately, from all the damage the flagship had done to us, we were quickly destroyed. So quickly in fact, that our ship exploded before we even got the Super Shield down. That final missile marked the end of the Federation Flyer, but through our ship's effort and sacrifice we managed to bring the flagship's hull low enough for the Federation to fly in and destroy it, if they decided to help...

[Dirka]

Zoltan B.

Made it to the last stand without a hitch, everything upgraded nicely, with two Engies, two Mantis and a Humie complementing my Zoltans. Weapons-wise I had only added the Hull-Laser I, which made 4 shields an exercise in patience, but then nothing much could faze my combination of Zoltan shield, defense drone, cloak, as well as full evade and shields.

I suppose I got complacent, because I lost one Mantis to an upgraded door system, and my two Engies when I sent them to repair my broken doors next to an open airlock and went to get a drink.

The first two stages of the boss went down like butter, except that I couldn't really kill the crew with only one Mantis left, which was OK, since I shot everything to pieces. Then the third stage absolutely murdered me. Or more appropriately the RNG decided to screw me good. Absolutely EVERYTHING hit. Suddenly my defense drone couldn't shoot down a single rocket to safe its life. But the icing on the cake was when one of the power surges hit me even though I was fully cloaked, evasion at 90+. Oddly enough I didn't get the Low Odds Achievement, but maybe that was because the Zoltan manning my engines was dying horribly in a fire.

By then the ship was in a sorry state: 2HP left, helm down, cloak shot, oxygen and medbay gone, fires and breaches galore. Only a Zoltan, a human and a Mantis were left. I ported the Mantis over to disable the laser turret while the human and the Zoltan fixed the helm and cloak just in time to dodge the next power surge. Slowly they cobbled the ship back together, praying that no stray shot would hit while the shields were still low.

From there on in it went from the most intense FTL fight to the most boring. The Boss lobbs power surges at me, which I cloak through. My beam drone picks away at their Zoltan shield. I shoot my Ions, hoping they don't miss too often. When their shields go below 3, I shoot my Hull Laser, hoping both shots connect. If I'm lucky, I get to use the pike beam once before the Zoltan shield goes back up. Rinse, repeat. It took me fifteen minutes to finally get a decent hit on their shield room with both the laser and the beam, and from then on they went down in short order under the combined onslaught of Hull Laser, Pike Beam and beam drone.

One hell of a fight after an otherwise uneventful run. FTL, I lub thee.

[tsuihkon]

I Started my first game with normal difficulty, decided to take a different approach. I had used mostly human ships before this, so why not give "Shivan" a go. Worst mistake ever. I already saw a problem, when I can't power up the two starting weapons at the same time, well, no biggie, I just know what to upgrade first.

I did a first jump, ended up near a sun, unmanned scout emerged to fight me. Well, I powered up my firebomb thinking "at least it can't probably extinguish fires", forgetting there is no oxygen on that vessel. Well, got the shields down, but then came solar flares, my ship is on fire. Of course, shields are down with the first hit from the enemy.

Luckily my crew is immune to fire, so no biggie again, I power up breach laser and hit the weapon system of the enemy. Another flare, basically my whole ship is engulfed in flames now, everything is down. Trying to scramble to get some juice back to weapons and hoping to get life support back on track.

Enemy fires again, now, I'm in dire straits. With pure luck I manage to destroy the enemy, with very little integrity left in my hull. Have to get engines back online and jump the hell away from this sun, it's killing me. I manage to jump, guess where?

Close to another damn sun. Of course, there is an enemy who opens fire, while my crew is still trying to put flames out in my ship. That finished the job. First game on normal difficulty, dead after TWO jumps, nothing I could have done (expect NOT use firebomb).

[5thHorseman]

I was testing a ship mod (that is almost done!) with very low starting stats. In particular, it has 1 shield (2 power), 1 weapon (dual laser), 1 crewman (human of course) and one engine (so low dodge and seeming ETERNAL jump time). On the FIRST jump, I faced a ship with a Burst Laser 2, but no shield.

No problem, I thought. My dualie will fire first, and if just one of them hits his weapons, I win.

Both of my shots missed.

He fired, and hit all 3. The first shot took down my shields, the second hit my shields, and the third hit my weapons, causing a fire. I opened the weapon room to space and decided to just stick it out in the cockpit to hopefully escape with my life.

On the next volley, he hit my cockpit, engine room, and DOORS. Now I have to fix 2 systems to be able to flee, and 2 more if I instead want to fight. And with no shields or dodge, I had 8 rounds with the BL2 to face before my ship was reduced to scrap.

I went for weapons, figuring I'd give my guy a good Klingon death. He actually got a volley off before his ship shattered, and of course both of those shots missed as well. The very first enemy I faced killed me without taking a single hit.

[Pyronic]

My most ridiculous fights have got to be against Rebel Riggers.

Once I was fighting a Rebel Rigger focused entirely on internal drones using the Rock B (Shivan). Normally that would seem bad for a Rock B, because the Systems Repair Drone would put out my fires while the Anti-Personnel Drones could fight my Rocks and were also immune to fire.

But they made a big mistake. Their drone control room was filled with 2 Anti-Personnels, pushing their Systems Repair out into the shields room. So I Fire Bombed the drone room. The APs aren't hurt by fire and don't care about it, but the drone system begins to burn down. The APs have no boarding threat to respond to so they won't move out. That means the SysRep and crew members can't enter the room to put the fire out. So the drone control burns down completely, and it is now impossible for them to fix it since none of those drones can move. Fire Bomb to the medbay now. SysRep drone is dead and can't move to put it out. A pair of Rock commandos beam in, followed by a second pair in the shields room 15 seconds later. The Rigger is ablaze, and the Rebel crew, doomed by the very drones meant to protect them, dies.

Second most ridiculous would have to be me in a Slug A with 2x Ion Blasts, an Anti-Bio Beam, and a Mk II Heavy Laser going against a Rigger with a Mk II Defense Drone. The Mk II Defense is probably one of the best counters to ion weapons around. But I responded to its ability to block all my weapons by sending out my Mk II Anti-Ship Drone, which I had been using sparingly. The enemy drone got distracted by mine but couldn't intercept its shots before it impacted their shields. This allowed my weapons to punch down the enemy shields for brief moments, but this was time enough for the Anti-Bio Beam to get through and snipe their crew. At one point a laser shot broke through and damaged their shield system, leading two of their crew and what I think was a SysRep drone to move in to fix it. I aimed an Anti-Bio Beam to shoot up through the shields room and into the cockpit.

That shot apparently killed everyone in the shields room and the pilot. Got the Disintegration Ray achievement for it. Not long after that, with my heavy shield suppression efforts still giving the enemy defense drone a hard time, I was able to get one or two more Anti-Bio blasts in, finishing off the Rigger's crew entirely for the victory.

Both of these Riggers lacked the offensive ability to really damage my pretty beefed-up ships, as late-game Riggers are sort of turtles. But breaking their turtleshell is always fun.

I Started my first game with normal difficulty, decided to take a different approach. I had used mostly human ships before this, so why not give "Shivan" a go. Worst mistake ever. I already saw a problem, when I can't power up the two starting weapons at the same time, well, no biggie, I just know what to upgrade first.

I did a first jump, ended up near a sun, unmanned scout emerged to fight me. Well, I powered up my firebomb thinking "at least it can't probably extinguish fires", forgetting there is no oxygen on that vessel. Well, got the shields down, but then came solar flares, my ship is on fire. Of course, shields are down with the first hit from the enemy.

Luckily my crew is immune to fire, so no biggie again, I power up breach laser and hit the weapon system of the enemy. Another flare, basically my whole ship is engulfed in flames now, everything is down. Trying to scramble to get some juice back to weapons and hoping to get life support back on track.

Enemy fires again, now, I'm in dire straits. With pure luck I manage to destroy the enemy, with very little integrity left in my hull. Have to get engines back online and jump the hell away from this sun, it's killing me. I manage to jump, guess where?

Close to another damn sun. Of course, there is an enemy who opens fire, while my crew is still trying to put flames out in my ship. That finished the job. First game on normal difficulty, dead after TWO jumps, nothing I could have done (expect NOT use firebomb).

You DON'T use the Fire Bomb, at all, until you've gotten a Teleporter. Use your Heavy Pierce Laser. It ignores one layer of shields altogether, so it might as well be an ammo-free Artemis missile for the first two sectors where enemies don't have more than one layer of shields.

And there are no airlocks, but you have 4(!) Rockmen, so while normally you keep all your stations manned, it's perfectly ok to pull your weapons and shields officers away to deal with fire and boarders, and because Rocks move slowly, you want to do this as promptly as you can. They may be immune to fire, but your systems are not.

You want level 2 shields ASAP, then go for a teleporter. Then the Shivan becomes a boarding ship, and then you begin to use Fire Bombs to light up rooms on enemy ships where you're going to send your Rocks in.

But I suppose if it's your first game on Normal, and with an entirely new kind of ship, I guess it happens. But once you've learned to use it well, the Shivan is one of the most powerful ships in the game.

[The Enemy]

First post here. I am writing this only because doing so is keeping me from throwing my MacBook out the window.

Just minutes ago I was on my first run ever with Zoltan B and I was ROCKING it. By Sector 2 I've upgraded the Pike Beam to a Halberd Beam, by Sector 3 I've gotten TWO Scrap Recovery Arms, and in Sector 4 I get a second Halberd Beam and a Burst II. The Scrap Arms mean I've maxed out weapons before Sector 5, so I can run all three of them simultaneously.

The only issue is that I don't have anything that can handle missiles too well. But it's also not that much of a problem, because everything in my path is getting the shields knocked all the way down by the Burst II and eating full force double-barreled Halberd Beams for 12-16 damage before my Zoltan Shield even goes down. I haven't been touched for like six fights in a row; some enemies are trying to run, then begging for mercy, then blowing up all during the same hit. I am drunk with power!

Plus I'm getting scrap at an insane rate, so I figure the next time I hit a store I'll be able to pick up Stealth or Drone Control. I'm seriously expecting this to be my highest score ever.

So, entering Sector 5! Feeling good!

First enemy is an auto-attack guarding a station. I have the option to avoid it, but why would I do that? I can kill ANYTHING with my beastly Halberds. The auto-attack only has two shields. Not a problem.

So I attack. Hmm, it's got two missile tubes and a bomb. That's not ideal, but I got this as soon as my laser takes down his shields. I fire Burst II.

MISS MISS MISS

WTF. Crappy luck. His missile volley takes me down to 1 bar of Zoltan Shield. Still not a problem. Fire the Burst II again.

MISS MISS MISS

Ok. NOW I have a problem as I have only two bars in my engine and super low evasion. But as long as his next volley doesn't hit my weapons, I should still be ok, if heavily damaged.

I get lucky, kinda. His next volley does not hit my weapons. However it does take out my engines AND my piloting, which guarantees none of the next volley will miss. And now there are fires and shit. It's cool though. I can deal with that later when he's dead.

My turn. The Burst II just has to hit ONCE for me to be able to damage him with double Halberds. It'll be 6 points of damage rather than the 13 I'd do if all lasers hit, but right now I just DESPERATELY need to do something to his weapon room. Fire!

MISS MISS MISS

Next volley takes out my weapons AND puts a hull breach in the room AND kills BOTH the Zoltans frantically repairing the engines.

About 15 seconds later, while I am screaming NO NO NO NO NO, my juggernaut of a murder ship becomes em effing space dust.

NINE MISSES IN A ROW when all I needed was ONE hit to live.

Moral of the story: Defense wins championships. FMFTL

[Dirka]

Wow, that's harsh man!

I guess the RNG giveth, the RNG taketh applies, but still...

[Ozei]

Most ridiculous? Sometimes enemy ships are just stupidly equipped. Every once in a while, I get situation like this: after FTL jump, my Osprey confronts Rebel Rigger. It takes barely a second to notice that rigger only has mini beam and beam drone. During the fight my crew do nothing but laugh at enemy's futile attempts while their beams fire constantly at my shield doing no harm. I started thinking "So you like beams, eh? Let's make this an all-beam fight" and unleashed the mighty MOAB (Mother Of All Beams), the artillery beam, which tore their ship into pieces. "Master of patience" acquired

[The Captain]

I was having a so-so run with the Predator II (Mantis A). The only new weapon I acquired was a Pike Beam; still had the Basic Laser and Small Bomb. Stores had no weapons, or either crappy missile weapons or missile weapons requiring 3 power, which I wouldn't have been able to use for a long time. I don't think I even ran across an offensive drone, so I just had a Defensive Drone Mk I and a Hull Repair Drone.

I like the Small Bomb as a complimentary weapon, but as your main weapon, it sucks. I did have Mantises join my crew, so I ended up with four, all masters of combat, with a level 3 Teleporter and a level 2 Medbay. So I was taking care of business.

But then came the boss. Oh, sure, it was easy enough to board and take out the usual three weapons, but then what? There was a full crew in the rest of the ship, a Cloak and a Medbay. I tried to bomb the Medbay, but one wasn't enough to take it out. I tried to bomb it again and missed. Then the boss cloaked and the Medbay got fixed. I bombed the Cloak and sent in the A team. Then I sent in the B team. But I couldn't kill anybody, as there were a ton of guys who could just rotate out to the Medbay, which I couldn't take out.

I tried boarding the Cloak room then the Doors, but that didn't help - I never had time to take systems out. I tried bombing the Shields then boarding there. Oh, did I mention I only started the battle with about a dozen missiles? I was fast running out of ammo. After a bunch of teleporting back and forth, healing then going back, I had my A team in the Shield room when the boss cloaked. I couldn't send in reinforcements, couldn't run away because of the blast doors, and ending up losing my A team. Now what? I sent the B team in while thinking, WTF am I going to do? Nothing was working. I brought them back to heal, still pondering the futility of it all.

I had bombed the Medbay at some point and then noticed four wounded crew in there repairing. I bombed it again. And - miracle of miracles - I did not miss with the next bomb and killed a bunch of them! And finally took the Medbay out! It was the turning point. I got the B team back in there and killed off the rest of the crew. Now I could take out the Shields and Piloting from the inside, and my Basic Laser and Pike Beam could finally get into action. I had used up all my bombs, but it didn't matter any more. Got a couple after winning the round, but they were no longer crucial. I went on to win the game.

Oh, I had been given the Weapon Pre-Igniter in the middle of the game - and given my crappy weapons, it was nearly useless!