Too Random.

[Incendax]

Just intentionally tried to beat the boss 4 times using only Drones/Teleport and it didn't work. All attempts were begun after boss offensive was neutered. First Try was 4 in the shield room and 4 in the cloak room. Med Bay Cycling meant no actual damage was done to either system. The ship cloaks after the second teleport and the boarding party started dying. Numbers got too low and it became unwinnable.

Second try split the team up around the shields and the med bay to stall long enough to bring the shields down. Cloak goes up, shields return, and boarding party started dying.

Third try split up into four squads in small rooms, breaking everything they could. This caused actual damage because Med Bay Cycling was spread too thin, but cloak happened and boarding party started dying.

Fourth try set the team on the cloak, and more outside the room on the way to the med bay to stall. Enemies walk past stalling boarders to stop damage to the cloak. Cloak happens, boarding party started dying.

[Maze1125]

Well, that's odd, because I stuck 4 boarders in the cloak room and they were able to kill many of the crew before they even left the room on the way to the medbay. If I'd stuck another 2-4 in the corridor then none of the enemy crew would have made it to the medbay to survive.

Were you using engis or zoltans? Or untrained boarders?

[Incendax]

Well, that's odd, because I stuck 4 boarders in the cloak room and they were able to kill many of the crew before they even left the room on the way to the medbay. If I'd stuck another 2-4 in the corridor then none of the enemy crew would have made it to the medbay to survive.

Were you using engis or zoltans? Or untrained boarders?

Since I knew I was going to send down 8 boarders I tried to make everyone fairly even. This was four different runs, so experience levels varied but I always tried to have at least four people with 2 stars. Once someone got 2 stars I stopped sending them to fight as I worked through the sectors.

[Maze1125]

Well. Like I say. I sent in only 4 and they shredded the cloak room and the crew. 6 and it'd have been a complete massacre.
So either there was something wrong with the crew you sent, or something wrong with your tactics.

[Carl]

In my experiance the enemy anti-Boarding AI cna be a bit odd.

Somtimes it waits till the last sliver of health before pulling them back, a group of 4 can somtimes kill an enemy then, (if it's just one guy), but otherwise nada.

Othertimes they pull out a couple of slivers earlier and no amount of crew of any experiance level will stop the retreat.

[Eji1700]

And, ya know, I don't even believe you when you say that the ion-blast and 3 attack drones couldn't break their shields before they cloaked again.

You fire one blast as soon as they decloak, and you should be easily able to do some damage before they recloak, they only have 4 shield points.
Yeah, you'll miss quite a few times, which means you won't successfully damage them before they cloak every time, but it doesn't have to be every time. It could be 1 in 20 times and you'd still eventually win.

And I never said "zerg rush" that sounds like you're just going to throw your crew at them and hope. A 8 man boarding requires careful tactics. You could very well lose to a slip up, but that doesn't mean it wasn't possible.

I had ion and 3 drones setup recently. I was lucky if i got through their shields enough to ion the damn thing, and by that point I was basically stuck waiting to see if the drones decided to take a quick path, or saunter across the ship. Drones don't just miss, they take random paths to their next firing point and this can and will make a big difference depending on the size and shape of the ship. Being really really big, the mothership is kinda an issue for drone combat.

Edit-

I wouldn't say it's TOO random just because of this, though I have had bad runs.

They aren't all bad, and if you can make it to the boss at all you can usually beat him in my experience. Everyone's style and luck are different though. :/

I kinda have an issue with this, since barring a SUPER alpha strike build it seems you just cannot beat him without cloak due to his second form. One of my other boss runs involved ion lockdown(2 with a breach bomb), 2 anti ship drones, and a beam drone and i feel like some other weapon of some sort. I managed to keep the first form mostly locked down but took some heavy damage. Couldn't repair(not sure it would've mattered) because my repairs spawned in a line that was one jump away from him. Turn 1 he took one of them and random rebel attacks took another, and by the time i got to the third he was there(THAT falls under god just hating me). Anyways went into the secondfight ok, disabled his drone controller on a lucky shot, then got swarmed to death by drones that I could do NOTHING about.

[Maze1125]

I kinda have an issue with this, since barring a SUPER alpha strike build it seems you just cannot beat him without cloak due to his second form. One of my other boss runs involved ion lockdown(2 with a breach bomb), 2 anti ship drones, and a beam drone and i feel like some other weapon of some sort. I managed to keep the first form mostly locked down but took some heavy damage. Couldn't repair(not sure it would've mattered) because my repairs spawned in a line that was one jump away from him. Turn 1 he took one of them and random rebel attacks took another, and by the time i got to the third he was there(THAT falls under god just hating me). Anyways went into the secondfight ok, disabled his drone controller on a lucky shot, then got swarmed to death by drones that I could do NOTHING about.

With full shields and high evade, it's quite possible to take zero damage from the drone swarm.

You are making sure to take his weapon systems out first, right? Preferably with a boarding team?
Because if you do you should take only 2 or 3 hull damage in the first stage, and in the second it leaves the swarm without any back-up damage, which is the usual reason the swarm will kill you, the weapons break your shields and the swarm does the damage.

[dknight99]

I find the best way to get weapons is to kill all the enemy crew members and not just blow up the ship. I got so many weapons this way.

[Drasha]

I just had an almost no weapon run and a tiny amount of scrap run. This is following a run where I got all the weapons I could want and heaps of scrap. There aren't enough ways for us to mitigate randomness when we have bad luck.

For boarding parties on the boss getting into a no win first stage is pretty easy. Med bay cycling will make it impossible to beat unless the ai is stupid, you have some thing to destroy the med bay with, or you have the lock down ability which is even less common then missile/bombs.

[Telemont]

Well. Like I say. I sent in only 4 and they shredded the cloak room and the crew. 6 and it'd have been a complete massacre. So either there was something wrong with the crew you sent, or something wrong with your tactics.

It sounds more like there was something wrong with the AI of the crew you were fighting. Most of the time it acts smart and heals people early, and there is nothing you can do about it. But sometimes it does not make them retreat until they have a sliver of health. I've even seen times when they do not retreat and there is a perfectly good medical bay just sitting somewhere on the ship.

But back to the topic. Yeah, I hate how many times I get no weapons or terrible weapon choices and I've already invested in one strategy so I don't get enough scrap to build up to the other strategy because the fights have gotten too hard. Shops should probably sell a little bit of everything.