I made it to the end boss!

[Tybot]

... and got my ass kicked. Couldn't couldn't get far past the shields before it omgwtfpwned all my systems. My Engi ship never got the offensive firepower it needed.

I'm interested to hear how much success people have had with which ship setups. Short of vacuuming every bit of scrap on the map, maybe amassing hull missiles?

[utoxin]

I haven't had much time to play yet, admittedly, but I haven't made it out of the first sector. I keep dying in a fire.

[AJTilley]

I had the exact same problem, I got there with the engi's but I was still relying on drones and ion weapons and I got hammered, I managed to get a little way in got the shields down for a short time but i couldnt keep them down long enough for the drones to do any damage. The only reason i lasted so long was i had loads of crew running around like headless chickens repairing everything.

[Ohmwrecker]

Nice work, it's a difficult encounter to deal with. I hope you know that there's more than one phase to him, it's a big challenge.

I will probably put together a guide on taking him on soon, with huge spoiler warnings of course.

[ezryder]

On easy I got to the end boss three times with the circle cruiser (have yet to figure out how to unlock any of the other ships).

1st time it blew up AND jumped away at the same time.
(As far as I can remember)
- shields were only 2 dots, only had the healing augment, had lots of power, blast doors, was fully repaired before the fight
- 1 ion cannon, 1 heavy ion cannon, 1 missile launcher (big one that used 3 power), 1 anti-ship drone, 1 beam drone

2nd time I jumped in from the previous sector on top of the boss (may be a bug, didn't appear at the federation base) with about 3 points of hull left, no drone parts, no fuel, 5 missiles. The Donut 'sploded very quickly.

3rd time was a long battle that I lost.
- shields were 3 dots, healing augment, hull augment, repair arm thingie,
- 1 ion cannon, 1 heavy ion cannon, 1 heavy laser II, 1 anti-ship drone

Currently missiles look to be very effective. I was going to say more, but there isn't a spoiler tag for the boards.

[Warbird]

Gradz. What difficulty is everyone playing on?

[Doubler]

I got to it with the Torus on easy. Won two battles, but after my second victory it 'retreated' directly onto the base. Game over.
Was a bit miffed, though to be honest I doubt I would've won the next round. I had only 30-40% or so hull left and no repair opportunities.

[Colorfulfeces]

I just got to the end boss, and it wrecked my shit. I was completely unprepared for what I faced.

[kswill]

Wow. Tell me you guys are playing on easy. On normal mode, about the time i reach sector 6 I hit a huge difficulty spike. I scramble around most battles feeling very underpowered just trying to warp out or pray i can keep their weapons disabled long enough for me to force them to surrender treaty.

[Colorfulfeces]

I tried normal, got rocked in the beginning of the second sector twice.