The Torus - underpowered or misunderstood?

[Nori]

So this keeps happening to me:
I start the game, (one of the) first fight(s) I run into is a ship that runs 1 simple laser and 1 simple missile (artemis) weapon and has 1 shield.
This is a simple setup, but you it's pure luck if you beat this ship with the torus..

first ion shot disables 1 bar of shield energy, 2nd shot disables 1 bar of weapon energy. The AI wisely decides to keep the remaining power on the missile.
my drone hits random rooms, not the shield, nor the weapons.. so I take a few missile hits while my drone uselessly takes pot shots at empty rooms over there and after a while I take a missile to the drone bay and at this point the game is essentially over. Weapons room would result in the same thing..

All the while my strategic options are exactly none at all. I can stand by and wait until my FTL is charged, then jump away. Either way, the best option at that point is to just start a new game, since it's still early.

This... Basically I don't like using the Torus, it is very locked into a certain play style and you start out with crap. The Kestral is much much better. I really want to unlock other ships but haven't had any luck so far. I've been to the Engi homeworld many times and always with a engi in my crew, but haven't gotten anything yet....

[aviphysics]

I like the Torus for teleporting because its medbay is right next to the teleport spot which allows really fast healing and sending your guys back. In the early game it has plenty of power to work over enemies. You do need to always be on the look out for weapon upgrades though. Bombs can be really good for taking out medbays and shield generators allowing ion cannons or boarding crews to do their work. Defensive drones are also a must.

I do find the Defensive drone I better than the II cause it won't waste it's shots on lasers that my shields can absorb.

[TenLetters]

I like the Torus a lot. The most memorable one was when I got really awkward luck. I found another of the starting Ion weapons and ended with three anti-ship drones. I then also got 3 automatic reloaders. My ship was like, perfect, hahaha. It was all cheap stuff. Just invested heavy into defense with cloak and shields and everything turned out dandy.

The next time I had a missile (forget which), an upgraded ion weapon and one of my originals. I had two beam drones and one Defense II drone. I had to switch power from my beam drones to my Defense II drone when they fired missiles and cloak wasn't up, which works out fine. Beam drones do sick damage.

[VladePsyker]

ok, from what I'm reading though, it seems everyone is supporting the points I made originally.. you're essentially saying your strategy with this one is to be lucky with shops or drops early on..
The essential problem remains that if you don't find the correct equipment at the correct time there's no way to adjust strategy with the torus.
Essentially you need to turn the torus into a ship that's more comparable to the kestrel asap. I.e. get lasers/missiles.

I think it's a really interesting idea for a ship, but just based on numbers, not personal preference(I like the ship), it seems like a frustratingly poorly equipped setup (even though it comes with a free drone bay and med upgrade).

mmm no not quite, I'm saying you need to spend your scrap on weapons earlier rather than upgrading your systems, going to multiple stores reduces the luck factor on finding weapons. the weapons don't even need to be that good just an improvment from the ion to carry you for a few sectors.

I disagree that this ship only works with luck, I could say the same about the kestrel, its certainly no worse off imo

[almekmanning]

Personally I have only been able to beat the boss with the Torus. The Kestrel is too weak, unless you buy drones, but that is really expensive. You just have to have those three drones pounding away at the boss to beat him. And the auto heal is awesome!

[Niknud]

I think it is a blast to play early. If you can get a 3rd ion blaster early in the game you can complete disable the weapons shields and 02 of a ship it just takes a while. If you get lucky and get a droid recovery arm you can go anti-ship droids and never have to worry about droid parts again.

[Bomfy]

As of right now, the Torus is "my" ship. I have hit or miss with the Kestrel, but a massive majority of the time I am to the final sector with the Torus. I was rather surprised my first play through with it that I made it to the final sector. I expected a little more break in period.

My Torus setup is rather simple. Get something that uses missiles (ion bomb preferred over everything else), a lazer (heavy if possible, level I is good enough), staring ion weapon. Weapons are dialed in now. Drones are much more easy, Anti-Ship for all three. I can normally have this accomplished within the first 4, maybe 3 sectors. All might not run at once at that point, but they are sitting in the slots. Droid arm is really essential. i find this the ideal set up for me, I have had enemies surrender before the Ion Bomb charges which is around 18 seconds.

My first attack is always completely and totally aimed at weapons. Droids will open the shields up and by the time the ion bomb goes off the weapons are hampered. Then do whatever you wish from then on.

My first goal really is 4/4 shields. Throw in max cloak and you are really quite golden for just destroying the final boss. My last run through I was about 50% hull (from 100 and didn't get a single hull hit in the first wave) and ran straight through the fight.

Also a couple Mantis on board for when people teleport on. one whatever the green guys are if you get a Heavy II lazer for the free power.

[irongamer]

I've never reached the last boss with the Kestrel but I always reach the end boss with the Torus if I don't try anything stupid. This is on normal difficulty. I haven't tried easy yet.

Spoiler Warning

You can run 2 ion, 1 anti-ship drone for quite a long time. I basically don't shoot anything other than the weapon system and let the drone slowly pick the ship to piece. Not glorious, not exciting, but it is generally efficient and effective. Later I like to add on the largest burst laser I can find or the launcher that fires 2 missiles for 1 (phoenix?).

In addition two those I will also run another anti-ship drone, or defensive depending on the make up of the enemy ship. I also always pick up the cloak and put at least one upgrade into it.

To be honest, I can get to the boss every time but I haven't beat him yet. The last attempt I had the gear to do it but I made the mistake of waiting for him to land on the base node with me on it. You lose even if you are on the node...doh.

[Darthcaboose]

A very hilarious game the other day, but on a whim I decided to buy the teleporter system for the Torus. What happened soon after was I had acquired a total of 8 crew members (3 humans, 5 engies) and began a reign of terror with my fully upgraded level 3 teleporter the likes that no civilized being has ever seen! My away team consisted of 3 engies and 1 of the humans, all of whom by the Last Stand were masters in the arts of hand-to-hand and laser combat!

Yes, it wasn't optimal, but it turned out to be a very hilarious final boss battle. I even managed to beat Phase 2 of the boss battle, though they immediately got away to the rebel base resulting in my defeat.

Boarders were a piece of cake thanks to the Torus's nanobots augmentation.

Oh, word of advice. Don't teleport boarders to an enemy scout drone without at least having the teleportation system upgraded to level 2, or else they will die of suffocation before you can bring them back! Once you get to level 3 (5 seconds), I was juggling two sets of boarders on the rebel ships (one going for weapons, the other shields) and whittling them down to a point where my beam drones could take them out. Fun!

[aviphysics]

Current'y having a really good run with the Torus.

Using A mantis 3 humans and 4 engies. Teleporter II, health II, maxed shield, maxed sensors, max power, max cloak. For weapons I got 2 heavy lasers II, heavy laser I, Defense Drone I, Defense Drone II and Antiship Drone.

I can't keep everything on at once but by balancing power just to where you need it when you need it, this setup works extremely well. Step one is two send an assault team to distract them and use heavy lasers all at once to take out their weapons, or helm if they have a lot of engines. If they have a medbay, I hold off the heavy lasers until they run off to heal and then let loose on the medbay (this is the most fun). Firing the lasers just after the Antiship Drone scrapes a little off their shields helps to.

I had a breach missile in the mix for a while but wasn't using it very much. All the lasers working together was sufficient.