I keep meeting the mothership, but not strong enough

[Maya]

I dont understand how you guys can have so much equipment when you attack the mothership.

I try to visit as many points in a map before the fleet takes over the area. When I get to the mother ship Im lucky if I have 3 shields, 4 crew, 3 random weapon that I got from loot, and mayne 30% dodge.

How do you get so much scraps so you can upgrade to all that? Even if I dont take much damage on the way I still cant get enough to upgrade to all that weapons and drones. And how can you get so many crew members? The most I have had is 5, then I was really lucky to get a few on the way that wanted to join the crew. I cant afford to hire any because I need all the scraps I can get for upgrades.

You can't raise all Systems to the maximum so you need to decide what not to build up. I usually don't buy much for the drone systems cause i want the control of what i target an most time i don't need the defensive drone so there i got enough Scrap for most of the rest. And also you don't need to buy points for things you don't use anyway, especially never buy energy for everything, cause most of the time, the MedBay isn't used so you can get the energypoint in other thing and if needed, then redirekt some points from Engine, Teleporter or Weapons into it (whatever you don't need at the time). And also buy an early fire Beam or Teleporter to just kill the crews and not the ships to get a Bunch of Bonus Scrap. And if you don't mind the uselessness of sensors, then always take the Nebula-Routes, cause u get a time advantage and can visit more beacons, while the Rebell Fleet is slowed down.

And the easiest way to get a crew ist to have some luck with Slave traders, but normally there should be around 2-3 in the first few sectors (on easy at least, but if possible you should invade their ship, cause then you can choose from some Slaves and don't get a random one^^) and some more events (normally you can get a bunch of some Mantis and Engi)

Oh, yes and before you go and get yourself done in:
DON'T help the mad guy that lingers around in a cave.
Both times I tried he made things worse.
The first time he killed one of three crewman, the second time he damaged the ship for about 10%...
Kill him, ignore him, bite him... but never ever let him on your ship!

There is still a chance to get him for your crew^^ So if you meet this event in your first jumps, then just try it and restart if its a bad event. But the same with Spiders, most time i loose one of my crewmembers.

[Eyjio]

I keep having real problems with the Mothership too - to the extent that I've been able to go wherever I want with no fear of even taking damage and STILL lost to the final boss because it's wrecked my cloak/boarded my shields/my weapons couldn't get through 4 shields and still inflict meaningful damage. The one time I beat this game, I was using the Torus. My basic idea was abuse lvl 4 engines+stealth whilst 2 ion guns disabled shields so drones could go to town. I'm still not sure that would beat the final boss on its own but fire bombs are just ridiculous, especially against their weapons. They have one crew each - if they die from fire, they lose the weapon for the entire round. First round I spent about 3 minutes bombing away all their weapons and the rest of the time killing crew with fire bombs. Second round I killed the weapons again and cloaked through the power surges. Last round was a joke as they only had 3 crew left, so I went to town with fire. As far as I can tell, for round 2 you NEED cloak as nothing else can stand up to 10 drones.

[Alex]

My easiest victory was with the Torus.

The trick in all the stages is cracking the shields. Once they are down you should be able to manage fixing the ship fast enough to win. Anyway, heres my main tips:

1. By the Pre-Ignition thing (the advantage that allows you to fire weapons immediately). When you start the battle you can basically unload a massive volley the second the cloak drops.

2. The above is only useful if you can actually get through the shields in one volley. Ion weapons are useful, but i charged in with 2 big laser guns (forget which type) which together had 7 shots. These 7 shots all landed and the simple maths of that allowed me to overwhelm the shields and get some damage through.

3. Once their shields were damaged, it was a simple job to maintain a bombardment until they were completely damaged. The best thing about focusing attack on one system (especially a 4x4 room) is that it draws in lots of troops who try and put out fires. While they put out fires, successive volleys damage and kill them, meaning other systems lose man power.

4. The other side of the coin is your own defence. Focus cash on increasing shields, engines and reactor power. You can easily get by the whole game without needing teleportation or drones if you are careful so invest wisely.

[mredge73]

I killed it yesterday on easy with the first ship.
Stealth + Teleport (battle hardened crew) + 2x Lasers (5 shot volleys)

1st
Teleport to the missile battery and ion cannon fist, the work your way to the other guns.
Use lasers to damage shields and medbay.
Kill most of the crew, leave 1 or 2 if you like.

2nd
The hardest one for me, usually kills me.
Send 1 crew to kill the missiles, the rest of the crew stayed on board to defend boarders.
I used stealth to evade shots during "power surge".
Lasers wore down ship after setting fire to the shields, low enemy crew so they couldn't repair it.

3rd
Easy, lasers tore down shield.
Stealth to avoid "power surge"
Crew tore the ship apart starting with the shields.

Tips:
You need to try to max out your ship.
On all single shield enemies, aim for the guns for a quick kill.
Upgrade to 2 shields first. This will make you nearly immune to damage (saving on repairs) for the first 3 sectors.
Buy teleport as soon as you can, use crew + non-hull weapons to kill enemy crew to yield maximum scrap per encounter. This also levels your crew to make them hardy for the final fight.
Pirate held areas have lots of slavers so you can get most of your boarding crew from them (for free once you wear down their ship)
Stealth helps tremendously for the final fight.
Attack drones can also be helpful for tearing down shields for 3 and 4 shield enemies.
Don't forget to turn off your Auto fire and attack drones when your crew is on board the enemy ship!

[antisyzygy]

I am having the same problem. I have found that I don't bother upgrading my engines enough compared to other people so I plan on trying that. I always end up having my hull either half or totally screwed by the time I reach the final boss even if I swing by repair sites. I usually have 3-4 shields by the time I get there as well so I think adding the dodge chance would be beneficial.

The best weapon configuration I have found so far is Missile + Burst + Firebeam, or Firebeam + Ion. With either set you can torch the shit out of them once you get their shields down. If you kill the enemy crew it has been reported you get more scrap.

Another tip I have started using is to find some weak enemy who can't even get through your shields, then just sitting there letting them pummel you since your shield, engine and pilot guys gain XP. If you have an ion you can also level your weapons guy that way. While you are in combat the rebels aren't advancing so its safe to do.

I get plenty of scrap, but I always get screwed by random events, such as asteroid field + hard ass enemy followed immediately by warping in too close to a sun and another hard enemy. The game is very random and it always seems like I get the short stick. Sometimes I just wont find any stores as another example for 3 sectors, and I explore as much as I can before the rebels take over a system. I usually end with the rebels just about to take over the exit warp.

I have never had the mad guy in the cave event, nor the Zoltan sacred eye or whatever event actually do anything good for me after hitting them 3 times each.

Also what others said about slavers is true. Just fight them and they will give you a free crew member. Its a slight risk but slavers almost never were a hard enemy and required much less scrap to repair the damage they did than the crew member would cost me.

[Flickey]

I just won for the first time ever with the Firetail (on normal). I didn't even have Cloak or 4 shields. Just get 40+ percent dodge and upgrade your doors so you can suffocate the invaders.

Weapon setup is pretty random and I lost a few times because of that. This time I used 2 Mark II lasers, one standard laser and one heavy laser. Take down his shields with a barrage of both Mark IIs, then kill his crew/destroy his systems with the rest of your weapons.

Remember to reroute power from noncritical systems as needed (medbay, oxygen L2). You don't need enough power for every single system. Remember that you don't need as much dodge if you shoot down missiles with your def drone, so you can take a few points from engines to power those. If you try to get enough power for every single system you have, you won't have enough scrap for weapons.

Always have at least 100 scrap handy for random shops, so you can buy strong weapons if they do appear.

Took me 30 tries with a few different ships, so above all keep trying!

[LaserSushi]

Firebombs. Spam them at the isolated weapons systems, and the beam weapon the stealth cruiser 2 uses, helps immensely. Cloaking is also your friend.