What do you actually buy?

[papaHav]

Set aside meta objectives like building "the dream" preigniter+4xBL MKII 2xAutoreloader...
When your goal is simply to maximize survival to sector 8 and beating the game, what do you actually buy?

Most common purchases
Both crew teleporter + cloaking
Zoltan crew
Long range scanners
Scrap recovery arm
Drone recovery arm -> Drone control
Defense/Hull repair drone
Reverse ion field

Least common purchases
Any weapon... since you can live off the land and still end up selling / leaving some behind most runs
Any crew other than zoltan... same as above

[tempthomas]

I always keep an eye out for auto reloaders and shield charger augments. And pre igniter or explosive replicators too.

[5thHorseman]

Weapons:
Flak 1. Almost an auto-buy.
BL2. Duh.

Systems:
Mind Control. I love this and it's a great defense in phase 3.
Hacking. Super powerful. Hack the shields and win.
Drone Control. Only if it comes with a Defense Drone or if I have one.
Cloak. Because I usually never seem to find a defense drone

Subsystems:
Weapon Pre-Igniter, but only if the ship benefits from it.
Automated Reloader. Best augment in the game.
Scrap Recovery Arm.
Long Range Scanners.

Drones:
Defense Drone.
Yeah that's about it.

[project_mercy]

I pretty much always save for a cloak and defense drone I. If the ship has a third free system slot, then It's a toss up between teleporter or mind control depending on when it's available and what crew you have. Due to the drone thing, I pretty much always buy a drone recovery arm if available and empty scrap. I generally keep a combat drone around. It's handy for knocking down zoltan shields or ships with overly annoying engines. It adds that extra pressure on the shields, even if it's not astoundingly effective. I view it like a mediocre ion weapon.

Scrap recovery arms are generally on with maybe distraction bouys if early enough. Flak Is, BL2s, Halberd Beams, they're all on the list. Automated Reloader's still fine.

I try to get a pair of Zoltan for the shield room. It's 2 free power and it permanently gives you 1 shield bubble safe from Ion damage. Combined with a battery, it means in the Flagship fight you can basically rock full shields, full engines, full weapons, and a defense drone for a limited time. To some extent, it turns the battery into a mini cloak.

[itg]

Weapons:
Flak 1, Burst II. Both are great and work well with virtually any setup.
Halberd beam. Snother great buy. Great damage potential and hacking is essentially the only help it needs.
Ion bomb. Slightly less impressive now that hacking exists (to say nothing of the charge time nerf), but it's still good and pretty cheap.
Ion blast I/II, ion charger. If I've already got an ion weapon.

Systems:
Cloaking. I basically never don't want this.
Hacking. Great for so many reasons, but I might avoid it if I'm already relying on drones.
Mind control. The least powerful of the systems, but also the lowest investment by a wide margin. I usually buy it.
Drone control. If it comes with a defense drone or I already have one, I'm probably buying this. Otherwise, I need a very specific plan, which probably will involve a drone recovery arm.
Teleporter. I usually only buy it if I already have a strong boarding team, or a clone bay at the very least. On hard, purchasing crew to go with the teleporter can be a debilitating investment, and thanks to the connected missile room, the teleporter isn't very useful against the flagship (without strong support, anyway).

Subsystems:
Backup battery. It's cheaper than two reactor bars, so I'll always buy it if I can afford it after high-priority purchases.
Sensors. If I don't start with them, I probably won't buy them. I might purchase them if I really want mind control, but I'd rather get a slug for this purpose, or even Lifeform Scanners, so I can use it in the nebulae.

Augments:
Pre-igniter. Not every time. I'm likely to skip it if I'm relying on ion weapons, charge weapons, or I see it very early on.
Auto reloader. It's cheap always useful, so I'll nearly always buy it.
Scrap recovery arm. It's a strong investment, even if you buy it pretty late. I nearly always buy it.
Distraction Buoys. Seems weaker than a scrap arm, but still worth purchasing.
Long range scanners. Cheap and it helps you avoid empty beacons. Especially good for nebula sectors.
Drone recovery arm. I don't buy it all that often, but I like to see it since it opens up some interesting combat drone possibilities. Once I bought this before I even had drone control, since I had a combat drone in the cargo hold. It worked out well.
Lifeform Scanners. Close to strictly inferior to a slug crewman, but I've purchased this at least twice in order to use mind control on ships without sensors.

Drones:
Defense drone I/II. If I'm desperate, I might buy drone control with some other drone, then buy the defense drone separately.
Combat drone I/II. If I'm buying one of these, I probably have a drone recovery arm. A single combat drone isn't terrible, but that system slot could be put to better use.

Crew:
Zoltan. I'll buy these guys sometimes in order to get power beyond the reactor cap.
Slug. They can be worth it when I want to use mind control in a nebula sector.

[infrequentLurker]

I like to pick up Scrap Recovery Arm when possible (who doesn't?)

Drone Control or Cloaking, if I didn't come with either. Usually between all the requisite upgrades I just can't juggle getting both and running them effectively yet, so one or the other for me, and pray I can get my offence heavily enough in order. If I find a hull repair drone, the Drone Control and Defense Drone become priority # 1, because once repairs cost 3 per point, drone parts are more cost effective 100% of the time with one of those. 3 hull repair costs 9 at that point (and 12 later), where a drone part costs 8 and can heal up to 5 (net savings 1-7 scrap, 4-12 scrap in later sectors)

Breach Bombs (1 or 2) - Gets past shields and drones? Check. Disables AI autorepair? Check. Heavily damages a system? Check. Potentially kills crew and slows down the repair process? Check and check. If I run any missile-based system at all, and one of these are an option, it is THE option for me, and I really do not feel bad spending my hard-earned scrap on one.

Repairs because missiles happen. Usually I only repair up to ~22-26 bars (4-8 from full) in hopes that i'll find an event that will give some free repairs out.

[shadowcrust]

I often don't buy weapons, but run with what I get for free. Besides the almost always good choices mentioned before, I have a thing for Heavy Lasers and Hull Lasers, it's just so satisfying to breach and do 2 damage with one shot.

Hacking is the most useful purchasable system in most cases, it also combines extremely well with the other extra systems, maybe slightly less so with Drone Control. Cloak is also very good to have, although sometimes unaffordable. Mind Control is fun and useful, but less so. Drone Control is weak and I only get it when nothing else is on sale or if I got a Hull Repair drone, which is one of the best things in the game, if relatively rare. Teleporter is even rarer, so even if I wanted to buy it after the series of downgrades it suffered, it's seldom on sale. Least useful system to buy now, although it's still loads of fun to use it if the ship comes with one pre-installed or if you want to unlock the Shivan.

I rarely buy Augmentations other than Long Range Scanners and Automated Re-loader, but run with what I get gifted, if any.

If it's one of those runs where not a single crew member wants to join voluntarily, I tend to buy the cheapest guys. Would only buy Zoltans in very rare circumstances, as a single Flak II shot can insta-kill them through four shields (yeah, been there, done that).

[itg]

If it's one of those runs where not a single crew member wants to join voluntarily, I tend to buy the cheapest guys. Would only buy Zoltans in very rare circumstances, as a single Flak II shot can insta-kill them through four shields (yeah, been there, done that).

Unless I'm missing something, the math doesn't work out here. A shot that does 1 hull/system damage does 15hp to crewmen. Flak II fires 7 shots, so at most 3 of them could make it through 4 shields and hit your Zoltan, for a grand total of 45hp lost. There must have been another weapon involved to instakill your Zoltan.

[Dirka]

I actually think I haven't bought cloak once in AE. But then I'm a wuss who doesn't play hard, and I usually try to go for crew kills.

Hacking is basically a gimme, and if I don't have a teleport (which is often), I like to combine it with MC.

I'm also fond of Hull Lasers for their versatility: their breach ability is fantastic against automated ships and for crew kills, and they are capable of decimating hitpoints like no one's business. Probably wouldn't buy Hull II over Burst II, though.

Another favorite of mine is the Fire Beam, but I haven't seen it very often in AE.

[shadowcrust]

When it happened, I had 4 Zoltans in the shield room, so according to your calculations (which I never did), all of them must have been down to 45 health or less, as their explosions don't hurt their friends. Maybe one of them was mindcontrolled and then exploded when the Flak II struck? I don't remember the details anymore, unfortunately, and now you've ruined my story with numbers Anyway, I'm wary of those Zoltans now, exploding reactor bars are not worth the investment...

I did more numbers: in the last 15 victories, I had these extra systems installed:

Hacking: 12 times
Cloaking: 10 times
Drone Control: 8 times
Mind Control: 6 times
Teleporter: 4 times

And that's pretty much the order of usefulness I'd rank them.