Mantis B Early Game

[UglyBastard]

This ship really makes me mad. I like the premise of heavy focus on boarding and I would like to enjoy this ship...

Usually I get 2-3 Auto Scout encounters and 1-3 Zoltan encounters in Sector 1 (restarted like 10 times and it was that way EVERY TIME) which means average 4 more beacons that don't yield any early game income, so even if I come across a decent weapon, its highly unlikey that I can afford it.
I usually leave sector 1 with obscenenely low scrap because I can just kill very few ships (non-auto, non-zoltan, non-anti-boarding [recently had sector 1 ship with Medbay and Anti-Personnel-Drone]) due to the nonexistent weaponry.
Also FTL charges painfully low in the beginning if the only thing you can do against many ships is just run away, which results in higher repair costs.

So my outcome is always: -Income +Costs, which snowballs out of control really fast.

So is there anything with this ship I didn't see or is it really just restart 20 times over until you get favorable encounters/a decent early game weapon?

Talking about Normal difficulty.

[DasRav]

Simply put, that's how that ship works. If you manage to get a sector one with normal enemies, you will be ahead of the curve at the end. If that happens, that cruiser is a true beast. It comes down to a roll of the dice.

[seacows]

I've never really had a problem using this ship. I think that its one of the best ships in the game (along with federation cruiser a, engie ship a, rock ship b and crystal ship a)

Your defense drone and your level 2 shields should be enough to tank literally everything in the first two - three sectors. If you run into an automated ship in the first sector, just wait till your engines recharge and use a defense drone if it has a missile launcher. Eventually, unless you have really bad luck running into zoltan ships, ships with medbay, or automated ships in the first few sectors, you'll run into ships that you can board successfully.

[humantorch]

Curious to know what others' strategy is early on with this ship when you only have 2 Mantis boarders, no weapons, and come across a ship with a Medbay. I usually end up having to jump away because my 2 Mantises (Mantii?) can't pump out enough damage to take down systems while fighting off crew that keep running to the Medbay and back. Any tips? Am I just Doing It Wrong™?

[UglyBastard]

I know that I can use defense drone to mitigate most of the damage, that is not the problem.

My problem is that I usually reach the end of sector 1 with around 60 scrap and a badly damaged hull (thanks to stray missiles bypassing the drone, sun encounters etc.) if I don't get owned until then (IE by a double Ion Beam Zoltan Cruiser I encountered in S1 yesterday which just ripped me apart before FTL charged).

So when I have 60 scrap at the end of S1 and have to spend half of that on repairs, I just feel like rage quit.

So it's not really just about running away, it's about the huge early game money loss that occurs when you run away from every second encounter.

Maybe I just had really bad rolls, but I restarted like 20 times and only had a single game, that was barely acceptable (which I then blew by destroying the enemy ship through system damage while my boarders were still there ).

I don't have these problems with other ships including Gila Monster, I usually beat the boss in 90% of the playthroughs on Normal.

Just pure enrage. T_T

About the medbay:
If the ship has a missile, pop defense drone, run away and pray that your hull doesn't take too obscene damage. If not you can distract the enemy crew with the boarding drone and teleport into the medbay once it has a crewmember in the red.
Usually 2 mantis can deal enough DPS (damage per second) to focus down a crew member in a lvl 1 medbay.
Rinse and repeat.

[Real]

Curious to know what others' strategy is early on with this ship when you only have 2 Mantis boarders, no weapons, and come across a ship with a Medbay. I usually end up having to jump away because my 2 Mantises (Mantii?) can't pump out enough damage to take down systems while fighting off crew that keep running to the Medbay and back. Any tips? Am I just Doing It Wrong™?

I find large part of taking med-bay ships by force at the beginning revolves around using your boarding drone. That thing gives you two really great benefits for three power. A big ass breach in the enemy ship, and a distraction. If he takes one of the vital systems like the MB or oxygen with his initial breach, immediately beam your two mantis in and tank that room until the point that it turns into a vacuum. This is an effective way of putting a system in lockdown, because the AI in my experience really sucks at dealing with holes in its hull. As you've probably learned if you've faced the last boss phase two, fighting a boarding drone in an oxygen-less room is an exercise in extreme frustration. - Also, you have as many as you have drone parts, and drone parts (anything, really) come cheap for boarders.

If you get your teleporter and medbay upgraded, it's easy to cause lots of collateral damage with little to no risk to your own doods. I got far by doing a hard focus on boarding instead of a hybrid laser/teleporter build. The first ion weapon I see always gets mounted (even if I have to sell my mantis pheremones), and just for Zoltan. Once that nasty green bar goes away, eviscerating them is disarmingly easy. They're squishy. :3

ETA: Does anyone know if Zoltan are physically weak enough to kill in their own medbays with Mantis?
1v1, I mean.

[maxmurder]

I think your mantis would get widdled eventually in a 1v1 as the health regens at more or less the same rate as they deal it. If you had 2v1 mantis vs zoltan in a medbay the zoltan would probably lose but i suspect your mantis would be hurting after. It would be best to have a rockman to tank damage. My boarding parties always consist of a rock and mantis.

I know from experience that zoltans cant put out fires on their own without death, and a big missile strike on a room they are in can instakill them. If you can torch their medbay they are finished.

[Fredchuckdave]

Talking about Normal difficulty.

Talkin bout practice

[UglyBastard]

Talking about Normal difficulty.

Talkin bout practice

Very insightful post.

Maybe you could explain how "practice" helps you when you hit Autoscouts and Zoltan ships all over the place.
Like I mentioned before, I actually have no problems with ships that are not heavily dependant on earlygame luck.

Otherwise I guess you just restart all over like I do until you get favourable RNG with this ship.

But you're just trying to be a jerk anyway.

[Fredchuckdave]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDBR2L5kzI

I don't really have anything to add that hasn't already been said, if you find a drone or a zoltan with a shield in your first few encounters (outside of an asteroid field) then restart.