Please Help!

[A_N00B]

I'm having a lot of trouble beating the boss, I already know the general stratagy,
1. board weapons system and destroy them, leaving lasers alive
2. take out the rest of the crew (I have trouble with this step)
3. hammer away at their hull

I haven't had a single victory (on easy!) the drones always destroy me before the third phase
I have all ships but Stealth B, Rock B, Mantis A/B, Crystal A/B, and, sadly Federation A/B

Any advice?

Also, any suggestions on which ship to use

*UPDATE* finally won, was lucky and got 3 burst laser MK II and fire bomb i used fire to kill the crew, it was close as i couldn't find cloaking or a tele, but i pulled it off, thanks for all the great advice!

[UltraMantis]

I would try the Rock or Mantis B. The 2nd stage is the hardest part of the game, unless you bump into a 5shield deathstar.

Maybe you should pay less attention to killing the rest of the crew, and just wreck the main weapons first, then blast the hull second. The mothership crew is very numerous and hard to take out. I'd try to smash the hull. The only system that presents a problem is the shield, and that's no problem for the missile happy Rock A.

Good Luck.

[Number43]

If you succeed at taking out the crew in the first stage you shouldn't be having too much trouble. You can then send in boarders to take out the shields and drones easily enough once you do that. Two things help with the drone surges: put a lot of power into your engines. If you have low dodge you'll take heavy damage even with 4 shield bars. Also, you can use cloaking to dodge the power surges (you only need level 1 cloaking.)

[Hoa_Binh]

I usually don't kill the crew until the last stage.

In the first stage mostly board, or concentrate fire on, the weapons in the Missiles > Ion > Beam order. Once those are out I hammer shields with some fire towards helm to remove the dodge until the ship goes down. Depending on my setup I actually depower the weapons at the start. If I have level 2-3 cloak and boarding I go zero power to weapons and all other important systems to full (shields, engines, defensive drones) until their weapons are off-line.

At second stage the start is the same, Missiles first and maybe beam gun if I can. I do try to put some fire into the drone bay to stop the boarding drones. If I have denfensive drones that is not needed since they seem to shoot down the boarding drones every time. If you have it, cloaking or full power to engines during the power surge. Depowering the weapons can work but it once again depend on the setup.

[Mataza]

Agree here, killing the crew on step 2 is definitely hard.
If you have 4 experienced boarders and a way to disable the medbay(breach bombs, enough lasers etc.), you can try take out the crew in step 1.
You shouldn´t try to kill the crew if you can´t disable the medbay anyway.

Killing the crew is sugar on top of an already won run, or you have like 4 max combat experience mantises that can kill people before they leave a room when hurt.
Generally Phase 2 requires you to have good burst damage or the best possible defensive setup. It´s much more strict in that sense than the rest of the game.

[tswaters]

If you're having trouble taking out the crew in phase 1, be sure to bring a missile/bomb to the fight.

Make sure it can do 3 systems damage -- teleport your guys into cockpit (this reduces enemy ship dodge chance) and hit the medbay with your bomb. Breach II is most effective, I find, but breach missile or pegasus will work fine as well. If you have a lvl2 cloak, you can stay in sync with the boss and get an idea when you need to teleport out.

Assuming the crew is dead in the first phase, the rest of it is a cake walk -- ( I have been humbled by the power surges in the phase2/3 though ) -- In phase2, boarding is way easier and you can take out the drone control to stop the neverending stream of boarding drones... and of course, take down the missile launcher and shields, then fire away.

[Milkshake]

I personally don't have a favorite way of doing it, but there are a lot of ways of doing it.

First off: I always try to get a cloak and use it well, this means:
1st stage: use it against the missile launcher.
2nd stage: use it when there is a power surge (use it the moment all the drones move in).
3rd stage: again, power surge.

For example, you could upgrade your engines and get a defence drone up (also helps in 2nd stage: boarding drone gets shot out of the air), if possible with a cloak, don't focus on firepower too much, it is good to be able to kill the enemy fast, but it's more important to have a good defence: If he can't hit you, you can take your time.

You could also go for a more powerfull attack and less of a defence: get a teleporter and after taking out his weapons take out his medbay, that way if you board again they can't keep healing themselves. (again easier with a cloak).

But there is no real best way to do it, just adapt your style to whatever you can find.

Hope it helps, good luck and remember, dying is halve the fun

[CrashSanders]

I will suggest you to try Engi Cruiser A. I have a little article about this ship here and you are welcome to check it.
In short, try to use attack drones and ion weapons.

[UltraMantis]

Well i just recorded a video of the final engagement. I gotta say, as long as you wreck their weapons and have Cloak lvl1, it doesnt matter how badly you play. The worst outcome is a stalemate wehn you dont have enough weapons to punch through the shields and do damage. But if you can get to this fight, you should have decent weaponry. Should.