Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

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DjK
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 8:00 am

Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

Postby DjK » Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:20 pm

Hi everybody,
my first runs always where with the kestrel. I used to play a littlebit and to this moment I die always in the last Sector ( haven't used stealth, wrong weapons so I couldn't penetrate 4 point shields ).

So I wanted to give the Engi-ship a chance.
Now I my problems ...
How can I kill my first oponents ?
I use the Ion-weapon to deactivate the shield, so the Attackdrone can make some damage, but the damage is totally random.
At the first encounters I lost a lot of my hull.

With the Kestral I my first Rocket/Laser destroyed normally the shield, if not my second did.
After this I deactivated the weapons, easy win ...

But I have hard Problems with the Engi-ship, does anyone have some tips ?
Zelnick
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2012 10:13 am

Re: Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

Postby Zelnick » Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:40 pm

Deactivate the shield and the drone do the rest...where is the problem? ;)

Of course, if you are unlucky with your first encounters, you'll probably die, but that is with any other ship the same. Be sure, that the ion cannon is on autofire, makes things easier. You can target the weapon system, too.

the drone targets randomly, thats right. But the damage is constant and if you break the shield (in sector 1 the enemies usually have just 1 shield) the enemy will die quickly.
DjK
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 8:00 am

Re: Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

Postby DjK » Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:50 pm

The problem for me is my "normal" tactic.

Usually I can deactivate the weaponssystem with mit rocket and the shield with my lasers.

But with the Engiship I get really much hulldamage at the beginning.

Despite that, what are the first steps with this class ?
Shield lvl 2 ?
A second Weapon ?
More and more drones ?
DarkenDragon
Posts: 42
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:58 pm

Re: Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

Postby DarkenDragon » Thu Sep 20, 2012 4:05 pm

first, turn on auto attack, you need that ion burst 2 to be shooting constantly
second as soon as the shields go down, switch to shoot their weapons, your attack speed (as long as you have a guy in the weapon bay) is fast enough that you can lock down 2 systems at the beginning of the game.
third, upgrade your shields to level 2 as soon as you reach 100 scrap, this will help up until the 3rd sector.

for ships with Missiles, prioritize the weapon bay for your ion burst, this will constantly hit the shields and weapons (shields when its up, weapons when its not) and your drone should do the rest.

try to save up at least 70 scrap before you jump into a store, hope to find a defense drone and buy it asap, that'll help deal with the pesky missiles.

share the power from your defense drone with your engine. if enemy ships have a missile launcher (be able to tell what weapon is what) then take power from your engine and put it into your defense drone, and if they dont, do the vice versa, this way you save your money and your drone parts.

always level your engines and shields at the same rate. it'll give you the most survivability. and get a new weapon asap. you need a weapon you can manually target and destroy specific systems you need destroyed

and pay attention to what your drone attacks. if they damage the shields to the point they'll be offline anyways without the ion shots. switch to weapons, if the weapons are destroyed, hit the bridge,
Paladynian
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 4:17 pm

Re: Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

Postby Paladynian » Thu Sep 20, 2012 4:31 pm

Engi ship I find *really* strong. It is so far my absolute favourite ship. This is what I do.

As mentioned, Auto Attack is the Engi's best friend. The Ion weapon fires *very* quickly and on auto, with a manned crew and perhaps a Reloader module (if you can scrape one up), it and the anti-ship drone remain viable for a surprisingly long time.

Against one shield enemies, just target the weapon systems and fire up the drone. The shields will get hit automatically in the process of aiming for the weapons, upon which the drone can shoot happily. If you get into a timing thing where you keep hitting the weapons, the shields come up, the drone wastes its shot, then you hit the weapons with the ion again, just move the target to the shields directly for a shot or two then move back to the weapons.

Against two shield enemies you can't really spare the shots to target the weapons; just aim for the shield generator and hope your drone shoots vital things quickly. Normally it works out alright, but having two shields yourself, or a defence drone up as well vs missiles, helps greatly.

If you manage to get two ion weapons and the enemy doesn't have a medbay, have one targeting the weapons, the other the O2, and you'll get *wonderful* salvage from taking the ship whole. Ion + flame or anti-bio beam also work quite well here too.

Ion + Transporter and two Mantis open up many possibilities as well and make the final boss *much* easier. Likewise Mantis + medical nanobots are *unstoppable* vs boarding parties. :)

I find I need to put very little points into engines with the Engi ship. I generally face the mothership with 5-6 points of weapons, 4 points of drones, a level 3 shield, high powered transporter and cloak, and do *quite* well. It is a nice little ship. :)
gameassassin1020
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2012 10:37 pm

Re: Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

Postby gameassassin1020 » Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:50 am

Rocket=shields
Lasers=weapons (and shields after they are disabled)(You should get 2 lasers btw)
drones=mop up crew
regas
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 12:40 pm

Re: Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

Postby regas » Fri Sep 21, 2012 12:43 pm

I like to keep my ion cannon auto-target on the enemy shields. after that just sit back and relax. the drone does plenty of damage early game.
CFIT
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 3:35 pm

Re: Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

Postby CFIT » Fri Sep 21, 2012 1:10 pm

Here's what I've got:
First, auto-target the weapons with the ion beam. There's not much point in auto-targeting the shields. Why? Because at one point of shields, hitting the shields with an ion beam takes them down and disables them anyway.
Second, yes, set the drone to attack.
But keep your eyes open in the first sector for a weak-gunned enemy: someone with a single laser, for example, who can't penetrate your shields.
When you find one, leave the drone deactivated, and target the ship's O2 with the ion beam. Keep shooting until everyone on board asphyxiates. This will take a long time. In some cases, I've been able to get my crew members ** rating on at least one, and sometimes three systems (Shields, weapons and engines): when they max out at one station, move them to the next.

And yet I still get wiped out by Sector 2 or 3.
DarkenDragon
Posts: 42
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:58 pm

Re: Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

Postby DarkenDragon » Fri Sep 21, 2012 1:39 pm

if you read some of my other posts on ion weapons, you'll find that in order to keep something locked down, you gotta constantly attack it.

the more you attack it, the more energy/upgrades you lock down but as soon as you stop attacking it and the timer runs out (with this weapon its a 5 second duration), they'll regain all their shields.

in the first few sectors, you'll find that its ok to alternate because the enemy's shields are only at rank 2 and taking away 1 bar is all you need to do in order to shut down their shields, so even if you dont hit their shields and it regains power again, 1 shot will turn it off again.

but as soon as you get to 2 levels of shields, that means you must hit it at least 3 times before it shuts down and if you stop attacking it and hit say weapons, then all shield's come back up and thus you gotta hit it 3 times again before it shuts down.

so in the early game you'll have an easy time dealing with ships with low shields, but the moment they have 2 levels of shields, then you should just leave it focused on the shields unless you know your attacks are less than 2.5 seconds (38% attack speed) and you alternate your fire, though I would only do this if and only if the engine or bridge is gone (so your attacks hit 100% since they have no evasion now)

also pay attention to the damage of your opponent's shields from your drone, if they take it down enough damage such that the shields will be down without the ion then obviously move it to another system.

my priorities are shield -> weapon (if your defenses cant handle them) -> bridge then after that its what ever though I never find all 3 of these disabled at the same time
Empiro
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 11:40 pm

Re: Engi-Ship - Startingtips ?

Postby Empiro » Sat Sep 22, 2012 12:00 am

The Engi ship is one of the better ones to start in, in my opinion (only ship I've beaten Normal with).

Like others have said, get 2 shields as soon as possible so that you don't take so much damage. For the first two sectors, where all enemies have 1 shield, concentrate on weapons. Otherwise, concentrate on their shields. You'll want to get a second weapon as soon as possible -- this will let you lock down their weapons even if there's more than one shield.