Tourus Help?

[Sporemaster18]

I've played with the Torus 3 times and never gotten past sector 4. Any tips?

Edit: Since no one seems to have read the posts saying that I beat the game with the Torus already, this page can now just be general discussion and tips about the Torus and Vortex.

[Eji1700]

A or B?

A- Target their weapons system and man the weapons console with a crew member. Your ion will fire fast enough to lock down both shields and weapons letting your drone take its sweet time tearing them apart. That said if you're getting to sector 4 and getting stuck you probably know that. I'd recommend finding two more drones if the chance comes up(mark 1's usually since the power requirements on mark 2's can be killer, or a boarding drone), and then grabbing whatever low power main weaponry you can find. Ideally one more weapon that can do good damage to shields(a multi shot, another ion, any bomb) and something that does good damage when they're down(heavy lasers, hull lasers, breams.)

Worry more about how easily you can knock out shields than how much damage you do and try to keep the overall power costs low. Further both cloak and crew teleporters help any ship go a long way.

B- make it to your first shop by firing the ion first and then taking two pot shots with your heavy laser. Hope like hell nothing misses and your crucial systems don't get hit. If you make it to a shop sell everything you don't need for anything they have that might help you. Crew, tele's, a real weapon, anything. I'm talking selling all 3 drones, the augment, and the ion for a half decent gun and some crew. The engi B is really subpar.

[Darkfyre]

System repair drones are useless

Anti- boarding drones are useless, get lvl 2 doors and vent the place

Get lvl 2 shields and your engine up a few levels right away, you need scrap for upgrades

Early on, you need to find another damage source, be it a second droid or a laser/missile weapon (preferably laser, since missiles are ammo limited and rare)

If you happen to come across rockmen/mantis men /a ton of extra humans, dont be afraid to buy a teleporter for 75 scrap. This has saved my life more than once when I came across an enemy with stupid dodge and shields for the sector I was in.

Boarding drones can be helpful with this strategy, but don't expect miracles from a single drone. Send in a drone, and while his dudes are busy fighting it, use your controlled guys to tele in and wreck important stuff.

You can re-call any blown up drone again for 1 droid part. That means, yes, you can keep sending boarding drones at them all day until you run out of parts.

A defense Mark II is a great addition to your defense.

[Mauzel]

Even before getting the door upgrades, vent as many empty room as possible. While without the door upgrades, it wont stop boarders, it at least can counter the possible fires in the early stages.

[Sporemaster18]

Thanks guys for the help. Just one question. With the door thing, would you vent everything but the areas that have people in them, or just nonessential rooms like empty rooms or the rooms like sensors and doors that you might want to repair? And btw, I'm using type a.

[JadedDemon]

I finally finished the game for the first time (normal) with the Tourus last night. First time I got to sector 6 let alone the last boss and thank god I killed him with 1 hull left or I would of rage quit my hard drive. In the end I had 2 Ion weapons (the 8s and 4s) and the starting laser + 1 ion bomb. To be honest you dont need to upgrade this much. Drone control was on 4 with either 1 def, 1 att or 2 att (depending whether they had missiles)

The essential part (I found) with the tourus is by the end of Sector 1 to have got enough scrap to buy your second shield, find a weak ship that has 2 lasers (or 1 laser + 1 attack drone). Set all your ions to fire at his shields (or whatever you want, not the weapons) and go afk, return with all your guys skills maxed out. I do this on any game/ship (except the Zoltan B, hard as you cant get 2 shields before the enemy become too huge) This gives a whopping 10% bonus evasion right at the start of the game.

Then concentrate on getting your shields to 3 and 4, engines nice and high etc. After doing this I had little trouble dealing with any ship as I could shoot down missiles with the def drone, and no lasers could get past my awesome. I really worried more about defense and less about attack. I only got 1 extra ion weapon on Sector 3 and literally used that with 1 att drone all the way to Sector 7. It was EZ mode by the end as enemy could literally not touch me. I did not have but would of done much better if I had a hull repair drone for the last stage as I got whittled down bit by bit getting to the boss and took on the last boss 3 with < 10 hull. Very annoying, I had over 200 scrap and nowhere to repair.

Hope that helps. This ship is the easiest by far so far as it requires very little offense upgrade and you can spend it all on defense. With other ships I have a hard time trying to upgrade both before the enemy get too hard.

[Sporemaster18]

Success! I finally beat the game with the Tourus! I ended up with two attack drones mk 1, the ion mk2, a burst laser mk 2, a heavy laser mk 2, and a good amount of crew. I set everything to autofire, targeted shields with the ion, and targeted weapons with the heavy and burst laser. Didn't even have to look for anything but the boss.

[Mr. Mister]

Thorus, not Tourus.

I beat normal with The Vortex (layout B), and I think the most important thing was the aquisition of a second heavy laser 1 early on, as well as an auto-reloader: along with the ion (or even without it), that'll let you take out everyone until sector 4 quickly, and by then I already bought a drone retrieval as well as an attack drone 1, a defense 1 and a defense 2.
I didn't buy cloak until end sector 7, where I also replaced the ion with a burst III and one heavy laser I with a II.

And I can't stress this enough, but shall the scrap recovery arm appear in a store in sectors 1-2, buy it, for the love of god, even if you have to grind and then go back to the same store.

[Hissatsu]

Sporemaster18, Thorus A is considered THE easiest ship to play (by a lot of players) not without a reason.
Ion II is the only weapon in the game that can single-handedly:
- penetrate ANY number of shields
- keep two systems locked down at the same time

It is really THE best weapon in the game to have as a starter weapon, because you have no problems if you get unlucky with weapon drops (or shops), unlike other ships that have to get upgrades quickly or they just become futile.

Yes, in terms of energy effectiveness, 2x Ion I are better (2 power for basically same result) and if you have a lot of rapid fire weapons (dual lasers, burst II, burst III) then you dont really need Ion II, but still burst II is not as useful on its own as Ion II.

Thorus B seems a real challenge and i dont wanna try it out yet (not my playstyle to rely on anti-personel drones for boarding parties, and it seems much luck based which i dont like)

[Mr. Mister]

On Vortex you don't end up relying on AP drones. Instead, you get reinforced doors and sell them once you have enough crew members.
Alternatively, you keep the whole ship except form cockpit-medbay in vacuum and rely on the drones, so that any boarder is most likely to get screwed. I think I'll try that next time.