A couple questions about combat

[Afrikaaner]

First of all, awesome game. I've seen a near 100% loss in productivity at work since installing steam there.

But on to the questions. First, this seems to be the case, but I want to confirm one way or the other. Say I start with the basic Engi ship (the Torus) and I have my attack drone deployed and fire an ion pulse at them. The drone hits their shield, but as my ion pulse gets past their unpowered shields, the shields come back up. This then results in (out of 6 or 7 shots I've seen like this) a 100% miss rate. Is this intentional, or do I just have abysmal luck?

Second, this time say we're playing with the standard human ship. Why do the enemy weapons ALWAYS charge faster than mine? They ALWAYS get the first shot off. This is utterly infuriating when they get the first laser shots off while my missile is on the way, while my laser is still charging. Even when I have the weapons system manned by a level 2 crewmember, they almost always seem to still get the upper hand.

[Real]

From what I've seen of the Torus when the ion goes under the shields it should just hit whatever spot it was going for, even if shields come up. This would be bad luck on your part.

The other thing I have no idea. Maybe they're using lasers that are more basic than your burst mk II, so they have a shorter charge time. It's actually quite an advanced starting weapon.

[hborrgg]

With the ion weapons it's generally better to just aim for the shield room and let your drone do the work. You can try to get shots in at their weapons or something else if you want to buy more time, but remember that each hit will only deactivate 1 power bar, not the entire system.

Being able to strike first is incredibly useful and why many people consider the preignitor augment, if you can find it, the best in the game. But that's also why the game likes to keep that ability out of your reach (the Kestrel actually starts with a unique, custom Artemis missile launcher that takes 12 seconds to charge instead of the usual 9).

There are many ways to get around this, the weapon preignitor is one, you could also spring for a cloaking device (you can charge and the enemy can't while you're cloaking), teleporters can always be used right away and are extremely effective at taking out the bosses weapon rooms, or you could just focus on finding fast-firing weapons or a very strong defense.

[Misty]

The first answer is just you having a bit of bad luck, I think.

If you have a maxed out gunner and an Ion Blast II the situation you are mentioning happens all the time as the small reduction on charge time makes the first blast turn off the shields, the second blast strike the ship, and then a third blast pass the shield area just before the shield regenerates and thus strikes the ship after the shield regenerated itself, and I rarely see that third blast miss.

Try to disable the enemy cockpit or engines and try to recreate the situation to be sure, as the miss is actually a dodge instead. There is no actual miss coded into the game, I believe.

The second answer is that different weapons have different charge times. Both the laser and the missile you begin with on the Kestrel are slower than many of the ones the enemies are using in the beginning, but both are actually quite good in that they will remain useful through the game. Once you unlock the Red Tail, the Kestrel's alternative layout, you will instead begin with four weak but very fast charging lasers, which makes the earlier sectors a walk in the park but are quickly outclassed once you face ships with better shields and higher dodge.

I do not know if the enemy ships use augmentations or if the enemy crew comes with a skill level higher than zero, but both those things can further reduce the charge time of weapons if they do.