Why must the boss cheat?

General discussion about the game.
serp
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2012 10:26 pm

Why must the boss cheat?

Postby serp » Thu Aug 02, 2012 10:35 pm

this isn't about multiple phases or anything like that.

I decided to play a game using the mantis cruiser and build everything around sending my crew over to capture ships. This works remarkably well too. I get all the way to the boss and I send over my crew and disable all their weapons, fun. Then I spend the next 40 minutes of game play trying to kill off the rest of their crew with mine, I run out of missiles and lose some crew members and finally succeed. I must admit the micromanaging of teleporting my crew too and from the enemy ship was really fun for that 40 minutes.

Anyway as soon as I wipe out the crew it says basically, "Oh hey btw, this ship has an advanced AI too" at which point Im like ffff- and then I notice that every single system on the ship is repairing itself unattended, at which point I'm like FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. and then my ship blew up :V

so ya, I'm kind of annoyed with that turn of events. If we play the game with a particular strategy that seems to be supported by the game for the entire game, we shouldn't get to the end and have SORRY YOUR STRATEGY WON'T WORK AT ALL AND SINCE YOU BASED EVERYTHING AROUND IT YOU CANT WIN. :/
Gorlom
Posts: 519
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:06 am

Re: Why must the boss cheat?

Postby Gorlom » Thu Aug 02, 2012 10:55 pm

Well the ship doesn't get new crew between the phases so killing off the crew would essentially win the boss fight in the first phase.

Even if it did get new crew people would complain about it being able to jump on it's own (if there is no AI). And people would probably be annoyed about losing their boarding party when the ship jumps as you kill off the last crew-member.

I think it's hard to balance the encounter for that particular tactics.
Lambchops
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon May 07, 2012 8:26 pm

Re: Why must the boss cheat?

Postby Lambchops » Thu Aug 02, 2012 11:27 pm

I always assumed that the balance for that strategy was that if you've been using it then you'll probably have a large number of missiles in reserve for the boss fight to do the required damage.

I wonder if there is a decreased repair speed for the boss when it doesn't have a crew? That would help balance things to give that strategy a chance, you'd just have to disable shields and plug away with a weak weapon until eventual victory.
Postal
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2012 7:31 am

Re: Why must the boss cheat?

Postby Postal » Thu Aug 02, 2012 11:39 pm

The boss needs to "cheat" because otherwise the final battle would be incredibly easy. If all you needed to do to win was destroy the crew via teleportation on phase 1, a 3-phase boss battle would be pointless.
taylorott
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2012 9:55 pm

Re: Why must the boss cheat?

Postby taylorott » Fri Aug 03, 2012 12:10 am

If you keep just one of the boss's crew members alive, the AI will not take over (so you won't have to worry about auto repair). You will still have to worry about the boss's ults on parts 2 and 3 of the boss fight, since they do not rely on damageable subsystems. If you have cloak though, the boss's ults won't touch you. Still kind of sucks that the boss has to cheat.
JanoS
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 1:15 pm

Re: Why must the boss cheat?

Postby JanoS » Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:11 am

For me, these things are NECESSARY to win against boss:
Cloak level 2+
Strong bomb/missile or two (Breach works well)
Shield level 3+
Evade 40+ (elite crew gives you 20, remaining 20+ from upgraded engine)
Teleport level 1 helps.

On 1st phase, I teleport to the 4 weapon rooms and kill people there and destroy the weapon. Starting with room 3.

That will change 1st phase of boss into a harmless ship.
Then just destroy his hull to go to 2nd phase.
If you use too much fire/breach then you risk killing all people there which you DO NOT want.

On 2nd phase, destroy the room 3 with weapon ASAP and then bombard drone control.
Use cloak only on drone swarm. Keep your evade up, as you won't have cloak to save against all drones.

On 3rd phase, launch everything to bring his shield down, then eliminate his remaining weapon rooms, and he will be harmless again. (If you save cloak for his special move) Launch everything.


Boss's most dangerous stage is 2nd stage. His boarding drone + Drones + Drone swarm can destroy you quickly.
I like dropping Breach missiles on his dron control, as that helps immensely with first two components.
Raverbasher
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2012 9:55 am

Re: Why must the boss cheat?

Postby Raverbasher » Sat Aug 04, 2012 10:04 am

The clever capt. with an Away Team keeps the crew member in charge of lasers alive. With shields 4 they can't break through.

But yeah, first time my away team wiped out everyone that was a shock too.
JanoS
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 1:15 pm

Re: Why must the boss cheat?

Postby JanoS » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:25 am

Raverbasher wrote:The clever capt. with an Away Team keeps the crew member in charge of lasers alive. With shields 4 they can't break through.

But yeah, first time my away team wiped out everyone that was a shock too.

Oh, I kept only the crew member in the 4th weapons room alive. He has the beam weapon.
Surprise surprise, when the third stage of the boss is missing this room, the AI takes over!
So you have to keep the single crewmember alive in weapon room #2 or #3. And we all know that #3 is not a good idea :) Eliminating the crew is definitely the way to go in stage 1. Then just beam someone to the drone control and missiles and you're good in stages 2&3.

Fire bomb is wonderful when there is no crew to put out the fire.
Bushman
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:31 pm

Re: Why must the boss cheat?

Postby Bushman » Mon Aug 06, 2012 5:16 pm

Kill the crew, start a fire. Watch that mother burrrrnnnnnnnn. :D
SrsBzns
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2012 3:13 am

Re: Why must the boss cheat?

Postby SrsBzns » Tue Aug 07, 2012 3:37 am

The only time I use the boarding tactic is with the basilisk as it has the 2x2 teleporter. I make sure that I have some sort of missile or bomb capability and it makes the boss super easy. Take out all the weapons, bomb the medical bay and then send 4 guys over into the medical bay (as long as it's not on fire :lol: ) once you have everyone dead just use your guys to slowly take down systems until it's nearly dead. At most you only need about 3-5 missiles per boss engagement which if you plan ahead you should have plenty with you once you reach the last stand.