Oh, Robocop.. (Boarding Drone woes)

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Redfoot
Posts: 16
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:50 pm

Oh, Robocop.. (Boarding Drone woes)

Postby Redfoot » Tue Apr 23, 2013 10:34 am

So I'm doing an Engi B play through and came across a few items that made me aim for the following strategy - 2x boarding drones backed up with an Ion Mk2 for shields, Breach Bomb MkII to knock more holes and take out key systems and an anti-bio beam to ensure wins in hand to hand combat. I'm essentially trying to get the merit for killing 4 people with a single drone, but I made some assumptions as to how some weapons work.. oops.

For starters, the anti-BIO beam deals damage to our robotic cousins. It is no use as board drone support weapon, as you cannot micro manage drones to leave the room and then sweep to cut their life in half. (Curiously they do not count as biological when heal burst bombs are involved.) Now a Breach Bomb is a lot more useful as it wrecks a system in one hit and causes an air leak, the more leaks the better. That's the one advantage our metallic invasion crew have over biological entities - they don't need no stinking CO2. The downside is you cannot open with a breach and expect the boarder to land in this exact room, he simply picks one at random..

I have yet to test if they're immune to fire, obviously that's a huge boom.

In short, has anyone gotten a viable tactic that relies heavily on boarding drones? (And did you get the merit?)
IConquer
Posts: 64
Joined: Fri Feb 08, 2013 1:24 pm

Re: Oh, Robocop.. (Boarding Drone woes)

Postby IConquer » Tue Apr 23, 2013 11:12 am

how do you plan on dealing with defense drones with that setup?
Redfoot
Posts: 16
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:50 pm

Re: Oh, Robocop.. (Boarding Drone woes)

Postby Redfoot » Tue Apr 23, 2013 11:43 am

Sorry for the bad grammar, I was editing the entire thing when my cat decided to destroy my post. Breach MkII priority is the drone room in case they have defense drones out, since it's a bomb it passes by without being shot down. 3 system damage and a breach ensures it stays down for a good while.

I actually died to a pimped out Rock ship in sector 7 just now, going to retry for the merit.. maybe try it with a living support crew to soften them up first.

I just hate that boarding drones are biological in one instance and mechanical in the other.
BKT
Posts: 211
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 3:17 am

Re: Oh, Robocop.. (Boarding Drone woes)

Postby BKT » Wed Apr 24, 2013 11:45 am

Redfoot wrote:I have yet to test if they're immune to fire


It does. ;)

Boarding drone really is a supporting weapon; it's a good distraction that allows you to do whatever you want to do easier. But it's really hard to use by itself and get a consistently good results— the fact that you can't control where it's landed is its biggest flaws.

I did have some fun with it with the boss though :lol: : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSh39KSm4H8
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Metzelmax
Posts: 364
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:59 am

Re: Oh, Robocop.. (Boarding Drone woes)

Postby Metzelmax » Wed Apr 24, 2013 1:29 pm

Well, I made a mode where one of the ships relies on boarding-drones as main boarding force.

(Shameless self promotion)

I lowered the power to 2 so you can theoretically use 4 at the same time. I noticed that the boarding AI will try to fight in the same room if there are more than 1. That's really nice but can be annoying if the enemy has doors lvl2, since they waste time getting through the ship.

But of course It's easier getting 4 kills with one drone that way. You only need to turn off the others after the crew is low.
Here is the Stuff I made:
ImageImageImageImage
And stuff is always better than no stuff, right?
Crusher
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2013 9:18 pm

Re: Oh, Robocop.. (Boarding Drone woes)

Postby Crusher » Wed Apr 24, 2013 9:14 pm

I have a pretty simple modded ship that starts with boarding drones as well. If you're interested you can get it here:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=14457
Playing with that ship a bit, I've got a few tips for boarding drones as a primary strategy. It's really important to have some sort of bomb/missile that lets you target key systems. Breach bombs are probably the best but most will do. You especially want to target the medbay right when the opponent's crewmembers go to heal themselves, that way you guarantee kills before they fix the medbay again. You might want to consider bombing/missiling the doors before you even launch the drones, so that they are free to find each other on the ship. Defense drones are a pain. You can either try to knock down drone control with a missile/bomb (may or may not work) or you can just launch two boarding drones at the same time and let one of them get shot down. Asphyxiation damage is helpful, but it also causes the crewmembers to run from the room when their health gets low, which can drag out battles (bad if your defenses aren't great). You may need to spend a missile to finish off an opponent's crewmember and end a battle sooner. Finally, this all requires lots of missiles and drone parts. Stock up even when you don't feel low. The strategy costs a lot of scrap (in early sectors you sometimes won't even end up in the black from the reward), but that's part of the challenge.
Crusher's Type C(hallenge) Mod Ships containing:
Mantis Type C: The Sarcosuchus (No O2!)
Engi Type C: The Singularity (Boarding Drones!)
Zoltan Type C: The Annihilator (No Starting Reactor Power!)
Rock Type C: Krakatoa (Fire Boarding!)