It was not a very special run, until I got a Weapon Pre-igniter in Sector 6 along with a Burst Laser II. Together with two Basic Lasers the ship featured now a whopping five laser shots, well-rounded with a Hull Beam. On the defense I got 4 shields, a Drone Recovery Arm and a Defense Drone I, as well as a level 1 cloak. This setup allowed me to exploit the Elite Fighters for about 300 ships when I had to move on the Sector 7 because of extended hull damage. In Sector 7 (Slug Home Nebula) I had the chance to buy another Burst Laser II and maximised the energy bars to 25. With this, I could volley 7 laser shots at the Elite Fighters in the Nebula, who only had two shields powered up, same as my own ship. With 7 energy bars in weapons and 4 in shields, there were only one each left for engine and oxygen, and with creative power distribution boarding, healing and cloaking could be obtained if needed. Unfortunately, I had no Zoltan crew members. I mostly boarded enemy ships after having shot their medbay, but also just destroyed a fair number of ships. The highest risk were Elite Fighters with small rocket launchers like Leto or Artemis, although most hull damage taken was due to avoidable mistakes like cloaking and at the same time firing weapons and thus nullifying the cloak.
With this setup, I could add a total of 1400 Elite Fighters to the score, which was carefully calculated to beat the previous Highest Highscore of nakedian on Easy, see here: http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic. ... &start=180.
And that I did: behold the new Highest Highscore of 40207 points, done with lots of luck and labor and some skill.
Sadly, I lost my pair of homicidal boarding Mantis with a reckless maneuver at the first stage of the Flagship fight, but alas, their new Kill record may hold even longer than the overall points record.
While playing this very long game, I noticed some peculiarities. First, the Attack Drones deactivate the enemy shield for a shorter period of time than the Burst Laser shots, which was quite apparent with my Hull Beam finishing attack. Second, there are two bugs with boarding enemies: if rebels teleported into my Weapons room, there was a chance that one rebel ended up in the Engine room instead (and I got level 2 doors, so they couldn't just walk there). If they teleported into the Engine room, sometimes one of the rebels took a detour in a hidden passage outside the ship and through the Shields room before ending up in the Engine room.
I call this Red-Tail shown above an Infinity Ship, as with more patience, time and motivation I could have continued wasting rebels for many more rounds, but I was satisfied beating the previous Highscore. Other ships like the two Zoltan Cruisers are much better Infinity Ships, as they have an additional protection against player mistakes. Second after the Zoltan ships I'd say the Carnelian and the Basilisk are better candidates to achieve an Infinity ship as well (with their extended teleporter), but the highest satisfaction may be achieved with a Stealth Fighter or Vortex Infinity ship.
That's it for now, all attempts to beat that score are encouraged, but I guess it will take some effort
That takes some serious effort. Also, didn't realise that kind of grinding was possible. Congrats!
. I will try and see what my score was later.