Stealth ship is garbage

General discussion about the game.
XIIGage
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:01 am

Stealth ship is garbage

Postby XIIGage » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:14 am

So I recently unlocked the Engi stealth ship and thought it would be a fun ship to use. I start a game with it and see that you don't have shields. I figured, "Hey, I can just evade and use stealth". I pour all possible scrap into engines/stealth and still get destroyed..

Stealth only last 15 seconds at max level. Which honestly might as well be 5 seconds because it only stops 1 volley against you and then has to recharge forever.

Forget about fighting any ships with drones either, drones TEAR YOU TO PIECES if you don't have shields and I don't think the evasion works against drones from what i've seen.

You start with 2 terrible weapons. Why make a beam weapon that only deals 1 damage? If it deals 1 damage it doesn't penetrate shields. You have to carefully time your 2 shot laser to knock the shields down and then hurry and use the beam on 2-3 rooms. Scanners are nice, but if I just avoid fighting everything the entire way then I don't get scrap to upgrade my ship. The titanium casing is near useless. 15% chance to avoid system damage is terrible.

The ship overall wouldn't be half bad if it had shields to start instead of trying to scrape together 150 for shields that you then have to upgrade anyway while also saving to upgrade engines/stealth.

My proposal:
Give the ship shields and take away it's starting stealth, but instead give it a bonus to stealth (duration/recharge time?) and maybe make the system cheaper to purchase for that particular ship.

I think the idea of a stealth/evasion ship is cool, but it doesn't work as it is.

End rant
Gishank
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:10 am

Re: Stealth ship is garbage

Postby Gishank » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:17 am

It's a stealth ship... It's designed for stealth not extensive combat situations. lol
Postal
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2012 7:31 am

Re: Stealth ship is garbage

Postby Postal » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:18 am

XIIGage wrote:You have to carefully time your 2 shot laser to knock the shields down and then hurry and use the beam on 2-3 rooms.


I was under the impression that's how -all- beam weapons were intended to be used, even the huge ones like the Glaive. That's at least how I use them; time your volleys so that the beams hit when the shields are down for a moment.

As for the rest of your post, I agree to a degree. The stealth ship is my second-least-favorite, after the Engi type-B "Vortex," but there are so many ship options now that I never have to use it.

[Edit: Thanks, Gorlom]
Last edited by Postal on Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:33 am, edited 2 times in total.
XIIGage
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:01 am

Re: Stealth ship is garbage

Postby XIIGage » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:19 am

Gishank wrote:It's a stealth ship... It's designed for stealth not extensive combat situations. lol


Then what do you do when you get to the end? Ram the boss?

Beam weapons are supposed to be able to pass through shields (while losing damage) if need be. Having a beam weapon that says it can pass through shields but can't kind of makes it not a beam weapon.

I know it's a starting weapon, and it would be fine if you had a better weapon to complement it. A 2 shot laser doesn't get the job done.
Last edited by XIIGage on Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
MantisAboardShip
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 7:44 am

Re: Stealth ship is garbage

Postby MantisAboardShip » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:21 am

Sounds like a control issue.

Have you tried taking out enemy weapons (and whatever's near them) with your first volley, and using the cloak to avoid their first volley?

It won't work in all cases (zoltan shields/drones/oh god mantis boarders) but should be effective.
XIIGage
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:01 am

Re: Stealth ship is garbage

Postby XIIGage » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:23 am

Ya, i have been trying to use the ship for the last 7-8 play throughs. I usually target the weapons/shields first. The biggest problem is that you take so much damage and like I said before about drones, RUN from drones!
Gorlom
Posts: 519
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:06 am

Re: Stealth ship is garbage

Postby Gorlom » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:27 am

OP, you know that while you are in stealth your enemy's weapon doesn't charge right?
Meaning the strength of the stealth ship is the first strike allowing you to disable their capabilities to damage you.
It's true that the anti ship drone using enemies are hard but if you target the drone control first you should be able to disable it without taking damage from it.

(I haven't played the type A for some time but that was a viable strategy with the type B, that has a pretty long charge time weapon (glaive beam), assuming I upgraded the stealth to rank 3)

PS. Postal, do you mean the Engi type B Vortex or the Zoltan type B Noether?
XIIGage
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:01 am

Re: Stealth ship is garbage

Postby XIIGage » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:32 am

I agree with you. But with your starting weapons you have a beam weapon and a dual laser. The dual laser is your only hope of getting through shields (and most enemies start with 1-2 shields) leaving you a small window to beam their shields first so you can dish out more damage. Then after that you have to choose between attacking the weapons control or drone control, all while keeping the shield systems down.

While this is the norm for most fights, the fact that you don't have shields mean the drones tear you up (1 damage every 2-3 seconds?) and you wind up leaving a single fight with half hull. For my last few playthroughs I get to about sector 5-6 before the enemies get too strong. And if you focus on getting evasion/stealth to avoid damage then by sector 5 you don't have any money in new weapons and won't deal any damage at all.
Pilgrim of Domina
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2012 2:57 am

Re: Stealth ship is garbage

Postby Pilgrim of Domina » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:37 am

The first time I beat the game was with the stealthship, without shields even. Stupid RNG never gave me an opportunity to buy them. As long as the RNG doesn't throw drones at you, you can flawlessly KO most early ships with the starting equipment. The mini beam can take out shields AND weapons on many ships in one shot.

Invest in engines and cloaking. 50% dodge means effectively half damage reduction. You will probably not see the stealth weapons upgrade. You will probably not see the weapons pre-igniter either. Either or both will help significantly. Foolproof plan is the EMP bomb. It will completely knock out pretty much any shield for a LONG time. It has an 18 second warmup. Cloaking can do 15 seconds. Time yourself such that you destroy his weapons and/or drone control right before he can even fire them.
XIIGage
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:01 am

Re: Stealth ship is garbage

Postby XIIGage » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:42 am

Pilgrim of Domina wrote:The first time I beat the game was with the stealthship, without shields even. Stupid RNG never gave me an opportunity to buy them. As long as the RNG doesn't throw drones at you, you can flawlessly KO most early ships with the starting equipment. The mini beam can take out shields AND weapons on many ships in one shot.

Invest in engines and cloaking. 50% dodge means effectively half damage reduction. You will probably not see the stealth weapons upgrade. You will probably not see the weapons pre-igniter either. Either or both will help significantly. Foolproof plan is the EMP bomb. It will completely knock out pretty much any shield for a LONG time. It has an 18 second warmup. Cloaking can do 15 seconds. Time yourself such that you destroy his weapons and/or drone control right before he can even fire them.



Ya i guess that's another problem. I haven't seen the emp bomb once yet with this ship which would help significantly. The RNG is too great to give a ship a specific role for this game as it is. i.e. Missile boats, stealth ships, drone ships. You can pick the drone ship setup and get missiles all day with no new drones.