Subset Games Forum

The boss becomes one of the easiest parts of the game if you manage to beat it a few times. It's pretty predictable and not that hard to take down. For a foolproof victory you just need 4 layers of shields, a teleporter and heavy enough weapons/drones that you can tear down the flagship's shields and make a punch.

I think I will try a drone centered strategy and hope that gives me some love.

So long story short defense drone 2 is worthless and using anti-personnel drone killed me as I it could not keep up and it robbed me of a offensive drone slot. But I figured I would need it for the second part of the fight...I did but at the same time it was worthless. Is there a ship that has 4 drone slots? That is the only way to have both a decent drone based defense and offence. I am starting to think this game is impossible on all fronts unless luck is absolutely on your side.

Just going to lay it out, can someone post pictures of a ship they have killed the boss with build and all, what weapon is in what slot, what drones are where, and what crew you put at what station. I give up. Obviously anything I try is wrong and will never work. This game is tougher than both space chem and binding of issac combined. Bravo FTL devs for creating one of the most frustrating games of all time and besting those 2 game in the process for that title.

If you want to savescum, you can Save&Quit whenever you're not in a battle or asteroid field / near a sun. Then find your "continue.sav" file, which for me on Vista was in [UserName]/Documents/My Games/FasterThanLight. Make a backup copy of continue.sav, rename it to something distinctive, restart the game, and continue. When you die, go back to the folder, make a copy of your backup copy and rename that to continue.sav, and ta-da! Game restored. You can use this when you have a decision you're unsure about (like "Will this expensive weapon I found in a shop near the end help me, or be a waste of hard-earned scrap?), to make a backup at the beginning of each sector, backup right before the boss to try to hone your strategy once you have a good build, whatever. If you don't mind cheating.
(I used this method to unlock one of the ships, since I didn't quite understand how the quest worked, and the quest isn't available on every run - I didn't want to have to waste another three runs before using the slug cruiser!)

I do not have a picture, but I can remember two winning builds.
With the Kestrel Cruiser layout B on Easy, I had:
Hull Laser 2 (3 power, fires 3 lasers, moderate chance of fires or breach), Dual Lasers (1 power, 2 lasers), Heavy Laser II (3 power, 2 lasers of 2 damage each, good chance of fire or breaching), Ion Bomb.
No drones, but all other systems pretty much maxed (except I don't think I got max oxygen, medbay, cockpit, or sensors).
A full crew, including a doubly-leveled crewman manning each console (they'd been there from the start of the game) and a couple Mantis to take out the boarding drones, and to TP over to attack their weapons systems.
Strategy: Ion Bomb on repeat into their cockpit. When on hits (might take a couple tries) this eliminates the enemy's evasion. Then, fire a salvo of all lasers (Heavy Lasers fire last) at their shield room. 5 damage to shield room, they're now down to 1 shield. Kept spamming Ion Bombs into the cockpit; the Ion Bomb recharges faster than it takes for the effect to wear off, and until it does, they have 0 evasion, so it's foolproof as long as ammo lasts. Keep firing laser salvos into the shield room; when it gets destroyed you can target other systems at will.
Save cloak for when they fire their triple rockets. If you destroy the rocket gun, save it for the triple laser (or power surges on the later two stages). On the second stage, keep your warriors at home to fight boarding drones; but as soon as a boarding drone shows up far away from important systems, let it try to pound through your max-level doors while you take out the enemy ship's rockets.

When I won on Normal, I used the Stealth Cruiser, but which ship you choose doesn't matter THAT much late-game - the only real difference it makes is how many weapon/drone slots you have. Stealth Cruiser has 3 weapon slots and 2 drone slots, aka "the least slots," but it was enough.
I had Hull Laser 2 (3 power for 3 lasers, decent breach/fire chance), Dual Lasers (1 power, 2 lasers), and a Breach Bomb Mk II which was almost worthless. I also had a Drone Control with Anti-Ship Drone I and a Defense Drone Mk I.
I had max shields, max cloak, max teleporter and 2 mantis, level 5 engines or so, and at least 1 extra point in oxygen, medbay, and piloting. Didn't put many points into drone control; instead, whenever they fired rockets I paused, turned off the anti-ship drone, and turned on the defense drone. Defense drone could usually shoot down 2 rockets. Then I turned it off and turned the anti-ship one back on.
This time I made sure TP over my mantis to take out their main guns ASAP - after I'd taken out the rocket gun and the triple laser gun, it was just a matter of timing my salvos to fire at about the same time as my anti-ship drone, with the hull lasers firing last since they have a higher breach/fire chance. With the drone, my salvos were 6 shots, but with the enemy's high evasion, the shots had a decent chance of missing - but since I'd taken out their main weapons, and their remaining weapons were unable to get through my 4 shields, I could just sit there and wait until I got lucky enough to get some shots through, especially when one of my hull lasers started a fire in their shield room.

Tarlok wrote:I think I will try a drone centered strategy and hope that gives me some love.

This is probably why you are finding the game so difficult. The game is about using what you get. If you go in planning to use drones you will fail unless you get lucky. If you go in and drones are what you get you use them. If you don't get them, which is highly possible, you need to use what you do get. The game is about adaptability, not planning.

My last win was with the Stealth A. Its weapons were Breach Bomb II, Dual Lasers, and Hull Laser II. The only drone I had was a hull repair drone which I didn't use. My boarders were a mantis and a human. I had 4 shields and all but one bar of engines as well as cloak obviously. I killed all but the laser guy on the first phase when the boss can't really hurt you. My boarders took out his stuff in the next two phases really easy since his ship was empty.

The time before that I had a Burst Laser III, a Burst Laser II and a Pike Beam on the Kestrel. No drones. I had 4 shields max engines and cloak. Shot through the shields and cut him up with my beam.

Incidentally, if you go the savescumming route, you COULD do a backup at the END of each sector (i.e., when you're standing on the exit beacon). The sector's map - the beacon layout as well as which events are where, placement and inventory of shops, etc - is only determined when you warp to that sector. So you COULD savescum until you generate a sector with a shop that has at least one sweet weapon, like a Burst Laser 2 or something.

Apparently print screen doesn't capture fullscreen games or something...

Anyway this win was with Rock A. I had max shield and engines. I had three weapon points with a fire bomb, an ion bomb, and a hull laser for taking out the boss. I also had a single defence drone I. I boarded with two rockmen.

having Ions to lock down shields help
you can have 2 Ion bursts mk2 and maybe a burst/hull laser with 3 offense drones
thats what i used to take out the flag ships

1 Ion bomb plus a fully skilled crewman manning the weapons station will all you take out 3 of the 4 shields the boss has and does a ton of damage to the boss' Zoltan shield it generates. Repeat on the shield room until you succeed- fire to follow up and damage the shield and/or a weapon. Halberd Beam/Glaive Beam works wonders and has 100% hit chance.

Here's my strategy for engaging the boss, as well as the type of loadout you'll need to beg, buy, or steal along the way.

Ship requirements:
1) DPS - you need to plan for a ship that can deal damage against an enemy that has 4 fast regenerating shields and high evasion. There are a ton of weapon combinations that can work for this. My "easiest" run came with a Kestral (which starts with a Burst Laser II) that I found a second Burst Laser II for and a Glaive Beam. That gave the ship 6 shots to take 4 shields down to 2 or fewer points so the Glaive Beam could carve it up. Lots of other alternatives work - one thing I really recommend though is focusing on multi-shot weapons. Burst lasers, hull lasers. Ion guns are useful too. If you go for missiles, you'll need either a multishot missile launcher or at least two missile tubes that you fire as a salvo, as P2 of the boss has a defense drone that will pretty much always shoot down the first missile you launch. ALWAYS fire in salvos against the boss - never use autofire unless all your weapons have the same CD period (the only possible exception I might see to this would be the Ion Burst Mk II - but even then, the high evasion makes it difficult for even the 4 second firing of the Mk II to effectively consistently suppress even one shield).
2) Defense - you need to be able to survive the boss DPS. A way to mitigate consistent incoming damage, and the occasional high burst of P2 and P3. Shield level 3 is probably minimum you want. I know a lot of people swear by evasion, but I happen to like using either 2 Mk I defense drones, or a Mk I and a Mk II defense drone together. Prefer the Mk I + Mk II setup, as it deals with not only the missiles and most of the boarding pods, but also a lot of the laser spam. The combination of Shield 3 + the drones is generally plenty to survive the normal damage in the battle. A Cloak (even lvl 1 is fine, and usually all I use) is highly recommended for the spam "power surge" phases in P2 and P3.
3) A Teleporter. You don't really need any specialized boarding crew, unless you want to wipe out most of his crew - but to take the flagships main guns offline (especially the missile launcher), anything except Engi's will do just fine, as they'll be 2 on 1 in each of the weapons rooms. I like to get this to level 2, just so it's faster recalling boarding crews and sending them to the next gun room (or use 2 boarding crews, as I usually do during P1, when you aren't facing any enemy boarders).

The battle.
Phase 1 - Your main objective is to get that missile launcher offline ASAP. Since you aren't facing spam damage from power surges this phase, you can use your cloak to evade most of the missiles until that task is accomplished.
1) As soon as you warp in, deploy your defense drones.
2) The second the flagship uncloaks, beam your boarding crew into the missile launcher room (3rd from left).
3) As soon as the missile launcher has fired, wait about 2 seconds, then cloak. Repeat every time that launcher fires and your cloak is up (though the chances are slim that with your boarding party on board it'll get more than the first salvo off if you boarded the second the flagship uncloaked).
4) As soon as all weapons are charged and ready, fire as a salvo. Special note for beam weapons - fire the burst weapons first to take the shields down, then the second the last laser blast hits (or misses) the flagship, pause the game and fire the beam weapon (hit at least 3 rooms, preferably 4) as long as the shields are low enough (or gone) so the beam weapon will do some damage. If you have bad luck and shields are too high to do damage (3+ on a glaive, 2+ on a halberd, 1+ on all other beams), hold fire on the beam weapon and wait for the next burst salvo to be readied.
5) By this point, the missile launcher should be down. Your teleporter should be back up. If you have another two spare crew to use as a boarding party, send them over to the flagship's ion cannon room (first room from left). If not, use the teleporter to recall the first boarding crew, and as soon as the teleporter is ready again, send them there.
6) Repeat 4 and 5 until you win. Frankly, once the ion guns are down, you can turn your own weapons off as the flagship should no longer be able to get through your defenses, and just focus on killing a few extra crew members so they won't be around for the next battle. Usually I don't bother with wiping the main crew of the flagship out, and just take down the 4 main guns, with the next being the heavy laser (2nd from left), and the last being the heavy beam (furthest right) so that none of the weapon stations are manned during the next two phases (slowing their firing rate and making it easier in the next two phases for my boarding crews to disable them again). If you do have the right makeup to take out the main crew (a way to suppress the medbay, like a fire beam or bomb, and a rock boarding part for example), then leave the heavy laser (and the crewman for it) alone, and kill the rest of the crew. Make SURE you get your boarding party back before you blow the ship up. I've lost games because I wasn't watching the ships health and lost half my crew while they were wreaking havoc on the flagship.

Phase 2-guess what - your main object is once again to get that damn missile launcher offline. With no crew manning it this time, that should go very quickly. The only difference for this phase is that every time you see the warning for a "power surge", wait to see the drones deploy around your ship, then hit your cloak. Even 5 seconds (lvl 1 cloak) will get you through the majority of the power surge phase while taking zero damage. Do NOT hit cloak when you see the warning as unless you have an upgraded cloak it won't last long enough - wait for the drones to actually deploy around your ship. Keep your best combat guys back on the ship to deal with any boarding drones that get through, and have an engi around to seal the breach and make repairs after. Run back to medbay to heal as needed (and you DID invest 20 scrap in blast doors, right? It's a cheap investment that keeps boarders slowed down). Pretty much everything else is exactly like phase 1, with the exception that the flagship no longer has it's ion cannon, and instead has a couple of weak drones doing constant damage to your shields (and a defense drone of its own that make using missiles against it a pain).

Phase 3- wait for it....kill the friggin missile launcher again. Except this time you'll have to get through their overpowered Zoltan shield. Autofire all weapons until the Zoltan shield is gone, then return to salvo firing (and, of course, the second that shield is down, teleport some crew into the missile launcher to wreck it). I generally use cloak to duck the first missile launcher spam (you'll probably have to eat the first "Power surge" laser spam, but I've found the missiles are generally more damaging, as the power surge laser spam has to get through your evasion, your shields, and hopefully your defense drone mk II). Aside from that, pretty much identical to P2, except easier, since you'll generally be facing human crew boarders (assuming you didn't wipe them out), which you can deal with easier than a breaching boarding drone. The Zoltan shield will periodically repower itself, but by the 2nd time you have to deal with it, the missile launcher (and likely the heavy laser) will both be gone, so all you'll be doing is waiting and cloaking power surges while slowly beating the flagship down. Win!

I've got pretty lucky i think ... I had a perfect run in the Type A engi ship. Everything went fine, maybe except losing 1 crew at some point. I've got lots of scraps and little damage. I had a teleporter with a rock and a mantis, a cloak, some decent guns (basic ion, some kind of laser maybe the burst one and a pegasus missile that i put on only at stage 8). I had two regular attack drones and a defense one, but only two turned on at the same time, power issues.

I was pretty low on health when i beat the boss on step 3 ... i had to hit a repair station between 2 stages at some point, it was a pretty close call, 1 more jump and the game was lost (near rebel base).

I boarded and disabled all the missiles during stage 1, that helped alot, even tho i took lots of damage while doing so. Then it was just cloaking during power surges, spamming pegasus missiles on his shields and it blew eventually. I kinda got lucky tho to get all the good stuff and lots of scraps, enough crew etc.

Then on the very next run i used the federation cruiser, maxed out the arty beam to get the achievement, then i stacked lasers on it. I had 2x busrt lasers II by the end, and two more lasers with low power usage (1-2). Basically i was burning the boss as fast as i could starting with the shield bay. No auto fire, load everything and fire a salvo. I blew him up fairly easy, I found that with lots of lasers + arty was easier to do it brute force style than with an elaborate strategy with the engy ship. Not sure how it works with lets say the kestrel which doesnt have the arty beam, but with the spare power i figure you can make up for it with a cloak or drones.

I played many games before getting to beat the boss .. not all that easy.