Subset Games Forum

Hehe i can now gladly say that after maybe 20 tries i completed the game for the first time! (normal dif)
*happyface*

Played with normal ship i used a Anti-Ship MK II. This + 2 good boarding crew-sies (mantis/rockman) showed me that i really didnt need that good weapons.. Only had 5 points in Weapon power.

Cloak + 50% normal evasion made me unkillable even for the rebel flagship.

My strat was gett 2 in shield every 2-3 levles. So:
I had Level 4 shields before starting Sector 3
I bought Level 6 shields before starting Sector 6
And before warping to sector 8 i had shield lvl 8

Your tips about sectors really helped - i got really packed with monieeezzz!

I really recommend Long range scanner btw. Its god-tier for the cheap cost!

Agg Shell wrote:I make a b-line for the exit if i get a mantis sector for sector 7. Those mantis bombers will turn your ship inside-out, cause ~45 scrap worth of damage, and leave you disabled with a gazillion hull breaches and fires. ontop of 4 shields. and thats one battle.

I must have been really rich last game then.. Before winning i think i took 3 of them down. Boarding and 4 in shields won that. Cloak + high evasion helped alot too.

I really liked Dralax's sound logic ITT.

Avoid rebel sector if playing boarding-heavy (more drones and runners)

If you rely on teleporting onto the enemy ship, especially Mantis B before you get decent weapons, some rebels can be a total pain. Drones have no oxygen and your fighters may asphyxiate if you don't have upgraded tele preferably with Rock boarders that have more life. Runners are ships that charge their ftl and try to jump to warn the rebel fleet, sometimes taking your crew with them. You can damage their engines or helm to delay that, but you run the risk of destruction while you are still on board.

Avoid Zoltan if I have no ion or decent lasers.

Zoltan's have that pesky super shield that you have to deal with before you can do any real damage. It also prevents boarding so stay away from them if you are dependent on that strategy once again. Beams deal 2 damage to their shields so that is a good weapon to do early damage since you have to tear through their normal shield to use them... I've never seen a bomb hit their super shield, so I gave up trying.

Avoid Rock if I'm using fire weapons

Rocks are immune to fire... great if it is your Rocks on their ship in a blaze, but no benefit if their crew can walk around and repair systems without additional damage.

My favorite advice he gave however was:

Go to as many nebulae as possible if I have long-range scanners (those tend to have more empty events and with scanners I can avoid them)

When I first started playing I would hit as many nebulae as possible because the rebel fleet peruses slower and lets you explore more beacons... IMO there are less profitable encounters in these sectors. IE a waste of fuel and more places to waste it. Many beacons are "enjoying the view" or some bs about being paranoid at sounds in a silent ship...In a more populated sector, you are more likely to get the option to fight a pirate, find free stuff floating around, or supplies from Federation supporters. Worse off, I feel that I get boarded with no real ship fight/reward here. The long-range scanner augment lets you choose only to attend REAL ship encounters for maximum profits. By the way, ion storm is my favorite "atmospheric" endangerment encounters because they are just as disabled as I am... Especially if you have upgraded your power well.

@Allthejuice

Well that was a really great answer! I know the game better now after completing it and played som more.

Kinda dumb of me to ask all that thought, i kinda knew that info now when you tell me

The nubula tips you said though - TOTALLY agree!

My favorit tip though is to try to kill the crew ALWAYS if you can. Killing an enemy crew gives so much more scrap in the long run!

The only thing i wanna know now is:
"Beams deal 2 damage to their shields so that is a good weapon to do early damage since you have to tear through their normal shield to use them..."
Do you mean that if you shot a laser through 3 rooms it will make 6 damage of the supershield?
____

Another small question:
I have only played the game on normal Dif.. How much easier is it on dif easy?

Timmerman wrote:The only thing i wanna know now is:
"Beams deal 2 damage to their shields so that is a good weapon to do early damage since you have to tear through their normal shield to use them..."

Do you mean that if you shot a laser through 3 rooms it will make 6 damage of the supershield?

Zoltan shield (aka super shield) is basically "on top" of the ship: it doesn't matter which room you aim your beam at, as long as the shield is not destroyed by the beam, all beam does a maximum of 2 hits to the Zoltan shield.

Timmerman wrote:Another small question:
I have only played the game on normal Dif.. How much easier is it on dif easy?

Much easier.

@Timmerman

The logic is just as AllTheJuice said in his post.

one minor point regarding the Zoltan sector as I feel he didn't explain it enough: I don't like going to Zoltan when I'm using rockets/bombs/beams because while they can hit the Zoltan shield and wear it down, their main benefits are nullified by doing so.

Easy mode has weaker enemies in the first 3 sectors. They don't get as much power or systems as they do on normal. The scrap rewards are slightly higher.
-25% score penalty.

Um, that's about it. The reason many consider easy to be pretty difficult is that it is pretty difficult. Normal may seem tougher if you land a very nasty enemy within the first few jumps, but overall the difference between the two is rather small.

UltraMantis wrote:Easy mode has weaker enemies in the first 3 sectors. They don't get as much power or systems as they do on normal. The scrap rewards are slightly higher.
-25% score penalty.

Um, that's about it. The reason many consider easy to be pretty difficult is that it is pretty difficult. Normal may seem tougher if you land a very nasty enemy within the first few jumps, but overall the difference between the two is rather small.

I actually found that the difference between normal and easy to be real big for me.

In almost all games, if I can't get level 2 shields and a weapon/boarding combo that can consistently pierce level 2 shields and damage them by sector 3, I've bought the farm.

In normal games, it's much harder to do so with average ships (slug, rock) that don't start with huge weapons (kestrel, crystal, etc). In easy mode, you can almost always do that if you are not greedy (e.g. spent all scrap to buy that awesome augmentation). In normal, you can barely scrape by sometimes.

The quality of the enemies also allow you to take on a lot more risk in easy. E.g. I won't hesitate to let the rebels overtake the exit in easy mode to collect extra scrap because I know that I can easily deal with the upgraded rebels, but in normal, upgraded rebels can easily overwhelm you if you have not yet upgraded enough to fight beyond sector 3.