Can you beat the game without shields?

[OttoRobba]

Just finished a Stealth A, shieldless run. Got some pretty good drops along the way and a lot of scrap (total of 1900 ish). More often than not, it seems the game is all about running into as many enemies as possible to get as much scrap as possible. The more jumps, the more scrap, the better the outcome at the end.

Had Maxed weapons and engines, 6 points in drones (defense mark II and mark I), max cloak (dur), max reactor and whatnot.

Burst Laser III, Halberd Beam, Basic Laser.
Crew was 2 mantis, 1 engi, 2 zoltan, 3 humans.

Augments were Weapon pre-igniter, Stealth weapons, advanced scanners.

On the first phase I boarded the enemy weapons with my mantis duo (left the lasers alone, between dodging, stealth and my drone, it was fine) while I focus fired the other weapons and damaged the crew with the halberd beam. Took a bit of damage but not too much.

Second phase was tricky. I tried to save my stealth for the power surges and kept disabling the drones meanwhile. Used my boarders to distract the enemy crew from fixing the drone bay.

Third phase was pretty straightforward, did damage as quickly as possible and stealthed when under fire - I did get hit heavily by a power surge but my weapon loadout meant only my basic laser ever got disabled. Stealthed through the second power surge and killed it.

Fun!

[curithwin]

Just finished a Stealth A, shieldless run. Got some pretty good drops along the way and a lot of scrap (total of 1900 ish). More often than not, it seems the game is all about running into as many enemies as possible to get as much scrap as possible. The more jumps, the more scrap, the better the outcome at the end.

Had Maxed weapons and engines, 6 points in drones (defense mark II and mark I), max cloak (dur), max reactor and whatnot.

Burst Laser III, Halberd Beam, Basic Laser.
Crew was 2 mantis, 1 engi, 2 zoltan, 3 humans.

Augments were Weapon pre-igniter, Stealth weapons, advanced scanners.

On the first phase I boarded the enemy weapons with my mantis duo (left the lasers alone, between dodging, stealth and my drone, it was fine) while I focus fired the other weapons and damaged the crew with the halberd beam. Took a bit of damage but not too much.

Second phase was tricky. I tried to save my stealth for the power surges and kept disabling the drones meanwhile. Used my boarders to distract the enemy crew from fixing the drone bay.

Third phase was pretty straightforward, did damage as quickly as possible and stealthed when under fire - I did get hit heavily by a power surge but my weapon loadout meant only my basic laser ever got disabled. Stealthed through the second power surge and killed it.

Fun!

Grats!

[zzandrio]

Nice OttoRobba, I've been trying to do that, but I guess you beat me to it

[OttoRobba]

Nice OttoRobba, I've been trying to do that, but I guess you beat me to it

I did get a few ideas from your playthrough, specially the defense drones and I had not done much boarding until this run, so your video was also nice in that regard. It was a shame you sold that breech missile, you would definitely have won!

[mrpresidentjpk]

I managed to get to phase 2 of the boss quite easily on normal with stealth A (first attempt), no shields OR drones to speak of. The trick was buying a weapon pre-igniter and stealth weapons by sector 3. That way as long as you find just about any 3rd weapon you can take out/force surrender almost any ship you come across before your stealth runs out, or at least their weapons/drones. The rest of my cash I used to max my engines so I could get away asap from any ship that had 4 shields or laser drones, sure it's lost cash but you would've spent a lot more on repairs anyway. I think I spent less than 100-150 scrap or so on repairs the whole run.

...and then I get to phase 2 of the boss and forget to save my stealth for the drone surge. I went from full hull to 0 in about 4 seconds

[Autoclave]

Just did it!
Stealth ship B,
Pre-Igniter, Stealth Weapons, Long Range Radar
Glaive Beam, Burst Laser MK2, Burst Laser Mk2
Attack drone MK2, Attack drone Mk1

Basically i went for an insane alpha strike.
The MK2 attack drone is insane.

[Drasha]

Just did it!
Stealth ship B,
Pre-Igniter, Stealth Weapons, Long Range Radar
Glaive Beam, Burst Laser MK2, Burst Laser Mk2
Attack drone MK2, Attack drone Mk1

Basically i went for an insane alpha strike.
The MK2 attack drone is insane.

Awesome to hear it worked for you that alpha strike sounds brutal and the power couldn't have been that bad since you had no shields. Out of curiosity what systems did you target? Went to take out offensive weapons first, shields and pilot, or just all out as much damage as you could raking the hull with the glaive?

[Autoclave]

Just did it!
Stealth ship B,
Pre-Igniter, Stealth Weapons, Long Range Radar
Glaive Beam, Burst Laser MK2, Burst Laser Mk2
Attack drone MK2, Attack drone Mk1

Basically i went for an insane alpha strike.
The MK2 attack drone is insane.

Awesome to hear it worked for you that alpha strike sounds brutal and the power couldn't have been that bad since you had no shields. Out of curiosity what systems did you target? Went to take out offensive weapons first, shields and pilot, or just all out as much damage as you could raking the hull with the glaive?

the funny thing is, i never got to fire the second glaive. I went straight for the shields, the MK2 lasers and attack drones killed him very fast. I did have a hull repair drone in stock. Helped me quite a lot during my travel.

[UltraMantis]

Just did it!
Stealth ship B,
Pre-Igniter, Stealth Weapons, Long Range Radar
Glaive Beam, Burst Laser MK2, Burst Laser Mk2
Attack drone MK2, Attack drone Mk1

Basically i went for an insane alpha strike.
The MK2 attack drone is insane.

That is one insane aplha allright. The way to take him down before he smashes you to bits. Congratulations to all who managed this very difficult feat.

I've been trying but i only got to the end once and... i cloaked by instinct when st2 began.... got pwnd in one volley. Other attempts i couldn't even reach the last stand. sigh

[skyorrichegg]

Well that was a fun run...
Did it with Glaive Beam, Burst Laser Mark 2, Burst Laser Mark 1, and two Attack Drones Mark 1.
Filmed it in three parts at my channel, starting at this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_t5Pl3inuo
Thanks guys for inspiring me with this really cool challenge mode and showing it can be done!