Subset Games Forum

I had 2 really good ones. One was three burst laser II. It was soooo inredibly powerfull. 9 shots simultaneously. Killed the boss in few volleys.
The second one was my most recent run with Federation 2. I had the default dual laser with three Flak Guns I. Plus fully upgraded Artillery beam. So I had: first vollley after 10 seconds all at once. Second volley all at once + the artillery beam. I sliced thru the boss like onthing (although i lost few crewmembers in the fight due to hacking .

Right now in AE double glaive beam + hacking system on third level locked to shields = undodgeable 24 damage.
Vulcano is very fun in use, because even with just only this weapon it's possible to win against flagship.
Best AE combination I had was:
2x Flak Mk II + Flak Mk I. It was just fun, when i destroyed enemies with one 17 projectile counting volley.

In my mind, even with all the coolness that the AE flavour-text of the new guns brings...nothing beats four Mk I Hull Lasers. You pretty much get to choose to do lots of damage, to the hull, or target systems, and make it that much harder to repair when they get breached. You could do it with two Mk II Hull Lasers, and one Mk I, leaving room for another weapon in weird situations, but I don't think it's needed. I mean, hull lasers give you both damage (aim at empty rooms) and crowd control (i.e. the breaches). Plus, it would mess up the timing of the cooldowns, meaning you need to micro everything. :P

That's just my favourite, though. Pretty much any weapon combo works, except for obvious sillyness, like beam weapons without any way to break down the shields. Usually though, you'll want some kind of crowd control, i.e. fire or breaches, so that they can't easily repair their systems.

A very nice loadout I recently used:
Ion Blast + Ion Stunner + Ion Stunner + Firebeam + Hacking.

Hack the shields. Once the firebeam is fired (whether the shields are taken down by ion or hacking), the stunners (fired them staggered, since I'm not sure whether the stun counter is incremented like for ions) keep the crew from putting out the fires, or fixing the shields. In case some of the stunners miss, the hacked doors prevents the crew from escaping (once other crew enter, their fate isn't better). The ion, hacking, and damage to the shields ensure the firebeam has free reign over the rest of the ship, not to mention that the ions can be redirected to weaponry if need be (or if there's something scary, hack the weapons instead - still easy to deploy the beam). I had this setup pretty early, but later Defense Drones and Cloaking ensure what little shots they did manage to get off weren't significant. For airless ships we use a Combat Drone Mk 2. (needless to say, these were all crew kill victories, without necessitating a Teleporter or boarding crew, which went rather well with my 2 Scrap Recovery Arms)

Also, I know this is an old trick by now (a week being ancient times), but the first time I used Mind Control + Teleporter + Level 3 manned Door System to asphyxiate the Flagship crew one by one, I giggled for minutes straight like a small child. A maniacal, murderous small child.

athorist wrote:

Pyroar wrote:Vulcano is very fun in use, because even with just only this weapon it's possible to win against flagship.

Would that really work? I don't think 1 shot per second would be enough to bring 4 levels of shields down without hacking - although I would like to try twin vulcans.

Yup, it works. With misses and shields coming back up its far from ideal, but if you're safe and secure and can sit out and take what the Flagship dishes, it will eventually do the job.

2 Vulcans would be shockingly good, especially if you had a high dodge, weapon pre-igniter, cloak, zoltan shield and a shield drone. You could EASILY survive until they spooled up and the hot plasmatic death you'd rain down on the boss would be a sheer joy to watch.

5thHorseman wrote:

athorist wrote:

Pyroar wrote:Vulcano is very fun in use, because even with just only this weapon it's possible to win against flagship.

Would that really work? I don't think 1 shot per second would be enough to bring 4 levels of shields down without hacking - although I would like to try twin vulcans.

Yup, it works. With misses and shields coming back up its far from ideal, but if you're safe and secure and can sit out and take what the Flagship dishes, it will eventually do the job.

2 Vulcans would be shockingly good, especially if you had a high dodge, weapon pre-igniter, cloak, zoltan shield and a shield drone. You could EASILY survive until they spooled up and the hot plasmatic death you'd rain down on the boss would be a sheer joy to watch.

So basically, have a shockingly good run with a Zoltan ship. Definitely would be awesome enough to try. Combine the shield drone with a Defense II to extend the lifespan of your super shields.

Ion Blast II + Flak I/Flak II + Combat Drone. Best combo in game.

Nukeknockout wrote:

5thHorseman wrote:2 Vulcans would be shockingly good, especially if you had a high dodge, weapon pre-igniter, cloak, zoltan shield and a shield drone. You could EASILY survive until they spooled up and the hot plasmatic death you'd rain down on the boss would be a sheer joy to watch.

So basically, have a shockingly good run with a Zoltan ship. Definitely would be awesome enough to try. Combine the shield drone with a Defense II to extend the lifespan of your super shields.

While that was essentially a Please Santa Bring Me The Ship Of My Dreams loadout, you can get the shield now on any ship. The first time I played the Osprey (With the artillery beam) I picked up a cloak and that shield. It was really weird to have 3 things you NEVER saw on the same ship together by just normal play.

Here's another one. 50+% dodge, 3 shield drones, and 2 Vulcans. That shouldn't be too hard to get, and if you toss in the cloak you can give the drones a chance to build up your shield. Probably should stagger start them so you're getting a new shield every few seconds. Oh, and a Drone Recover Arm.

Apparently on a Zoltan A run I did I was destined to get beams. One halberd in addition to the starter, two anti-bio beams and, the random beacon that just gives you a weapon floating in space decided for it to be a glaive beam.

The two anti-bio beams were morbidly effective for what I initially thought of them. Hack shields when they both charge up and destroy 2/3 of a ships crew in one volley. (Firing them together one-shots anything non rockman, 120 crew damage). Especially when they all crowd together in a nice little clump to break down the doors to the shields room. Yeah, it was on easy, but even then the amount of scrap I got felt like cheating.

I realised how wonderful they were when I had them accidently still equipped when fighting the first stage of the rebel flagship. I thought I was going to lose at first, but after killing all but one crew, they could not repair anything. Allowing me to shoot all their systems out with my burst laser MKIII and Flak I at leisure. Corrected my mistake and swapped them out for the glaive beam for the next two phases as I didn't need them anymore.

Morale of story: Two anti-bio beams + something that knocks out shields will make you very rich very quickly.

5thHorseman wrote:Here's another one. 50+% dodge, 3 shield drones, and 2 Vulcans. That shouldn't be too hard to get, and if you toss in the cloak you can give the drones a chance to build up your shield. Probably should stagger start them so you're getting a new shield every few seconds. Oh, and a Drone Recover Arm.

This might be harder to get than you think because it's only possible with the Stealth C since 3 normal Shield Drones would take 9 power. So, not only do the RNG gods have to give you an insane loadout, but they have to let you survive a tough start to power it! And beam drones will render your shield drones fairly useless.