Just beat the flagship [easy] with two shields (!)

[mewmewpewpew]

Been playing for about a week and just got my first win! Wish I had screenshot it, but I was so thrilled I forgot. Not all that exceptional, except I won with only two shields, which was exciting and unexpected. No teleporter, no cloaking.

I dumped almost all of my scrap cash into weapons and drones, with a secondary focus on engines for evasion. I always intended to buy more shields, but there was always something that felt more pressing in the moment ... It turned out fine, though; the boss battle was pretty short. I stocked up on drone parts and missiles, used an ion blast MK2 and ion bomb to continually knock out their shields and sometimes weapons and transporter (had auto re-loader) and bash them with a halberd beam going across four rooms when their shields were down (again, auto re-loader). Also had 2x anti-ship drone MK1s continually pecking at them, and a defense drone MK1 doing what it could to keep me safe.

My previous boss encounters had been trying, so I was expecting a tough fight ... but this combo worked out pretty wonderfully. I never even got boarded. I didn't lose any crew members the whole campaign (yay Engi med nanobots), so they were all well-leveled.

Anyway, just wanted to share because leveling up shields like crazy is the most common advice I see given to new players, and I wanted to let folks know that it's not always the best use of scrap!

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Breakdown:

SHIP

* Engi Cruiser - Layout A

CREW

* 1x human (helmsman - 2 stars)
* 1x Mantis (weapons - 2 stars, intruder-bashing - 1 star)
* 2x Engi (shields - 2 stars; engine - 2 stars)
* 2x Rocks (intruder-bashing, general handyrocks - 1 star each)

SYSTEMS

* engine = 6 bars
* oxygen = 1 bar
* medbay = 1 bar
* shields = 4 bars
-- two shields
* drones = 6 bars
-- 2x anti-ship drone MK1
-- 1x defense drone MK1
* weapons = 7 bars
-- ion blast MK2
-- ion bomb
-- halberd beam

SUBSYSTEMS

* piloting = 1 bar
* sensors = 1 bar
* doors = 1 bar

AUGMENTATIONS

* Engi med-bot dispersal
* auto re-loader
* stasis pod (didn't get a chance to unlock this side-quest :/)

[UltraMantis]

Hmm, no tele, no cloak. 2 shields... That is impressive. Afaik, the Flagship is the same on Easy and Normal so the only diffrence was that you had an easier time getting there. Nice win.

Getting an early 2nd shield is solid advice, anything beyond that depends on how things go. Evasion is king in my mind, but many disagree. I'm in the camp that belives upgrading shields past lvl3 is not needed if your engines are stronk enough. One shield layer stops one projectile (or none if it's a missile), but a few % extra dodge can ignore many more projectiles, including missiles.

One weaknes of engine upgrades is that events are much more likely to interfere with engines while shields are rarely affected. And if your piloting gets taken out your net evasion is 0% no matter how many engine upgrades you have. Engines also don't have augs while shields have 2.