Can not beat this game

[Taskeen]

Alright after playing this game ever since it was first released, a total of 24 play-throughs, 41 hours of playtime, I have never had a victory... not ONCE. I have watched vids and read up on tips, but I always lose.

I have played this game on both normal and easy and get screwed over every time. I have unlocked all Kestral ship types (A, B, and the new C), the first Engi ship, and by pure luck the Zoltan Cruiser.

I have tried this game on Normal mode, and can not even beat this game on Easy. I got the end boss and only 2 times got to the third stage of the boss fight and got smoked.

I have no idea what I am doing wrong, my ship is usually fully upgraded by the end (although I have only ever achieved this on "easy" mode) with a full reactor, 3 or 4 shields, nearly full engines, an asston of weaponry, and sometimes drone defense.

This was my lastest ship and I died in the first friggin boss stage:



Epic Frustrating.

[5thHorseman]

I lost 25 times in a row on easy, and got to the boss several times but never beat him.

On my 26th time through, I forgot to click "easy" and accidentally started on "normal" mode (back then it didn't default to what you'd played last) and wouldn't you know it, I beat the final boss.

Keep at it, you'll get it. And your victory will seem all the sweeter for how hard it was to do.

[Merudo]

I have the reverse experience - usually if I end up at the last stand on easy, I'll defeat the boss without too much issues.

Perhaps you can give us more information about your play style? Which upgrades do you usually get? Which stages give you the most problems? Next time try and send up a picture of all your upgrades, as well as your weapons and crew.

Here is a few tips:

- In my experience, on easy the most dangerous attack of the boss is the triple missile (middle right weapon). Do you usually have defense against this? Consider having 1-2 defense drone to greatly reduce the danger of this attack, and/or use cloak with 1 power at the right time to dodge the volley.

- Concentrate on damaging the shield as soon as possible. I usually prefer going all lasers to break through the shield, as in phase 2 the boss gains a nasty defense drone that can intercept 1-2 missile at the same time. Try to accumulate weapons that fire tons of lasers to go through the shield (Burst Lasers II/III are great, so are the weapons that reload faster each time they fire)

- If I do any damage to the shield system, I like to mind control the shield room and have a fight break out in there. It really helps preventing the shield from being repaired, making my next attack even more damaging to the shield system. It also cause the crew to injure each other. Moreover the AI usually send 1 extra crew to join the fight, potentially interrupting another task. Finally, when the next batch of lasers hit the shield room, they will do damage to everyone fighting there - potentially killing 2-3 enemy crew at the same time! Not bad for a 1 power investment! Tip: try to time the mind control when there are at least two crews there - when an enemy is mind controlled he will attack a fellow crew member if there is one in the same room, otherwise he might run off to attack a random system.

- Once the shield system is weak, try and destroy that missile weapon (middle right weapon) as well as the guy manning it. The fight is vastly easier once it is out of the picture. You can also board that section with two of your crew.

- If you are getting the upper hand in phase 1 and phase 2, try and take out as many crew as possible - they won't reappear in the next phases. You can also lure them in the section that will get destroyed at the end of the phase, as any crew there will die as well. Just make sure you don't everyone though, as the AI will then take over and start automatically repairing all system.

I also have a few comments about what I see in the picture you posted.

- First, I'm not a big fan of upgrading cloak to level 3 for the final boss. It just takes too much power, and the more power you put into it the more it takes time to recharge. I'd rather use 1 power cloak to dodge volleys of missiles every now and then.

- Make sure you upgrade Oxygen and Piloting to level 2 before the fight. It will make those systems more robust, so they won't shut down in 1 hit.

- I don't see either the hacking, mind control or boarding system. You should have at least one of them - even if you put only 1 energy into them they can be extremely powerful. Of the three, hacking is my least favorite, as it can be destroyed by the drone in phase 2, and requires more power to be effective.

- Finally, as I said I really don't like the singleton missile launcher. In my experience missiles are rather useless during phase 2, unless you got a way to take care of the defense drone. Consider replacing it with a different weapon, at least during phase 2.

[The Captain]

That ship would beat the boss pre-AE, and I think it could in AE. I'm not a big fan of missiles - I prefer bombs, preferably ion or breach mk II; small is kind of like an artemis, as far as system damage.

I'd be using all weapons against the boss: that missile needs to be taking down shields. In the second round you need to damage the drone room to get the defense drone offline before using missiles. (It's only a defense mk I, right? I've been playing a lot of Captain's Edition, where it was like a defense mk II, so you could distract it by firing lasers first, then firing missiles.) You've got plenty of ammo, though, so you could fire away, hoping the defense drone eventually misses.

L3 Cloak was useful pre-AE in round three: if you cloaked just before the missiles arrived, it would take you through the power surge laser burst. I think it'd be the same in AE, as long as it doesn't get hacked. All other times I usually put one power into it, though. And considering there aren't other systems, you might as well upgrade cloaking all the way.

[Nevill]

This was my lastest ship and I died in the first friggin boss stage

Well, I only have a single question. How?

I mean, really, this ship had all signs of a winner. The combination of weapons rarely gets better than that. It could have benefitted from a teleporter or mind-control (or both) for a bit of finesse, but it should have been able to tear the Flagship apart with brute force.

Is there some aspert of the Flagship fight you are having difficulties with?

With the current setup, you would have benefitted from targeting shields with Artemis, then blasting the cloaking with everything you've got so that they couldn't take their time to fix the damage, then disabling their piloting... or anything else, really. At this point the fight is won. Just be sure to keep its cloak destroyed.

The second stage was going to be tricky with your setup, but still doable.

[hybridfive]

I wouldn't lose faith. You got to the point where you put together a good ship. You probably just have to work on individual tactics for the boss.

For example, there are two minor things that I can improve on, based on the screenshot you posted.

1) Your chain laser should be in slot number 1, not slot number 3. Chain laser resets if it gets depowered. Weapons depower from right to left when you take damage. You should have let a burst laser go, in the case where you take 2 or more damage to that system, because it will decrease your recovery time if that system gets hit.

I would have put Artemis in slot 2 but that's more subjective. As a tip, you can pause as the weapons room is hit in order to depower the weapon that is further from firing, should the timing matter.

2) IMO you could have put your Engi in a better position. Doors 3 is great, but you don't start to get boarders until Stage 2. Sensors 2 isn't really going to do you a whole lot against any stage of the boss. You know where people are going to be. They're going to put one person in each weapon, pilot, shields, engine, doors, and cloaking. You don't really need to watch them move / repair / catch on fire / whatever. So manning both stations is useless early on.

However, you know you will need them for repairs eventually. And when you do, you want them to have quicker access to critical systems. They're three steps away from weapons. I would have put them in Cloaking, so they were one step away (and closer to engines and 02) without giving up distance from shields. Position is particularly important since you know that a Hacking Drone is coming.

Take the approach that you need to practice on the boss in order to take him down. There's a significant amount of luck in that battle. Where the hacking drone lands in stage 1, and the boarding drone lands in stage 2, have a huge effect on how difficult the fight it. Just keep at it, and one day you'll get an easier attack, just by luck. I'm sure you can do it.

[5thHorseman]

All very good advice, hybridfive.

I would add "If the boss hacks a critical system like weapons, shields, or even O2 (I've lost due to choking out) and you're not on your final tick before it destroys the base, JUMP AWAY. Come back, roll the dice again. Maybe he'll hack scanners this time.

[Nukeknockout]

All very good advice, hybridfive.

I would add "If the boss hacks a critical system like weapons, shields, or even O2 (I've lost due to choking out) and you're not on your final tick before it destroys the base, JUMP AWAY. Come back, roll the dice again. Maybe he'll hack scanners this time.

...That is actually a very good piece of advice. Thank you. The boss choked me out once. Fortunately, it likes to hack doors as often as it hacks anything else. However, this particular point is my argument for not bringing functional Mind Control into round 1 with the Flagship.

If oxygen gets hacked, would de-powering it slow down the loss of oxygen? (I play on the ipad so I can't really tell)

When a system is hacked, it becomes impossible to shunt power into or out of it. If you notice the hacking drone incoming and you know you won't stop it, PAUSE and take whatever power is in that system out of it. That way you have that power to help mitigate the damage.

OP: That's a pretty nice ship you have there. Definitely capable of taking down the boss. I'd take two power from the cloak to launch a Defense Drone when the battle begins, take power from O2 to use the Artemis, cloak only to dodge the initial missile volley and then fire your missile, then all your lasers after the Artemis hits or misses directly at the shield room. If all goes well, you can then auto-fire the Chain Laser and Artemis against the shield generator (You have a giant stockpile of missiles for a reason) and use the BL2s to smite first the boss missile, then the pilot or hacking depending on whether its dodging or its hacking is irritating you more at the moment. Furthermore, Defense Drones shoot down incoming hack drones (Also missiles and boarding drones), so if you're quick about launching it you can theoretically not be hacked in the boss battle.

As other posters have said, whenever you're using a Chain-type weapon (Chain Laser, Chain Vulcan, Chain Ion) it should be placed as far to the left as possible on your weapons list for the reasons they pointed out.

[BlueTrin]

I find the boss much more difficult in AE, you can get screwed really quickly if he gets to your critical systems as you said.

[al244098]

Well, this might sound stupid, but hack the flagship's hacking.

It saved me loads of times.