Subset Games Forum

Is it possible, or i should abandon these attempts with the stealth ship? Am i forced to buy the shield upgrade?
The beams and drones are ripping me apart.

Weapon Pre-Igniter might make it possible, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Autoclave wrote:Is it possible, or i should abandon these attempts with the stealth ship? Am i forced to buy the shield upgrade?
The beams and drones are ripping me apart.

I'm currently attempting this, my plan is to get evasion as high as possible and focus on my Alpha strike. So far, no luck, but its early days yet.

If you loaded up your engines and stealth, and had a couple of defense drones it might be possible. I don't know offhand how that power usage shakes down, but since you're not putting 8 units into shields you should still have some room left over for firepower.

That said, I still think you'd need a good solid dose of help from the RNG.

But you would spend ridiculous amounts of scrap on repairs. Much more than the cost of a shield and two shield upgrade levels. You can't rely on evasion that much and a wayward shot can hit the cloak or weapons. It's a very risky strategy.

You'll be a legend if you can take it to sector 8, but you'll be a nervous wreck if you try to defeat the boss.

Max evasion is 55% or 60% so i would say you need shields or 2xDefense Drone II.
But you have to survive to get those drones. Getting shields is much more easier thanks to, in my opinion, useless argumentation worth 50 scrap when sold.

But if one got lucky enough to have very strong alpha strike...

I haven't done it personally, but I don't see why you can't. You'll have to rely on other systems though. A drone bay helps, regardless of whether you opt for defense or attack (I typically go for attack to constantly harass while I'm in cloak). If you can find a stealth weapons aug and some decent guns/drones, then you should be fine all the way up to sector 8. I honestly wouldn't really recommend it though. Forgoing shields requires way stronger other systems to survive, which really, will cost you more than just popping down the 150 for the shield system. Then again, it might be fun considering all of the extra power you'll be able to reroute to weapons and drone systems.

I should also state that boarders and stealth really go well together. With full cloak, assuming your enemy doesn't have a med bay, you can usually crew kill them before you get hit.

I tried this on easy mode with the zoltan cruiser, B layout. In the end i had 55% evasion, 3 ion weapons and a pike beam. Getting to the last stand wasn't as hard as i expected, but the final boss annihilated me. I think it might be possible to beat him if you have three ion weapons and perhaps defense drones or a stealth module.

2x Defense drones II cost too much power, especially 2x of it. For a shieldless run, a Hull Repair Drone is a MUST, or else you will be running to the store after every battle, perhaps coupled with 1x Def Drone I for the enemy missiles.

For my shieldless build on the Stealth; max stealth (For the early matches without a preigniter), max engine, 2 in drones (4 by end game) with Def I in the early stages and a Hull Repair Drone once I got it, max weapons (2x Burst II, 1x Glaive)

Basically in battle, I fire once for a lulz dmg, stealth up, fire a second for another lulz dmg. IF I see a missile coming, I activate the def drone, and shut it down once the enemy missile is recharging. For the lasers, 55% dodge by end game usually avoids half of it, and the hull repair usually can keep me at full hp. Enemy beams usually charge up sufficiently slowly for you to stealth it out, and the drones, well, thats what the hull repair is for until you take out their drone bay.

Focusing on enemy weapons, then shields.

Evasion is useless then AI missile lands on bridge or engines. Shields is far superior.And without shields boss will scrap ship with glaive beam for sure.