share your nesasio strategies! (spoilers)

[temporal]

So I recently unlocked this nifty little ship.

The cloak and the upgraded sensors are very cool.
But I was surprised/terrified to see that it had no shield.

Playing on normal.
The weapons were surprisingly effective at getting through the first couple sectors. The lasers can easily take out a single point shield and the beam can finish them. Cloak dodges some volleys and gives you time to repair any damage.

But after sector 2 things start to get scary. I'm spending a lot on repairs because if my cloak is down, I'm taking damage. Because of this I can't afford the upgrades that I need. Cloaking becomes less effective and my weapons can't deal with multiple points of shield.

My strategy has been to clear out sectors 1 and 2 and build up as much scrap as possible. In the next sectors just run from anything too nasty and hope to luck into enough scrap to get a decent 3rd weapon, drones or a teleporter (or shields!!).

I've had some success with the teleporter. Get at least one manti crew member, upgrade the cloak and it quickly becomes better than weapons.

But a lot of my games end up with me frantically cloaking to repair my engines trying to FTL the heck out. Never quite getting enough scrap for a good upgrade. With weapons that can't break through 2 units of shields.

What are you guys doing to stay alive? Anyone actually beaten the game with this ship?!

[Nox]

(* spoiler *)

I'm a very dedicated stealth player, however the nesasio's lack of a 4th weapon slot is actually counterproductive to a stealth ship.

A stealth based ship needs the most burst damage it can muster, and that requires a 4 slot architecture. 3 slots for burst lasers and one slot for a teleport bomb/missile.

Is the nesasio even a 3/3 ship? I don't remember it having 3 drone slots.

Starting with stealth doesn't make up for losing a weapon slot, especially considering you start with no shield which is the exact same expense as buying a shield for the cruiser or the newbship, and both of those ships are superior by endgame.

I understand that it's intended to be an evasion / stealth ship but I think that evasion is too conditional to rely on as a basis. Also, taking hull damage cannot be relied on because the opportunity to repair hull damage isn't consistent. That adds another risk.

I'll try it after I get the mantis ship. That's the last ship I have to unlock.

[GoodRevrnd]

Beam weapons and asteroid fields are the absolute bane of this ship. When I play other ships and get cloak I can usually leave shields at 1 for a very long time and then only need to bump them up to 2. This ship feels like it needs a little something more since it's focused on outright evasion. At minimum Adv Hull Plating should be bumped up to 50%+ chance for absorption on meteor impacts. It may need some sort of bonus vs beams too. Not sure what to do there since you can't evade them.

As far as actually playing, I think grabbing a def drone mk2 asap is key.

[Nox]

man I just can't wrap my head around using defence mk 2 drones. that's FOUR POWER.

For four power I could be running two points of shields, or two burst laser II's (that's 6 shots every 12 seconds!)

I just can't even imagine playing this game defensively. I guess that's my nature though.

If I ever use drones it's almost exclusively two anti-ship drones (in combat) or a repair drone out of it to get to systems that are hazardous (no air, broken doors, on fire)

[GoodRevrnd]

That's true, the 4 power is excessive for them. Once you factor in upgrades necessary to run a Mk2 you're back up to shield costs.

[Nox]

Here's my nas with which I just beat the game.

You'll notice I don't have the hull reinforcement anymore. I also don't have max shields. I fight extremely offensively - primarily focusing on suppressing systems rather than defending against them.

Here's the ship itself. Notice my placement of my assault crew above and below the teleporter.


With the weapon preloader, I generally warp in and immediately hit the shield generators and then stealth after the enemy fires their first volley. With stealth weapons that means I'll fire in the middle of my stealth and when I come out of it again.


Against the boss ship I would use the anti-ship drone and the beam drone. Against normal ships I keep the sys repair drone on hand for contingency. The only thing I wish I had found would have been a burst II for the third slot.



Full cloak is a must, and I generally don't have more than 4 points in shields until very late. I like having lots of energy early because I do a lot of fighting in nebulas, where having extra energy puts you at a huge advantage against ships that are in plasma storms.

[talhydras]

General strategy? Don't run into a ship with a beam drone. It stands a good chance of killing you even if you desperately try to alpha their drone control.

Oh, and whatever you do, don't do what I did most recently and run into an auto-scout with a beam drone in an asteroid field on my third jump node on easy. That was the most brutal, curb-stompinest, one-sided battle I've ever had in FTL to date. That it was sector 1 easy only rubbed salt into the burning hull breaches...

As far as advanced stuff: Weapon pre-igniter and stealth weapons are a winning combination on ANY ship, but the Nesasio is premade for one or both of those two on account of having the cloak built in. I actually have had fairly good luck with the three weapon slot ships - since maximum power is locked at 8, you couldn't load the four weapons on the Federation ships with maximum power guns anyway. If you can score weapon pre-igniter, keep an eye out for burst-laser 3, that augment rescues that gun from the scrap heap. Heavy lasers and heavy ions are also great weapons.

On the subject of defense drone mk 2: I don't recommend ever using this drone for a variety of reasons. As you noticed it takes an utterly massive amount of power that could be doing useful things. Additionally it will spend some of its time firing at incoming lasers which it shouldn't really be doing because shields can protect against laser fire. Since the defense drone 1 doesn't fire at lasers it will focus 100% on missiles. That said, if I can score a drone recovery arm I keep my eyes out specifically and only for twin anti-ship drone mk 1s. The damage output is less than a beam drone but still massive and it will suppress shields like crazy. Your starting weapons + some slick timing and two anti-ship drones can punch through the hardest shields in the game!

But you'll notice that the stealth weapons / weapon pre-igniter applies to any ship - so too the drone recovery arm + anti-ship drone spam. For the Nesasio in particular, simply by picking the ship you've made a terrible trade-off. On the one hand you have a pretty effective starting gun and augment layout. On the other, IMO you need shields desperately. I've seen rebel riggers in sector 2 with twin mini-beams and a beam drone before. This is hilariously impotent against every other starter ship but the nesasio, which is summarily torn to radar-absorbent confetti by the unrelenting no-miss beam spam. Since I can't count on shields being available at any given store, and shields are VERY expensive, this means I usually end up sitting on a fat stack of cash for the nerve-wracking earlygame and stretching that dual laser/mini-beam combo as far as I can. I can avoid getting shields if I get some other extremely effective beam deterrant - the aforementioned weapon pre-igniter works great, missiles are, ammunition and accuracy providing, another excellent solution to the Beam Problem.

In general, though, the nesasio isn't as restricting as the Gila Monster. It has a good amount of drone slots and its starting advanced hull armor is great for tanking damage in general so it can lend itself to outlasting opponents through judicious use of cloak and medium shields. You can also make it into an offensive powerhouse with the high-energy weapons and cloaking; beams and burst laser 3 match up pretty well with cloaking 3. Ultimately IMO the Nesasio is still a conventional ship that can effectively make use of just about any drop you find. For comparison the Gila Monster's 3 weapons / 1 drone slot layout definitely does not allow it to become a drone boat. I recommend the Nesasio if you like to practice beam usage and want a decent platform for a 3-power beam weapon, or if you like defensive play. For gunnery based offensive play I think the federation ships are a more solid bet - and of course the Torus has hideous potential with three drone slots, and the gila monster is awesome for boarding all the things.

Hope that helps and wasn't too rambling and incoherent!

[temporal]

I think the shared consensus is that this ship is a bit gimped at the start.

Now cloak is only a 60% dodge, it will be even worse!

Definitely won't be playing this ship until it gets some sort of buff.

[Justin]

Yeah, this ship may be a bit underpowered for a bit. We're in the process of reworking evasion and cloaking, the two things that are core to it early game. Once we figure those things out we'll rebalance the ship to fit the changes properly. I still enjoy playing with it though... Until I see an enemy beam drone...

[JanoS]

I just got to the last boss using this ship, even via the slug nebula.

I got shields extremely early, and my weapons were:
Dual laser
Basic beam
Burst Laser III
for total of 6 weapon power

For the last boss I replaced basic beam with small bomb (Only missile I found in the game!!)

His second stage destroyed me with boarders I got only 5 crew members...

Cloak 3, Shields 8, Weapons 6, Engines 6, Drone - Ship Attack I

And it looked so promising...

Even with Cloak III which I enabled when he launched his special attack I got hit with his second special attack before my cloak regenerated... And that was it.