Subset Games Forum

I beat the flagship on easy, decided to try Normal


I don't know how you're supposed to play this game

A: On your knees, praying to the RNG gods.

Or with a ship that has long-range scanners up front. Then commence praying.

Seriously...

I played a number of games since this weekend and learned about the various trade offs and risks. Did the final encounter twice on easy mode and this time built what I thought was the perfect ship to try and win.

Literally meticulously trained my crew skills by disabling enemy ship weapons and the like and boarding or firing against shields.

Got to the second encounter with the boss ship at full health. Unleashed a barrage of 10 burst laser at the shields plus a beam drone... ...most of them miss. Yikes! I mean this ship and crew was about the best you could hope to get. Anyway, the beginning of the battle is more critical than the end because you need to disable them before they disable you. It went south from there and kaboom!

Needless to say I'll be reading the forums for tips and whatnot.

...great game though. Just getting my ass kicked.

Once you know the strategy, beating the boss is the easiest part of the game :/

In the first encounter, methodically kill all of the opposing crew *except* the guy manning the heavy laser. NEVER kill this guy.

Without dodge or repair capability the boss is now trivial to beat; just make sure you disable the missile launcher ASAP in each encounter.

ExtraCheesyPie wrote:I beat the flagship on easy, decided to try Normal


I don't know how you're supposed to play this game

There is no anwser to that one. Each attempt will be unique. Sometimes the game gets ugly in sector 1...
The best advice is to cover the weakness of your ship as soon as you can, and to try and roll with the punches as best you can. I know what my favourite weapons are but i rarely have the pleasure of using them.

There are a few general tips:
- Get your shields up to lvl2 ASAP
- Improve engines to increase both evasion and FTL recharge
- Don't take excessive damage, the repairs costs hurt you in the long run
- Prefer weapons with short recycles
- Find a weapon that reliably defeats shields
- Dont expect miracles from your starting weaponry because the enemies become harder to hit
- Sell everything that isn't immediatley usefull unless it's really vital
- Target enemy shields and engines/helm to weaken their defense
- Target enemy weapons to reduce their ability to hurt you
- Don't use autofire. Instead allways time your volleys to your slowest firing weapon then fire all guns in a quick succesion (some weapons can't be forced into this)
- Don't use the cloak defensively, it's very weak. Use it to secure a first strike on the enemy. Not allways possible though
- Don't use more than 1lvl cloak against the boss, that fight is all about timing
- Look carefully at what the enemy offers when they surrender
- Explore every sector even if it means you'll make several jumps through the Rebels to reach the exit
- Learn what went wrong when you die. The game sometimes just plain crushes me, but usually i make some mistake and pay for it.
- When you see the enemy is clearly superior, pump everything into engines and run

And last but not least:
- Don't bother with a perfectionist 'min/max' approach. It doesn't work. It just frustarates you when you know a piece is missing, and there will allways be pieces missing. Make the best of what you got until the next beacon

TJJ wrote:Once you know the strategy, beating the boss is the easiest part of the game :/

In the first encounter, methodically kill all of the opposing crew *except* the guy manning the heavy laser. NEVER kill this guy.

Without dodge or repair capability the boss is now trivial to beat; just make sure you disable the missile launcher ASAP in each encounter.

Why not just the ion cannon guy?

ExtraCheesyPie wrote:Why not just the ion cannon guy?

The ion cannon guy takes a space walk when the mothership breaks up. He's guaranteed to die.

Someone made a mod that makes the game harder.

I did a run through focused very intently on boarding and various disabling weapons. This time when I got to the end I was more than ready. Took out the crew manning the guns methodically with a mantis and a rock at gold combat level.

Lost the rock (my only crewman loss ) during the drone attack of the second iteration, but the mantis and one human was more than enough to take out lone humans.

Anyway, it got better when I stopped trying overwhelm the shields with burst fire.