Still alive and holding a screwdriver is kind of how I go through life.
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(Barely) live by the flak, (almost) die by the flak.
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Do you think you’ve got what it takes to beat the rebels?
Unless we end up getting a big scrap injection, I don’t see all systems being fully functional when it comes to the fight
With what we have at the end of sector 6, i think that we have a shot at beating the flagship. Update to follow…
Sector 6
Part 2:That’s Not Gneiss
We’ve met the zealots, now we meet Rock nihilists.
We win with plan A and without much fuss, taking a little damage when their laser fire manages to coincide with an asteroid impact but otherwise simple.
More interesting is that geigerm, stuck up front in the distant weapons room in the crumple zone/ablative armour part of the ship for 5 lonely sectors, earns his second star.
The next ship doesn’t have religious or philosophical issues, but does have a cloaking device. This is not a straightforward battle, as weapons charging stops when the enemy cloaks, and projectiles miss. We waste at least one missile this way and it turns into a grind.
The drone was knocked out by a laser round and they got off a missile while the drone control was rebooting.
Another breach. We’ve inflicted some damage but plan A is not going brilliantly.
On the verge of killing them and they cloak again.
In the end we get a solid shot in and destroy the ship. The flak cannon catches the ship just as it is about to cloak.
We patch up the damage again - Tamsk and Mirefox to the aft breach please - but more importantly have enough scrap to upgrade the shields.
We don’t have enough power for everything, yet, but we can shuffle power around the ship systems and find bars for the shield depending on the specific threat.
As it happens, the next thing we encounter is not a threat.
This could be a valuable historical artefact! What would an archaeologist do? According to my media viewing, the correct answer is “break it open and steal anything valuable”.
Seems about right. Plus, we can now power the shields. Thanks, lost relic of distant civilisation!
We fly off, furtively, and run into a drone.
“Avoid provoking”? I’m sorry, what? Anyway, plan A.
The drone and the station it was orbiting yield a good pile of scrap. With this, we upgrade the flak cannon to max awesomeness, and then we fly off towards the exit. On the way, we encounter a fracas but inexplicably don’t get involved.
Geigerm pouts a bit as he wanted to show off his two-star mad skillz with the guns. I guess we’re feeling benign today.
And we leave sector 6 with the feeling of a job well done.
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Sector 6: where now?
So, esteemed crew of the Dapper Pawn, time for the last decision before before we reach the flagship. North to the relatively friendly Zoltan homeworlds, or south to the decidedly unfriendly Rebel Stronghold?
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I guess the question is whether there’s enough upgrade potential left to justify potentially going into the final area with a battered hull?
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Story of my life.
As someone who’s never beaten the game, I’m not 100% sure what we’d need to upgrade going into the final area. I’ll defer to feedback from my more skilled comrades.
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Yeah, I haven’t a clue what to at this point other than run around with my screwdriver so I, too, defer to experience.
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What they said.
(Why am I chiming in? I’m not even on the ship!)
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Sector 7 zoltans or sector 7 rebels. Tough choice. I’d vote for sticking it to the rebels. With our current set up we might be looking at 2 artillery cycles before we are even doing damage to a zoltan ship. Even though the rebels will be tough and well shielded, I think we will have an easier time than against a zoltan super shield.
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Sector 6: State of the Ship
To help with the deliberations, let’s have a state of the ship review.
Big pluses: the shields are maxed out, we have upgraded the flak cannon to its maximum, and we have a full and experienced crew.
Questionable: hull at 75%. This is also my first sustained game with the flak cannon so I don’t know if that’ll be enough with one other weapon to deal with the flagship. It’s powerful and fastish-firing, but unaimable, so we do need another weapons system,
The ship also has no augments, so what you see is all we’ve got.
Depending on how much scrap comes in, the question is prioritising between adding two more bars to the weapons system so we can also set up the burst laser, and generally battle-hardening the other systems (that is, adding bars you never intend to power but mean the system can absorb more damage before failing). Also another door bar.
Also to be clear, we have one more system to visit before we get to the flagship, and that system can be either Zoltan or Rebels.
Tough decision, so let’s see also what @js619, @OhBollox, @Tamsk and @Shadowfax think. A good captain listens to his crew…
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We’ve got enough game left to go that getting some repairing done before the boss battle isn’t a real concern, I don’t think. I’m inclined to agree with my esteemed colleague @Snotty128 that Zoltan shields will be more bothersome than tooled-up rebels, given this loadout; so I vote south.
(Not that I’m any great expert, mind; I’ve never won the game on anything above Easy.)
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Best reason to chime in then. No consequences.
I vote rebels.
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Consensus says rebels.
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Rebels it is. First time in this voyage that I would have picked a different route to the crew, but we shall follow the will of the people. nods
Edit- I think this gives us an outside chance of running into the flagship prototype. That will be fun.
Sector 7
Part 1: In Rebel Sector, Enemy Boards You
So here we are, in Rebel territory. With our urgent message that the rebels are coming? I have doubts about this mission.
Anyway, enemy 1 is a weedy 2- shield drone guarding a space station. We reach out a claw and it disappears.
More importantly, it generates lots of scrap, and our next stop is a store.
Of course we pay for hull repairs, but also we check out the drone selection and yes. You beauty, a hull repair drone. We buy that without a second thought.
Next up, an actual rebel. They try and board, and also spin up their FTL to try and run off and tell their friends.
The boarders are dealt with by fisticuffs rather than asphyxiation, and a swift breach missile to the helm stops any silly ideas about leaving.
The next rebel has a missile launcher and a flak gun. This used to worry us.
This one manages to chip off two hull before blowing up. Good effort!
Then we run into another rebel. Seriously, this is clearly a popular uprising. Are you sure we’re the good guys here? Anyway, boarders, missile weapon, flak gun.
They also manage to do two hull damage before their involuntary donation of scrap.
Feeling reasonably relaxed, we encounter yet another yellow ship, who somehow manage to board in the microsecond after we jumped in.
More interestingly, they teleport in two groups at opposite ends of the ship, which is tactically novel. We go for asphyxiation this time.
We also put a breach missile into their clone bay because we feel vindictive. We win without further damage, and spend our scrap pile on upgrading the weapons system.
We now have two guns that aren’t the flak cannon. Geigerm looks happier with a second button to press.
In a break from rebels with grudges and teleporters, we run into some miners asking for help.
On the basis that if your solution is a missile, all problems look like targets, we offer to help.
They decline. It’s health and safety gone mad, I tell you. Fine, we hand over some missiles and they do a tiny upgrade to our power.
This is actual cost-neutral but we still have a faint sense of being conned.
Well, this has all been rather boringly anti-climatic hasn’t it.
Fine, let’s go sightseeing then. Bound to be something interesting in an enemy shipyard. What can possibly go wrong?
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Sector 7
Part 2: Behold The Power Of This Half-Built And Semi-Operational Battlestation
Well, that is interesting.
Right hand turret is a triple missile launcher. In my excitement I forget to put up a defence drone, again. Yes, yes.
Of course they send over a boarding party. We end up losing the camera room and Tamsk and Mirefox are a bit bruised, but nothing too dramatic.
The combination of the charge and breach lasers are effective at taking down the shields just before the flak cannon fires, so we can do a lot of damage every 20 seconds.
By the end of the battle we’ve taken 5 damage, which is not bad considering, and we enjoy the view of the big ship breaking up.
We grab some of the scrap floating around…
… and send home a ship. [OOC: I think this unlocks one of the Federation ships, possibly even this one. Also I was so engaged in this fight I forgot to screenshot the more exciting bits. Natural storyteller, not so much.]
We are 24-carat badasses. cracks knuckles Let’s go and bring a bit of law and justice to the rest of the sector.
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Sector 7
Part 3: This Is Not Hypnotherapy
The rest of the sector is remarkably free of rebel ships. Maybe they’re all hiding after flagship 2 went boom.
We visit a store and buy an automatic reloader augment. If this also applies to the flak cannon, it’ll fire every 18 seconds which is a nice tempo.
We attack a drone harassing a civilian ship, and win despite its cloaking device.
We have a volunteer crewmember, @Mysterio under his nom d‘espace of Lana. As everyone else is not dead, the ship is full and we decline with regrets.
The rebels send another drone at us. It’s not well-armed but has a mind controller.
Under its influence, Tamsk starts punching OhBollox, OhBollox decides not to take any of this crap, and they keep each other occupied until we destroy the drone.
We roll over the next two enemies, a drone…
… and a pirate…
…without much trouble. After this we have 328 scrap and decide it’s time to buff up the ship. We upgrade the drone control, engines, oxygen, transporter, helm, camera and doors, and install more power.
We are as ready as we’ll ever be. It’s time to deliver the message.
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