This game will probably never get uninstalled. I've played through those beginning few sectors SOOOOOOOO many times, of course. And there are always different things popping up that I haven't seen before, no matter how many times it seems I've played them, and it happened just again. Yeah, there's been many times when there's a spider-problem and I send my crew down and either live or die. But this time through, maybe 3 beacons prior, I came across a pirate/smuggler who I could purchase an unknown item from for 45scrap. I decided to go ahead and do it and see what I got (usually it's meh, I've found), and I got an "anti-bio-beam" weapon, which does 60 damage to enemy crew. Then, when I came to the spider-infestation beacon, I had a blue option to take out the spiders from afar with the anti-bio beam!!! They dropped their shields, and I used the weapon (just in the text, of course, I didn't have to do anything other than have it equipped, just like anything for those blue-missions), it killed all of the spiders and everything was fine, success!!!

Funfun!

That's one of the best weapons in the game, but I think it's super rare. Only once did I get a chance to install it on my ship, and I think I saw it once more in a store somewhere but couldn't afford it. Not my favorite weapon though, since it's not as much fun to use as the fire beam >:D

The rest of my run through didn't go very well so I no longer have the weapon. GAR! I only paid 45scrap for it too! Ah well. The beauty of the game.

Yeah it's rare as hell. The A hull Slug starts with it though - with that I managed to neutralise almost all enemy crew in all crew-equipped ships I encountered without having to board.

While not as much fun as the fire beam, it's certainly quicker - and it's also effective against rock men (though it takes more hits).

Hehe yeah, the fire beam is pretty useless against rock men. Also, at least half of the time, I end up destroying the enemy ship in the process because the hull takes one damage whenever a room is damaged by fire :P

Giant alien spiders are no joke!

Seriously, that event has an 80% chance of a bad outcome so you don't want to send your crew in. Ever.
...Well, maybe if your ship has a very bad case of Humanitis and you don't mind losing one.

Probably the best quality of the biobeam is giving a blue option for the spiders, but it's usually not worth it. I just sell it in the first shop that offers a proper weapon when I play the Slug A.

On the fire beam: fire depletes O2 faster, so you can always asphyxiate those rockmen ;)

Episode II?

I know it's not common, but is the Anti-Bio Beam all that rare? I've seen to come across it a fair number of times. More often than not I skip it as I'm already geared toward a different type of build.

Or if you have a clone bay - then I always give the event a go in case it works. And if it doesn't, the crew will be cloned, no big deal.

IMO bio-beam is probably the best crew-killer in terms of efficiency, so unless I already have a build that deals with crew anyway (e.g. teleporter + combat crew, possibly a boarding drone) I tend to keep it around if I have the room/power for it.

I succeed at killing the giant spiders pretty often, 80% failure rate is not what I've experienced at all! maybe a 40% succuess rate, maybe even 60%.

I'm very new to this game and just have three ships unlocked so far (Zoltan, Enit, Enit type a) and am having a blast with it.

A question related to this thread:

Do you get more resources by winning a battle keeping the enemy ship intact? I would guess yes but I haven't come across this weapon or even had a transporter yet .... how much better is it?

Yes, crew kills give an average 20% more scrap value than just destroying the ship.

There are multiple ways of getting crew kills, not just the bio-beam or boarding parties. Asphyxiation by O2 disabling (with hacking module or lasrs or ion weapons or whatever) or burning them to death, just to give a couple examples.