I'm having a hard time figuring out how to play with the Stealth Cruiser. Really, the lack of shields is the thing that perplexes me. I realize that it comes with cloaking (which is very nice), so that can spare you some grief.

Even so, at max cloaking, you can only get your FTL drive to around halfway charged before the enemy starts shooting at you. And heaven help you if they have an assault drone!

I can actually avoid most combat, thanks to long range scanners, but the problem is, I have little scrap to buy upgrades. I most likely won't be buying shields at all. With minimal upgrades, I certainly can't kill the boss!

You'll need shields sooner or later. Engine upgrades are cheap and also make your FTL charge up faster, so it makes sense to get a few of those right after maxing out cloak.

It's still possible to die to an attack drone early on if you're unlucky. That's just how it is with the stealth ship.

Cloaking is often best activated right when a projectile enters your main view. Sometimes enemies fire many weapons 1-2 seconds apart and this way you can dodge them all. An alternative tactic is to cloak when your weapons still have a long time to charge.

Hello there.

The Stealth ship is a favorite of mine. I would be glad to share some of the tricks I've learned the hard way. :)

First things first, you should not, absolutely not, avoid combat, unless your hull is almost completely destroyed. Instead, you should use every chance you get to participate in as many battles as possible, and you should use Long Range Scanners to seek out sectors with ships in them, for when there is a battle, there is a lot of scrap to be had. Should you stay alive, you will inevitably have fully upgraded ship by the end. And Nesasio is very well equipped for staying alive.

I have already listed most useful tips in this post. Firepower is the key with this ship. I have found that it is safe to skip shields until the forth sector (and quite possible until the sixth), but you need to find extra ways to damage enemies by the end of 2nd sector, be it a teleporter, an attacking drone, or, preferrably, a weapon. Manage your scrap well, and you will able to have those in your first sector, if the game places a shop closer to the exit beacon. If you are underequipped, try to keep a good scrap reserve and seek out shops. There are always 2-3 of them per sector, so if you try and pick the course in a way that allows you to scout most beacons, you WILL find one, and more often than not, you will find several.

I have also found out that it is impossible to lose to *just* a drone. Hell, I've won battles against two attacking drones with just the starting weapons (and you don't encounter ships with those until the 3rd sector). You just need to disable them quickly AND reliably. Charging your weapons. firing at drone control system - which damages it by 2 points if the ship only has 1 shield bar; cloaking, charging your weapons in a relative safety and firing again - which damages the system by yet another 2 points and disables it completely. You will need to time your shots and cloaking right, of course, to execute this flawlessly. And also have some extra upgrades in your weapons system, in case of a stray shot (by the way, switch the weapons. In case the system gets damaged, but not destroyed. your laser can do some damage by itself, while the beam can not). You should always strive to keep your weapons alive, they are arguably better at preventing damage than shields.

Now, if you encounter an attacking drone on a Zoltan ship, that could spell trouble. But it is doable, though costly. Your first shot takes out 4 bars out of 5 from the green shield, your next shot disables it completely and pierces 1 shield, allowing your beam to damage the drone control system (and often, another system or two). If 1 damage to the system is not enough to shut down a drone temporarily, then the next round you are at a mercy of RNG. If you are lucky, your 30% evade and Titanium casing will shield your weapons system. If you are not, and several shots land on it in succession (which is by itself not that probable, and it is possible to mitigate this by extra upgrades), then you should rely on cloaking to either repair the weapons and try to disable the drone for good, or jump away. It gets much easier once you acquire an extra weapon. And, as I said, you should alway get one (or some equivalent means of dealing damage) by the end of 2nd sector.

If you need more information on how to handle drones or how to manage enough scrap to reliably buy a weapon, ask away. :)

P.S. Stealth B No Shields Challenge is a pretty interesting read. I have found no strategies that could help me pilot it reliably well in the first few sectors (expensive weapon system upgrades, a weapon that takes 25 seconds to charge and is disabled by a single shot, poor engines), and therefore I tend to consider it a luck-based ship, as opposed to Stealth A. Still, most of advice there applies to the Stealth A, except that you target weapons first, not shields. And you do not upgrade to cloak 3 as soon as you can (though it does not hurt), you can stop at 2 for a long time. And you can ignore engines for a good half of the game, because you already have them at 4 (hardly a priority upgrade, though you'll need them maxed by the endgame). And you try to get teleporter ASAP. And... screw this, we need a new guide. :)

The idea behind the run is intriguing, though. I'll have to try it out with The Nesasio.

P.S. Can't edit the next post for some reason. Attaching the extra images here for the time being.
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May I kindly hijack this thread for my no shields run? Most of the stuff that will happen should also be relevant to the normal playthrough.

I will be playing Steam version of the game with some minor mods of a purely graphical nature. I would have preferred playing GOG's, but I wish I knew how to make screenshots there.

And so, it begins.

The game started in a secluded corner of the galaxy. There wasn't much nodes to choose from, and the only node through which I could reach the rest of the sector was devoid of ships. So, naturally, I desided to explore my surroundings first.
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The first battle, an outpost defense. I love those extra rewards. Unfortunately, the attacker happened to be an automatic scout equipped with a cloaking device. This voids my advantage and leaves me vulnerable, but the scout does not have much in the way of weapons.
http://s8.postimg.org/4zobfzz9h/212680_2013_03_28_00003.png

It cloacks immediately, so do I. I was probably too surprised to see it as my first encounter to be thinking clearly. In retrospect, I should have waited for its gun to fire and then cloak, thus avoiding the first shot. I did not expect its heavy laser to charge faster than my dual one. Shows what I know.
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It hits me right in the life support system. I ignore it - I can't spare a man right now, manning the weapons is too important, and the evade I get from manning the helm and engines helps me avoid the second shot. My laser disables its weapon system right as it cloaks the second time. Without weapons, it is quickly torn apart once it decloaks.

I got 7 scrap from the encounter. Meh. The outpost compensated me with 11 extra scrap, though, so it wasn't that bad.

And I discovered a store!
http://s8.postimg.org/mn64e796t/212680_2013_03_28_00010.png

If it had a teleporter system, it would have been worthwhile to visit it. I had 26 scrap, and I could have sold my Titanium casing to get one. What other ships do you know that could afford visiting a shop as their second encounter? But it was a dead end (the only node connected to the rest of the sector was to my right), and I did not want to travel through possibly empty nodes if I could avoid it. Besides, there could have been some useless drones and crew in the shop. I decided against it, and chose to enter another battle instead.
http://s8.postimg.org/rac6fywjp/212680_2013_03_28_00011.png

This is exactly the kind of ship where the strategy to cloak first shines. As I came out, I hit the weapons system with my dual laser. The pirate deactivated a small laser (dual laser, same as mine), still charging the bigger gun. I hit the weapons system again with the mini-beam. The enemy ship had to retract its burst laser and activate the dual laser again. But since it had deactivated the dual laser before, its charging time was reset. Essentially, the enemy had to skip its turn to fire completely.
http://s8.postimg.org/74d9utq9x/212680_2013_03_28_00012.png

Meanwhile, my laser was already charging for a few seconds. I did not wait to sync it with the beam and chose to fire right away, disabling the enemy weapons for good. Flawless victory.
http://s8.postimg.org/4gj86q7ut/212680_2013_03_28_00007.png

I blew them up, which left me with 12 scrap. I had a total of 40, so I upgraded my cloak system immediately.

The next node was the only way to leave this part of the sector, and it was empty. I hate empty nodes - they are a waste of time and fuel. This is why I always seek out battles - at least they give you some net positive.

The next one had a distress call event. A fire broke out, blah blah. I docked to rescue the survivors and got a mantis crewmember for my trouble. I began to wonder if I was right to skip the shop at the start. I also ran into a pirate ship, but that is barely worth mentioning. A screenshot of me coming out of cloak says it all.
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I continued the search for hapless victims.
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The guy was looking quite fearsome with 3 weapons. A burst laser, a heavy laser, and a missile launcher. Let's see how he fares against our favoriote strategy.
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Whoops. Now, this was not the first time I missed, but it was the first miss that mattered. I managed to stop the heavy laser from charging, but it still had 2 weapons operational. This was going to hurt.

I took a hit from both its burst laser and missile launcher, disabled the burst laser next turn, then managed to cloak just as its missile was going to hit me. Took power from the oxygen system to get maximum evade.
http://s8.postimg.org/3w8shs405/212680_2013_03_28_00021.png

The ship with 3 weapons only got 1 successful volley, and that is after I missed my first shot. Not too shabby.

Sweet! More combat is always welcome!
http://s8.postimg.org/x1c04k091/212680_2013_03_28_00024.png

Or not!
http://s8.postimg.org/eaa2ue5ol/212680_2013_03_28_00025.png

Now, the only good thing about this was that the ship had 2 identical weapons, meaning I could hope to avoid its first blast. Were it a normal ship, it would probably go down without scoring a single hit. However, this was not the case.

I took its super shield down to 1 bar, and then it fired back. I cloaked, but it managed to land a hit through my 90% evade somehow. I charged my weapons, took down the rest of the shields, and fired my beam, which disabled one of the lasers\, leaving me vulnerable to the other.

I actually had a brain fart in this fight. I have violated not one, but two of the advices that I wrote myself. The remaining enemy burst laser scored a hit against my weapons system, disabling my laser and leaving me only with a beam against a shielded opponent. Now, this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you DO NOT FORGET to upgade your cursed weapons system! I had 63 scrap in reserve, and the upgrade costs, what, 25? This is, also, why you SWITCH your initial weapon order. I felt so stupid and angry with myself that I forgot to take a screenshot, as I frantically tried to get the laser back online. It once again proves that knowing certain things and applying them in practice are two very different things. I only remembered to take a screenshot when the crysis was averted.
http://s8.postimg.org/qdfehygqt/212680_2013_03_28_00026.png

This encounter cost me another 3 hull points. Could have been less if I was smarter.

The next encounter was an escot mission. They just gave me fuel, nothing exciting. Got into the nebula. One empty encounter, and one pirate fight. After defeating a pirate I got an Anti-Ship drone. Yay, I guess.

Once I got close to the exit node, the rebels were almost stepping on my toes. I decided to explore one last note, even though I did not know whether I can return to the exit safely after that. But it promised me an encounter with a potentially hostile ship. How could I refuse?

Jackpot! But this guy's got a drone system. I hope it is a repairing drone, or a defensive one.
http://s8.postimg.org/gwplbbww5/212680_2013_03_28_00029.png

Well, he's got a repairing drone alright.
http://s8.postimg.org/hnibh3z9h/212680_2013_03_28_00030.png

It also means that his drone system is at least level 3. And he powers up his engines, trying to get away. I need to choose whether I prevent him from escaping (which will mean I;ll have to go through the fleet to reach the exit), or try to suppress its attacks.

I do what I do best. Cloak, then blast away an a system which has most damage-dealing capability. Two damage points take out the drone, and the beam messes up the shield and weapon systems. The pilot leaves to put out fires, which stops FTL from charging.
http://s8.postimg.org/jgl85fkg5/212680_2013_03_28_00031.png

But the reparing drone brings the Anti-ship one back online for the last shot, before the ship falls apart.
http://s8.postimg.org/ts26bu1j9/212680_2013_03_28_00032.png

The best part? It was a cargo ship! Which means LOOT!
http://s8.postimg.org/cg1tqe81x/212680_2013_03_28_00033.png

Coincidentally, I have just enough scrap to do this.
http://s8.postimg.org/ka2fbsfut/212680_2013_03_28_00034.png

This, right there, is a won game. With the current setup, I will tear through everything in the 2nd and 3rd sectors, wasting enemies in the first turn, without expending any more scrap. This will get me enough to buy the teleporter, augmentations, better weapons, shields, you name it.

Oh, wait, it is a run without shields. Never mind, then.

Onwards, to the next sector!
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The run is going great so far, but documenting it seems to take longer than actually playing. Also, the forum engine does not seem to like lots of URL in the post, so I can no longer edit the post above. Should you find typos and bad grammar, please excuse me.

The first encounter in the new sector is a ship with a drone. A single shot messes it up, and I didn't even have to use the Halberd Beam.
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This sector seem to have a lot more ships than the previous one. Good.
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A few jumps later I encountered an asteroid field and found a ship with a Stasis Chamber inside. I chose to dismantle a weapon from the ship instead. It is a Hull Laser 2, which, coupled with my Dual one, allows me to pierce up to 4 shields. It was a good find, though I did not get to use it even once.

One of the encounters provided me with a complete map of the sector. I planned my way to hit all of the interesting nodes on my way to the exit. The enemies were mostly not worth a mention.
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I chose to go for scrap instead of the crew. I'll find enough crew once I get a teleporter.

A quest marker turned out to be a shop.
http://s20.postimg.org/despcxvp9/212680_2013_03_28_00044.png

I bought the teleporter immediately. Looking back, a Hull Rapair Drone would have been nice to have (because it is much rarer), but I was too impatient to get close and personal with the enemy crew, so this was more of a conscious decision than a mistake. The teleporter was put to action right away. I got a Zoltan crewmember out of a marauding ship.
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I reached the second shop.
http://s20.postimg.org/z564nyp4t/212680_2013_03_28_00047.png

Here I made the stupidest blunder in this game so far. I hate to backtrack, and I am usually not fond of fighting with the rebel fleet (it does not provide enough benefits), so I tend to visit shops only once and decide what to buy on the spot. So, naturally, I sold my Hull Laser II and bought a Burst Laser I instead because the latter had a charging time similar to my Dual Laser. I thought - and I was not wrong - that firing both weapons simultanously would significantly increace my damage output. But if only I waited for just one extra encounter, I would have gathered enough scrap to buy Burst Laser III, and I will absolutely need that firepower in order to pierce shields reliably in the later sectors. Even if I might not have found enough scrap, even if I did not have enough reactor upgrades to power it, it would still be worth it to sell my Halberd Beam and get that weapon. If I had it, I would have the perfect setup to tackle the final boss, spamming him with at least 9 projectiles per salvo. It was a lapse in judgement that very well might cost me the game later on - just one of those decisions that come to bite you 4 sectors after you made them. Oh, well.

The rebels were no threat. At this point, I could have turned the ship around and visit every node, train each member of the crew to be an expert gunner, and turn my Zoltan into a gold-level boarder. None of the rebels fired a single shot.
http://s20.postimg.org/ijyi8ay0t/212680_2013_03_28_00049.png

(Actually, you'd be surprised how often this ship could pull it off. You only need 1 extra weapon to handle enemies with 2 shield bars with minimal casualties. It is a good poligon to hone your timing and targeting skills. Try it yourself sometime - traversing the rebel space without taking more than 1 or 2 points of damage per encounter is a lot easier than it looks like at the first glance. It also a good way to measure up whether you are adequately equiped for the next sector.)

But that would be boring. So I just moved on to the next sector, which was inhabited by Engis.

Nothing out of the ordinary there. I found another ship with a Stasis Pod. The game was definitely teasing me - I've spent a hundred runs trying to unlock the Crystal Cruiser, and most of them never met the first pre-requisite. Again, I went for the weapon, which turned out to be a Hull Beam. Eh.

More random events. Once again I chose equipment over human lives. Well, engi lives. Existance. Whatever.
http://s20.postimg.org/qtadmprr1/212680_2013_03_28_00052.png

I also found and rescued an Engi prisoner on a Mantis ship.

More shops. Stealth Weapons should be somewhat useful. The other shop did not have anything, except for the Heavy Laser II, but I thought I did not need it at the moment.
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I took the next screenshot to show that boarding a ship with 1st level Medbay still active is possible, and, in fact, quite easy. You need 2 teams to work together - one damages the enemy crew, another one ambushes lonely wounded victims once they run to the Medbay to heal. It takes a bit longer, but not by much.
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Having a cloaking device allows you to approch scouting ships and strip them (or the stations they are guarding) of valuables.
http://s20.postimg.org/tfuhhe8cd/212680_2013_03_28_00056.png

The rebels in the 3rd sector were nasty, with 4 weapons and 3 shields. Yet they still failed to fire a single shot.
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To the next sector!
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Nebula it is. No way in hell I come anywhere near the *other* sector.

Slugs are sneaky bastards.
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But we are sneakier. Their boarders and their ship crew die during a single cloak. By now, 3 of my crew are golden-rank boarders, and my avatar only lags behind because he also has weapons duty.
http://s20.postimg.org/4vii6o24d/212680_2013_03_28_00063.png

This was a mildly interesting encounter that actually managed to land a hit. It was the only non-automated ship that I decided to blow up instead of capturing.
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More slug sneakiness. Note the scrap reserve.
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This was something I did not expect to see on this run. Apparently, I had shields!
http://s20.postimg.org/ms2h8je7x/212680_2013_03_29_00005.png
http://s20.postimg.org/g2vxsisvx/212680_2013_03_29_00006.png

I found a shop that sold a drone control system, and I found another one that sold me Anti-Ship Drone. Funnily enough, I already had 2 of those, but I sold them in the previous sectors for extra scraps. Give and take, I suppose.

I was searching por a powerful bomb that could disable up to 2 shield bars (Ion, Breach II), but I never found one. I've also seen another Halberd Beam on sale.

I maxed up my weapons, because I don't know what to do with the scrap I have. I don't get hit often, and when it happens, it is mostly by beams, so I am in no hurry to upgrade engines. But an occasional shot to my weapons could prove fatal. Still, probably a sub-par decision to upgrade without finding a weapon first. I miss the Burst Laser III. :(
http://s20.postimg.org/v04etj64d/212680_2013_03_29_00008.png

And here I am now.
http://s20.postimg.org/6xnkynph9/212680_2013_03_29_00009.png

This is it! Wish me luck. :)
http://s20.postimg.org/rkqj8ktz1/212680_2013_03_30_00038.png

I will report how I got here later.

Phase I: Done!
http://s20.postimg.org/phg40wu65/212680_2013_03_30_00044.png

Got absolutely massacred in Phase II. Had to hightail out of there at full speed. I simply do not have enough shield-piercing capability to break through.
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http://s20.postimg.org/morye0059/212680_2013_03_30_00048.png

Let's do this again.

Phase II: Done.
There should be a story about this. I waited for my guys to return until literally last second.
http://s20.postimg.org/bqgovtbjx/212680_2013_03_30_00054.png

I can't for the life of me time my cloaking to its power surges. I had to do it the hard way.

Phase III. Aaand... Done!
http://s20.postimg.org/fhzg9m3zx/212680_2013_03_30_00064.png
http://s20.postimg.org/ybl96m27x/212680_2013_03_30_00069.png

Now excuse me, I am going to sleep. :) It is 3 AM here. This game is an incredible timesink.

I've got much more screenshots. I just wanted to post the results, because I myself find it hard to believe I succeded on the first try.

Woah! O_O

Congrats!

Wow, hey nice! That boggles my mind! No shields... I don't always do fantastically WITH shields.

Here is the missing part.

I had to go through the rebel fleet again to reach the exit of the 4th sector. For some reason, I have jumped into an ion storm without warning.
http://s24.postimg.org/o2tx788hh/212680_2013_03_29_00010.png

Ion storms are dangerous in a good way. Both you and your enemy are at a disadvantage, but the enemy does not focus its power in one system, while you should do exactly that. If you have enough power to charge your weapons, cloak and/or teleporter, you have no reason to shun these sectors.

The next sector was an uncharted nebula. I like nebulaes, because they allow you to visit more beacons and therefore upgrade your equipment faster.

The enemies here are exactly as strong as the rebels were in the previous sector, which further confirms my hypothesis that you could fairly accurately predict how you'll fare in the next sector by getting into a scuffle with your pursuers.
http://s24.postimg.org/t2vysx3hx/212680_2013_03_29_00011.png

Haven't got much to say about it, really. Overall strategy remained pretty much the same: disable the weapons and board, in no particular order. Automated drones are often a pain because they are hard to board, have good evasion, and some of them tend to jump away and alert the rebels, which promts you to disable their FTL capabilities as well. They also grant you less scrap than other ships of their level, from what I noticed. Still, if you find a drone guarding a station, they could be worth your while. One of these got me a Hull Repair Drone I wanted to buy in the 2nd sector.
http://s24.postimg.org/diol2dtdh/212680_2013_03_29_00012.png

I also found a shop outside of a nebula. Since I' have a Hull Repair Drone now, I want to visit as much shops as possible and stock up on drone parts, because the drone is going to be my mobile repair station from now on. Not that I need repairs that often, but I have to plan for the final encounter, too.

That particular shop offered the ultimate defensive solution.
http://s24.postimg.org/mrqrci29h/212680_2013_03_29_00013.png

I immediately bought both Defensive Drones. I figured I could use them separately, if I ever need them, but I ended up never using the lesser one. It is just not worth it to support 2 Defensive Drones at once, not even against the final boss.

These screenshots come from a pair of encounters that I considered close calls. Not in a sense that they could have been the end of me, but more like they could have ended up costing me more than I was comfortable with. One of these was in the nebula when I got boarded with a combat drone (had to keep medbay and life support operationa on top of weapons, teleporter and cloak), and the other one was a Mantis Cruiser. I wonder if the enemy randomly gets a crew with experience sometimes, because these mantises plowed through my boarders with great ease, all the while boarding my own ship with a separate team. Note that my Mantis has 1 HP left, and my Engi pilot is not in a much better shape.
http://s24.postimg.org/7x25ybsol/212680_2013_03_29_00014.png
http://s24.postimg.org/q156iyqd1/212680_2013_03_29_00015.png

I also found a Human prisoner and a Rockman somewhere inbetween.

Tip: if you want to level someone' combat skill fast, get them to board enemy ship and start dismantling systems. For each damaged (not just destroyed) system you get 1 xp point, and you only need 16 to achieve golden rank. If it takes too much time, couple the novice guy with another one and then, just as the system is going to sustain damage, move the helper out of the room. That way you accumulate xp faster, because it all goes to 1 man. Engines are particulary good for this strategy. The AI always protects shields (so you can't damage shields without killing everybody), you probably want weapons destroyrd right away (no time to pick it apart manually), and the rest simply don;t have that many system points.

Yet another shop. This one had the ultimate solution for fully automated ships. I bet it was run by folks who designed the Engi Cruiser Type B.
http://s24.postimg.org/qrxwoqsqd/212680_2013_03_29_00016.png

As a side note, I noticed that every shop through the rest of the game tried to sell me Shields. Was the game trying to dissuade me? A safety net is fine, but it greatly limits the things I could buy.

The game seems hell bent on offering me stuff for free. Would have been nice if I hadn't bought this stuff a few nodes back. First the Burst Laser I, and now this:
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I upgrade the engines to level 6. I am going to rely on my Defensive Drone II while my cloak is recharging from now on, so more evade would not hurt.

Next sector. I like enemies who try to board me. That means they'll have less people guarding their own ship. So, Mantis Sector it is, then.
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Immediately upon arrival I encounter some raiders. Once I wipe them out, I find a prisoner inside.
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Problem is, my crew roster is already full. Everyone except Alyx (my Engi pilot) and Horatio (my Zoltan mechanic) has gold combat rank, so it's tough parting with them. I decide that I'll need Alyx for emergency repairs, and I won't dismiss Zoltan crew unless it is absolutely necessary. No human soldier, not even an elite one, can hold his ground againts a Mantis, so I fired Alexa. a girl that joined me in the last sector.

Not two nodes later, I find a shop that offers mercenary services. And it has 2 Mantises to offer. Normally, I'd just fire human crew, but it does not seem right to me to get rid of people I started the run with. So we and Alyx part ways, and Ambrose takes the helm, just like the old times.
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Now, I have a dream team of boarders - 3 Mantises to dish out damage and 1 Rockman to tank. Perfect.

I upgrade the sensors on my ship to see the exact state of enemy systems. This helps me coordinate the boarders, as I see which systems are about to come online, and when it is safe to switch targets.
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I max out my engines before jumping to the second-to-last sector.
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The most memorable event in this sector was a battle royal of epic proportions, with 15 fighters in total over the course of the fight.

It all started with a fairly harmless ship, which had some crazy defenses. It had 4 shield bars, 1 Defensive Drone, 2 Anti-Personnel Drones, and a Medbay. 7 combatants in a tiny space. Does not look that safe when you can only send in two guys at a time.

I've managed to get 4 of my guys over there, trying to stay in small rooms, so they could not swarm me. Then I lured the drones to the medbay with my Rockman to prevent enemy crew from healing, while putting Mantises to work.
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I trimmed their crew down to 3 men, but Mantises are not that durable. They started to run out of HP, and between 2 Anti-Personnel Drones pounding him, the Rockman did not feel so good either. I wanted to pull them out, but I missed my chance to do so in time, and by then one of my Mantises had 4 HP and the Rockman had 14. They would die trying to reach the shield room, which was the only room connecting them. So, to keep the momentum, I pulled reinforcements from my ship instead.
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For my Rockman to survive, he had to leave the room. Throughout the rest of the combat, he will be running (umm... crawling ?) away from the pursuing drone. Unfortunately, this freed space in Medbay, which was immediately occupied by one the the enemy crew. At this point, I could no longer go back, because if I pulled out 4 of my crew, two would be stranded out with the superior enemy forces and probably die.

It was not before I pulled everyone, including my Zoltan mechanic, to the enemy ship, and my Mantises tore down their drone control, that the outcome of combat was decided. At one moment, there were 13 participants actively duking it out on a ship that only had 18 spaces. By then, I could not disable the medbay in fear of blowin up the ship with my crew on it.
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I got a human prisoner for my trouble, whom I promptly fired.

I found more stores that did not offer anything useful other than drone parts.
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Come on! Small ship, 5 crew, 2 Anti-Personnal Drones? We just had this fight! Actually, it was a bit different, because of the improved door system that hindered my movements. Once that went down, the fight ended up the same.
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I had to go through the node with a sun on my way to the exit, but I quickly disposed of the enemy crew, and did not sustain much damage.
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However, it left me with wounded crew and slightly damaged weapons against a rebel ship with 4 shield bars and a Halberd Beam. I decided not to tempt fate and jumped away.
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All that was left was The Last Stand. (Attaching images for future use).
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Should you meet attack drones in the stealh, go for the drone control at once
they are your worst nightmare

I just had an amazing run with Stealth cruiser A. I ran into a beam drone in sector 1 and came out of the battle with one hull point left. I did survive to a store and for the rest of the game, I was extremely lucky. I ended up with two burst laser mk 2 's, a glaive beam and a frigging weapon pre-igniter!

Revenge was indeed sweet when I one-shotted an auto-ship with no shields (and unlocked an achievement in the preocess). I also had full crew (4 humans, 1 engi, 1 rock, 1 mantis and 1 slug) and a teleporter. The final boss was a cakewalk. Moral of the story: Never give up!