Lately, I've been coming back to this game again after a long hiatus. It's a great game - what can I say.

Anyway, I had a pretty nice run just now - granted, it was on Easy but I still feel pretty good about this. As you can see in the picture "Stage 2", the opponent is already pretty damn fucked. The picture "Stage 3" is taken a mere second before my drone is about to give the final blow.

Before I went to battle, I was a little bit unsure if this setup would work, but I was curious so I went through with it. And seeing that I only lost a whole 2 HP after the whole 3-stage battle... I guess it was a winning combination after all :)

Anyone else managed to thoroughly bumfuck the flagship like this? Would be interesting to learn of your winning combination and strategy! Usually, when I fight against her, I'm left with maybe 20-50% hull left; sometimes even 75%. It usually greatly depends on what the flagship targets with her hacking drone and/or big blasts. But I don't think I've ever before managed to get through with mere scratches.

I love it!
Watching ships burn is pretty much my favourite thing, but it always felt like a luxury rather than an effective strategy. Now I need to try again but with multiple ion weapons this time.

Really cool set-up there, nice run man.

I had the fire bug recently too. So many runs and so many decisions I have always end-up excluding fire. A lot of the time, I don't even come across any fire equipment (I play CE, so shops have a larger pool to offer from, so less chance of finding that Fire Beam, or Fire Bomb II that I could really use at the time.)

Thankfully I managed a run with a similar load out as yours, and was successful too. Fire really is a great weapon if you can find the right build. Combat takes a little longer too, but whatever, INFERNO DEATHH!

The Fire Beam is murderous if you can get the shields down.

Not only does it sap oxygen and damage systems, it spreads and diverts the crew from things they're supposed to be doing, like trying to destroy your ship.

Hacking is good support for the Fire Beam too, since you can lock down doors and delay the crew from putting out the fires. Or you can lock the doors to the med bay or the cloning bay.

It's a little troublesome to deal with those unmanned scout ships though, since they're all airless inside.

Oh man, the thing I love about this game is that every playthrough is an unique adventure. Recently, I played with the Engi Ship Type C, and the only weapon I had when going to Sector 8...was Dual Laser. Yeah, the crappy starter weapon that shoots two shots. As for drones, I had Beam 1 and Boarding Drone. Not exactly a winning combination when facing the flagship. When I entered the zone...no stores in sight. Well, I pushed forward nevertheless, and what do you know, close to the base I finally found a store. And it was selling just what I needed the most...Fire Bomb and Flak 1. With my remaining scrap, I got them both and jumped around the repair spots in order to finance the weapon system cost. Thankfully, I also had Hacking. I got rid of the guns and the personnel with the bombs: hacking the shields and bombing the cockpit proved useful. That way I could kill even the guys in the main area of the ship.

Oh, and I also had the Defence Scrambler augmentation. This was very useful in the next battle (the one with drones). This way I could hack and use the boarding drone straight away.

3rd stage was very simple too...Now, the Zoltan Shield Bypass I also had, let me fire up the bombs instantly. Boarding drone chose his target perfectly (the mind control system) instead of like, jumping to one of the turrets.

Still can't believe my luck though. Sectors 6-8 were so annoying because I couldn't literally find ANY shop that would sell ANY weapons. But right then, before the big battle, I get just the things I needed for victory. Man, I love this game so, so damn much.

What do you mean 'crappy'? Dual Laser is one of the best laser weapons in the game (only surpassed by the Burst Laser Mk II and maybe the Heavy Lasers, imo), worth keeping until the end in many runs. Think about it: 2 shots, 1 power, 10 sec load... why do you think it's not available for purchase at shops? Although it is true that they won't win any runs by themselves, that's also true for most weapons in the game.

There's a way to 'cheese' your hacking through defense drones: launch, wait until you see the def drone shoot, depower hacking, power it up again once the shot is off screen, et voilá!
Some people consider this cheating and won't use it; but the game is hard enough and every little bit helps, if you ask me ;)

Anyway, I'm happy your run that had grim prospects turned out well in the end. Successful runs give such satisfaction in this game... gotta love it :)

For my recent awesome run: I've finally unlocked most ships (only Crystal B still locked) on easy and started playing normal. Today I've beaten the flagship on normal for the first time thanks to the totally OP setup of 3xFlak plus Heavy Laser... Hacking, Mind Control and Cloaking became irrelevant once I got the third Flak :)

Edit: typo.

Well, you're right: they're not crappy per se, but they do desperately need additional weapons to be of any use against the flagship. Which I had none (until the very last possible beacon :D).

After this run, I played with the Federation type C ship: completely different run. Had so many laser weapons they could've supported two ships! Oh, the RNG gods...