Mantis C - suggestions

[william.m.may]

So I recently unlocked the Mantis C and I was interested in trying it out. I did what several posts suggested and used my Lanius and Mantis to destroy the Oxygen using the Lockdown bomb, and then stunned the enemy crew as soon as they came in to fight. This worked...kind of okay for the first sector, but I found it really hard to reduce taking damage despite putting as much of my scrap into Shields and Engines. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to *not* take a crippling amount of damage to hull and systems using this difficult ship?

[mkzzz12]

Just stun the crew that comes to fight the lanius (have mantis leave the room , try to time the damage [preferably to the weapons room] so they don't run to the medbay before they're stunned in an airless room - which is game over for them) then finish the rest of them off or just break the weapons if you can and then overwhelm them enough with all your crew that they can't repair. You don't even need use the bomb if they aren't too dangerous or no medbay. You can use the engi to outnumber them and break their systems.

Your first upgrade is the shield (yes. even more than usual, ASAP), to the point just going to the store right away to sell off the mantis pheromones and possibly the lockdown bomb is a good tactic to get more scrap for it. Then try to get crew, hacking, cloaking, some weapons, all of that makes you much, much stronger with the 4 man tp. This is one of the few ships I'd buy early crew on, because it's so easy to become a powerhouse that the expense doesn't really matter once you do.

You can train up skill easily on a ship that isn't too dangerous. I normally don't bother with skills, but it's laughably easy to do once they start escaping from rooms you've occupied or cloning/healing one crewmember over and over.

[CMDR Emotions]

Try a clown car strategy. It involves teleporting ones entire crew over to the enemey ship. Just make sure you know how to properly manage crew durring combat.

[william.m.may]

mekloz--If I sell the Lockdown bomb, I'm using one of the few edges I have over enemy crews. Also, I don't know how to destroy the weapons because every time I move to another room, the enemy crew follows me and my boarders focus on attacking them, not the weapons. So the weapons keep firing and hitting my ship.

CMDR Emotions - can you be more specific? Teleporting my entire crew over lowers my evade to 0% and my Engi is pretty useless in a fight, so I'm not sure how this helps.

[mkzzz12]

If you find you still need the lockdown bomb, keep it. But to be effective you only really need one of them, and the stun bomb is better (works with no O2 to kill crew, isn't helpless against zoltan shields, actually disables stuff). Not using both puts you in a much better situation with missile count, too.

The crew will follow you of course. But if you kill off two of the three with no O2, while also targeting the weapons with the bomb, that last enemy (or maybe 2 depending) will either die or escape to heal. Then you can break some systems. Staying in a room also means you keep the partial damage done, so even if they come back for a moment, they'll just get their teeth kicked in and leave you to pick up where you left off.

Using the engi as a damage sponge or a distraction is almost as valuable as damage dealing. They also do damage to systems at the same rate as any other race. And enemy prioritizes shields, so you can attack shields with one of your crew, and move the rest to their medbay.
However, I would not leave the ship with the engi unless confident I could take their offense or crew out if I do. If you can't do it quickly, they may hit a bad system and do far more damage than they should be allowed to.

[CMDR Emotions]

Clowncaring involves teleporting over the entire crew, if you do so it is likely to destroy the weapons systems rather quickly. I would recomend investing in autopilot aswell.

[Skinny Pete]

I find the lockdown to be damn near useless compared to almost anything you can buy after you sell it. It would be nice if you could start a fight with it and use it to lock down an empty room and wreck shields/weapons/medbay or whatever is in your way.

Instead, it doesn't even charge up until the fight is nearly over.

Also get even one other boarder (preferably a Mantis) and it's a lot easier. As theoretically useful as the Lanius oxygen sucking thing is, it's more of a pain in the ass with a mixed crew, as it can kill your guys, too.

If you can actually get into an Abandoned Sector and get a 4 Lanius boarding crew, though, it's ridiculously awesome, especially if you can get a breach bomb, too.

[CMDR Emotions]

I once saw a streamer have 2 Brech bomb 2s and all the missles accumalated over the run. Lets just say the entire flagship in stages 1, 2 and 3 were just breachs.

Anyways, lockdown can be great if you know how to use it. Say you are fighting a ship with a 3 man medbay. Drop the lockdown bomb, wait for it to activate and teleport over, with the room lockdoown similar to a crystals locking ability you now can quickly destroy the medbay and defeat any enemey crew that runs in.

What you want to use lockdown for is to prevent eneemeys from getting into the room you are currently trying to destroy, Be that locking down the only room with accses or the room your going after, you just need to understand how the AI responds to boreding and how it doesnt move crew out or around when injured. If you have a 4 man crew of mantises to borad with, vs a full AI crew of 4 with them having a single mantis, when one of your crew memebers, who is on the mantis, is about to die. Pause the game, send him out of the room, send a person, say a rock out aswell, and send the rock back in, the rock should now be on the mantis instead of your mantis being on the rock.

Easier to explain with photos that I don't have.

[mkzzz12]

Originally posted by Skinny Pete:

Also get even one other boarder (preferably a Mantis) and it's a lot easier. As theoretically useful as the Lanius oxygen sucking thing is, it's more of a pain in the ass with a mixed crew, as it can kill your guys, too.

It's very practically useful early, between the synergy with the bomb and boarding autos, there's no other crew type that would be better to start with. Later, yes, change it out. Usually.

Originally posted by CMDR Emotions:

Drop the lockdown bomb, wait for it to activate and teleport over, with the room lockdoown similar to a crystals locking ability you now can quickly destroy the medbay and defeat any enemey crew that runs in.

This is an awfully slow tactic. Lockdown isn't useless, but it helps more if you turn it into scrap and buy other and better support. You need very little to make a 4-man teleporter into an unstoppable monster.

[william.m.may]

I think my main issue that the Mantis C has a much wilder and more excessive reaction to the random number generator than, say, my personal favorite the Kestrel B. It's a lot less forgiving. I think I'll spend some more with the Mantis A and B before visiting type C.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Most of the good advice has been said already....

You shouldn't need either bomb unless they have a medbay. Just board 'em with your Lanius and Mantis (and maybe Engi, that's not a bad idea) and abuse the heck out of the REALLY REALLY BAD boarding AI. Run around lots and murder them all.

Yeah, you will take a lot of damage... you want those Lvl 2 shields immediately. As far as missiles goes:

- If you leave your Engi to man the helm you're only gonna get 20% evasion in the earlygame.
They might get five shots off and miss 1 = 4 missiles hit.
- If you board with your Engi you might be able to kill the crew before they get their fourth missile off = 3 missiles hit. Might.

------------------------------------

I had a run with the Mantis C on Normal. RNG was really nice and gave me 30 scrap on my first beacon in S1, so I could get my Lvl 2 shields up very early... which I needed badly, as boarding with the Mantis C is slow.

- Board wherever the heck you like. You should be able to kill all the crew before having to resort to whacking the oxygen. If they die, wait for your Clone Bay to clone them all again and send them in.
- Send your Engi in. If nothing else he can abuse the boarding AI by running in and out of the Shield room.
- Your bombs are nearly useless. I never used the Stun Bomb and only used the Lockdown Bomb a couple of times (usually teleport into helm + lockdown bomb medbay + run inside just before the bomb goes off). Get some better weaponry ASAP.
- Lvl 1 TP will keep you fine all the way to S5. You really don't need anything better, as you can shove four guys in there at once.
- Instead, get Lvl 3 Clonebay as soon as you can. You'll need the health bonus per jump AND the quick cloning.
- Send in your Mantis AND Lanius on autoscouts. He can deal 1 system damage before he dies (it's about 1.2 by my reckoning). This means you can mash their helm quicker if they're trying to jump away. It also allows you to get a point off to their weapons, potentially shutting a missile down...
- You will want to buy some extra crew in the 2nd sector if you can afford it.

It was a victory, a fairly clear one as I got the famous Cloaking + TP + Hacking combo that has served us all very well. My weapons were 2x Flak I + Breach II. I also got the Reconstructive Teleport, which is phenomenal with a Clone Bay.