Mantis C tips

[Meneluma]

Yeah, well I did make it to the last stand on hard with it, but it seems that the problem that ended my run there still persists. Then it was an ion intruder that went straight into the clone bay. These attempts it was a random bomb or missile destroying it at the exact moment cloning should've begun, if not that, then a solar flare fries it(even vented). And when I did have a functional repair burst online, and ion bomb hits it during a boarding operation.

I'm trying to now get it to level 3 as soon as possible to minimize this nonsense, but regardless it still annoys me to no end.
Just how...

[fiffy]

i struggled with Mantis C on Hard, only have the one victory and it felt like a lucky roll. I wish i could give some helpful advice but I still have to learn to get consistent with it. I feel your pain.
(oh consider buying Backup DNA Banks once you're on a stable upgrade path)

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

The trick is to not rely on your Clone Bay. I really don't see why anyone complains about it being taken offline - I cannot recall losing crew to a smashed Clone Bay.

In particular, you should board with as many people as once (in S1 throw your Engi in there as well as 15% evasion is barely worth the time taken to smash their crew) - and if they're on really low health (25 or less), just vent them and let them clone to full health in a nice spare beacon.

It's very rare that you'll need to clone your guys mid-fight, because earlygame you can overpower them and lategame you can hack their medbay / hack a system and abuse the blast doors to gang up on them.

I do recall a near-disaster on the Zoltan B with a text-disabled clone bay (swapped it out) and a Boarding Drone AND Hacking both having a go at my TP, but I jumped away and all was well.

[Meneluma]

Thanks for the tips guys, especially for the tip to board with the engi too, I wouldn't think of anything so crazy by myself.
I have good news:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=898854693
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=898855007
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=898854843
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=898854906

I upgraded cloning to level 3 as usual, but then I found reconstructive teleport at a store, saved me a lot of lost skills.
Though aside from the two ship unlock events I got to do, the biggest run savers were the two scrap recovery arms(one purchased, one randomly found floating in space), though I had to leave one in exchange for the zoltan shield.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=898862556
Sadly I forgot to take pictures of the battle itself, but here is the score screen.
(The aforementioned "reached sector 8 on hard" run isn't here because I actually ragequit and it didn't save.)

[fiffy]

heyooooo! Congrats dude!! How smoothly did the Fship fight go? Also, where did you board in phase one?

I'm gonna try aidenpons' Engi idea next time - I was always getting cheesed off when I had no way to heal my injured Lanster, so I'll use the lil nanoman as a punchshield for him

[Meneluma]

Phase one was flawless.
I boarded the ion cannon first and shot the missile wih lasers. (Do not ignore the ion, the beam really hurts)
I killed the guy in the ion room, but once super shields went down the teleport got hacked and my guys went back. But the second volley disabled it for good(missiles had been breached already) then I destroyed the hacking and boarded the shield room, and the hacked medbay killed off all but one of the enemies.

I took unwanted damage on phase two because I forgot to depower the cloak back to one bar(I extended the duration to avoid losing the supershield early).

Phase 3 had a lucky start, where I boarded the mind control room just as my zoltan shields went down. (Fortunately the human on the doors got affected)
And the one remaining guy was so focused on repairing the hacked shields that he ignored the boarding party breaking everything else.

I got spared the nonsense of of extra super shield reloads, but kazaak is good at weapons anyway.

[fiffy]

awesome.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Good job winning on Hard... I can't do that :P

Originally posted by fiffy:

I'm gonna try aidenpons' Engi idea next time - I was always getting cheesed off when I had no way to heal my injured Lanster, so I'll use the lil nanoman as a punchshield for him

Not my idea, for your information. I nicked it off someone else and passed it off as my own. :P

[fiffy]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Not my idea, for your information. I nicked it off someone else and passed it off as my own. :P

No worries, bruv. We're all standing on the shoulders of giants ;)