Is the cloaking device just necessary?

[e11]

I have beaten the flagship several times now, but NEVER without the cloaking field. I use it to survive that massive barrage it throws at you, and without it I get wrecked. I just went through my latest attempt to go without it, using the Crystal ship. I actually made it to the final stage of the flagship fight, but I just couldn't survive long enough to do any damage.

HOW do you do this without a cloak?

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Bombs, missiles and enough ammo can do it. Makes it far easier to inflict damage when you can ignore the shield. If you dare, it works well with boarding as well.

Otherwise, the right drone combo can really help. Repair and Defence espacially.

Hacking and the hypno thing is also a use, if micro heavy. Can help you mess with the flagship enough that it never can quite bring its strenghts to bear.

...

So, yeah, I'll admit the cloak is extremly useful on the boss, but it's not a must. With the right strategy and a bit of luck, you should be able to beat it if you've made it that far.

Still, this IS a rouge-like, so the odd eleventh hour loss is annoying, but to be expected for the genera.

[mkzzz12]

If cloaking's a luxury for you, you should be getting more scrap. All systems are major parts of a good ship, and cloaking is among the best. It makes many strategies more viable and can make up for all kinds of weaknesses at lower cost/rarity than the alternatives, or just because it appears at the right moment and fits your ship.

There are many types of ships and players, and you can make up for any one thing with a number of others. Strong and fast weapons, especially if they can pack a punch like some powerful beams with hacking to break shields, can win you the game with little need for defenses like high shields and cloak. But if you need to withstand the surges for a while, you will usually want at least one of them (easier difficulties need progressively less). But then you can also make do with other configurations like boarding to take out the flagship weapons, defense drones and high engines to deal with the missiles, hull repair drone to manage the damage between the phases.

Really, so many different runs can have so many items make up for lack of others, almost nothing is necessary. Some engines to jump around, something to get past the zoltan shields, be it weapon, drone, the bypass, some way to deal damage in all three phases (so many options, from weapons, through clone bay or crew sacrifice, to fire or mind control). Weakness in one field just means you need to get good enough in other ways.

[mkzzz12]

Originally posted by Fusion:

>18 hours on record
I never found cloaking very useful. I'd much rather have a defense drone + mind control/hacking + a teleporter.

Because steam time is so reliable and trustworthy, isn't it?

Like I said, they can all work, and it depend on the rest of your layout a ton. Cloaking (and hacking, which is just as strong and cheaper) can make even the unluckiest and weakest of setups work, and makes an actually strong setup a complete bulldozer.

[CroWhisperer]

Personally, I have never used cloak once, except with the stealth ship. I find that it is easy to beat the flagship using the federation ship artillery beam and/or the teleporter. That way, the artillery beam can constantly hit the flagship no matter what, or you can teleport people (my favorite combo is a rockman to absorb the damage and a mantis to deal the damage. (Boulder and Blades)) directly into the individual weapon systems to take them out. Missle first, then the blaster type weapon, then laser, then ion, then teleport your team into isolated rooms with no people to deal some serious hull damage. A clone bay would help for the teleporter strategy btw.

[Revolver Rez]

I personally always go for cloaking if I can afford it. Cloaking plus hacking is a wonderful combination that works very well.

I wouldn't say its necessary but it makes the Flagship much easier. I guess you could use defense drones as an alternative but they can only shoot down a single missile at a time and they can actually miss or not react fast enough on top of this, which really sours me on them. Either way some form of insurance against missiles is handy.

[CroWhisperer]

that is true. But normally, I teleport my boarding crew into the missle system first thing, so it rarely gets a single shot off. I believe a teleporter can count as an anti-missle system.

[Revolver Rez]

Originally posted by Fusion:

Originally posted by Pun:

I personally always go for cloaking if I can afford it. Cloaking plus hacking is a wonderful combination that works very well.

I wouldn't say its necessary but it makes the Flagship much easier. I guess you could use defense drones as an alternative but they can only shoot down a single missile at a time and they can actually miss or not react fast enough on top of this, which really sours me on them. Either way some form of insurance against missiles is handy.

Cloaking takes 20 seconds to recharge though, whereas defense drones don't. Sure defense drones can be little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sometimes (getting shot down, ioned, missing, not reacting fast enough) but at the end of the day it's better for missles than cloaking

Oh, its true that they can consistantly shoot down missiles while a cloak forces you to take every other shot, but the drone can't stop large salvos or multiple missiles. Of course, this only buys you a bit more time until the next shot, but normally its all you'll need to weaken their offensive capabilities. Naturally, drones and cloaking both have their strengths and weaknesses, but if I have to choose I'd go for cloaking just because the Flagship's power surges can be really nasty. With cloak kept on level one power you can time it to avoid many of them in a row.

[CroWhisperer]

As long as you have a decent level shield, a good boarding crew, and you go for the missle system first, i find it very useful. Sure it is super risky and I'm taking a huge chance every time, but then again, everything has its pros and cons. It's just my opinion, and everyone has a different strategy for winning. Just depends on your play style.

[Danny]

The problem is missile defence, there are only 3 options for it.
Defence drone 1, high evade or cloaking.
You definitely want to have atleast one of those. ^^

[mkzzz12]

Originally posted by Danny:

The problem is missile defence, there are only 3 options for it.
Defence drone 1, high evade or cloaking.
You definitely want to have atleast one of those. ^^

Hacking, ultra high offense, zoltan shields, weapon pre-igniter, boarding with room lockdown (from hacking or crystals) any combination of the above especially. DD II also, if we want to be precise.

[shareofhonor]

Originally posted by Danny:

The problem is missile defence, there are only 3 options for it.
Defence drone 1, high evade or cloaking.
You definitely want to have atleast one of those. ^^

Or just let the missiles hit you. A few are NOT going to kill you.

[shareofhonor]

GOD I hate these threads. Almost nobody said anything that is actually true. I am up around 110 wins. The only time I use cloaking is when I use the ships that start with it. I NEVER buy it. Like many of the things in this game it does NOT work well enough to be worth what it costs. Another is hacking everybody talks about how great it is without mentioning it's biggest downside which is using drone parts. Which are MUCH better used by DRONES.

[shareofhonor]

Offensive is everything in this game. If you kill them quickly including the boss you will win easy. Best way to do this is USE offensive drones. 2 offensive drones with alittle help taking down the shields like an ion bomb will kill anything. 3 offensive drones will kill the boss in a few seconds. Which is why ENGI A is my favorite ship

[shareofhonor]

Originally posted by Fusion:

Originally posted by shareofhonor:

GOD I hate these threads. Almost nobody said anything that is actually true. I am up around 110 wins. The only time I use cloaking is when I use the ships that start with it. I NEVER buy it. Like many of the things in this game it does NOT work well enough to be worth what it costs. Another is hacking everybody talks about how great it is without mentioning it's biggest downside which is using drone parts. Which are MUCH better used by DRONES.

hacking is still pretty good bud. and cloaking is good if you have zoltan shield.

I said it is not as good as the drones you are not using in it's place. Also the tew hundred scrap it takes for a cloak. Whatever ELSE you buy with all that scrap is BETTER.

[shareofhonor]

I also NEVER raise my shields up to level 4 and I only have 4 engines. Because evasion does not DO anything anyway.