Flagship Stage 1: Hacking System, tips?

[zhunGamerTTV (人^▽')～]

My weapon system got hacked, and I literally couldn't shoot at the enemy more than once, as you can't really use your beams while the enemy has shields on, basically I did zero damage and got massacred.

What am I supposed to do against a Hacking drone? This was my first run of FTL: AE, and that really got me by surprise. Should I have acquired an Anti-Drone drone? Or does that do nothing? How can you avoid having all your power drained and not being able to shoot at all?

[Ohio9]

The hacking drone is one of the biggest problems in stage one. If it hacks your weapons or shields, I think the best thing to do is simply jump away and try again. You engines should be upgraded enough at this point where you can jump away quickly.

[Minmi]

Publicado originalmente por Dr. McWeazel, PhD:

Publicado originalmente por Zhuinden:

Is it Def drone level 1 or 2?

Defense Drone MK II is, in some strange violation of common sense, less reliable than the MK I is. Sure, it shoots down Lasers in addition to everything else, but it will also prioritize whatever projectile shows up first over what will do the most damage or goes through shields, meaning it has a tendency to ignore missiles, hacking drones, boarding drones, and the ever annoying ion stun drones in favor of shooting down a shot from a Burst Laser II.

I think that was patched so that it prioritizes missiles now. Not sure exactly how reliable it is though.

[DarkTwinge]

Publicado originalmente por DrYg:

I think that was patched so that it prioritizes missiles now. Not sure exactly how reliable it is though.

That was a rumor - Defense II does not prioritize missiles. I will note that the timing in most situations will work out such that the missiles will be targeted just fine and shot down, but there is still that ~10% where it'll shoot down something pointless instead of the missile (on top of the 0-15% chance it will flat fail to shoot down the missile, based on the size of the ship).

It's MUCH more worth using in AE now that it only costs 3 power instead of 4, though I'd still favor Defense I in most cases.

[pi73r]

The cooldown on def II is epic enough to be mroe than worth it.

[DarkTwinge]

Publicado originalmente por pi73r:

The cooldown on def II is epic enough to be mroe than worth it.

880ms compared to 1000ms for Defense I.

[NightOwl]

The situations in which the Defense II misses a missile by shooting at lasers are actually very uncommon, and the amount of damage it saves you from everything else means the net potential to protect your ship is much better than the mark 1.

The shorter cooldown really does make a difference, especially against ships with large volleys or when fighting in asteroid fields.
I'm convinced it also locks on faster, wheras the mark 1 usually can't target boarding or hacking drones in time before they hit.

[DarkTwinge]

Publicado originalmente por Cold Orchestra:

I'm convinced it also locks on faster, wheras the mark 1 usually can't target boarding or hacking drones in time before they hit.

I've not yet formally tested this, but my current theory is that Defense I has a base 30% chance of flat missing an incoming boarding drone or hacking drone, while a Defense II only has a base 20% chance of flat missing.

(Before AE, I tested Defense I and it clearly shot down 70% of incoming boarding drones; post-AE I've tested shooting Hacking Drones at the AI and they were shot down 20-30% of the time depending on the type of drone used - this test wasn't as conclusive.)