how on earth do you win with engi A?

[someguy216]

I've tried so many timed and it just seems so hard, mainly later on where u have to deploy multiple drones in order stand a chance win winning a battle meaning your losing a lot of value each battle. Ofc it really helps if you have the drone arm but that's not to common, only got i once with an engi right before i died.

of course you need a wopping 3 power to keep the ion weapon up and that takes alot of time to eliminate shields before your drones actually do anything. Compared to the kestrel at least you get engi crew which is slightly better then humans and pre-upgraded drones but how come I can't win with engi A type but can with the basic Kestral? Pure RNG?

[FDru]

Fire ion at shield > fire other weapons at ship (most likely weapons)

I know you're probably aware of that... but really the only issue with Engi A is getting an alternate weapon before running out of drones (and if you run out, you can still buy more, which even at 8 scrap is not a terrible deal considering it only takes 1 to win a fight).

[brickey.8]

Engi A is considerably better than Engi B. As long as you're using the attack drone you can deal very solid damage to 2-shielded enemies, with quick recharge times. Quick takedowns means lots of extra scrap to buy a weapon with, or more drones.

Engi B is the one that I think is completely awful. Its starting equipment can't even damage through a 2 layer shield, and are pretty slow against 1 shield since you have to wait for the Ion weapon to charge just to hit with your dinky laser. Yet it has worse defenses than average thanks to nothing being manned, drones that only serve to make up for the lack of staff while eating up all your slots, and the drones and starting augment are stuff I'd normally ditch at the first shop after finding them. I'd normally hold on to one repair drone and sell the rest of it.

Oh, and to add insult to injury it has to pay for sensors and have lower level engines and reactor, with nothing to make up for it.

You desperately need to find another gun or drone early, but when you do your starting weapons won't combo well with most guns and are terrible late-game (unless you find a second ion gun, which forms an adequate combo b/c of how ion stacks) and a drone will reduce your effective crew. Plus you start with much fewer drone parts.

Even if fate smiled on you and you gained two free crew members within the first couple turns of the game, nullifying its supposed main weakness, you'd still be weaker than all the other starting ships I've seen. Which is infuriating, because I think the concept behind the ship is really cool. It just needed better starting guns or a useful drone. The only thing its starting equipment is good for is selling to buy something more useful. (And I say all this having just beaten the game with this ship, but only by restarting several times until I got a really lucky start. And for the record I held onto that starting equipment for much of the game, and it indeed was only good as a half-ass substitute for crew early on).

[ms4sman]

Interestingly, Engi A was the first and only layout I've ever won the game with.

[Dr. McWeazel]

Engi A is one of the easier ships to win with. If you can get another source of damage than the Drones and then more Ion damage on top of that, you're good. You can just grab a Defense Drone and tear the entire game apart at that point- you take down shields and keep them that way, and the Drone or Laser/Beam (or both!) kills the ship with undeniable efficiency.

The only ships I like more are the Crystal, Mantis, and Lanius B layouts, and that's only because they all start with Teleporters and the best boarding crews the game has to offer.

[gambit]

It is quite tricky to play with it on hard.
Before sector 3 it needs new 2 power weapon(because upping weapons to level 6 is just too expensive this early), namely Flak1 or BL2 are only reliable options.(going hacking early is not nearly as reliable as 2nd weapon)
Of course your first upgrades are shields 2 and engines 3.

So better hope you win 2 weapons or buy one rather expensive in store.

AND you need one of def drones rather early.

After it gets going its quite strong ship, but early-mid balance is hard.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Mein Goat:

Interestingly, Engi A was the first and only layout I've ever won the game with.

It's actually a pretty solid ship for a first victory, because the combination of keeping enemy shields consistently down with the drone shooting randomly and causing damage guarantees any enemy ship goes down eventually so long as you keep it up.

In theory, even the flagship will eventually fall to Engi A's starting inventory. (If you somehow manage not to die.)

[Ray Robertson]

Originally posted by Skinny Pete:

In theory, even the flagship will eventually fall to Engi A's starting inventory. (If you somehow manage not to die.)

I remember there was a guy that actually managed this. He uploaded a video to Youtube of the Flagship fight and posted a thread on this forum with a link to the video.

[Dr. McWeazel]

Originally posted by Ray Robertson:

Originally posted by Skinny Pete:

In theory, even the flagship will eventually fall to Engi A's starting inventory. (If you somehow manage not to die.)

I remember there was a guy that actually managed this. He uploaded a video to Youtube of the Flagship fight and posted a thread on this forum with a link to the video.

I think I even remember why. Somebody was contesting us (at least, I think it was more than me) about whether or not it was possible do defeat the Flagship with the Engi A's starting armaments. Mathematically, it is completely doable, you just have to be patient, and I have done it with the near-identically armed Zoltan B (just swap your drones for a Pike Beam).

But that's getting into something else entirely. The point is that the Engi A is a very winnable ship, you just have to manage your drone supply and keep your weapons in good repair.

[someguy216]

Only managed to win with it on easy and that was with both are ships exploding which funnily enough counted as a win.

[Neithan]

Originally posted by someguy216:

Only managed to win with it on easy and that was with both are ships exploding which funnily enough counted as a win.

Well, your initial mission to survive and get to the last sector to inform the Federation about the threat gets replaced with stopping the flagship once you do so... either if you die or not, as long as you kill the flagship, you were succesful. ;)

You sure will get some parade and memorial statue for it.

[MostlyLogical]

Engi A is my favoritre ship. Once you get level two shields you can bio kill anything in sector 1 that dosen't have a missle launcher. I use the extra scrap to try and find a good weapon and hopefully a defense drone and i'm in buisness.
Some good Augments: Drone Recovery Arm, AutoLoader

[anarcher]

Not only is it possible to win with just the starting loadout on Engi A, it's possible to do so without ever upgrading weapons or dronesystem. Just turtle up and escape from unwinnable encounters (mainly ones with def.drone mk2).

[Chrona the Leshy]

My main issue so far has been ships with very aggressive set-ups...

Namely, last run, I had my engi A, in sector 2, went up against a rebel rigger ship, that had 2 drones and a ion weapon and (maybe? not sure.) a missile system. One of their drones was a combat 1, the other a beam one, possible fire beam.

I did not survive.

[Igor Von Locket Ohlsson]

Originally posted by Mein Goat:

Interestingly, Engi A was the first and only layout I've ever won the game with.

Same here :D

[nolram00]

Originally posted by Dr. Oetker:

Originally posted by Mein Goat:

Interestingly, Engi A was the first and only layout I've ever won the game with.

Same here :D

My first and one of two till now