Weapon Choices: Glaive vs. Halberd Beam

[New Moon On Monday]

I went the first 4 sectors in the Stealth B without seeing a single weapon anywhere, stores are otherwise. After I finally purchased a Laser Charger II in Sector 5, suddenly I started getting whole lot of free weapons from events.

Anyway, sitting at the Sector 7 Exit with a newly acquired Halberd Beam, I am wondering if I should swap the Glaive Beam for the Halberd Beam.

Glaive Beam does more damage and has more Shield penetration. Halberd Beam is much faster. Either would be supported by the Laser Charger II and a Heavy Laser (I haven't been using the latter, but I have enough scrap now to upgrade Weapons to level 8).

If Weapons get hacked by the Flagship, the Halberd Beam could still fire every time the Flagship uncloaks; the Glaive Beam would be pretty much restricted to one per two uncloakings (and I have previously experienced the Flagship hacking Weapons when I have a Glaive Beam).

I also have a Heavy II in cargo, and the Laser Charger II + Heavy II + Heavy I combination is tempting for fire-starter and breach potential, but I'm thinking that a beam that cannot be evaded is more reliable.

Maybe I'm overthinking things.

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[Mike]

Why not both?

Glaive + Halberd one-shots every enemy except Rebel Elites, which you just run from anyway.

For the Flagship, it one-shots phase 1. Phase 2, you still get a one-shot if you also have the Heavy Laser (assuming it doesn't get blocked by the defence drone). Phase 3, your beams do 10 damage to the ZS, so you just need to land one Heavy Laser and then it's a one-shot again.

[Mike]

Oh, you could potentially hold onto the Charge 2 as well, and run Charge 2 + Heavy + Halberd for phase 1.

Phase 1 is likely zero damage regardless, and the Charge 2 gives the option of fishing for crew kills with fires and MC in a hacked shields room. It's also strong against a weapons hack, because they can never hack down a completed charge.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

I personally prefer charge laser II+ heavy laser + glavie beam over having both beams, but there is a very obvious flaw with the glaive beam's charge time. How many times have you had to flee from a Sector 1 fight or even just outright die because cloaking-2 didn't cut it? if the answer is "way too common" you can see the obvious problem with this.

Minibeam charges in 12 seconds, with manning it is 10.8 (?), the glaive beam charges in 22.5 seconds with your manning bonus, 10 seconds of cloaking means you have to get 10 seconds to charge in peace and then 12.5 seconds of charging uncloaked. On normal not so bad since the enemy is as likely to hit your medbay, doors, or piloting as it is to hit weapons but on hard, having to facetank that minibeam is awful.

OK against the flagship this isn't specifically a problem since there is no minibeam and even if there was one you have shields at this point. But the charge time is a liability. Hacking weapons against a normal ship or the artillery room in the flagship will let you charge longer, but a double beam loadout practically demands hacking the shield room which means waiting for the slower beam to charge. Sector 1 shows you how bad a long charge time is. The fact that Mike recommends charge 2 + Heavy + halberd probably means he doesn't trust that charge time either!

[Mike]

Umm, no, it's just I think it would better in phase 1 specifically against a weapons hack (which can happen twice in a row), or just for getting crew kills.

For everything else you just hack shields and kill it with both beams (+ Heavy on phase 2), while hiding under cloaking-3.

Obviously Glaive is terrible in sector 1, but this is the end of sector 7 with a decked-out ship.

[New Moon On Monday]

Originally posted by Mike:

Oh, you could potentially hold onto the Charge 2 as well, and run Charge 2 + Heavy + Halberd for phase 1.

Phase 1 is likely zero damage regardless, and the Charge 2 gives the option of fishing for crew kills with fires and MC in a hacked shields room. It's also strong against a weapons hack, because they can never hack down a completed charge.

I did not know that completed charges could not be drained from a charge weapon.

I don't want to finish phase 1 too quickly, precisely because I want to use Mind Control to at least whittle down the interior crew. Even without causing a fire in Shields, I can use Mind Control 2 to whittle them down to 3, but it's a slow process. Ideally I have time if I can cause fires in the artillery rooms to remove them permanently with the least amount of hull damage.

I didn't consider using both beam weapons because that's something I simply haven't done before. Maybe I can do that for phases 2&3.

There's no problem in holding on to the weapons to swap between phases. It's iffy at best if I even find a store in Sector 8, and even so I don't need the extra scrap (maybe a useful augment could show up). I can already afford Weapons-8 and Engines-5, everything else is a damage buffer. And I don't think there is any reason to look around for the store or extra battles for extra scrap, I'll just go straight for the Flagship ASAP.

[New Moon On Monday]

Originally posted by tiberiansun371alexw:

I personally prefer charge laser II+ heavy laser + glavie beam over having both beams, but there is a very obvious flaw with the glaive beam's charge time. How many times have you had to flee from a Sector 1 fight or even just outright die because cloaking-2 didn't cut it? if the answer is "way too common" you can see the obvious problem with this.

I worry about going with 2 beams because if something interferes with my Hacking- a hack on my hacking or multiple defensive drones that I have trouble getting past- I feel like I'm screwed. (Though I suppose if both beams will one-shot an enemy, then a hack on my Hacking isn't a big deal, as long as I get the timing right.)

When I get to the Flagship, I don't have that worry, because I know exactly what is coming. The only worry is if I were to go into phase 1 low on drones and then get my Hacking hacked.

I haven't played lots of games with Stealth B so I didn't really have a plan with it, but I upgraded Cloaking ASAP and got Hacking ASAP. Even at 1 power, using Hacking on enemy Weapons was a huge big deal. That 4-second hacking pulse is adds up to an 8-second firing delay (drain for 4 seconds, recover from drain for 4 seconds). Add that to a 15-second cloak, and you have delayed their weapons 23 seconds. Once you damage their Weapons, the hacking slows repair speed and they will have trouble repairing even one bar before your Glaive Beam is charged up again, unless they have an Engi or multiple repair crew.

You can alternately use Hacking on Drone Control if the enemy drones are too dangerous.

Glaive Beam was my only weapon through 5 sectors (I bought the Charge II at the beginning of Sector 5, but it took the whole sector to get my Weapons upgraded to use it). I was using Hacking on Weapons as long as the enemy didn't have more than 2 layers of Shields, and I don't think I had to buy any repairs from stores from after Sector 2.

One of the drawbacks of the Glaive Beam is that you don't fire it often, and your crew never gets Weapons skill. I have had the same Human assigned to Weapons the whole game, and he's only halfway to gold skill level at the end of Sector 7.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Originally posted by New Moon On Monday:

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I haven't played lots of games with Stealth B so I didn't really have a plan with it, but I upgraded Cloaking ASAP and got Hacking ASAP. Even at 1 power, using Hacking on enemy Weapons was a huge big deal. That 4-second hacking pulse is adds up to an 8-second firing delay (drain for 4 seconds, recover from drain for 4 seconds). Add that to a 15-second cloak, and you have delayed their weapons 23 seconds. Once you damage their Weapons, the hacking slows repair speed and they will have trouble repairing even one bar before your Glaive Beam is charged up again, unless they have an Engi or multiple repair crew.

Yeah that works, but if you double beam, you pretty much have to hack shields (to make the beams land) or piloting (to make sure and softening lasers or bombs hit). Meaning you don't really have the option of hacking weapons. Going lasers plus one beam weapon gives you flexibility. my personal preference is the Glaive but I have to admit the charge time is horendous. With only 1 beam and the rest being lasers, you can hack weapons to buy time for your weapons. You could also hack shields. The point being is that the options are there and you have flexibility which a double beam settup won't do. Or in the case of the flagship, you can hack the artillery if you want. I don't know why you'd want to when you can hack shields and send the Glaive Beam into the shieldroom and the missile room (which shuts down the launcher entirely, but you can.

I personally think the hump of going from 10 seconds of leeway to 15 matters a lot more than going from 15 to 23 seconds since I died way more often before getting cloaking-3 than I did in Sector 2 and 3 with this ship. If you don't have cloaking-3, consider taking a bribe from pirate riggers, even if their only weapon is a basic laser or leto. That said, I agree on focusing on buying hacking once you upgrade cloaking. After upgrading hacking, I'd suggest picking up shields if a store offers shields and no hacking. You'll probably get enough scrap to afford hacking by the next sector so as long as you don't try to visit another store in the same sector you bought shields, Since your net store visit will be next sector and you'll get enough scrap by then you won't think "man, I shouldn't have brought shields"

I think you did pretty well. You got the necessary upgrades as soon as possible and you used your hacking well. Likewise, I think your decision to get a weapon as soon as you got shields and hacking made a lot of sense to me. Killing the flagship with the Glaive Beam and hacking alone is doable but not ideal. My personal preference would be the lasers plus the Glaive Beam. Even if weapons take a single hit, that only brings down the heavy laser.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Oh i forgot, if you don't have gold training then you need an automated reloader ore preigniter to fire the glaive beam before the flagship cloaks a second time. This means if your weapons get hacked you kind of can't fire since you keep charging for 20 seconds and then the flagship hides behind its cloak. Maybe just use the halberd stage one and glvaie 2 and 3 with the lasers in support?

[Mike]

I think it's really good that you have the instinct to weapons hack, rather than rely on shields hacking with beams.

If I have beams that one-shot the Flagship, I'll often only switch to them for the Flagship. That way, I can weapons hack any enemy and be safe. All I need is a way to get through shields and do damage, and hack-cloak on weapons does the rest.

This case is special though, because Glaive + Halberd one-shots literally everything. Nothing has enough hull to survive it, except for Rebel Elites, and I don't care about killing them for 1 fuel.

And with the Heavy Laser as well, you actually one-shot the Elites too! They have 21 hull in sector 8.

Normally the layout you have to watch out for is Auto-assaults and -hackers in sector 8, because you can only hit them in three rooms with a Glaive, Halberd, or Hull Beam. They have 15 hull, and most one-shot setups won't kill them. But Glaive + Halberd does.

The other one to watch out for is Rebel Fighter / Invader, which has 17 hull in sector 8. So for example, double Halberd is 1 hull short on them.

[New Moon On Monday]

I was finally able to get back to finishing this game. I stuck with the Glaive + Laser Charger II + Heavy Laser setup for everything except Phase 3 of the Flagship, when I swapped out the Laser Charger II for the Halberd Beam.

The Auto Reloader was a help, allowing me to fire the Heavy Laser twice before cloaking away from the first missile salvo (I needed it to hit at least once so that the two beams could take down the Super Shield on their first shots).

I fired the coup-de-grace simultaneously with the Flagship's second missile salvo. I could have actually destroyed the Flagship before the second missile salvo, but I was a beat late firing off my hacking drone once the Super Shield came down.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Mike:

This case is special though, because Glaive + Halberd one-shots literally everything. Nothing has enough hull to survive it, except for Rebel Elites, and I don't care about killing them for 1 fuel.

I suppose it jacks up your score if for some reason you care about that. Also every now and again I'm literally out of fuel on one of these beacons despite buying fuel at every store I could. But it's almost always a huge chump prize for a sometimes ridiculously tough fight.

The other one to watch out for is Rebel Fighter / Invader, which has 17 hull in sector 8. So for example, double Halberd is 1 hull short on them.

They still are often completely unable to do anything to you after taking twin Halberds to the face.