Training your Crew

[Gruet_garbo]

Just a friendly reminder that even on seemingly OP boarder ship runs (like the Mantis B or Lanius B) it's still a good idea to train crew to do conventional attack/defense training on engines, piloting, and shields. Otherwise you aren't maximizing your crew and systems potential for later sectors where a strong boarding game sometimes just isn't enough and your ship gets destroyed while your boarding crew kills all of their people. (Yes, this totally happened to me.)

[Maya-Neko]

Well yeah, why would you send 8 crew member onto the other ship anyway? 2 are normally enough, if you've a level 2/3 teleporter and/or a good defence system.

I always try to get my hand on 2-4 Mantis, 1 Slug, 1-2 Engi and some Zoltans (Doesn't work that well sometimes obviously, but i at least try to get them^^). That way you've the Mantis to board the enemy ships, while the slug provides sight even in nebulas or when the sensors get hit, while the Engi can repair shields and engines fast enough to keep the ship as safe as possible. More than 2 Engi feels like an overkill though, so i try to fill the rest with zoltans to save some scrap on the reactor.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

Well yeah, why would you send 8 crew member onto the other ship anyway? 2 are normally enough, if you've a level 2/3 teleporter and/or a good defence system.

There are some extremely nasty Slug ships entirely composed of 2-square rooms that also have medbays, that really require full-crew boarding. Some Rock and Mantis ships also fall into this category. These are mostly sector 6 and 7 encounters on Hard. And sometimes you just do it for the overkill.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by Skinny Pete:

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

Well yeah, why would you send 8 crew member onto the other ship anyway? 2 are normally enough, if you've a level 2/3 teleporter and/or a good defence system.

There are some extremely nasty Slug ships entirely composed of 2-square rooms that also have medbays, that really require full-crew boarding. Some Rock and Mantis ships also fall into this category. These are mostly sector 6 and 7 encounters on Hard. And sometimes you just do it for the overkill.

I'd hardly say "full-crew boarding" as much as "a well-timed hacking module"

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Ruinae Retroque Rursus:

Originally posted by Skinny Pete:

There are some extremely nasty Slug ships entirely composed of 2-square rooms that also have medbays, that really require full-crew boarding. Some Rock and Mantis ships also fall into this category. These are mostly sector 6 and 7 encounters on Hard. And sometimes you just do it for the overkill.

I'd hardly say "full-crew boarding" as much as "a well-timed hacking module"

I'm almost never hacking a medbay. Even with these ships, I'm usually going for shields and knocking out weapons, then the medbay some time before they go to it, then occupying the medbay to stop them from repairing it, and then sending everyone else over a batch at a time. Sector 6/7 Slug ships of the type I'm discussing usually have extremely nasty weapons as well as incredibly inconvenient layouts. I don't want them shooting at me while I'm killing their crew.

And just as an example, this is the kind of nonsense I'm talking about.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=693844113

[Maya-Neko]

Well, that's part of the game. The way you build your ship made you pretty much vulnurable to long fights and medbays are quite good at buying time against boarder ships. You've to expect to be countered by these kind of ships at least sometimes throughout your playthrough. If you don't want to get the hacking system, then i would at least recommend to get 2 rocket/bomb launcher to be able to deactivate the medbay consistently, especially in the later sectors, where one hit might not deactivate it.

Alternatively you might also be able to make good use of hull rockets in combination with lanius (or fire rockets with rockmen)