How to beat the Flagship consistently?

[MrQun]

So I'm fairly new to FTL and I'm having a fairly good time with it. I'm currently playing on easy and I am generally able to make it to sector 8 for the final showdown.

I have successfully defeated the Flagship before but in those those runs I had really good fire power. But other times, I just get absolutely stomped by the Rebel Flagship as there are just too many things going on. The first two phases are OK, but phase three is where it usually goes to sh!t as you have to deal with boarders, the super shield, drones and that stupid surge attack, not to mention all of it's other weapon attacks. Like I said there is too much going on.

Any advice to consistency beat the Rebel Flagship would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Mike]

Originally posted by Aepoh:

Why were you so poor that run? I would have thought not needing to upgrade shields would give you a major scrap injection.

Try playing shieldless and you'll find out.

You spend a lot of scrap on repairs.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by Aepoh:

Why were you so poor that run? I would have thought not needing to upgrade shields would give you a major scrap injection.

Try playing shieldless and you'll find out.

You spend a lot of scrap on repairs.

I.e. spending scrap on shields is to SAVE scrap.

[Mike]

Originally posted by Skinny Pete:

I.e. spending scrap on shields is to SAVE scrap.

Exactly!

Also helps with not dying.

[Empiro]

Have a plan for each stage. The bare basics is being able to consistently take down 4 shields, being able to dodge reasonably well, and being able to repel boarders or kill enemy crew. There are multiple ways you can accomplish that. Hacking is extremely versatile.

A big part of getting good at the game is adaptability. If your mindset, "I must get x or y", you're likely to lose. Instead, you should keep asking yourself, "can I make this work?" Be ready to pivot and change your strategy.

[MrQun]

I'm wondering if the hacking from the Rebel Flagship is inevitable? I had a run recently where I had two defence drone mark 1 and they had shot down several hacking drones, but the damn hacks kept coming and of course they inevitably got through and hacked my weapons. I like this game, but man it's full of bullsh!t.

[Aepoh]

Originally posted by MrQun:

I'm wondering if the hacking from the Rebel Flagship is inevitable? I had a run recently where I had two defence drone mark 1 and they had shot down several hacking drones, but the damn hacks kept coming and of course they inevitably got through and hacked my weapons. I like this game, but man it's full of bullsh!t.

Yeah defense drones won't protect you from hacking forever. It's better to use them to choose what you want hacked. The flagship does have a limited supply of drone parts, but it's unlikely your defense drone will expend all of them.

[New Moon On Monday]

Originally posted by MrQun:

I'm wondering if the hacking from the Rebel Flagship is inevitable? I had a run recently where I had two defence drone mark 1 and they had shot down several hacking drones, but the damn hacks kept coming and of course they inevitably got through and hacked my weapons. I like this game, but man it's full of bullsh!t.

Defense Drones will eventually miss a Hacking drone, and it's nearly inevitable that the Flagship will slip one by.

It's usually best to not try to shoot down or delay the Flagship's Hacking drone and let it hit immediately. If you do not delay the drone, the hacking pulses will almost completely overlap with the Flagship cloaking. Allowing them to synchronize on that schedule renders many potential hacks a lot less harmful.

[Empiro]

Don't confront the flagship at the last minute. You can just jump out and next time it's likely to hack something else. The shield and weapon systems are the worst for it to hack.

[New Moon On Monday]

Originally posted by Empiro:

Don't confront the flagship at the last minute. You can just jump out and next time it's likely to hack something else. The shield and weapon systems are the worst for it to hack.

It's definitely a good practice to go after the Flagship before it hits the base, with a safe beacon for escape if necessary. I hesitate to actually use that escape to avoid a hack unless it is absolutely the worst case scenario, because I don't want the Flagship to pick a worst target next time.

Even a Weapons hack isn't too bad, as long as the hacking drone hits immediately, so that there is about an 8 second overlap of the hacking pulses and cloaking phases. Weapons wouldn't be recharging while the Flagship cloaks anyway.

On top of that, frequently for me, I'm not firing my weapons as soon as they are charged anyway. I'm often waiting for my own Hacking to come off cooldown to lower Flagship shields.

The worst times to get a Weapons hack are when I have the Weapons Pre-Igniter, or when I have a super-slow weapon like Flak II or Glaive Beam. (And I have indeed suffered through a Weapons hack from the Flagship when using Stealth B and still carrying the Glaive Beam- it is painful, but I managed.)

A hack to Shields is often a worst-case scenario (but manageable with at least Cloaking 2). I consider Mind Control a pretty bad hack, if my plan for killing all (but 1) of the Flagship crew hinges on Mind Control.

The other reason I would hesitate to use the retreat too quickly is because, while getting Piloting/Engines/Weapons hacked might be initially survivable, if one of those systems is hit and gets a breach or fire while it's being hacked, then that can quickly become catastrophic. It's very important to me to have an escape option if that should happen.

[MrQun]

So I've got a very good run going with the Rock Cruiser B. My ship has two hull lasers mark 2, a flak gun, fire bomb, crew teleporter, hacking and mind control.

My strategy was wait till the hull lasers and flak are all charged then take down their weapon and. or medbay (if they have one). The I'll send over a couple of rockmen and kill the crew.

But I don't know if I'll be able to beat the flagship with this setup. The first two phases don't worry me too much. but I'm more worried about the third phase as I don't have an answer for the laser barrage. I've went to so many shops looking for a cloaking system and not once was it ever offered. So the last shop that I visited I opted to get mind control as the final system to help with boarding.

Is this setup doable, or is this run doomed?

[Aepoh]

Originally posted by MrQun:

So I've got a very good run going with the Rock Cruiser B. My ship has two hull lasers mark 2, a flak gun, fire bomb, crew teleporter, hacking and mind control.

My strategy was wait till the hull lasers and flak are all charged then take down their weapon and. or medbay (if they have one). The I'll send over a couple of rockmen and kill the crew.

But I don't know if I'll be able to beat the flagship with this setup. The first two phases don't worry me too much. but I'm more worried about the third phase as I don't have an answer for the laser barrage. I've went to so many shops looking for a cloaking system and not once was it ever offered. So the last shop that I visited I opted to get mind control as the final system to help with boarding.

Is this setup doable, or is this run doomed?

You have an answer to the laser barrage. It's called upgrading your engines and training in piloting and engines.

[MrQun]

Originally posted by Aepoh:

Originally posted by MrQun:

So I've got a very good run going with the Rock Cruiser B. My ship has two hull lasers mark 2, a flak gun, fire bomb, crew teleporter, hacking and mind control.

My strategy was wait till the hull lasers and flak are all charged then take down their weapon and. or medbay (if they have one). The I'll send over a couple of rockmen and kill the crew.

But I don't know if I'll be able to beat the flagship with this setup. The first two phases don't worry me too much. but I'm more worried about the third phase as I don't have an answer for the laser barrage. I've went to so many shops looking for a cloaking system and not once was it ever offered. So the last shop that I visited I opted to get mind control as the final system to help with boarding.

Is this setup doable, or is this run doomed?

You have an answer to the laser barrage. It's called upgrading your engines and training in piloting and engines.

I had maxed pilot, maxed engine and maxed training in everything. Even with everything maxed that is only 55% dodge chance. "Hoping" doesn't seem like a viable strategy to me.

[New Moon On Monday]

Originally posted by MrQun:

So I've got a very good run going with the Rock Cruiser B. My ship has two hull lasers mark 2, a flak gun, fire bomb, crew teleporter, hacking and mind control.

My strategy was wait till the hull lasers and flak are all charged then take down their weapon and. or medbay (if they have one). The I'll send over a couple of rockmen and kill the crew.

But I don't know if I'll be able to beat the flagship with this setup. The first two phases don't worry me too much. but I'm more worried about the third phase as I don't have an answer for the laser barrage. I've went to so many shops looking for a cloaking system and not once was it ever offered. So the last shop that I visited I opted to get mind control as the final system to help with boarding.

Is this setup doable, or is this run doomed?

With 45% Evasion (I rarely have more) and 4 layers of Shields, you have a decent chance to completely avoid damage from the Power Surge on Normal, as long as it doesn't also time up with the laser artillery.

Without an extremely great super setup, you are going to take damage at some point in Phase 3. You just need to prioritize your repairs, and gang repair the critical systems. Don't freak out when a critical system is hit; expect it in advance, and just calmly react when it happens.

Sometimes in Phase 1, after taking out 3 of the Flagship artillery, I will let the battle run as a training mission to get all of my crew trained up. The reason for that is so I can swap crew positions around on Phase 3 so my best repair crew are free from manning the essential systems.

Rock crew are a mixed bag when it comes to repair ability. Because they are slow, you lose valuable seconds moving them to make a repair. On the other hand, if you get a breach or fire, they are so valuable.

You don't need Cloaking, it's completely doable. You won't have to deal with Phase 3 boarders, and you won't have to deal with your own crew getting mind-controlled and disrupting repairs. While Hull Lasers are great weapons, they will run slow in terms of taking down the Super Shield. But as long as you don't take excessive damage on Phases 1 & 2, you should be fine.

[New Moon On Monday]

Originally posted by MrQun:

So I've got a very good run going with the Rock Cruiser B. My ship has two hull lasers mark 2, a flak gun, fire bomb, crew teleporter, hacking and mind control.

My strategy was wait till the hull lasers and flak are all charged then take down their weapon and. or medbay (if they have one). The I'll send over a couple of rockmen and kill the crew.

With Hacking, you don't need to attack Medbay.

First go after 3 of the artillery. On the Flagship's first uncloak, I'd probably send boarders to the ion artillery. When the hacking pulse takes down shields, I'd use Mind Control the pilot and the 2 Hull Lasers + Fire Bomb on the missile artillery. That should at least destroy artillery, and the Fire Bomb should finish the crew off if it doesn't miss.

For the Flagship's second uncloaking, send a second board team to missile artillery if the crew survived, and attack beam artillery; otherwise board the beam. Either way, you're pretty close to rendering the Flagship completely harmless, while still leaving the Flagship with plenty of hull.

When you get to that point, you have the luxury of time to deal with the interior crew. When the Flagship uncloaks, have at least 1 power in your Hacking and 2 in your Crew Teleporter, and send a boarding team to Piloting. You quickly kill the pilot 2-on-1, Because the doors to Shields are hack-locked, reinforcements can't make it to Piloting, and the pilot can't escape to the Medbay.

Recall your boarding team before the Flagship cloaks, rinse and repeat. Though you may want to do it every other cloaking cycle, to give the time for your Hacking to heal the damage on doors that the Flagship crew were trying to bust through.

Of course, with Fire Bombs and Rock boarders and Mind Control, you could easily set Medbay on fire, board it with Rocks, and Mind Control Flagship crew to help. But there are alternate methods when you don't happen to have all of those tools available.

[Chris]

Originally posted by New Moon On Monday:

When you get to that point, you have the luxury of time to deal with the interior crew. When the Flagship uncloaks, have at least 1 power in your Hacking and 2 in your Crew Teleporter, and send a boarding team to Piloting. You quickly kill the pilot 2-on-1, Because the doors to Shields are hack-locked, reinforcements can't make it to Piloting, and the pilot can't escape to the Medbay.

You can teleport into the shield generator, kill the rebel there, than move into piloting and kill the rebel there as well. Not that it matters that much at this point, but it's definitely twice as fast.
Not sure if it works with other races than Mantis. I always use Mantis.