whats the best race?

[Synthetic Saint]

Which race is the best to have and why?

[Tealtyr]

Crystal because lockdown is ridilcious.

[Flyboy]

No race is the best. You need to balance it out, they all have their weaknesses and strenghts. I try to get 2 Engi, 1 Slug, 2 Mantis, 2 Humans, 1 Rock + 1 Lanius/1 Rock. The worst race to have is zoltan in my opinion. Only when you're short on power you should use them. The die quickly, don't repair quicker or fight harder. They explode, harming enemy crew, but this is rather useless since you won't be using them as boarders, as they don't have the skills needed. My minimal crew is probably 1 Mantis, 2 Human, and 2 engi.

[Tealtyr]

Originally posted by A. Blade:

No race is the best. You need to balance it out, they all have their weaknesses and strenghts. I try to get 2 Engi, 1 Slug, 2 Mantis, 2 Humans, 1 Rock + 1 Lanius/1 Rock. The worst race to have is zoltan in my opinion. Only when you're short on power you should use them. The die quickly, don't repair quicker or fight harder. They explode, harming enemy crew, but this is rather useless since you won't be using them as boarders, as they don't have the skills needed. My minimal crew is probably 1 Mantis, 2 Human, and 2 engi.

The weaknesses of a crystal is as minor as their upsides are signifigant. Crystalmen overlords.

[Lynx]

As you can see from my avatar, my personal favorite in the lanius. Their uniqe trait can make an enemy boarding party be, litterally, choked out, and when you are using these as your own boarding crew, they are extremely lethal if you manage to take out the enemies O2 system.

[gambit]

I had my curent highscore with 4 human, 3 rockmen and engi.

So, any race will do, although having more than 1 Zoltan can be really bad if you HAVE to move one.

Also, funny encounter. Enemy ship is decent, will take some time to bring it down.
Anyway, it has only 2 Zoltan crew, but I don't have teleport, and have mind contol only 1st level.
So I pray for them to kill and explode. One is left at 1 hp, and other at 5 after mind control.
That prolonged battle unnecessary.

[Flyboy]

Originally posted by spaghetti-sensei:

Originally posted by A. Blade:

No race is the best. You need to balance it out, they all have their weaknesses and strenghts. I try to get 2 Engi, 1 Slug, 2 Mantis, 2 Humans, 1 Rock + 1 Lanius/1 Rock. The worst race to have is zoltan in my opinion. Only when you're short on power you should use them. The die quickly, don't repair quicker or fight harder. They explode, harming enemy crew, but this is rather useless since you won't be using them as boarders, as they don't have the skills needed. My minimal crew is probably 1 Mantis, 2 Human, and 2 engi.

The weaknesses of a crystal is as minor as their upsides are signifigant. Crystalmen overlords.

Never had a crystal crew member yet, so couldn't say whether it was a good or bad crew member.

[slappy_d0]

Crystal is by far the best. I prefer 5 crystal and 3 zoltan.

[Engi]

Drone Master race

I just thought of 4 anti-ship drones and 1 ion blast MK 2

[Tealtyr]

Originally posted by A. Blade:

Originally posted by spaghetti-sensei:

The weaknesses of a crystal is as minor as their upsides are signifigant. Crystalmen overlords.

Never had a crystal crew member yet, so couldn't say whether it was a good or bad crew member.

Upsides: Can lock a room out of being entered/left that they are in for ~10 seconds.
Have 125 hp.
Take half suffocation damage. (an effective 250 hp on auto-scouts)

The downsides?
-25% movement speed.
And of course being really hard to get outside of the crystal ships. (-Rock C starts with one)

[Sam Look]

Originally posted by A. Blade:

No race is the best. You need to balance it out, they all have their weaknesses and strenghts. I try to get 2 Engi, 1 Slug, 2 Mantis, 2 Humans, 1 Rock + 1 Lanius/1 Rock. The worst race to have is zoltan in my opinion. Only when you're short on power you should use them. The die quickly, don't repair quicker or fight harder. They explode, harming enemy crew, but this is rather useless since you won't be using them as boarders, as they don't have the skills needed. My minimal crew is probably 1 Mantis, 2 Human, and 2 engi.

Personally I totally disagree on the Zoltan, when you get to the end and you have four or five more power than would normally be possible it makes a massive difference to the systems and weapons you can run. Every disadvantage they have is far outweighed by this fact. You might not want a crew of only Zoltan but I buy them every time I see them and just make do, besides if you have two Zoltan you can have a repair drone and an antipersonal zone on standby just in case.

[ShenanAgain]

Originally posted by boybland:

Originally posted by A. Blade:

The worst race to have is zoltan in my opinion. Only when you're short on power you should use them. The die quickly, don't repair quicker or fight harder. They explode, harming enemy crew, but this is rather useless since you won't be using them as boarders, as they don't have the skills needed.

Personally I totally disagree on the Zoltan, when you get to the end and you have four or five more power than would normally be possible it makes a massive difference to the systems and weapons you can run. Every disadvantage they have is far outweighed by this fact.

As an added note, Zoltan power nullifies ion effects. It's a beautiful thing.

[New Moon On Monday]

I am always disappointed when I get an Event that gives me a frew crew person- and that crew person turns out to be Human. I am sort of disappointed when it is a Slug, but I kinda feel sorry for the Slugs.

[Pixel Peeper]

It's hard to give a definitive answer because of the variety factor. For example, a full Engi crew wouldn't be all that good; you'd have serious combat issues. However, having one or two Engi manning key systems that need to be repaired quickly when damaged is great, and you only need one to gain access to all Engi blue options. So while I wouldn't like an all-Engi crew, I'm usually very glad to get my first one if I don't start with any.

But in general...

I like having at least one Engi on board (a couple if I can), and a Slug if I find one. The Engi are fantastic for maintaining systems and give lots of good blue options. And I just like how reliable Slugs are. They can repair and fight normally, let you know exactly where (and what race) the enemy crew is, are immune to Mind Control, and give you some blue options too.

I have little experience with Lanius, but I think they're pretty damn nice. They can hold and repair systems normally, can repel boarders more effectively by suffocating them, fight off boarding drones for longer amounts of time thanks to not being dependent on oxygen, and are also great boarders for those same reasons (suffocating enemy crew and being able to board automated ships).

Rockmen and Mantises are good combatants, but Rockmen are slow and Mantises have awful repair speeds. I don't pay particular attention to them unless I have a teleporter or poor boarding defenses.

Crystal people are pretty good, often performing the same functions as Rockmen or Lanius... but you don't normally have access to them.

The only races I tend to avoid are Human and Zoltan.

[Cucumbertronic]

1 Mantis 1 Rockman / Crystalman as boarding party.
Engi / anyone else as crew on systems.
Zoltan are a liability.

[David]

Assuming you can get them, or start with them:
Crystal

After that, in vanilla I used to prefer Mantis, as long as I had an Engi for repairs. Now- generally I like to have one of each- I don't mind Zoltan, they are a bit weaker but I try not to get damaged at all, and if boarders come, they're never usually a problem anyway. Zoltan are hands down the best crew outside of boarding & defense actions- the extra power means running additional systems constantly so that you don't get hit in the first place, and less power juggling relatively. I also don't mind Slugs, it's great to have one for their racial abilities and blue options- would rather have one than a Human and they're much harder to acquire in general.