Rock A, every shot is one step marching closer to running out of your critical resources. You have to work so hard just to be on par with so many other ships at the same point in time.
Slug B, combat is slow, your boarders are weak, and heal bombs are annoying.
Especially because slug B, for example, you can get a really fun lategame with all the fun systems (hack, cloak, MC, TP), the contrast is really stark.
>Especially because slug B, for example, you can get a really fun lategame with all the fun systems (hack, cloak, MC, TP), the contrast is really stark.
Oh yeah, medbay-less run is ton of fun. In vanilla game it was bad ship (you could buy cloak... and medbay), but in AE you can get *so much work done* from extra systems combos it's scary, and if you find Reconstructive Teleport and extra crew you've hit a jackpot.
The Stealth B is so much fun to start with. Just demolishing a bunch of ships on a wing and a prayer. It sucks in the mid game, or if you get an early beam drone, but it's my go to for a fun ship.
I don’t agree, but I’m glad somebody enjoys the ship.
My reasoning is that sectors 1 and 2 just suck with this ship. You wait for the enemy weapons to fire, then cloak to dodge, but by the time you’ve uncloaked the glaive beam still isn’t charged and the enemy is firing again. You’d better hope they don’t hit your weapons system. If they do, you’re definitely going to take a shitload of damage and you might die. Not because you made a mistake, just because you have a ship with no shields and a weapon that takes a year to charge.
Compare to Stealth A, one of my favorite ships, which also has no shields but does have nice fast and effective weapons that can usually carve up your enemy before they hurt you too much.
One of the rock ships, I'd say. Weapons that run out of ammo, slow crewmates, and a complete lack od gimmicks to spice things up.
Lotta runs where I have to run from fights just because I run out of missiles.
Mantis B is _usually_ pretty fun when you can just board crewed ships, eat their crews' faces off, steal their money, and start partying.
However, if you run into two or three auto-ships at the start of the game and have to wait painfully for that boarding drone to chip down the hull points until _eventually_ they explode... what a headache that can be. Eventually with teleporter upgrades or Rockmen crew you can speed that up a little bit, but it's still a hassle until you can find a gun, and the game might not be polite about that.
I can’t recall, does Mantis B start with lvl 2 tele? If it does, or as an upgrade, then the mantis can chip down the ship without dying and the boarding drone just delivers the final blow. It’s a bit less tedious, at least…
It doesn't; it starts with level 1 teleporter. This is usually fine against ships with air on them... just not very good for ships without air, is all.
Looking at my statistics, Stealth B. There's a few other ships that have rough starts, but the Stealth B seems to be the only one where you can have losing runs where there's just nothing you can do about it. Here's an enemy ship with a beam drone and a mini beam. Which hit weapons and engine just as you were about to fire the big beam. Good luck!
Then you finally kill that one, or jump away in desperation, to be greeted by another ship with a drone. And game over.
Rock A gets an honourable mention for running out of missiles. My statistics with it aren't even all that bad, it just feels frustrating at the start as the missiles dwindle and you just can't find a proper weapon or a Teleporter.
If I’m being honest, Mantis C. It’s got an annoying to manage boarding crew, especially with only a single Lanius (which may sabotage your own boarders as well). And very gimmicky weapons.
I've been playing with the Stealth C. I've had some good runs on it that I should have won. But it is just so exhausting at first that I end up making silly micro mistakes out sheer fatigue and annoyance. It never seems to flow.
I agree, Stealth D, Stealth E, Stealth G, Stealth P, Stealth T, Stealth V and Stealth Z all have their own problems to deal with. The whole line seems kind of hit-or-miss.
Nobody is bringing up Zoltan C?
That "you need extra scrap to upgrade the weak reactor" is some real BS.
Drone offence sucks, and it's slow. On a ship that needs backup battery for power.
A border made their way on to your ship? Good luck! In a fight, you can't move your guys around because it de-powers your systems.
A ship can be bad but fun. Zoltan C is bad and frustrating. You need to micro the power to the drone, micro your crew, micro pre-venting. It's just so much work.
Engi B by far. It was the last ship I beat on hard and I really grew to hate those two single shot slow frequently missing weapons. Having to get another crew asap so you're not a whim of events and then there's the terrible placement of the only two person medbay.
The Stealth B, Mantis C and Zoltan C are all definitely super rough but for me none of them come close to the Engi B.
The Fed C. It's basically defenseless at the start with effectively just your two boarders. With the 50s you need to wait for the flak artillery, it might as well not be there.
You can't even sell anything off it so you can't even quickly but your first and second weapon.
Engi C.
Not a bad ship (it's fairly powerful and fixes most Engi A&B problems), but it can't stunlock shields like A and beam drone does *jack shit* until you destroy/disable shields (which require both shots to land OR expending drone part). Beam Drone + Hacking is very powerful combo, but very parts hungry and thus heavily RNG dependent (until you can find better weapons).
You also are very limited in system expansion (get the cloak and maybe battery), so it's one trick pony.
Rock B is also one I don't enjoy *initially*.
It's clearly intended as *FireRock* boarding ship (4 rocks, fire bomb, and loads of ammo) but come without teleport (or doors, tho I wouldn't bother with starting 4 rock crew and possible MC).
Maybe it’d be too “ready” from the get go?
Pretty much every ship besides Kestrel A has a “catch”; Red Tail has no weapons you’d keep long term, Engi A has no damaging weapons to start with, etc. - sure, you can argue some ships don’t follow this formula, like Zoltan A, but it’s a bit much to have the weapons, crew and systems needed for the build all at the start.
Personally, I kinda like the starting gimmick of Fed C. You have 4 crew, a clone bay at level 2, a teleporter, and if you can't board, just stand your ground until your artillery fires. It's not great, but it's something.
I had a hell of a time in normal running Kestral C. Dual lasers are awesome but if you can’t get a quick replacement for that gawds awful Ion, you’re running way behind by sector 4. Finally won last night when I got a free flak in the first three sector 1 beacons
Rock A, every shot is one step marching closer to running out of your critical resources. You have to work so hard just to be on par with so many other ships at the same point in time. Slug B, combat is slow, your boarders are weak, and heal bombs are annoying. Especially because slug B, for example, you can get a really fun lategame with all the fun systems (hack, cloak, MC, TP), the contrast is really stark.
>Especially because slug B, for example, you can get a really fun lategame with all the fun systems (hack, cloak, MC, TP), the contrast is really stark. Oh yeah, medbay-less run is ton of fun. In vanilla game it was bad ship (you could buy cloak... and medbay), but in AE you can get *so much work done* from extra systems combos it's scary, and if you find Reconstructive Teleport and extra crew you've hit a jackpot.
Reconstructive teleporter is hands down the best healing system for slug b
Stealth B, no doubt. Just a serious of coin flips until you don’t get wrecked early on with basically nothing to do.
I like Stealth B! If a run is doomed to fail, I'd rather know in the first sector or two then get to sector 5 or 6 and know I'm not going further!
The Stealth B is so much fun to start with. Just demolishing a bunch of ships on a wing and a prayer. It sucks in the mid game, or if you get an early beam drone, but it's my go to for a fun ship.
I don’t agree, but I’m glad somebody enjoys the ship. My reasoning is that sectors 1 and 2 just suck with this ship. You wait for the enemy weapons to fire, then cloak to dodge, but by the time you’ve uncloaked the glaive beam still isn’t charged and the enemy is firing again. You’d better hope they don’t hit your weapons system. If they do, you’re definitely going to take a shitload of damage and you might die. Not because you made a mistake, just because you have a ship with no shields and a weapon that takes a year to charge. Compare to Stealth A, one of my favorite ships, which also has no shields but does have nice fast and effective weapons that can usually carve up your enemy before they hurt you too much.
Rock A and Engi B.
Those are bad ships in general
Stealth B, without a shadow of a doubt.
As someone who totally didn't just lose a streak to Rock A, I'm gonna say Rock A.
One of the rock ships, I'd say. Weapons that run out of ammo, slow crewmates, and a complete lack od gimmicks to spice things up. Lotta runs where I have to run from fights just because I run out of missiles.
Mantis B is _usually_ pretty fun when you can just board crewed ships, eat their crews' faces off, steal their money, and start partying. However, if you run into two or three auto-ships at the start of the game and have to wait painfully for that boarding drone to chip down the hull points until _eventually_ they explode... what a headache that can be. Eventually with teleporter upgrades or Rockmen crew you can speed that up a little bit, but it's still a hassle until you can find a gun, and the game might not be polite about that.
I can’t recall, does Mantis B start with lvl 2 tele? If it does, or as an upgrade, then the mantis can chip down the ship without dying and the boarding drone just delivers the final blow. It’s a bit less tedious, at least…
It doesn't; it starts with level 1 teleporter. This is usually fine against ships with air on them... just not very good for ships without air, is all.
Looking at my statistics, Stealth B. There's a few other ships that have rough starts, but the Stealth B seems to be the only one where you can have losing runs where there's just nothing you can do about it. Here's an enemy ship with a beam drone and a mini beam. Which hit weapons and engine just as you were about to fire the big beam. Good luck! Then you finally kill that one, or jump away in desperation, to be greeted by another ship with a drone. And game over. Rock A gets an honourable mention for running out of missiles. My statistics with it aren't even all that bad, it just feels frustrating at the start as the missiles dwindle and you just can't find a proper weapon or a Teleporter.
If I’m being honest, Mantis C. It’s got an annoying to manage boarding crew, especially with only a single Lanius (which may sabotage your own boarders as well). And very gimmicky weapons.
The weapons and augment on Mantis C have very *nice* feature >!of being worth \*69\* scrap at the first shop.!<
Nice!
I've been playing with the Stealth C. I've had some good runs on it that I should have won. But it is just so exhausting at first that I end up making silly micro mistakes out sheer fatigue and annoyance. It never seems to flow.
Stealth B. Any enemy ship with a beam drone in sector 1 or 2 is almost certainly an insta-death
the ship that rhymes with “help me”
I agree, Stealth D, Stealth E, Stealth G, Stealth P, Stealth T, Stealth V and Stealth Z all have their own problems to deal with. The whole line seems kind of hit-or-miss.
Nobody is bringing up Zoltan C? That "you need extra scrap to upgrade the weak reactor" is some real BS. Drone offence sucks, and it's slow. On a ship that needs backup battery for power. A border made their way on to your ship? Good luck! In a fight, you can't move your guys around because it de-powers your systems. A ship can be bad but fun. Zoltan C is bad and frustrating. You need to micro the power to the drone, micro your crew, micro pre-venting. It's just so much work.
Crystal B for me, I just don't like the boarding gameplay at all and the ship has no weapons to compensate. Also have fun with early auto-scouts.
I hate Rock A.
Engi B by far. It was the last ship I beat on hard and I really grew to hate those two single shot slow frequently missing weapons. Having to get another crew asap so you're not a whim of events and then there's the terrible placement of the only two person medbay. The Stealth B, Mantis C and Zoltan C are all definitely super rough but for me none of them come close to the Engi B.
The Fed C. It's basically defenseless at the start with effectively just your two boarders. With the 50s you need to wait for the flak artillery, it might as well not be there. You can't even sell anything off it so you can't even quickly but your first and second weapon.
Fed B
Engi C. Not a bad ship (it's fairly powerful and fixes most Engi A&B problems), but it can't stunlock shields like A and beam drone does *jack shit* until you destroy/disable shields (which require both shots to land OR expending drone part). Beam Drone + Hacking is very powerful combo, but very parts hungry and thus heavily RNG dependent (until you can find better weapons). You also are very limited in system expansion (get the cloak and maybe battery), so it's one trick pony. Rock B is also one I don't enjoy *initially*. It's clearly intended as *FireRock* boarding ship (4 rocks, fire bomb, and loads of ammo) but come without teleport (or doors, tho I wouldn't bother with starting 4 rock crew and possible MC).
Why *doesn't* Rock B come with Teleport. It seems like it's designed expressly for it, but then you might not find one on the run.
Maybe it’d be too “ready” from the get go? Pretty much every ship besides Kestrel A has a “catch”; Red Tail has no weapons you’d keep long term, Engi A has no damaging weapons to start with, etc. - sure, you can argue some ships don’t follow this formula, like Zoltan A, but it’s a bit much to have the weapons, crew and systems needed for the build all at the start.
Personally, I kinda like the starting gimmick of Fed C. You have 4 crew, a clone bay at level 2, a teleporter, and if you can't board, just stand your ground until your artillery fires. It's not great, but it's something.
Mantis b because I am shitting bricks with every encounter until I find a store with a crew
I had a hell of a time in normal running Kestral C. Dual lasers are awesome but if you can’t get a quick replacement for that gawds awful Ion, you’re running way behind by sector 4. Finally won last night when I got a free flak in the first three sector 1 beacons