(January 19th, 2015, 17:53)Fenn Wrote: As you can imagine this fails to suffice against 99% of enemy ships you'll encounter in Hard Mode
You imagine wrongly, as do the armchair pilots on Reddit. The Shield+ drone is quite sufficient through the first two sectors once you see it in action.
(January 19th, 2015, 18:04)greenline Wrote: I disagree on the count of Stealth C. The shield overcharger doesn't seem like much, but it can get up one bar of shielding before 90% of weapons can fire, which means that the average enemy ship (two lasers or 1 missile 1 laser) will only get one shot through, about the same as if you started with regular shields. Having the anti drone also helps a lot.
But the biggest difference is that your weapons take ~12 seconds to charge instead of 23. That makes a *massive* difference.
Absolutely correct. Stealth C plays quite a bit better than it looks on paper. The Shield+ drone works well enough long enough to get regular shields. Long-Ranged Scanners means you can always find income and won't fall behind the power curve. And the weapons are fantastically fast and power-efficient.
I have 7 wins to 3 losses with Stealth C on hard, which would be 8-2 if not for one brainlock cloning bay mishap. It's not top tier by any means (Stealth A is just plain better with the same advantages and better defense), but solidly in the middle of the pack. I'd definitely call Stealth C the most skill-testing ship in the game. Hope Sullla gets to it soon.