I've done a few more streamed runs, taking my record there to 8-1 (stupid play late game in 1st Fed A run still irks me). Since I'm doing A variants as if unlocking next ship, the last three have been Slug A, Rock A, and Stealth A...these ships will almost never see ion gameplay unless an Engi ship is shooting some at them. I was worried as usual going into the Rock A run given shop RNG, but FTL decided that I should get a free win with it and dumped a BL2 in my lap early sector 1, then offered up two flak 1's and a Zoltan shield later. What a stupid easy run for a terrible ship. Nearly died to bad events in mid sectors with slug A, but that ended with 7 flak/burst + heavy laser.
The stealth A run was more novel. Bad miss luck --> hit weapons in sector 1 to take ~10 damage. I bought shields over hacking sector 2 and regretted, left me using starting weapons + heavy laser into sector 4. At one point I had 1 fuel and an AI ship with 3 shields hand a dd2...but also lacked weaponry to damage me. > 10 minutes later
it ran out of drones that got hit by my weapons and I won. Next shop offered hacking and crew TP, with mantis crew and enough to buy both they were obvious purchases.
I wind up with crew TP on unorthodox ships a fair amount, looking over old pictures even a chunk of Kestrel, Stealth, and Engi wins used one. I think my tendency for this comes from the consistency; there are lots of different weapons you might or might not see later, while if you have the crew for it or hacking picking up a crew TP gives you a win condition right then. TP/hack/cloak + bomb is fantastic consistency, very rarely taking damage in random battles, getting crew kill rewards, and having a near-free run on RFS phase 1/2. Not enough evasion luck to take 0 damage phase 3 unfortunately, which prompted a bit of unnecessary spite in retaliation. https://i.imgur.com/NSIEEde.jpg
The stealth A run was more novel. Bad miss luck --> hit weapons in sector 1 to take ~10 damage. I bought shields over hacking sector 2 and regretted, left me using starting weapons + heavy laser into sector 4. At one point I had 1 fuel and an AI ship with 3 shields hand a dd2...but also lacked weaponry to damage me. > 10 minutes later
it ran out of drones that got hit by my weapons and I won. Next shop offered hacking and crew TP, with mantis crew and enough to buy both they were obvious purchases.I wind up with crew TP on unorthodox ships a fair amount, looking over old pictures even a chunk of Kestrel, Stealth, and Engi wins used one. I think my tendency for this comes from the consistency; there are lots of different weapons you might or might not see later, while if you have the crew for it or hacking picking up a crew TP gives you a win condition right then. TP/hack/cloak + bomb is fantastic consistency, very rarely taking damage in random battles, getting crew kill rewards, and having a near-free run on RFS phase 1/2. Not enough evasion luck to take 0 damage phase 3 unfortunately, which prompted a bit of unnecessary spite in retaliation. https://i.imgur.com/NSIEEde.jpg