Just beaten the final boss with The Vortex, and it's actually the first game where on multiple occasions I've been spoilt for choice as to what strategy I was going to use.
The two main differences I employed this time:
First, was able to buy long-range scanners early. Chose to go to ship encounters on every possible occasion. When new to the game this feels bad, with the constant fighting, and you think that 'peaceful' events are a nicer way of getting scrap, but the constant fighting route *always* gets you a lot more scrap. You need to go down this route, especially if you start with a weaker ship that needs a lot of upgrading (and purchases of crew members!)
Second - and I don't really remember seeing this emphasized in strategy guides nearly enough, but maybe I've not been reading them enough - I really focused on a distinct 2-step weapons strategy. Step 1, take down shields. Step 2, deal the damage. Time things correctly so that damage is dealt with shields taken down. I think you basically have to use this strategy, whether step 1 is done with ion weapons or lasers, and whether step 2 is done with lasers, beams, or whatever. The majority of your weapons loadout should actually be devoted to step 1; the first 2 of 3 weapons if you only have 3, I'd say. And you only need one weapon at the end to come in and "stab them in the belly", as it were. I started out with a burst laser to take down shields and a heavy laser to do damage, then later I moved on to a breach bomb mk2 targeted at the shields room, followed by a laser charger mk2 to finish off shields and maybe do some damage (it does help quite a bit that I got a pre-igniter, but still...), and then the heavy laser 1 to deal more damage. I could've switched that third weapon with a decent beam. But the fundamental point IMHO is that 2-step strategy, and timing it right so that damage is dealt immediately when shields are taken down. Nothing else will really work. Relying on teleporting will be a disaster the second they have a strong enough crew, or a Zoltan shield to stop you doing it. Teleporting is a "nice-to-have" on top of this crucial fundamental attack strategy.
Took me a long time to find stealth, but luckily I managed to find it near the end in sector 7. This made the final boss fight a lot easier. I held off on buying teleporters earlier on, figuring that I'd get the opportunity for either them or stealth in sector 6 or 7, and that if stealth came up, I'd like that instead. Luckily it did come up, but teleporters probably would've otherwise and I could've used them on the final boss to do my "teleport in and destroy that darn missile launcher" strategy. Of course, on the third incarnation of that boss, you have to get through a Zoltan shield first, underlining the necessity of designing for the first step in the aforementioned 2-step strategy.
One other note; laser weapons work great for doing damage until your crew decide to start missing their shots. Which against some tough slug ships, for some reason, they frequently did. This hugely prolonged the battles and made them harder. One option is to hack their piloting before you shoot, giving them a 0% evade rate (although I always seem to forget to hack for some reason!), but probably a preferable stratagem for step 2 of the aforementioned 2-step technique is to have a beam weapon at the end - which CAN'T MISS - with step 1 being a strong volley of laser shots to take down shields, or a flak weapon (even more reliable at taking down shields, but sloooooow projectile). Ion weapons are kind of, meh... I don't know how to think about them. They can be very effective in pairs or triples, but that means buying multiple weapons, and powering them, which is expensive. And you need *decent* ion weapons. And the ion bomb uses up missiles. And they can miss quite easily. So I'm inclined against them somewhat.
Anyway, just felt like putting into words some rather important info I felt I'd learned this time round.
This changed my game from a struggle to survive into a rather nice voyage of choosing from multiple victory options.
Just noticed that I can't seem to get the session stats for that playthrough!
So I can't see things like 'scrap collected'. Looks like the only opportunity you have to get that is to click 'stats' immediately after game over; after that it's gone. Is there any way I can get session stats for previous games? You ought to be able to click on a top score or ship best on the stats screen and get the session stats for that session IMHO.
The two main differences I employed this time:
First, was able to buy long-range scanners early. Chose to go to ship encounters on every possible occasion. When new to the game this feels bad, with the constant fighting, and you think that 'peaceful' events are a nicer way of getting scrap, but the constant fighting route *always* gets you a lot more scrap. You need to go down this route, especially if you start with a weaker ship that needs a lot of upgrading (and purchases of crew members!)
Second - and I don't really remember seeing this emphasized in strategy guides nearly enough, but maybe I've not been reading them enough - I really focused on a distinct 2-step weapons strategy. Step 1, take down shields. Step 2, deal the damage. Time things correctly so that damage is dealt with shields taken down. I think you basically have to use this strategy, whether step 1 is done with ion weapons or lasers, and whether step 2 is done with lasers, beams, or whatever. The majority of your weapons loadout should actually be devoted to step 1; the first 2 of 3 weapons if you only have 3, I'd say. And you only need one weapon at the end to come in and "stab them in the belly", as it were. I started out with a burst laser to take down shields and a heavy laser to do damage, then later I moved on to a breach bomb mk2 targeted at the shields room, followed by a laser charger mk2 to finish off shields and maybe do some damage (it does help quite a bit that I got a pre-igniter, but still...), and then the heavy laser 1 to deal more damage. I could've switched that third weapon with a decent beam. But the fundamental point IMHO is that 2-step strategy, and timing it right so that damage is dealt immediately when shields are taken down. Nothing else will really work. Relying on teleporting will be a disaster the second they have a strong enough crew, or a Zoltan shield to stop you doing it. Teleporting is a "nice-to-have" on top of this crucial fundamental attack strategy.
Took me a long time to find stealth, but luckily I managed to find it near the end in sector 7. This made the final boss fight a lot easier. I held off on buying teleporters earlier on, figuring that I'd get the opportunity for either them or stealth in sector 6 or 7, and that if stealth came up, I'd like that instead. Luckily it did come up, but teleporters probably would've otherwise and I could've used them on the final boss to do my "teleport in and destroy that darn missile launcher" strategy. Of course, on the third incarnation of that boss, you have to get through a Zoltan shield first, underlining the necessity of designing for the first step in the aforementioned 2-step strategy.
One other note; laser weapons work great for doing damage until your crew decide to start missing their shots. Which against some tough slug ships, for some reason, they frequently did. This hugely prolonged the battles and made them harder. One option is to hack their piloting before you shoot, giving them a 0% evade rate (although I always seem to forget to hack for some reason!), but probably a preferable stratagem for step 2 of the aforementioned 2-step technique is to have a beam weapon at the end - which CAN'T MISS - with step 1 being a strong volley of laser shots to take down shields, or a flak weapon (even more reliable at taking down shields, but sloooooow projectile). Ion weapons are kind of, meh... I don't know how to think about them. They can be very effective in pairs or triples, but that means buying multiple weapons, and powering them, which is expensive. And you need *decent* ion weapons. And the ion bomb uses up missiles. And they can miss quite easily. So I'm inclined against them somewhat.
Anyway, just felt like putting into words some rather important info I felt I'd learned this time round.
This changed my game from a struggle to survive into a rather nice voyage of choosing from multiple victory options.Just noticed that I can't seem to get the session stats for that playthrough!
So I can't see things like 'scrap collected'. Looks like the only opportunity you have to get that is to click 'stats' immediately after game over; after that it's gone. Is there any way I can get session stats for previous games? You ought to be able to click on a top score or ship best on the stats screen and get the session stats for that session IMHO.