Beacon 1 (82)
Not the best layout but not the worst either. We can visit 13-14 beacons but don't have much choice in which.
Beacon 2 (83)
This is not good - they have a defensive drone so we can't hack without risking it consuming several drone parts. I know I can depower hacking when the drone shoots but prefer not to use it (which is just a personal preference - on the other hand I'm fine with getting free repairs from hull repair drone + recovery arm which others may consider an exploit). There is also a boarding drone that is about to land in piloting.
At least the maximum possible piloting they can have is level 2, so mind controlling the pilot will severely drop their evasion, the BL2 should hit at least 2 times and then the halbert will do its thing. And I'll aim to hit them after the missile fires so it's the one to go offline.
Shit, this could have ended up very bad. But it's my turn now.
Missile offline, fire in weapons and general havoc. The boarding drone will do 1 damage but they'll go down with the next strike.
On the positive side, this was a double reward of 79 scrap!
Beacon 3 (84)
This is dangerous but the ion blasts already fired so I can cloak the lot. Hack shields, swipe from engines to shields, and fire everything into weapons.
Missile still up but there are two fires in weapons and it was easy to finish them off from here. The artemis even missed and I didn't take any damage from the fight.
With the new scrap we finally upgrade to weapons-8. Bye, bye, fire bomb, hello hull laser 2! I also bought a power bar because even if we get shields-6 now, we won't really be able to power them.
Beacon 4 (85)
Rock pirate with a lot of scary guns. However - cloak the BL2 volley, hack weapons, and then cloak is available again to dodge all weapons as they'll be firing together. So we have a lot of time and can mind control the pilot. BL2 into weapons first followed by the hull laser, and the halbert swipes from oxygen to shields.
Can we crew kill here? Maybe I should have swiped medbay to weapons. Nevertheless they are in a pretty bad shape now and I'll swap the BL2 to the fire bomb and see.
Flak 2 volley incoming, backup battery to the rescue.
No backup battery this time, but the fire bomb just fired so I turned it off temporarily. The other weapons are on stand-by in case we need to kill them at a moment's notice but between hacking and cloaking we are very safe.
The rock finally managed to repair oxygen but everyone is dead and I can just halbert it again.
Beacon 5 (86)
The civilian escort quest turned out to be a trap, which actually is the best outcome for us. They don't even have med/clonebay so it should be an easy crew kill but I'll still hack weapons because between the boarders and the missile there are things that can go wrong.
They still have the dangerous weapons up but we should be fine from here.
Halbert just weapons to save hull and switch BL2 to fire bomb.
Mind controlled the guy in shields and allowed the one from weapons out to join the fight. Fire bomb killed everyone but one, and now we can finish him off with conventional weapons. 66 scrap and 3 fuel
I finally upgrade to shields-6. While we have only 15+2 power bars and can't effectively use them yet, they are still good to have as a buffer and in some situations it may be useful to have three shields instead of one of the weapons.
Beacon 6 (87)
Would I rather have hacking or medbay? They have mind control but so do I and the boarders are slugs so I can vent them. Hacking on the other hand is hacking - so we are doing the fight without medbay.
The bomb is still on and can cause problems but the boarders have been dealt with our guys still on very high health, and we'll hit them again in a moment. I tried to crew kill them with the fire bomb but it didn't quite work out so I killed them the normal way.
The reward was 60 scrap but instead of spending it immediately on 2 power bars I'll do the next fight and then visit the store to see if they have a nice augment like a weapon reloader or a preigniter. If there were a guaranteed fight to the right (I mean ahead) I probably would have gone for that but since we'll have to go through either the store or the unmarked beacon I'll go with the store.
Beacon 7 (88)
Here is a case where shields-6 come in very useful. Without med/clonebay this is an easy crew kill but I first fired both lasers into weapons with the halbert swiping between engines and shields to weaken them. The lasers came offline so the glaive was harmless. (It is displaced because there is a fire in weapons and it just broke. I helped with a fire bomb and it was a crew kill for 65.)
Beacon 8 (89)
No interesting augments in the store but I decided to hire this girl to replace the pilot (who is fully trained in shields too and can man shields/doors). It will help to have a fourth crew member against the flagship and I see another two guaranteed fights in the neighbouring beacons, so we should be able to get the fourth shield bubble and all other essential upgrades before the end. I also bought the 3 drone parts because sometimes it takes a few attempts to slide a hacking drone past the defense drone of flagship stage 2, and it's very important that we don't run out.
Beacon 9 (90)
I thought we'll have at least two clean cloaks here but didn't account for the manning bonus which reduces the charging time and took one point of damage from their second volley before the cloak came back on. Forgot to take a second screenshot while I was wondering what I had missed.
Beacon 12 (93)
Two empty beacons before this one. The cloaking hack was only a short one so managed to cloak both the artemis and the BL2.
Then I hit them hard the first time and killed the second.
Beacon 13 (94)
Door hack. I've been playing a little carelessly the last few beacons and forgot to take an initial screenshot and also took damage from an artemis that could have been avoided.
Beacon 15 (96)
The previous beacon was dummy and this will be the last before the exit. The mantis will be easy to crew kill. Hack weapons for vision and mind control the engi when it comes to repair.
First both lasers targeted weapons and the halbert swept just medbay and weapons to save hull. Then I mind controlled the engi and it fought the mantis in weapons, meanwhile the boarders were also losing health and teleported back to heal. The fire bomb that just went off killed the engi and the boarders and left just the last mantis.
However the reward was 30 scrap + small bomb which is actually worse than the standard since we probably won't be able sell it.
Beacon 16 (97)
Empty nebula beacon and next up is the final sector.
I have to agree with T-Hawk though, I would not circle back that many jumps to purchase Cloaking in Sector 5; it's even debatable if Cloaking is worth the 150 scrap cost before Sector 6 or 7 because the expense is so great for the early portions of the game. I would also suggest putting more emphasis on shield and engine upgrades earlier since running around with Level 4 shields and Level 2 (!) engines in Sector 5 is very dangerous. This run also spent 75 scrap on a largely-unnecessary Mind Control, plus spent scrap on weapons that the Kestrel was nowhere close to having enough power to run, and took the "Manually search the wreckage" gamble that could have lost a crewmember. It's working out just fine here but this is a pretty good RNG run and these are risky choices when trying to compile a win streak.
Still, if hack shields and cloak the first laser this will give the halbert an extra 5 seconds and they should die before the other weapons can fire.
