i was, as i sometimes am, struck with the urge to finally beat that game on normal difficulty. i never have despite logging about 175 hours (not a strict count, ofc) in the game. i've beaten it on easy. i've gotten to the flagship before on normal. but something always seems to hold me back and i'm not sure what. i've got an array of walkthroughs and tip guides open and i'm watching videos.

my runs usually crumble in sectors 3-4 because i can't properly figure out how to mitigate hull damage from certain encounters, and i very frequently have enough scrap to spare to repair my hull but no store at which to do it. maybe i'm getting unlucky, and maybe i'm playing in such a way that is minimizing my potential to hit that luck without noticing it.


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in reply to @ivym's post:

some damage is inevitable, but if you're taking so much damage that you enter the economic doom spiral, you need to reassess. you need every scrap you can get your hands on, and wasting it on repairs guarantees a loss.

your #1 priority is to take as little damage as humanly possible - ideally zero. that means not pumping your offense to the poing where you can ruin things with an opening salvo, but to max your defensive potential.

upgrade your shields immediately - 2 bubbles by the end of sector 1 is mandatory, then save your scrap to be able to get drone control and hacking ASAP. the defense I drone is your best friend - get two if you can. hacking lets you get away with being undergunned in most cases, you can target shields with it and plink away. you can also use it to repel boarders by hacking the crew teleporter. once you have those two, maxing your shields is your top priority.

if you manage to do that, your odds should go up significantly!

oh shoot thank you for this response!

i think already do Most of this, it is sounding like a lot of my problem is honestly stemming from me actually just sitting on huge piles of scrap. i always buy shields 2 before i hit sector 2 and i always buy shields 3 before sector 5, but not knowing what to do with my scrap between those two basically means i'm floating adrift unless i find like flak I or burst laser II in a shop somewhere. knowing to buy drone control and hacking ASAP will help

as it stands i basically just go shield 2 > engines 4 > door 2 > shield 3 and then pick up crew, weapons, fuel, hull repair (i straight up never buy missiles. i rarely have to and if i run low the game is usually kind enough to give me a stack of 4-8 in a random encounter) as i see them. looking at this i think i can hold off on engines 4 for a little while-- i DO like engines 3 to dodge missiles but it feels like overkill to get engines 4 before sector 5 if i already have master piloting and engines.

it's kind of hard to talk about what kills me or even what damages me, i think a lot of it is encounters with ion pulsars, ion storms, suns, or asteroid fields. you take a lot of unmitigable damage in those and if you can't bust them before your jump comes up then you just have to hold that until it does. this is another reason i was prioritizing engines 4 tbh... i could take detailed notes which might honestly help a pretty good deal... we shall see i guess

honestly yeah, taking detailed notes about the situation helps me a lot too

banking scrap is normal! don't feel pressured to spend it if you haven't bought drone control and hacking yet. drone control costs 75 or 85 (prepare for 85), hacking costs 80. spend anything over 165, but those two systems are important enough to bank for.

weirdly specific but rarely applicable protip: zoltans give unionizable energy! if you put enough of them on shields, you'll always have some shields that can't be shut down by ion, including pulsars

Yeah I would agree with all of this

Certain ships have an easier time because of better starting weaponry that can last until the later sectors, so if you're not set on any ship in particular, the 4 laser kestrel and the federation both are a bit easier to manage scrap on.

a big plus to the federation cruiser is that artillery beam bypasses all shields, and thus you can completely ignore investing in weapons for a very, very long time, allowing you to focus 100% on defense drones and defensive upgrades

for the low low price of 180 scrap you have a 20 sec cooldown beam that will absolutely shred shit all the way until like sector 7. hell, i've beaten the flagship with nothing but artillery beam and raw defense before.

honestly fed A looks awesome but i need to actually unlock it first :v i was trying to unlock the ships in order, so "defeat the flagship with any Engi cruiser" is theoretically my next questline but for some reason i was like "i bet i could take the flagship". and then i developed this little hang up where i was like "if i play any ship other than the kestrel i'm hobbling my skill development" which like. i bet if i played rebel B red-tail or even engi A i would be able to familiarize myself with the use cases, weaknesses, and versatility of drone + ion loadouts. much to consider

but also changing my goal from "beat game on Normal" to actually unlocking the different ships might help too