Strategy thoughts on hard

[Levgre]

Overall the hard difficulty makes some pretty big changes to the game, limiting what paths will lead to victory. Hard is defined by much scarcer scrap resources, and tougher battles throughout (those might be the only changes)?

I'm not going to have this real organized, I'm still in the early stages (hard wins with 6 different ships, reaching the last boss with 5 more). And overall, runs with over half of the ships.

While sectors 1 and 2 were more or less farming warm-ups on normal, they are now a hunt to get every bit of scrap, crew, and gear you can. There's a lot thinner margin for getting proper tools (shields + weapons being the biggest priority), compared to normal.

Defense drones, and drones in general, may be obsolete for a number of ships they used to work on. Simply put, on hard difficulty you can't cover all your bases. Shield and a strong offense are vastly more important, and the defense drone has always been less useful for the flagship.

While I prefer Medbays on normal difficulty, on hard you are better suited having a clone bay at start, for most specifically the early sectors, and the flagship fight. Some games, it gives you extra scrap or even crew + weapons via risky events, and it is likely you won't have the scrap to upgrade for more blue options, like you would on normal. During the flagship fight, again with lower resources, you are more likely to be overwhelmed by boarders... drone boarders at stage 2, and a swarm of humans at stage 3. To avoid system damage you may have to have stationed crew fight until their death.

I'd say 2-3 mantis for boarding defense (and now useful for manning door + sensor subsystems) would be one of the best investments for fighting the flagship. Two can take out a boarding drone pretty fast, and compared to the next best fighters, rockmen, they have a huge advantage in getting back into the fray after cloning/healing. I wouldn't be surprised if I find they are something you should seek most games, on hard difficulty.

Hacking is tremendously iffy for stage 2 flagship due to the defense drone, but it may still be worth almost always getting and upgrading to level 3. It is extremely efficient/useful for speeding up mid-sector battles, and will make flagship stages 1 and 3 much easier. Just make sure you have weapons capable of piercing 4 shields for stage 2. It may also get you extra scrap in some easier battles, by asphyxiating enemy crews.

Mind control I think is worth getting almost every game, perhaps the biggest reason being to counter enemy mind control (esp. the flagship's). I think only rarely it would be worth upgrading past level 1, level 2 + 3 are no more effective for countering mind control, and overall don't bring that much more utility. Disrupting repairs/crew manning is pretty huge, which you already get from level 1. I think you need stage 3 for a controlled enemy to take out a flagship weapon.

I'm sure there's a lot I missed, I'll add more as I remember, and feel free to add your own thoughts.

As far as augments, they good ones don't change much, the new ion shield is incredibly good value, I think.

Skill farming may, unfortunately, be much more beneficial, as the extra value you get from it is more likely to make the difference between a win or loss.

Here's the breakdown of my energy use in my last win (kestrel C). I'm going to be track, to pick up patterns as to what works and what doesn't.

26 (+1 from Zoltan)
8 shield
6 weapon (halberd beam, dual lasers, ion stunner, ion stunner)
4 engine
3 hacking
3 cloaking
1 mind control
1 oxygen

[itg]

I don't think the strategy is fundamentally different on hard than it is on normal, but there's much, much less room for error on hard.

Regarding your specific points, I don't see defense drones as obsolete at all, but there may be stronger options. Cloaking is my preferred solution to the problem of missiles, and hacking supplements this well. Still, if I see drone control with a defense drone in a sector 2 shop, I'm probably buying it.

In my opinion, medbays are better for boarding defense, while clone bays are better for boarding. It's much less disruptive dealing with boarders by guiding them to the medbay, where you can fight 1v2 and win, than it is letting your guys get slaughtered and fighting the enemy ship with unmanned stations. of course, clone bays make the no-ship boarding events easier, but you should be fine on those either way, with good crew micro.

Which ever one you prefer, door upgrades are more important on hard mode. I usually try to get manned level 2 doors as soon as I have a little breathing room to do it. I pretty much always man doors before shields.

I would never buy mantises purely for boarding defense. The phase 3 zerg rush can be a pain, but you can mitigate it a lot by killing as much crew as possible in the first 2 phases. You don't have to use boarding or dedicated crew-killing weapons to do that. Just aim your lasers at the crew, and try to get as many as you can into the part of the flagship that falls off when you win the phase. If you've got hacking, think about hacking the medbay.

If you can't kill much of the crew for whatever reason, upgraded doors and venting is cheaper than a couple mantises and still sufficiently effective.

I agree that mind control is a very good investment as is hacking.

[Levgre]

Ah yeah, that was my other big draw so far, cloaking's stock rose from normal, maybe even being an always buy on many ships now. Flagship battles are longer, so beyond the huge dodge/defense bonus, thus a 15 second break can be necessary for repairs if your systems take too much damage. Since in my view you rarely want defense drones now, an earlier cloak will make up ground vs missiles.

The problem with leading to your medbay is that can lead to system losses, either them damaging it, or just your crew bonuses. Boarders don't always land in a good spot for guiding them with oxygen loss, boarding drones ofc have no incentive to go to the medbay, and there is the smaller concern that draining a lot of oxygen from your ship may come back to bite you if your oxygen/door system is knocked out.

I don't upgrade doors before shields, I think most of the boarding threats are dealt with pretty easily in sectors 1 + 2, and there's not as much need to man your systems so you can send your whole crew to fight. Verse some enemies they still can't hurt you if you have 0 dodge (much more likely with 2 shields) With some ships I've been getting level 2 shields as soon as I have 50 scrap, as early as mid sector 1. Then you take power away from engine/oxygen vs enemies with higher salvos, until you get your reactor upgraded. I could see manning doors before shields, I'm not sure when the boarders start to get scary, maybe sector 3.

It seems I have an overall different strategy vs the flagship, I try to flat out kill it as soon as possible. Going after the crew means you would be letting the shields and weapons stand longer (I use the hacking to -4 the shields), plus you won't always have a laser arsenal, ions + beams won't do well at killing crew. 2 mantis crew members offset the added difficulty of not crew killing, and it's a relatively small scrap amount considering a system upgrade + 1 reactor can cost 115 if not more. Ofc I usually max out my reactor, anyways, so crew are a nice no energy option. Plus as I said, manning the doors + sensors gives them value even when not fighting. While Mantis suck at repairing overall, they aren't useless, they can either work together or assist a regular repairer at their station.

Of course if I have 8 crew members already I'm not gonna pay scrap to replace them. Humans/Rockmen/Slugs/etc. are not awful at defending (rockmen better than mantis even, in some circumstances).

[itg]

I don't upgrade doors before shields, I think most of the boarding threats are dealt with pretty easily in sectors 1 + 2, and there's not as much need to man your systems so you can send your whole crew to fight. Verse some enemies they still can't hurt you if you have 0 dodge (much more likely with 2 shields) With some ships I've been getting level 2 shields as soon as I have 50 scrap, as early as mid sector 1. Then you take power away from engine/oxygen vs enemies with higher salvos, until you get your reactor upgraded. I could see manning doors before shields, I'm not sure when the boarders start to get scary, maybe sector 3.
.

Oh, I would never suggest upgrading doors in sector 1 or 2. I was thinking more like sector 3 or 4, once your basic defensive needs are met and hoarding scrap is an option.

[LostAlone]

I would suggest that there isn't really a strategy on hard, in the sense that resources are so scarce that you can seldom turn down weapons and subs when you get the chance to grab them, and in that sense you basically get what you are given. When you are crazy awesome and you can win any fight with any random assortment of stuff, then Hard is fun. But if you are used to being more choosy and have developed a more narrow approach to seeking victory, then it isn't.

I can't say I have played all that much hard, because if I want to spend my rec time being slapped around then my girlfriend is more than happy to help me out. But hard does well at ensuring that even the most skillful players still have a challenge.

[project_mercy]

There's strategy on hard, though I would say the largest difference has to do with how you deal with the Flagship. It's different from normal.

BEGIN SPOILER
The missile and laser turrets are attached to the main body of the Flagship, which means you can't just teleport guys over there to disable them. You can still do this for the Ion and beam weapons, but They're somewhat trivial. Considering how irrationally hard it is to successfully board on the flagship, this sorta makes a boarding ship pretty terrible for the final fight unless you have a clone bay. So, functionally if you have a boarding ship, unless you have a bunch of hacking and MC shennanigans, you'll need a clone bay.

Also, the final phase now includes a stupid suicide squad attack by all (but one) remaining rebel on the Flagship, They'll come in two-by-two (hands of blue!) every teleporter cycle to board your ship. Again, if you have a clone bay and full doors, it isn't bad. If you're stuck in one of the 2-bay medbay ships with terrible layouts (which, most 2-bay ships have terrible layouts) this can be problematic. The trick I've been using is what I call "The Pokeman Phase 3", which is where I go in fully defensive, don't even worry about the flag ship, and try to "round up" as many of the Rebels as possible. Then I jump away to deal with them. It helps if you still have a free/open spot (without an ASB) around where you're fighting.

The only bad part about this has to do if you jump into an enemy elite, and it has a clone bay. For some reason (As far as I'm concerned, it's a bug) ANY man who dies on your ship WILL clone on the opposite ship. This means people from completely different fights, different factions even, will suddenly clone on the other ship and everyone is cool with it. It's pretty stupid. Either way, if you jump in and see a ship with a clone bay, you may need to move a second time.
END SPOILER