Best way to earn scrap?

[Darkelve]

The best way I found:
get long Range sensors + Scrap Recovery arm in the first two sectors if you are able to.

Of course, this is random so it is up to luck. But I got lucky yesterday (on Easy) and found both Long Range Sensors AND a scrap recovery arm in sector ONE (or I got one of them start of sector 2, my memory is fuzzy).

When I got to the boss, everything was fully maxed out except for the Engines.

If you have a good ship, long-range sensors also mean you can get a lot of extra scrap in sector 8 *before* taking on the flagship.
You just obliterate as many ships as you can before the flagship gets too close and invest the extra scrap into systems or even a store if you can find one.

[MadAndy]

I'm actually yet to use teleporter, never seem to have enough crew! I beat the boss by having cloaking and hitting it HARD. I was packing 2xBurst II and 1xBurst III - a total of 9 damage per attack. Cloaked during the burst and hit the shields first round, leaving it fully exposed for the next round.

For earning scrap my main tricks are to avoid shops in the early game - you don't have enough money to buy good stuff anyway, and to visit nebula areas as much as possible. The Rebel Fleet follows more slowly so you can explore more.

[Max_Damage]

Ways to acumulate scrab without boarding:
-Long range sensors. get into all ship encunters, farm nebulas: the long sensors show you areas with plasma storm so you can avoid them entirely;
-droid recovery arm;
-scrap recovery arm;
-suffocate ships. There is a slug ship(interceptor or fighter) with a separate O2 room. hit it and wait. Also works really well against mantis ships especially if you have a breach bomb or breach missile. THey will have to repair breach + O2 and mantis are really crap at repairing.

I won my first game yesterday with the above tips! Kestrel layout A.

[cometbus]

YES!!! Finally beat the boss without teleporters or cloaking!

[Ranarius Webfoot]

Easy or Normal?
I first beat the boss on Easy without teleporter, because I had a really good set of weapons - Ion Bomb on repeat to the cockpit, then 7x pew-pew-lazorz.

[UltraMantis]

NIce work cometbus. And you won in that clunker of a Nisos too. Congratz!

[cometbus]

Thanks! Yeah, that was a Normal run, and what really helped was lucking into that Burst Laser III in the first sector which allowed me to completely outgun early opposition. Together with the Dual Lasers, I was able to get 7 shot volleys if timed right, so I could completely disable enemy weapon systems right away.

Then the luck continued and I actually got two Scrap Recovery Arms which stacked together to drastically improve my salvaging, allowing me to stockpile enough scrap to fully upgrade the Artillery Beam. Once I bought that Defense 2 Drone, I was basically invincible!

I had a 3 or 4 man crew for most of the run, though, and that got really hectic at times!

[Ranarius Webfoot]

You got TWO, and THEY STACK????
Aw, MAN!
(I think I've only gotten one ever... it was given for free in an event. Then I exploded. Oh well. I also saw one in a shop once, but it was like Sector 6, so it wouldn't have paid for itself... argh!)

[Nardman]

I actually managed to procure 3 scrap recovery arms on a run I had in my Basilisk...ended up with a score in the high 5400s. It was awesome.

[SDEngineer]

YES!!! Finally beat the boss without teleporters or cloaking!

Certainly easier with both of those, but definitely doable.

My first win on the Osprey (third win overall) I wound up on the boss with the following weapons: Burst Laser mk II x 2, Glaive Beam.

Ridiculously fast victory, with no cloaking or teleporter needed.