How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

General discussion about the game.
zequeins
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2012 9:06 am

How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

Postby zequeins » Thu Oct 11, 2012 9:20 am

And by that, I really mean 'other ways to beat the Rebel Flagship'.

I just beat the Rebel Flagship on Easy using the Crystal Cruiser type A, by having 2 of my Crystal crews board and kill the ship's crew one by one. Seriously, I would say the Crystals are the best boarders in the game, because Lockdown prevents anyone escaping to Medbay or reinforcements coming. Once the crews are dead save for the laser gunner, it's a simple matter to dismantle the ship piece by piece (Pilot, then Shield), and gunning it down with Burst Laser + Hull Laser.

My point is, this is perhaps the 'easiest' way, helped by the fact that I had the Crystals as crews. I thought of another way, of dropping a Fire Bomb on their Medbay and sending 2 Rockmen to stomp their Medbay flat (there's no way 4 humans can win against 2 Rockmen in the midst of a blaze - or can they?). But as you can see, these tactics are very reliant on specific species and/or weapons. How am I supposed to beat the Rebel Flagship without any Crystal, Fire Bombs or Rockmen then? Are there any 'must-have' weapons for the fight?

Some problems I've encountered when I tried other ways than the one I mentioned (I haven't tried the Rockmen + Fire Bomb, it's still in theory):
- Non-beam weapons often miss, making disabling their systems somewhat tricky. Best chance might be to aim for their Piloting with a Bomb or Missile, and overwhelm their shields with laser shots; hope I got 2 lasers installed for that task.
- The crews will surely fix damaged systems back to full capacity (which definitely will make phase 2 harder), and if they're kept alive they might board the ship in phase 3. The only problem is their Medbay, which can fit 4 people and might need to be taken out first in a fight (thus why Lockdown or Fire Bomb + Rockmen sounds really good in theory). How should I kill the crews when I have none of those?
Derakon
Posts: 111
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:05 am

Re: How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

Postby Derakon » Thu Oct 11, 2012 5:12 pm

You need bombs or missiles to target the medbay -- bombs for preference since they don't deal hull damage. If you get a chance to get an Ion Bomb or Breach Bomb Mk 2, get it -- the ion bomb locks out the medbay for 20s guaranteed, while the breach bomb destroys it and creates a breach, which slows down the repairers since they have to clear the breach before they can fix the medbay.

Then you just destroy their medbay and teleport your crew into a size-2 room (trying to fight in the medbay itself is probably not a good idea since you'd be outnumbered, effectively taking twice as much damage as you deal). Enemy crew won't cycle out if the medbay is damaged, even though there's 9 other crewmembers with full health, so you can slowly kill them off. Keep your bombs ready to go so that as soon as the medbay gets partially repaired you can bomb it again (bombing a system while it's red doesn't reset the repair meter, though it can be useful for hurting the crew there / resetting the ion timer / adding more breaches).

Remember that you can't retrieve your crew if the flagship is cloaked, so don't get too greedy about pulling them back. As long as you kill off at least one enemy crewmember, your boarders have made progress; pull 'em back, heal 'em up, and send 'em back out. If they get low on health and the ship cloaks, they're rather likely to die. Of course if you damage the cloaking system then it won't last as long.
GoldenShadowGS
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 6:38 am

Re: How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

Postby GoldenShadowGS » Thu Oct 11, 2012 5:49 pm

If you don't want to be fancy, just get 2 ion bursts and a highly upgraded drone system on a ship that can hold 3 drones. Have a defense drone for missile defense, an anti-ship or beam drone for doing hull damage(this adds up really fast) and a hull repair drone for repairs between phases, since you will take some damage without boarding the weapon rooms. Keep your crew at their stations and use the extra manpower to help speed up repairs to fix battle damage. A beam drone vs the boss thats had his shields disabled will slice it up very quickly.
zequeins
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2012 9:06 am

Re: How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

Postby zequeins » Fri Oct 12, 2012 8:08 am

Thanks for the replies.

So in short, bombs / missiles are an absolute necessity in this fight, due to the shields. I'll try fighting the Rebel Flagship using less powerful ships again later (just beat it on Normal with the Crystal Cruiser type B; a boarding party composed of 3 Crystals and 1 Mantis slices things up real fast)
UglyMug
Posts: 46
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:09 am

Re: How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

Postby UglyMug » Fri Oct 12, 2012 11:25 am

Meh, the reason why people think they need boarders, missiles, and bombs to beat flagship is because they generally make two missteps.

1. They max shields instead of engines.

2. They fail to take out the helm before pounding the shields.

The absolute best thing for the flagship are attack drones. Don't waste a slot or energy on a defense drone, double up on attack drones. Your targeting priority for weapons is helm>shields. Heavy Lasers are better then beams since they have short cycle times and will allow more salvos with Burst lasers. Plus they concentrate damage on a single system instead of spreading it out. Unless you're using a mk III burst laser, then might as well use a Halberd or even a Glaive.

Also spend the scrap to upgrade your own helm so it can take a hit without going down, as well as your O2 for the second stage to counteract breeches from boarding drones. So you don't have to fight them in vacuum.
Derakon
Posts: 111
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:05 am

Re: How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

Postby Derakon » Fri Oct 12, 2012 5:17 pm

My first victory with the game (on Normal, even) was with a ship that just loaded up with burst and heavy lasers and went to town; no particular strategy beyond "target shields, then target weapons/drones/etc." Firing 8-10 shots per volley means that even an evasive ship won't be able to dodge everything. So you don't have to have bombs or missiles to win.

However, the second and third phases are drastically easier if the enemy ship has only 1 crewmember left; in that situation you do need some reliable way to take out their medbay. And given the number of crew the flagship has to repair damaged systems, you basically have to have something shield-piercing to do that; otherwise by the time you manage to get the medbay damaged they'll have repaired the other systems you shot out (shields, cockpit) to get to the medbay in the first place.
Donavan
Posts: 42
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:19 pm

Re: How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

Postby Donavan » Fri Oct 12, 2012 5:22 pm

Keep shooting him and eventually he will die!
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Mathias
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2012 2:41 pm

Re: How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

Postby Mathias » Fri Oct 12, 2012 6:34 pm

I just had my first win last night after a handful of losses. It was super easy to, so let me share what I learned.

This was in the Red Tail.

First early on a defense drone is a must to save scrap. Missiles do a bunch of damage and cause problems. If you get one of these ASAP, you will have more scrap by the end since you won’t need to repair as often.

With all my extra scrap, I got a cloaking system (with the augment to fire through it) and had my engines upgraded (5) to by the time I got to the boss.

I also had a Missile system and a breach bomb (weapons were at 5) in addition to Burst Laser 1 and Basic laser 1. I could either use lasers when there were no shields or use the missile and bombs to take out key systems.

Shields were at 3. I also had a teleporter.

Sounds like a lot of stuff, but I had enough scrap on Normal to do it this time.

Basically the battle was cake. Cloak to avoid his missiles. Missle/Bomb his missile system and Ion (or just teleport into them). Then kill the shields and finish him off with lasers.

Phase two, repeat phase 1, but cloak to avoid every other drone attack and rely on your high evasion to dodge the rest. Don’t use your missiles, but only your bombs this time.

Phase three, is basically phase 2 but easier. Cloak to avoid every other the super weapon volley and your evasion and shields will get you through the others, use your lasers (or missiles if you have enough) to take out his super shield. Then you can either bomb/missile him to death or just board with 2 mantises and wipe him out (after killing his 2 boarders).

Honestly I was shocked at how easy it was when previously I had such a hard time. The key came down to evasion, cloaking, and missile/bombs. With those things you should be able to do it without major trouble.
xdiesp
Posts: 109
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2012 9:39 pm

Re: How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

Postby xdiesp » Fri Oct 12, 2012 10:09 pm

Phase 1
- Beam your boarders to the cannon 3, the one which shoots missiles. Cloak (lvl 1) through its first barrage. When the boarders are done with it, go kill cannon 1 and 2. Leave cannon 4 alone.
- Damage the sickbay with either a bomb, or gathering all your weapon power. Then teleport your boarders in the oxygen\doors room and kill a couple crewmen. Keep the sickbay under fire, or the crewmen will run away from you.
- Reroute the boarders to the shield room.

Phase 2
- Set up a defense drone 1 to kill those pesky boarding drones as they fly to you. If you don't have one, beam your boarders to the drone room and waste it.
- Beam your boarders to cannon 3, again. Cloak (lvl 3) through its first barrage and hopefully you will also avoid the first power surge. When they are done with it, finish off Cannon 2 and the drone room (if you haven't already done so).
- Keep using cloak (lvl 1) for power surges as soon as the little droids appear.
- Beam everyone to the shield room.

Phase 3
- Use an attack or beam drone 1, together with weapons to bring down the zoltan shield.
- Cloak (lvl 3) through the first missile barrage and hopefully you will avoid the first power surge as well.
- Beam your boarders to cannon 3 and 2.
- Bring everyone to the shields room.
- But keep an eye on systems repairing themselves, or the shields going back up. You might have to repeat some boardings and shootouts.
Kenshkrix
Posts: 51
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2012 9:00 pm

Re: How do you beat the Rebel Flagship?

Postby Kenshkrix » Sat Oct 13, 2012 3:12 am

The fastest I have ever killed the boss recently, I was in the Vortex.
Weapons were Pegasus, Burst Mk2, Burst Mk2
Drones were Antiship 1, Antiship 1, Antiship 2
Augmentations were 2 automated reloaders and a scrap recovery arm
One can only imagine how evil Burst Mk2 would be with 3 automated reloaders...
I started off after stealth by releasing the drones and firing the burst Mk2s at his shields a few seconds later, utterly destroying his shield room, then I fired pegasus at his helm, fired the bursts again, and then the drones killed him. The second and third phases were very similar. I took maybe 5-6 hull damage from missiles/boarding drone, but I didn't need a medbay or door controls or a teleporter or oxygen anyways.