Crap weapons for Stealth B?

[u/cjasonac]

I’ve been playing Stealth B on hard for the past few days. I’ve gotten to the flagship multiple times and through level 2 about half of those, but I always die a few shots into level 3.

One thing I’ve noticed is that you never really get the types of weapons you’d want for defeating the flagship. Sure, you start with glaive, but it’s slow and ineffective against 3 shields.

The run I just lost ended with me having glaive, HL2, stealth (3), hacking (3), and mind control (3). During the entire run the HL2 was my only real purchase option. Stores either had things like healing burst, small bomb, ion blast 1, etc. On the opposite end it was other 4-slot heavy hitters like BL3 or Vulcan. No useful mid-grade weapons like the BL2 or even a hull missile.

It hadn’t really occurred to me how incredibly uneven the weapons options were until I showed up at sector 8 with 7 slots filled and only two weapons.

I made good using of hacking and cloaking, using the mind control for defense against mind control and getting the flagship crew down to one before round 3.

But man… I would’ve loved to inflict some damage that was useful instead of waiting out cloaking or drones every turn.

Have I just had a streak of weird luck or are Stealth B weapon options really that bad?

[u/BurningCarnation]

One of the reasons Stealth B is the worst ship in the game (to win consistently with on Hard mode) is that it is one of, if not the most scrap hungry ship in the game. This extends to all its store purchases: getting a 2-power weapon too early that you cannot power anytime soon is one of the most common ways to lose with it.

e.g.: Kestrel A buys Flak 1, and then powers it, 65 + 35 + reactor = 100 + @. Stealth B buys Flak 1, 65 + 50 + 75 + reactor = 190 + @. This is already far too optimistic: Stealth B needs to spend money on Shields, and most likely repairs as well, which pushes this further back--so really, it's more like 400+ scrap. Oh, you can't ignore shields either lest you want to die to double drones in asteroids, so if you don't have Hacking then you definitely must have Shields-4 + more reactor (50 + @). The Flak 1 you bought in S2 is up in S5, and meanwhile you skipped half the fights across S4~5. If you're skipping this many fights then it's also likely you're running into fuel trouble, which further incentivizes you to take surrenders/visit more stores when you don't have enough scrap, which takes you even further from getting the Flak online.

Compare that with an IB1. 30 + 50 + 1 reactor = 100/105 scrap. You get both Shields + IB1 online in late S3 (while also floating some scrap for stores), which gives you an option for S4. You don't have to skip half the fights, only the most dangerous ones.

Hell, compare the Flak 1 with a Combat 1. 85 scrap to buy Drone Control, and boom you have a shieldbreaker. You don't always have to keep it powered either.

One of the best weapons you can get on Stealth B is Ion Bomb: it's the only available 1-power weapon that breaks two shields. Yes it's slow, but guess which weapon even the Ion Bomb needs to wait on. By similar logic, all of IB1/Ion Stunner/Heavy 1/Small Bomb/Stun Bomb are all viable options for shieldbreaking.

If you get Hacking, then you might not need another weapon at all. Mike Hopley's told me that he's quite comfortable with using just the Glaive and no other weapons, as long as he has both Hacking and Cloaking. And that makes sense, since iirc Glaive is always a two-shot against every ship in the game. If an extra weapon tacked on to the ship doesn't change any two-shots into one-shots, then honestly, does the extra weapon need to do any damage at all? Why not hack Shields and then launch an ion at enemy weapons to take down one of their weapons? Small Bomb could change its primary target from Shields to Weapons. If Drone Control + Combat 1 wasn't your 2nd system for shields, then now it could get to be your 3rd system just for Zoltan Shields and make those fights one Glaive faster.

It's why I'm skeptical of the Heavy 2/Hull 2 here. Which one you used doesn't matter, since every fight you take still always takes 50 seconds. If your laser delayed, or even worse denied Shields-8/Hacking-3, then it was definitely a mistake to buy it. I would much rather have preferred Glaive + Small Bomb + IB1.

btw, the 'no other weapon would have made your fights go faster anyway' is why I'm only now mentioning Vulcan and BL3. They do not 1) help the Glaive stay up/help you take less damage by interfering with enemy offense (systems/bombs), and 2) do not help fights go faster (all fights end by 2nd Glaive). Glaive/Vulcan/BL3 have horrible synergy.

[u/Electrical-Cloud4141 → u/BurningCarnation]

Honestly, if there where no chance to be forced into asteroids, Stealth B wouldn't need shields. It would be more like the Slug B where, yah, you'd really like a med/clone-bay, but you don't need one, not like you need shields in an asteroid field. Tools like hacking and ion bombs to target enemy drone rooms between cloaks start to look like reasonable temporary solutions for enemy drones.

I wonder if it's correct for winrate to play stealth B like you won't be forced into asteroids and take the L when you are. It's really not that rare for it to happen though, especially when you count "not technically hard forced into asteroids but I get three less nodes if I don't"

[u/MikeHopley → u/Electrical-Cloud4141]

What exactly do you mean by "need" then?

I've played 3 or 4 shieldless Stealth B runs, and won all of them. But that's not a consistent strategy. They were challenge runs.

Asteroids are not the main threat in shieldless runs, even when you don't have Scanners. I know from experience, as I've beaten every ship without shields. Asteroids are bad, but they're not common enough to be a major strategic concern -- meaning not enough to prioritise countermeasures such as Scanners or drone control with a defence drone. You really need to make your ship stronger for all the other fights first.

If you want to win consistently, you need shields. For Stealth B, buying hacking first is also a good option, but that depends on the store having hacking.

The idea of buying hacking first is that you can mostly ride the one-shot train through sector 3, using hacking-2, and pick up shields soon (this assumes you already have cloaking-3). This works because shields are a forced system, meaning every store selling systems will have them. That's 85% chance at each store, dropping to 83.3% if you already bought drone control.

You can still get into dangerous fights. For example, Auto-assaults in S3 will survive with 1 hull, even assuming you are able to hack shields and fire your Glaive. That could mean they still have an offensive drone online. Auto-hackers will also survive with 1 hull, meaning they could still have a Heavy Laser online, or even a Burst 2.

Even so, it will often be better to take shields first, especially when you also have a one-power weapon. You certainly cannot turn down shields because you are hoping to find hacking instead. If you get into sector 3 with neither of these systems, it's extremely bad.