Yet, once you've beaten it, it suddenly becomes much more common. Because beating it means you really started to get a 'feel' of that game. It doesn't go back to look absurdly random...

It still seems way less random comparing to when I started playing it, but still... it's goddamn hard to be able to upgrade all needed systems... and sometimes the randomness of the game is a prick, eaving you no chance whatsoever...

The "needed systems" are not that numerous. They're basically : shields at 3, cloaking at 1 (and yet some people invest more in engines), and some good weaponery depending on your strategy and ship type (you've got to be able to disable a 4-level shield, protected with a drone... some go for brute force, others go for teleported bombs). This last part is very open, once you've got good protection. Especially if you've got a teleporter, even level 1, to quickly take out the only dangerous weapon of the flagship.

It's still random, and winning is not systematic. But after a while, you almost always reach the flagship. And with the above, you stand a very good chance. Don't try to max out everything - you wouldn't have enough energy to power it all simultaneously anyway.

I still don't know what cloackin is good for: it still isn't up long enough to make a huge difference to me.

Precisely, the trick is to keep it short.

The flagship's real dangerous weapons are : his missile launcher (easy to disable with a teleported crew, although less immediate when you've got to break through a zoltan shield first), his phase 2 special weapon (drone swarm), his phase 3 special weapon (some sort of projectile blast). The special weapon strikes are announced by "power surge" detection. That is when you must cloak. It has to be short, in order to just protect you from these power attacks, and to recharge between them. If you sync your short cloaks right, you have nothing to fear from them. And with enough shields and evasion, you have nothing to fear from the regular weapons - except the missiles if you didn't destroy its launcher yet. So, getting a good protection from the flagship is not that difficult.

Getting weapon combinations that harm the flagship is more tricky, but fortunately, there's a huge diversity of possible approaches there. And with decent protection (and staying attentive to power surges), you've got all the time in the world.


And if you asked about the usefulness of the cloak system in general : long cloaking allows you to recharge your weapons while your opponent's weapons don't. It offers you the first shot, and, on the long run, slows down his firing rate relatively to yours. But in my opinion, against the flagship, it's better to reduce the cloaking device's power down to 1.

Thanks for the info, but I find myself even more lost: I hardlya manage to keep my systems upgraded enough but now I have to buy a cloack AND teleporter to have a chance?

sigh...

Some people do without. In my opinion (I may not be a good enough player), cloak is obligatory. Teleport isn't, but helps a real lot. You don't need to upgrade them much, as level 1 is enough to use them efficiently against the flagship. Even though each upgrade above is also armour against damage : a disabled cloaking system during a flagship power attack is bad news.

But maybe you spend too much on systems that are not necessary, like maxing up both weaponery and drone systems ? Also, I still play on "easy", which offers more resources to spend. Most of times, I reach the flagship with spare scrap.

Are you sure that you explore as much as possible, between sector jumps ? There is NO benefit in jumping to the next sector when the rebel fleet is far behind you (your advance doesn't carry over to the next sector, I think). The best way to play is to go to every planet you can, and jump to the next sectors when the rebel fleet is really just about to reach you. In the next sector, you'll have automatically regained your advance anyway.

I never max out on weapons and drone, because I don't have enough scrap for that.
And fuel can quickly become a problem too.

No no. Don't be afraid to explore : between the looted fuel and scrap and encountered stores, it's really not hard to keep the engine running. Really, I don't know if it's your case, but one of my early mistakes was to not maximize exploration.

I'll try more of that then! ;)

Tried unlocking the last achievment of the Zoltan ship (29 power atthe same time) even tried a bit with the stealth cruiser.

I'm sorry but this game is too stupidly hard/random, it's getting to the point where I get no fun from it. :/

I'm sorry, but the game is extremely easy, and especially after all the hints here, you should do fine. Whenever I fire up the game now, I win 9/10 EASILY with most ships, and the 1 of 10 is me making a dumb mistake like letting half my crew suffocate or something.
Now I need to find selfmade challenges like trying not to take any damage from the endboss without a cloak.
The Zoltan achievement is first not hard, just find another Zoltan at the shops, and second completely pointless if you already have the other two so why bother or moan about it.

The game is NOT easy (on normal, because on easy it's a joke, this game need a real normal difficulty), so STFU and don't bother bumping this thread if it's to downright insult people.

Well I did say I am sorry!

But if it's a joke on easy, how can it be "too stupidly hard" on normal for you, the difference isn't that big.

Well I most certainly feel quite a difference.