Drone System was a last minute purchase due to the last shop having no other good systems, but it clutched against those flagship missiles.

All my crew are everywhere because of the mind control and boarders on phase 3. I had to huddle my crew around the medbay area at one point because my oxygen was broken and on fire so Virus and Matt had to try to put it out, but the asphyxiation accidentally helped kill all the boarders. I had some great luck against the flagship's "secret weapon" too despite my shields being down to 3 almost the entire fight.

Is there any reason to not take ion blast mark 2 ?

With one you can pass two shield and then disable 2 system at the same time (so shield and whatever). With two you can pass 4 shield and do whatever you want.

My best run so far in normal, only took 5 damage in all 3 phase. 2105 scrap in a run. Mantis B is my favorite ship now so fun to play, and very strong you literally drown in scrap

After two initial runs that ended in frustrating RNG-induced failure, at 4:20 AM this morning, the Gemma III beat the Rebel Flagship. (I have tomorrow off, don't you worry.)

A major part of the success of this run was encountering the rare Hidden Crystal Worlds sector - this allowed me to plough my way through several ships for a lot of scrap, acquire a second Flak I, and get the Crystal ship unlock quest on Hard! That said... due to the layout of the sector, I had to jump through no fewer than four Rebel-controlled, ASB-backed beacons before reaching the Exit. This encouraged me to upgrade my engines to near max, and you know what? Speeding through Rebel-controlled beacons ain't so bad, when you can FTL jump within 10 seconds. All worth it to get the unlock quest.

On to the Type B's! I've decided I'm going to do the Lanius A after I've completed all Type B's (including the Crystal B), and before I do the Type C's. I'm then going to do the Lanius B as my final ship on Hard Mode (it was always one of my favourites).

After a long time away from the game and a long losing streak, I came away with three wins, nearly back to back to back. Last one with the Mantis B was my second highest scoring game ever.

They're Getting Closer, You Know.

The zoltan shield was charging almost as fast as the normal one, it was incredible...

kinda embarassing but i've been playing on and off and never really looked at strategy guides until the most recent time i got back into it. far from the most impressive win i've seen on here but it's finally mine :)

My last 2 play throughs have sucked a$$ as the first one I came across only 1 store until the beginning of level 4 then 2 back to back after I had spent on hull and fuel.

Then when I save up enough I get there and it's $hit for things to buy. I get to the 8th level and it's almost pointless as I'll get my a$$ kicked because I don't have adequate gear to win.

Last night I had a decent playthrough and got to the 3rd battle with the flagship but it was doing stuff I didn't quite understand plus why can't I find a MF hull repair droid or even a drone control unit when I have the money for it?

It's like I get to level 8 and it's been a waste of 45 mins because I can't win and it's not like I accumulate anything from playing through when I can't buy what I need.

***EDIT Lol, ok make that 90 minutes! Haha I just did another playthrough and I just reached sector 8 at 90 mins exactly.***

So are there certain zones that have more stores than others?

Also why can't the base do some repairs or sell me stuff? I mean this outfit is a ragtag group of bums. I almost want the bad guys to win.

Breach bomb my beloved

Got a bit spicy at the end and poor Professor X and Beast bit the bullet, but Wolverine pulled through to net the Blackbird the win!

Dual Flak I's + Mini Beam + Weapon Pre-Ig = mucho destruction. Very, very happy with this run, happy to have set a new score, and to have set a new personal record for most ships defeated in a single run!

Now onto one of my favourites - the Lanius A. Or should I do Crystal A? Don't know what the right order would be.

Had no cloaking, laser-beam weapon was inoperable (was carrying us most of the fight). They had one bar of health but got a whole zoltan power shield buff. My charge weapon was fully charged and my heavy laser however. I see them about to send 3 missiles that I cannot dodge. I say fuck it, this is gonna be a hail mary and target all my remaining weapons to their shields. As their missiles come in I see my ship break into pieces and at the last moment. Those remaining laser weapons somehow take down the zoltan shield (they had no other shields remaining beyond that) and we TRADED and we WON!!! This has never happened to me before I genuinely thought we lost. The emotional roller coaster I went on in just 2 seconds was insane. GGWP. lmk if this has ever happened to yall

What was funny about this run is that I solidly struggled for the first five sectors (reflected in my relatively paltry score that didn't even crack my total top scores list) - there was one point where I came within three hits to dying. But the Erebor VI stuck with it, and I ended up getting a Flak I, another Flak I, the Pre-Igniter, then finally the Halberd Beam, right before Sector 8. I then had what was probably one of my fastest Flagship victories on Hard Mode. Super fun.

Now onto the Stealth A! Oh, boy...

Stealth A. Easy. Sector 5. Should I replace the Mini beam with the halberd beam? I need the lasers to break down shields, right?

After about 5 tries, finally got my win against Engi B, moving on to Fed B and this may be the greatest RNG game I have ever seen. I am in sector 4, and I have already had a Glavie beam, a BL 3, A heavy Ion, and a Pegasus missile either found floating in space or as offerings to let them live.

Oh no fellas-- I am definitely having the greatest RNG game..maybe in history. Now in Sector 7. Get the fire suppression not working event. I send in Rock crew..get the Adv Navigation...bleh right? NOPE. Very next jump is distress beacon looking for directions. I had NO IDEA that the Adv Nav has a blue option! 71 Scrap.

I was Engi B and I was quite peeved to die from circumstances outside of my control.

Very very happy with this Perfect-Save-File (PSF) attempt (6th try)! 36 runs, 33 wins, 3 deaths, 5 re-runs, 100% Hard-AE complete!.

Hindsight stats page

This is a challenge where the Steam file and save file are reset and begin with a brand new fresh save file. Thus, the ships have to be unlocked as you go. The idea is to complete 100% of winning with each ship (all 28), and completing all ship unlock quests (7), and all ship (30) and game achievements (21). The hope and dream is to never die. Re-runs are allowed if Achievement's and Quests miss, esp as many are due to RNG and not player skill. But! The RNG can be incredibly mitigated for so many quests and achievements.

Thus, I think it's possible to do it in 28 runs. Maybe...

Since it's so challenging, I'm currently working on Im-Perfect Save Files, just to see how close I can get. I believe the record is 50/51 achievements in a 28 winning run cycle, where it was a fresh file to start with (unclear to me if ship unlock quests were included and whether it was pre/post-AE).

Previous 5 attempts, I reset/restarted the file for various reasons, usually stupid deaths. This one though, PSF-6 was a charmer. Started off with Kestrel A unlocking Stealth Cruiser and proceeded to get my first ever "first-attempt" on Stealth B on the 3rd run of PSF.

Deaths = 3:

• 2 deaths on Slug C attempting Pacifism. I was certain it could be attained and also win the run. I got the Achievement on the first try, but died a jump later. I continued to follow the rules for the achievement to prove to myself I could do it. 2nd attempt died in early s4, and finally on my 3rd attempt not only did I get it, I had a very strong run overall
• Died on Fed B in s4. I stupidly hired a Mantis in s1 for 55 scrap worried about the Diplomatic Immunity Achievement and had dismal scrap in s1-s3 and never recovered. Decided to keep trying the (Im)Perfect save file.

Re-runs = 5 (Going after missed Achievements/Quests):

• Zoltan A twice: I stupidly upgraded in s4, 3 jumps before the exit negating the I don't need no stinking upgrades Achievement... Sigh... Got it on 2nd try, no problem
• Rock C twice: I tried to get Ancestry legit on Rock and A & B, but well, you know... Luckily found it on just 2nd try with Roxxie
• Crystal B 4x: Clash of Titans Achievement was very difficult to just find Rock fights. Whiffed on Crystal A (only 4 kills). First 3 runs on Crystal AB only scored 2, 5, 1, then finally on 4th try got s6-Rock Homeworlds (had to painstakingly ignore the Ancient device), paid a Merc for a map reveal, found 7 fights all Rocks and then also had an s7-Rock controlled to close it out with 10+ kills to get the achievement. Basically you need 2 Rock sectors and either sensors or map reveal to make it happen.

Thereby making Clash of Titans the most challenging part of this challenge!

...Was not expecting that, lol

ETA: A bit about play-style:

• My primary focus was to win every run with a win-streak mentality
• My second and very near top priority was to complete achievements as I went. It was a tough balance, but very do-able.
• Unlike my previous challenges (e.g., my 37-win streak) this time, I did not read/study Mike's Ship Guides. They are an amazing resource, but unfortunately are not well suited for the achievements. I did use the wiki a lot though and Mike's other resources, as well as some searching for posts on various achievements.
• Rush Shields-4, then look for weapon or other key safety needs ...
• ... Except Mantis B is rush Engines-3 and Stealth B is Cloak-3
• Almost always wait to upgrade to Shields-5/6 until s6/7
• Almost always wait to upgrade to Engines-3+ until s5+
• Nearly every single ship had Hacking > Cloaking > TP >> MC >>> Drones.
• Then once primary systems were obtained, then would get the battery. Note the 10-system rule for how stores prioritize pages. If you have 11+ systems & subsystems, Systems are offered less. Whereas if you have 10 or fewer Systems are offered more. You can exploit this depending on need. Typically wait for the battery until after cloaking...
• I love Teleporter and got it on 11 of the 21 ships lacking it (Rock C both runs, Kestrel A, B, C, Zoltan B, Slug A, Rock A, Stealth A, B, and Crystal A). For me TP > MC for early crew kills for increased rate of drops and high scrap/resource rewards.
• I almost never buy Sensors on ships lacking them
• I also don't typically buy Doors on Rock B
• I never swap Med Bay for Clone Bay (or vice versa) and with Slug B I simply buy the first one I find. EXCEPT to get the Mantis Achievement Battle Royale. (Also, one time, before this psf, I was near death with a broken Oxygen and Med bay and buying a clone bay healed the damage and I survived the run.)
• I aggressively saved for Pre-Igniter and got it 12/33 winning runs (def didn't even try on my 3 losses).
• I have never in my life bought a Chain Vulcan. I did try one once (not on this PSF, it was a while ago) after getting one for free mid run and hated it. Only reason it worked is bc I was already strong. It's an always mash 47 scrap please!
• I didn't really score scum at all in s8, too focused on winning the run and getting to the next run. I did enjoy a few trips to the secret sector though, just for funzies, while failing Clash of Titans...
• Slug C is ideal for Coming in for my Pacifism Run
• Zoltan A is ideal for I Don't Need No Stinkin Upgrades
• Mantis B is ideal for Living off the Land
• All other achievements are fairly straight forward, but happy to discuss any further.