Overview
Ever wondered what you can do to prevent your ship getting hit by a missle every few battles? This guide will explain everything you can do to protect yourself, and will describe the reliability and effectiveness of each strategy.Note: This guide is pre-Advanced Edition, and will not cover topics such as hacking or shield drones. However, both are viable options as missile deterrents.
Overview
If you never invest in some sort of missile defense for your ship in the course of your playthrough, I can almost guarantee you will get blown to pieces when you fight the rebel flagship. There are several different strategies you can use to defend your ship, each with different pros and cons. Depending on the ship you are piloting, some will be more viable options than others.
Engine upgrades
No matter what ship you are using, or what specific missile deterrent strategy you choose to employ, you should upgrade your engines throughout the course of your playthrough. The reasons for this are twofold: 1) Good dodge chance means fewer lasers hitting your shields, which will result in only 2 or 3 bars of shields becoming very effective. 2) Most defense strategies are NOT fullproof. At some point, a missile will get through, and dodge chance will help you survive those attacks.
A good rule of thumb for keeping your engines up to par is to always have your engines within one or two power bars or your shields. In other words, you should upgrade them side by side. They are complementary systems- you will need them both to survive. No engines, and missiles will kill you. No shields, and lasers will kill you. But with a good mix of both, little will make it through to your ship. Finally, prioritize manning your engines over manning the shields. The reason for this is that, aside from the final battle, your shields will normally have time to recharge on their own between enemy weapon volleys. The extra dodge chance is more valuable, except when you are facing an attack drone or asteroids. Keep this in mind when placing crew members.
Defense drones
Now it’s time to pick a main line of defense against missiles. One fairly easy strategy to use to is equip your ship with defense drones. A drone control system only costs 80 scrap (little compared to more expensive systems, such as cloaking) and comes with a drone when you buy it. I believe the drone you get is random, but I’ve gotten the defense drone multiple times. The mk.1 defense drone requires 2 power to run, so overall, this will be around a 110 scrap investment.
Once powered, the drone will circle your ship and shoot down incoming missiles. The drone rarely misses, however, it has a cooldown time between shots. This means that if the enemy ship fires more than one missile at you at once, only one of them will get shot down. This is where having some engine power comes in handy. One thing to be aware of is that your defense drone can actually be destroyed if it gets hit by an enemy laser. So, periodically check your systems to make sure it is powered when the steel starts to hit the fan.
Is a Mk.2 defense drone worth the power consumption and cost? Usually not, because it may destroy a laser and ignore a missile, when your shields and engines could have protected you from the laser. However, if you acquire a mk.2 version without having to pay for it, feel free to install it and see if you like it. This is a game about trial and error, where experimentation is part of the fun.
Cloaking
A good alternative to using drones, or even a system to use in conjunction with them, is cloaking. Instead of blowing up enemy missiles, you power your cloak to add 60 to your evade chance. Be aware that without having decent engine power, you will still occasionally get hit even while cloaked. The major downside of relying on cloaking to dodge missiles is the cooldown time. The more power you pump into your cloak when you use it, the longer the cooldown time. Even on the lowest power level of only one bar, an enemy will usually have time to fire a second missile before you can get the cloak powered back up (assuming you power the cloak to dodge the first missile, not just delay it). However, unlike with drones, the cloaking system is indefinitely reusable, so you never have to worry about running out of uses. Also, the cloak will help dodge everything that has been fired at you, so if a ship uses volleys of multiple missiles, you can (hopefully) evade them all. At a base cost of 150 scrap, this system is very useful if you can save up for it.
How much should you upgrade your cloaking system? It depends on the charge time for your main weapons. If you use rapid fire weapons like ion cannons and heavy lasers, long cloak time will usually go to waste, because firing a weapon while cloaked (without the stealth weapons augmentation) will drain your cloak bar significantly. However, if you rely on long-charging weapons like the glaive beam or hull missiles, you will need that extra cloak time to stay undamaged while charging your weapons. There is nothing worse than getting within 2 seconds of charging your main gun only to take a hit to your weapons system, and have to repair and charge it all over again.
Weapon pre-igniter
The simplest way to not get hit by missiles is to never give your enemy the chance to fire them. This can be accomplished with the weapon pre-igniter augmentation. Having this equipped instantly charges all powered weapons right after each FTL jump, allowing you to fire at the enemy before they have a chance to damage your ship. The longer your weapons’ charge times, the more useful this is. The main downside to this augmentation is that it is rather difficult to acquire. You will be lucky to find it for sale at a store at all, and if you do, you usually will not have the 120 scrap required to buy it. The difference between buying this and buying something such as cloaking is that you cannot reliably find it being sold, so even though it is technically cheaper, you cannot plan for when to purchase it. That being said, if you do find the weapon pre-igniter for sale and you have at least 120 scrap, consider your current situation carefully, as passing it up could be a big mistake. Of course, if you have 2 fuel and 50% hull integrity, those needs should be given first priority.
Zoltan shield
The Zoltan Shield is, of course, only available to Zoltan ships, but it provides a similar function to the weapon pre-igniter. This special shield will block 5 units of damage each battle, including missile damage, and can only be recharged by an FTL jump. This allows you to take one or two volleys of enemy fire before you even worry about taking any damage, giving you time to at least damage the enemy weapons and hopefully disable whatever missiles they have. Be aware that, while very effective early on, the Zoltan Shield will become less useful as enemy weapons become more powerful. So, around sector 5 or so, you should consider investing in a defense drone or a cloaking system to increase your survivability for after the shield goes down.
In conclusion…
Thank you for taking the time to read my guide. I hope the lessons I have learned will help you get more enjoyment out of this fun and challenging game. Feel free to post additional ideas or other comments below.