Subset Games Forum

While playing on the Mantis cruiser B I've noticed how easily I can take out the enemy as I can just teleport in four combat veteran mantis warriors in and sit back. I've got a MASSIVE amount of scrap (Full reactor, full shields, full teleporter, full medbay, full sensors, full engines, full doors, full piloting and upgraded drones) and I've got a Mk 2 defence drone so I can board the enemy weapons, set my drone up (As I've also got the recovery arm) and watch most missiles harmless detonate. Seems OP, but maybe I've got some extreme luck, well I'll find out tommorow when this ship hits the boss >:) Also, on a somewhat related note, can anyone provide me with more info on getting the slug cruiser, as I had the item the wiki stated, but didn't get a blue option (Wiki said slug crewman or level 2 sensors, or which I had the latter, was it because the sensors were disabled, or was it a bug?)
Scratch that about the slug cruiser, was meant to click option two for the blue choice, darn guide wasn't clear.

I wouldn't say op,

I see where your coming from if you get 4 mantis crew to elite soldiers and say you get a few extra crew manning the shields etc you can tear apart enemy ships with ease however

early game you run into a auto drone your helpless all you can do is spam boarding drones or sit and wait for your ftl to charge up, also say you board a ship early on multiple things can happen you can take them down but many bad things can happen,
a missile could hit you teleporter
your crew dies
they have a medbay

But if you dont run into any of these yes you could say your op
as for the slug cruiser, i got the option to follow the quest to the marker and reading you destroy it before it gets away you get it, i did exactly that and nothing happened and i had both a slug crew member and level 3 sensors maybe abug

Haven't tried it yet (still struggling to find the Mantis ship event) but how have you got so much scrap? Do you gain considerably more if the crew dies instead of destroying it? I thought the Engi cruiser + cloak + 2 anti-ship drones + 2 ion guns was OP, so I'd like to see how they compare.

If you can level up every system, then every ship is op^^ And the 4 Man teleporter isn't that op as you can easily destroy most of the enemies and even the boss just always sending 2 or 1 Mantis out. The 4 Man Teleporter just works a little bit faster^^

Maya wrote:If you can level up every system, then every ship is op^^ And the 4 Man teleporter isn't that op as you can easily destroy most of the enemies and even the boss just always sending 2 or 1 Mantis out. The 4 Man Teleporter just works a little bit faster^^

It's hard to tell how much more you get, but i would say 1,25 - 1,5 times more and some more Weapons/Augmentations (however, most times i beat the boss easily, i used the Teleport-tactics pretty early and get all i need within sector 6-7)

Try using the ship on Normal mode and prepare to restart the game several times if you get unlucky.

2 Mantis aren't very powerful. You will have a hard time boarding any ship that has a med station, and until you get a proper weapon your ship will be completely harmless against Zoltan ships or automated ships.

Once you get a reasonably decent weapon (i.e. Burst Laser), 4 Mantis and non-Mantis crew manning some stations, the game becomes very easy. Getting to that point is a lot more difficult than most other ships.

Jeffdonatic wrote:I wouldn't say op,

I see where your coming from if you get 4 mantis crew to elite soldiers and say you get a few extra crew manning the shields etc you can tear apart enemy ships with ease however

early game you run into a auto drone your helpless all you can do is spam boarding drones or sit and wait for your ftl to charge up, also say you board a ship early on multiple things can happen you can take them down but many bad things can happen,
a missile could hit you teleporter
your crew dies
they have a medbay

But if you dont run into any of these yes you could say your op
as for the slug cruiser, i got the option to follow the quest to the marker and reading you destroy it before it gets away you get it, i did exactly that and nothing happened and i had both a slug crew member and level 3 sensors maybe abug

Maybe I was very lucky, but four combat dedicated mantis can jump into a ship weapons or shields and kill the crew in a matter of second, and I've got an S.bomb for medbays if my crew doesn't over power them.

I love this ship.

Ever since I unlocked it I've been wreaking havoc on the universe with very little resistance compared to my last ships. OP? I don't think so. It's just really powerful in the hands of a player who's good at boarding. Key to dealing with auto-drones is Rock crew members. They're excellent at blowing stuff up in a vacuum and living to tell the tale.

That said, you can't expect the RNG to bless you with Rocks at the stores that come up, but you could say the same of weapons on other ships, or shields on the stealth.. I don't think the Basilisk is any better than the rest, just a sharper risk/reward ratio. Intact ships are tasty.

No. Just no. Every ship can be awesome late game. Mantis B relies a LOT on luck in the early sectors. You can't kill drone or Zoltan ships, so if you get even a few of either you can become gimped pretty easily. If you can't get some weapons and more crew to power that 4 man teleporter early on, you're SOL. It's a much higher risk/reward than other ships.

I'd say its a top 5 ship, Carnelian is better in every way save starting shields, Red-Tail is better since you don't have to rely on luck all that much. Rock B is pretty impressive despite the lack of airlocks, and I guess people really like the starting two ships as well. I beat the first phase of the boss with 15 in my reactor, 2 shields, 3 in weapons, and lately acquired stealth; so there's certainly something to be said for non-crystal teleporting.

I suppose I'll have to leave this at extreme luck, but this beat the game with around 75% hull, where my only actual attack was to board (Then hull smasher a room to get to the next phase once shields were down, for the third phase I used both the hull smasher and the ion to take down the zoltan field quickly)). But because of how the AI will, at least in my expiriance send out it's crew to stop you from destroying a system before the person is fully healed means that they get killed by four mantis. Upgrading the teleporter to rank 2 (I think that works) negates the auto drone problem as you can beam the team back before they suffocate, though I admit Zoltans will be a pain, but unless they've got missiles or alot of shots then the starting two shields should in theory negate most of what will be thrown at you so you can FTL away, besides, if you're so worried about Zoltans you should be able to avoid their sectors. I suppose it's not really OP, but if you get the right crew and equipment it can be near unstoppable.