Game is broken on easy. There are no choices.
Every game in Crawl is different because of actually playable different characters.
Here, there are few differences in good builds, as far as I can predict after my third try and first win.
There are some nice things there, albeit not in the gameplay...
If you move away one of those energy giving dudes away from the cloak tile while the cloak is on, the timer drops to the lower energy level one. Cant exploit it. It shows that the devs actually had a beta test with people who arent complete morons.
Strategic win guide:
early birds get the worms or something
shield +1 - 50s
energy +1 - 20s // +2 is too much yet, just turn off oxygen in combat
engines +2 - 45s
crew +1 - 40/45/65s or free
xp exploit - find a ship with 1 or 2 energy weapons that wont pass your shileds, park yourself in combat and wait till 3 of your crew reach level 2 in shields (xp increase on restores), engines and steering (xp increase on enemy whiffs). Takes about 10-20 minutes, let FTL run on your second screen or smoke something... Engines and steering give on level 2 each 5% more evasion! Now you have 2 shields and 40% evasion, enough for the Endboss.
energy +2 - 45s
midgame the game opens up a bit (seemingly...)
guns - best things first, you'll need to kill shit, rockits and lazors, you'll see what the vendors have or what you find, fireweapons are shit, continuous lazors are sweet, you need some lazor with 3 shots, your first one will do
drones - seems like an expensive version of guns... didnt try much
crew teleport - aah, tempting, but is a waste of resources in a crucial time of game , >150s (75s + 30s, without upgrade too slow, ~50 for energy) to get it running, plus 2 crew members
all for what? some extra creds for the few ships that are capturable? and additional time in combat for enemy ships that have medbays... no thanks, get some firepower
now, endgame
you need 2 things for complete breakage
cloak 150s (gives you that first shot with that sweet rocket to the enemy balls (guns), upgarde it depending on how long your guns need to load )
weapon preheater 120s (gives you that second free shot without retaliation, probably securing untouched wins till the endboss)
auto reloader 60s (15% less time for reloads... meh but hey, its 60s...)
generally jump as much as you can (nebulas..) but consider that every lost crewmember are wasted credits that could have went to more gunpower...
accept surrender only if the reward is really good, like 6 fuel, 6 rockets, 20 scraps (on easy)
the zoltan should optimally give energy where its
always needed, that would be for either guns or shields, anything else is suboptimal
and the game is too random, you cant really recoup your losses, every loss is not just a loss, its a missed upgrade and lost time! its a
worse negative feedback loop than losing units in panzer general, not very roguelike
Combat (is shit) win guide:
shoot the enemy weapons... win
pause quickly at the start to activate weapons (what a retarded shit came up with that idea, why not fuckin pause it automatically...)
waste only ~1 rocket, the very first shot ( typically, even enemies with 2 shields wont manage to recover the damage to shoot back while you only need to slam them with your über laser with 3 shots... )
cloak ^^
find that awesome preheater...
Mirco (is retarded) win guide:
get doors +2 (+3 optional, 60 fucking bucks... )
vacuum and wait in small rooms if outnumbered, fall back to medbay
vacuum and wait in big rooms if you outnumber them
with teleporter +2 you should be able to beam back and forth easily if you land in small rooms and fight inferior numbers
run and dance on doors for time
dont forget that you are in combat, enemy ships can teleport away, get blown up by you, asteroids, fires, micro combat and god knows what else, every lost crewmember is a missed upgrade!
somewhere late in sector 7, my level 2 captain got killed in some shitty event, got replaced by butters the slug........... lost 5% evasion!!!! fuckers... had to buy it back
killed the endboss with that thing (had like 700 credits), all 3 fights, goddamn, what is this? megamen? fuck!
Now, on to "normal" for me... but I think the game is too random if you dont play an optimal build.
