What are the easiest ways to deal with AI ships when playing as the Mantis Cruiser?
Perhaps the biggest weakness of the Mantis Cruiser (Type A, anyway) is its inability to deal effectively with AI ships. Before Advanced Edition, the general advice was to either improve your weaponry, or use an upgraded teleporter to board the enemy ship and save your boarders just before they suffocate.
Advanced Edition has added several new weapons and systems. Do any of these offer a viable alternative? I'm loathe to spend large amounts of scrap upgrading my weapons, and playing leapfrog with crew seems extremely risky.
One way of looking at it is that the Mantis A is designed for boarding, and has already "spent" scrap on that strategy. Spending further scrap on upgrading weapons to a level where they can take down AI ships seems extremely wasteful, because if you're going to use weapons that powerful, why play as Mantis in the first place?
Basically, I'm looking for a strategy that will allow me to forego upgrading the weakened weapons system if at all possible; otherwise, I'm hoping there's a 1-power weapon in AE that can perform a bit better than the hopeless loadout the ship starts with.
Best Answer
What's already answered are good strategies, but you don't need special augments, crew or systems: with a level 2 teleporter you can beam, damage 1 or 2 (with mantises) bars of a system, and return the assault team just in time before they die. You can't do this for the last point of damage though, so you should go for the shields at some point.
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How do you beat flagship with mantis?
You'll be best playing it as a boarder ship, keeping the Small Bomb ready as back-up \u2013 use it to disable weapons if they're a threat while you're killing the crew, or use it to break the medbay if they have one (in this instance, you're torn between using it at the last minute when crew retreat to heal, or use it early ...How do you play the Mantis ship?
This event can unlock the Mantis Cruiser. This requires all of the following: Being able to kill the enemy crew without destroying the enemy ship. Level 3 Sensors or level 1+ Teleporter....You appear to have won.FTL Unlock Guide: How to Unlock the Mantis Cruiser
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