STFC Knowledge Base

The Mantis

The Mantis

The Mantis is a ship which debuffs other ships. This means you can use it to give yourself an advantage in any combat situation you find yourself in. It will decrease the crit chance, crit damage, and shots per round of the ship it targets. In addition, it will also delay the weapon fire by one round and trap the ship in the system its in, as it will not be able to warp.

You need Actian Venom, which you farm off of hostiles. To get the the Actian systems to farm the hostiles to get the venom, you will need Ancient Beacons. These will be collectible daily in the Mantis section of the refinery.

Farming Actian Hostiles

When you enter an action system, you will see Actian Chrysalises and Actian Apex. Before you kill anything else, in a best situation you will kill one each of the three that give you buffs. These last for five minutes after you kill something, and are automatically applied to your ship after the kill. The one circled by green gives you 100% extra shots, by orange increases your crit by 100%, and by yellow increases crit damage by 50%.

Once you have these buffs, you can hunt any other Actian in the system, but the Apex have significantly more Actian Venom, and should become your focus. The only problem with this is they are both stronger and interceptors, so you're going against the combat triangle by fighting them.

As far as crews go, you can use a normal hostile crew, or go with a crew that will increase loot like Beverly(c)/Five of Eleven/(Stonn/Four of Eleven). Your goal should be to fill your cargo before blowing up.

The rewards from these are used in the Mantis Refinery (see below).

Best Farming Crew G4

As you enter late game, it will become better to use your G4 ships to farm Mantis loot instead of your actual Mantis. The reason for this is your ships will have more hull than the Mantis, and will be able to therefore kill more ships to fill cargo (which is also bigger than the Mantis). At some point with research, this would turn around except by this point you will want to start farming Mantis loot on your Talios

Because these ships have large cargo bays and hulls, you are counting on Tal to remove hull HP from the enemy ship when they have burning. At tier one, this happens for 5% a round, so every fight should last around 20 rounds (you can't count on burning 100% so you'll never have it perfect). Also remember that Neelix does not work with Tal, so put another officer on the bridge. The two possible crews are as follows:

Captain	Side Officer	Side Officer
Five Of Eleven Five Of Eleven Captain Ability Increase Mitigation by Officer Health Officer Ability Increase Resources dropped Ranks: 20%/ 40%/ 60%/ 80%/ 100% Lower Deck Ability	Tal Tal Captain Ability Increase damage against Battleships Officer Ability Decrease the opponents Hull Health each turn while it is burning Ranks: 5%/ 6%/ 7%/ 8%/ 10% Lower Deck Ability	Nero Nero Captain Ability Increase Damage when opponent's ship is Burning Officer Ability Chance to cause Burning when hitting enemy Ranks: 25%/ 30%/ 35%/ 40%/ 50% Lower Deck Ability
Five Of Eleven Five Of Eleven Captain Ability Increase Mitigation by Officer Health Officer Ability Increase Resources dropped Ranks: 20%/ 40%/ 60%/ 80%/ 100% Lower Deck Ability	Tal Tal Captain Ability Increase damage against Battleships Officer Ability Decrease the opponents Hull Health each turn while it is burning Ranks: 5%/ 6%/ 7%/ 8%/ 10% Lower Deck Ability	Georgiou Georgiou Captain Ability Decrease opponents officers attack when opponent is burning Officer Ability Chance to deal Burning for two rounds at the start of each round Ranks: 50%/ 60%/ 70%/ 75%/ 80% Lower Deck Ability

Below deck, you want:

The Doctor

The Doctor

Captain Ability
Unfit To Lead

Officer Ability
When taking hull damage from non-player hostile or Armada, Increases Armor, Shield Deflection and Dodge by % of Health for 2 rounds
Ranks:
300%/ 500%/ 750%/ 1250%/ 2000%

Lower Deck Ability
Increases all resources dropped by hostiles

Ghalenar

Ghalenar

Captain Ability
Not Perceived as a Threat

Officer Ability
Increases Faction Reptation gained from Fed, Kling and Rom hostiles
Ranks:
5%/ 7%/ 9%/ 15%/ 20%

Lower Deck Ability
Increases the amount of resources dropped from Actian Apex and Borg hostiles by a percentage of base.

D'Vana Tendi

D'Vana Tendi

Captain Ability
Unfit To Lead

Officer Ability
Increases Health of all Officers on the ship
Ranks:
5%/ 10%/ 15%/ 25%/ 30%

Lower Deck Ability
Increase ship's Hull Health

Tendi will help you survive longer and the others help to get more loot per kill.

Daily Task

The Mantis gives you a new daily you do to get hull fragments (which are used to recruit SNW officers). This is done by using the ship's debuff ability. If you use it twice, you will complete the first task and four times, the second task. Therefore, since you don't get enough venom to do this four times every day, it makes sense to the dailies every other day and get to the higher rewarding Slayer Venom daily.

Debuff

Sting Yourself

To sting your own ship with the Mantis is relatively simple. Just click on any other ship on a mining node (it should be to the right of/above your ship), then click on one of your ships on a mining node without clicking on anything in between. The button for stinging should still be showing up, which allows you to sting your own ship.

Mantis Refinery

Mantis Research