What could I have done

>hey this ship fires loads of fucking missiles and a dozen heavy plasma at once
>i can tank these with shields instead of dodge all that i can and hope shields get the rest
Motherfucker has no cloaking, no hacking, no MC, shit drones, completely unupgraded subsystems and life supports, only 5 engine, and is terribly overarmed. There is a distinct reason he lost. If he wanted to win with pure firepower then he needed more than what he was packing and a weapon preigniter. If he wanted to win with consistency then he needed much more dodge and reliable disables.

Mind control isn't that good. Hacking, cloaking or even one defense drone would be better.

The math has it: That was scrap that could have gone into a tier 2 Medbay, A tier 2 oxygen room, extra drone power. The last shield isn't bad, it's just way too expensive.

The Vulcan is a trap weapon. If you've got a trick to keep it up, it can be amazing, but the moment it's interrupted once, it's stopped being a good gun.

5 to 8 engines is significantly more expensive and requires more power than 6 to 8 shields

>Mind control isn't that good
Its alright for disabling their pilot.
Yes except you don't need to go to 8 engine for the upgrades to actually mean something. You fucking need 2 more super expensive shield upgrades and 2 more reactor to reach that next step while you could just dump one more point in engines to give yourself some wiggle room if they get hit or to drop o2/medbay for a second and get some extra dodge. Engines being more granular is a major advantage and, again, it is objectively better to have more dodge with 3 shield than 4 shield with mediocre dodge chance.

Don't forget that you don't need to have it powered when you upgrade. Having 8 engine slots is good for tanking damage. That's why OP died. Among other problems, he didn't upgrade his oxygen or medbay, so they couldn't tank damage.

I disagree, and all my hard wins being won with consistentling paying for 4 shields and 5 engines will make me never change my mind homie
it's a different strategy and I would not call it significantly superior in any way.

> mr. 24 fucking fuel
lol'd

sometimes the game dumps fuel on you dude
can't use 'em all, I've had upwards of 50 fuel in games that snowballed

Yes but those occasions are rare and with someone like OP who is actively asking what he did wrong and judgement on his setup the natural assumption is that he didn't search enough.
If you don't have cloaking that additional 3-6% dodge chance becomes much more relevant against flagship 3 than the one extra shield layer. And 3 shield is more than capable of breezing through flagship 1. The only struggle would be stage 2 but a proper offense can beat it before any significant hurt. And given that he fucked up on flagship 3 then the issue was investing excess scrap into shields where it could have gone somewhere else more useful. Maybe he got really unlucky with shops but I doubt it.