Basket opens on the ship list, reading how the Federation Cruiser unlocks, then picks the newly unlocked Kestrel Cruiser Type C. The hangar names it The Swallow, on Normal with Advanced Edition content enabled. It starts with Dual Lasers and an Ion Stunner ("this thing does two blasts, one damage each, and then it has one ion") and three crew: O'Regan, WaiShing and Olofsson. The run lasts three parts and reaches Sector 3, a Civilian Sector, where an Auto-Scout destroys The Swallow for a score of 1185.
Part 1: Ion first, then the lasers
Sector 1 is a Civilian Sector. The first event reports "a Mantis war camp only a few jumps from us," and Basket pledges to help, which puts a quest marker on the map. The first fight, against a Pirate Scout, happens next to a planet that keeps knocking the ship's systems out. "This planet is very, very aggressive with its ion blast." A Rebel Rigger follows, and then a Pirate Fighter in a nebula offers to surrender. "They're surrendering, but we have them on lockdown, so let's just kill them."
The tactic takes shape fast: the Ion Stunner hits the shields, then the lasers go after the weapons a moment later. At the first store Basket buys a Pegasus Missile and hires an Engi, Geryk. "You'll be our shield guy." At the quest beacon the event text reads "You find the Mantis encampment but there are far too many of them to count accurately." Basket picks the missile option to bombard their key structures. "Oh, it didn't work." At the exit beacon, an Auto-Scout guarding a storage cache goes down before it can do any real damage, and the part ends there. Basket finds this ship "a lot easier" than the Engi Cruiser B.
Part 2: The Mantis Controlled Sector
Sector 2 is the Mantis Controlled Sector, and the Mantis Fighters keep teleporting boarders aboard. Basket closes doors and vents the air around them. One reward makes the shields recharge faster. A Rebel Fighter in an ion storm catches fire, and Basket lets it burn. "Playing this model of the ships makes me feel a lot better about the game."
At the store Basket passes on a Chain Burst Laser II and buys Drone Control, and a System Repair Drone shows up in the drone bay. An Auto-Hacker goes down next, leaving a Fire Bomb behind ("That's handy"). At a red sun the ship is boarded again. Aiding a civilian ship in a fight brings a new crew member, Roper. Two more Mantis ships fall to the same ion-then-lasers routine, and the part ends with the scrap going into a weapons upgrade.
Part 3: One fight too many
Basket picks the Civilian Sector over the Zoltan Controlled one for Sector 3. A Pirate Fighter with hacking tools goes down first. Then Basket demands the surrender of a small Rebel ship's goods, and the Rebel Rigger starts charging its FTL drive instead. The new Fire Bomb gets its first use, and Rebel boarders come aboard. "It was an achievement for suffocating all the bad guys," Basket says.
The next fight is an Auto-Scout, and it does not go the same way. Geryk drops off the crew list partway through ("I think I lost the guy"), and the hull goes critical. "I want to survive this fight," Basket says, but the Auto-Scout's weapons keep coming back up.
How it ended
The Swallow breaks apart in Sector 3 with four crew aboard: O'Regan, WaiShing, Olofsson and Roper. The game-over screen reads "One last explosion marks your fate as your ship is torn apart," with a score of 1185 and "New High Score!" Back in the hangar, Basket settles on the Stealth Cruiser for the next run: "this will be run number two."
