Basket starts the Zoltan Cruiser for the first time: The Adjudicator, Type A, on Normal with Advanced Edition content enabled. It comes with a Halberd Beam, a Leto missile launcher, the Zoltan Shield augment and three Zoltan crew: Dolan, Maloney and Williams. Before launch Basket reads out the ship's achievements and sets the reactor one aside for now: "I've done it before on easy, but it's tricky to pull off." The run lasts three parts and ends in Sector 5, the Zoltan Controlled Sector, where a Mantis Bomber destroys The Adjudicator for a score of 1906.
Part 1: Shields Holding
The reactor is small, and Basket finds there is not enough power to run every system at once. Sector 1 is a Civilian Sector. The Halberd Beam goes through shields, but it takes a while to charge, and the first enemy jumps away just short of the kill. "I just missed him. That's a shame."
Against an Auto-Hacker the plan works. Basket targets its hacking system and weapons, both go down before anything gets through the Zoltan Shield, the ship is destroyed, and Basket gets the achievement and a drone. "I figured that would be pretty easy to do." A local shipwright offers to upgrade the oxygen system for 20 scrap, and Basket takes it.
Sector 2 is a Pirate Controlled Sector. The store has Drone Control, which comes with a free System Repair Drone, and Basket buys it along with a Burst Laser I. Intruders in a nebula fight it out in the medbay, where the crew heals faster than the boarders do damage: "We are faster than you at healing." A Rebel Fighter with a crew teleporter sends more boarders and is beaten too. A Pirate Scout surrenders and hands over a new crew member, Dengler.
Then a stranded Engi Scout asks for fuel. Basket gives it without reading the text, and the thanks reads "Upgraded the Reactor by 1." "I bet it said we'll upgrade your reactor if you give us fuel, but I didn't read it," Basket says. That ends the no-reactor-upgrade achievement for this run, so Basket turns to the other one, 29 power in systems at the same time.
Part 2: The Uncharted Nebula
Basket picks the nebula, and Sector 3 is the Uncharted Nebula. A Mantis Interceptor with two shields starts a fire on board before it is beaten. "So I kinda stunk the fight." An Auto-Scout goes down even while the nebula keeps the ship on low power.
A Rock armored transport hails The Adjudicator: "Whatever life-form you are, we find you repugnant." A fight with a Rock Fighter follows, and it surrenders with a weapon still up. A Rebel Fighter surrenders too. "Mainly because of the fuel, I liked that he was giving me fuel too." The next store has a Drone Recovery Arm and a Backup DNA Bank, but nothing Basket is excited about.
Intruders beam aboard. Basket tries to suffocate them, sends Williams away when health runs low, and waits them out. With no scrap left ("I'm broke"), Basket looks ahead for a Zoltan sector to hire more Zoltan crew and works out the power goal: five Zoltan, full system bars and the battery pack.
Part 3: Into the Zoltan sector
Sector 4 is a Civilian Sector. A Pirate Rigger with three shields and a teleporting bomb is too much for the weapons. "We can't get through their shields, it's too tough," and Basket leaves. A Rebel Invader teleports crew aboard and takes the shields down, and Basket wins anyway after a lot of laser fire. "That could have been done probably better." Basket refuses to pay a toll, accepts a Pirate Fighter's surrender, and buys Mind Control at a store. "Mind control? Sure. Why not?" Defending a civilian ship from a Pirate Outrider brings another crew member, Caldwell.
At the sector map Basket takes the Zoltan Controlled Sector over the Engi Homeworlds, hoping to find more Zoltan crew. An Auto-Scout there drops a Vulcan: "this is the one that I really like where it shoots faster over time." A Pirate Fighter with lots of weapons then breaks the shields and leaves the hull critical. "Why are we staying here? Let's just jump." Basket turns down a Zoltan's request to retake a captured ship: "I'm not really in a good shape to get into battle."
The store has no Zoltan crew for hire. Basket hires Tom Banks, a Slug, and repairs. At a burning research station the repair drone goes into the fire, and the reward is a Shield Overcharger drone.
How it ended
The event text reads "The Mantis outcasts sometimes make the mistake of taking the Zoltan for easy game," and boarders beam aboard while a Mantis Bomber with three shields attacks. "This is a ridiculous ship we're fighting. It's really big." The weapons go down, the boarders spread through the ship, and Basket admits, "I'm doing this wrong. I gotta do something different with this ship." By the end the crew list shows only Dolan and Caldwell, with hull and engines critical.
The Adjudicator breaks apart in Sector 5, and the game-over screen reads "One last explosion marks your fate as your ship is torn apart," with a score of 1906. For the next run, Basket plans to try the Sector 5 achievement again, "because I like to unlock more ships, I like toys." The video goes on to the hangar and the ship list before its end cards.
