The Mantis Cruiser follow the same theme has the race that designed it, an efficient boarding ship (specially the layout B and C with 4 boarder teleport) that tend to lack fire power at the beginning. Unmanned ship might be a problem, but remember that with a level 2 teleport the teleport will be up just in time before your border die of asphyxia.

Layout A

The Mantis Cruiser

Unlock

See Legendary Thief KazaaakplethKilik random event.
Alternatively, defeat The Rebel Flagship with the Zoltan Cruiser.

The Mantis Cruiser layout An is one of the few ships that have no starting Sensors on board, which can be annoying when boarding since you don’t see what is in the other ship. You can buy a Sensor system in a store or try to grab a slug crew since they detect life form that are on the other ship.

This ship is quite a force to recon with, 3 mantis with a teleporter at the beginnings make taking out most ship with boarding easy for the first few sector, giving you extra scrap to later buy weapon to compliment this ship strength. AI ship can be take out with a small bomb on the shield and basic laser to finish the job, Zoltan supershield can be taken down by the basic laser and then precede has normal.

The small bomb can be quite useful to take out the med bay, clonebay or piloting if they are trying to run. In other case weapon are a great target since it will prevent the enemies from damaging you.

Most bombs are great addition to this ship, ion weapon too to take down annoying subsystem. You can good offensive weapon in case you’re face with rebel trying to run away, AI ship with too much shield. Drone can be a great add too to minimize damage to your ship via defense drone or to send boarding drone with your boarding crew. Mind control can be cool too, adding an extra crew fighting for you, hacking can be useful too, disable weapon or hack the med bay which will reverse the effect of the medbay.

Layout B

mantis layout B

Unlock

Earning two of the three Mantis Cruiser achievements will unlock Layout B.

This ship start with something really awesome, a four man crew teleporter. once you get enough member you can board a whole ship with 4 crew.

Early game : This ship start with 2 shields and a defense drone, but has no weapon, the piloting and engines only have one bar. It’s unlikely that many enemies early on will be able to pierce your shield and you can always pop a defense drone vs a ship with missiles weapon. The main issues are AI ship and zoltan-shielded ship. Taking AI ship them on with boarding drones are impractical and not worth it early on, unless it is the AI variant with doors linking the 5 rooms. However you can get the teleport level 2 and jump your crew on the ship, the teleporter should recharge before your crew health is down to 0. Repeat until the ship has one bar and send the boarding drone then. AI system will slowly repair and your drone will takes them down and give the final blow. For Zoltan sheild you really need to get weapon to remove the shield or use a zoltan shield bypass augment.

Mid-Late game: You should rise your engine and piloting, grab some decent crew, mantis and rock for the teleporter and other to man your ship. Bomb are a nice addition to suppress weapon or med bay that can cause trouble, have a least some weapon that can takes care of the zoltan shield and to finish those AI ship without sending a boarding drone. Reconstructive teleport and shield bypass augment can really make your boarding crew your ultimate weapon. Just don’t forget your 4 crew members on a fleeing ship or shoot them with your cannons.

Layout C

The Mantis Cruiser

Unlock

Reaching Sector 8 with the Mantis Cruiser B and Advanced Edition Content enabled will unlock layout C.

Another Mantis ship with a four man teleporter, the main difference here is you have a clone bay instead of a medbay, some weapon, a Lanius in your crew and only one shield.

Like the layout B you might have some problem early game with A.I. Ships and ship with assault drone (anti-ship & beam drone). I particularly had problems with ship with ion + beam weapon or beam drone at the beginning.

Luckily your Lanius can board A.I. Ships without a problem and slowly destroy their system. Once the A.I. Ships is destroy your Lanius will be reconstructed in the clone bay. Lanius are excellent boarder, you can wait for your lock bomb & stun bomb to charge then send the lanius in the oxygen room and lock him there alone. By the time the lock is done your Lanius will have emptied the room of oxygen and most crew will be 2 stupid to go fight him. Once the oxygen is out, each room you walk in will be emptied of oxygen forcing them to die of slow death. You can stun them once they are in a room without oxygen to force them to die of asphyxia. This ships will have problems against Zoltan Shields if you don’t get Zoltan Shield Bypass or some weapon to destroy it. Another notable augment to have Reconstructive Teleport & backup DNA, especially Reconstructive Teleport with a clone bay.