Once the engines are down it stops dodging though. You can use boarding for that, or just spam conventional weapons until enough connect. There's some luck in that, but in a game this RNG-determined there's a lot more luck elsewhere in the game. If there were an evasion-halving augment, it'd be luck whether you ever saw it in a shop 
True, but I'd make the argument that you rely on luck anyway in terms of discovering the weapons/augments you need to win in the end.
For example, I just beat the game on Normal for the first time, and I had 2 weapons cooldowns and 1 shield cooldown augments, all which I found in stores. If I hadn't found those specific augments, and other specific weapons that fit my particular strategy, I most likely wouldn't have even made it to the last sector, much less beat the boss.
I think you run into a lot of fairly useless augments that they could just take out of the game, then replace them with ones you'll actually use, like the half miss-chance one I'm suggesting. Finding it still relies on luck to a fair degree, but you're more likely to encounter it anyway.
About the game on Normal I just finished - my strategy basically revolved around overwhelming the shield with firepower, and praying to my dear and fluffy lord that my shots actually landed.
I was given a Burst Cannon MK3 (like in my second jump of the first sector), so the sheer amount of luck with that find is basically astronomical. I've played probably 50+ scenarios so far, and I didn't even know the MK3 Burst Cannon
EXISTED, much less ever get one for free. Since I was using the Kestrel B (or Red-Tail), I thought it best to wait and level up my weapons' officer by using the 4 default basic lasers. For some reason, the game levels your weapons' skill up by number of weapons fired, instead of actually damage inflicted, which is somewhat retarded I have to say.
Anyway, everything basically went as planned for awhile. Since I only had the default 4 crew members at the start, I decided to spend 49 scrap against a Slaver Ship at the end of Sector 1, hoping I'd get a Mantis, Rock, or hell anything besides a human at that rate. I got a human
. For the rest of the game, I never did get a 2nd Mantis (or even get the opportunity to buy one), so I kind of realized the boarding strategy was out for me. Somewhere in the 3rd Sector, after my human Engine Room Officer had quite a bit of experience to his name, I made some kind of risky decision in a random scenario, and I paid for it with his life (Mantis make shi*ty Engineers, I have to say
).
Everything went pretty smoothly after that. Once my Weapons' Officer hit 2 gold stars, I upgraded my Weapons Subsystem by two slots (from 4 to 6), then removed 2 basic lasers and replaced them with my MK3 Burst Laser. Somewhere along the way I also picked up an Anti-Ship Drone as well. So if you can imagine it, my strategy is to LITERALLY overwhelm the enemy shield with shots. The MK3 Burst Laser shoots 5, the two Basic Lasers shoot 2 more, and the Anti-Ship Drone also adds one as well for good measure. That's 8 shots per volley, and let's hope to god they actually hit something.
I ran into several close encounters of the next several sectors, mostly due to various situations where basically all my lasers missed, and his missiles and lasers landed
Somewhere along the way I picked up the 2 Weapon Cooldown Augments, then the Shield Cooldown Augment as well. I came to a point near the end of the game where I was basically forced to make a decision. I knew a needed a powerful second weapon in order to replace my 2 Basic Lasers, but I couldn't decide whether it should be the Hermes Missile or the Halberd Beam. The Hermes Missile had a lower cooldown, has a chance to cause fire and breach, and if I can hit the shield with it first, I can spend my 5 burst laser shots attacking something more valuable (like the Pilot or Weapons Room). In addition, at that point I had over 40 missiles stored up, because I hadn't used them at all. However, I knew the missiles could MISS, and the Halberd Beam couldn't. I probably still would have gone for the Hermes Missile, but I knew that the 2nd Phase of the boss had Anti-Missile Drones, and I had no reliable way to stop those; basically rendering one of my weapons completely useless, and worse, meaning I would have to hit
at least 5/6 of my laser shots to even do a miniscule amount of damage to the Shield Room! It was a tough decision, and not using my huge surplus of missiles seemed like a terrible waste, but in the end I chose the Halberd Beam, and I think I made the right choice.
In the last shop before Sector 8, I found a much-needed Cloaking Device, to help me against the "Super Weapons" of the final boss. I had just enough money to pay for it; no enough power to even use it (and that's after turning off my Sick Bay!).
My final armament was level 3 shields, level 4 engines, a level 1 cloaking device, a level 3 drone room (even though the drone I used was only took 2 energy, it's important for your Drone not to get taken out after 1 hit), level 7 weapons, and a lucky rabbit's foot. I think my crew was 2 humans (1 pilot 1 shield), a Mantis (engines - so inconvenient), a Zoltan (weapons), and a Engy and Rock on standby.
The first boss battle was easy, I overwhelmed his 4 shields with my Burst Cannon + Anti-Ship Drone, then paused the game the
second all 4 shields were down (very small window of opportunity), and let my Halberd Beam rip, making sure it hit the Pilot Room, the Shield Room, and hopefully one of the Weapons Room before the shields came back up and blocked me. The 2 Weapons Cooldown Augments really assisted me in keeping the pressure on with my long-recharging weapons (19 and 17 seconds, respectively), and the Shield Cooldown Augment kept me relatively defended as well. The first boss was down before I knew it, and I had only lost 2 bars or so.
Facing the second boss, I realized how nervous I was, because I had jumped into battle before my level 1 Cloaking Field was even off cooldown! This gave the enemy boss a nice opportunity to get weapons lock on me long before I could him (since he went invisible too). Fortunately it didn't seem to matter too much. Purely by luck, many shots and missiles of his first volley missed me, while my luck hitting him turned out to be much better. Again, after shields were down I went for Pilot and Shields, and the Missile Room as well. I targeted the Drone Room in my second volley. Unfortunately my cloak was down during the drone "Super Attack", so a lot of my rooms got damaged in the process. Also, the constant attacks from the Drone Soldier really became frustrating for me, as I kept having to send my Mantis off engines with my Rock to take care of it. I finished the second battle with about 2/3rds health, and was faced with my last tough decision of the game:
2 jumps away there was a "repair" station; however, the final boss level was just within my grasp. The jump between myself and the repair station was "discovered", so I didn't have to worry about a fatal accident along the way, but I was afraid that if I attempted to go the repair station, something could go wrong. I'm not sure WHAT could go wrong, but say that the connector that bridged myself and the repair station became "rebel" territory - or worse, that the boss started heading towards my base and I couldn't catch him. I knew I was probably just worrying over nothing, but victory was so close I could taste it. Being the foolish risk taker I am, I jumped headlong into the lass fight with 2/3rds health and purpose full of malintent.
The third fight was a lot more difficult than the first two. I wasn't equipped to deal with the constant boarding parties, but really had no way to stop them. Luckily they were just humans, but I had to take my Mantis off the engines, and my pilot off the joystick to heal, leaving me extremely vulnerable for a time. My oxygen went down, my doors went down, my shields went down, engine went down; hell even my drone went down, but thank god my Weapons never went down. So even though my ship was falling apart at the seams, I was able to continue concentrating a large salvo of fire at my opponent. With not enough crew to reliably combat the opponent's superior boarding force, I was constantly split between repairing my ship and fighting them off. One such situation arose when a stray shot hit my Cloaking Room. I realized that if I didn't have that during the Super Attack, I was royally screwed. I took my Engi off repairing shields, and sent my Rock to die in order to distract them long enough to repair my Cloaking Room. I repaired it literally just in time to hear the warning sirens going off, and then turned it on. Eventually I battered down the rest of the enemy ship until I won the game with about 1/3rd hp left. Sweet victory!
