What other ways are there to obtain sector data

The Zoltan Shield will absorb bomb damage (as it blocks teleporters). This is only available on the Zoltan Cruiser ship, though.

I've found that the enemy AI tends to put their bomb weapons low on the list when prioritizing weapons, so damaging the enemy weapon system will likely take them offline. As they have low power consumption, though, it's easy for them to repair and repower.

Other than that, bombs are unique in their ability to bypass shields and drones. As you've noted, evasion helps, but otherwise there's nothing you can do but repair the damage.

The point of a Roguelike is that there isn't necessarily a winning strategy, you have to come up with it on the fly. Let me lay out the myriad ways one can die, and precautions against them:

Weapons

• "Projectile" laser weapons. Your bread and butter. Every ship should have at least one, if not more. These are prime shield-breakers, just on shot-count alone. No one strategy is going to be perfect against them. Shields will soak them up... ablatively. You will dodge some of them. A Defense II drone can shoot them down somehow. Your best bet, though, is to knock out his weapons room. Missiles, shields, and engines will serve you well, and having certain drones might protect you in passing.

• Beam Weapons. These are great capitalizing weapons. Shields down? Hope you don't like 8 armor and some subsystems! The only direct counter to these weapons is shields, which they can only penetrate to some extent. Fortunately, the ones with scary shield penetration values tend to not show up in the first half of the game, anyway.

• Missiles. A great opening weapon, softening shield generators and gun rooms for barrages based on more renewable resources. The only counters to this weapon are evade and defense drones. Good engines give you as much as 50% evade, and drones are 150 for the controller plus varying amounts for the kind of drone you're interested in. Drones are preferable, but engines tend to be easier and cheaper.

• Bombs. You can't stop them, you can only hope they miss. High evade values, especially with Cloak, are your only defense besides swiss cheesing his weapons room, which you should do with great prejudice. Missiles are the the weapon of choice for these guys, and you should always keep a couple on hand, in case.

Hazards

• Teleporters. Not really a weapon, but they can mess your day up. Good airlock management, med-bay usage, and a spare crewman or two is the key here. If you can draw your enemies into the med-bay, they're basically done for. Have that upgraded, but only when you have spare change.

• Fires. Have door upgrades researched, it's a pretty cheap buy. You should definitely have this by the end of the second zone.

• Asteroids. Shields and evade. Mainly shields.

• Asphyxiation. O2 controls.

As you can clearly see, there are a couple of consistencies:

• Shields keep you alive

• Engines keep you alive

• Murdering the other ship keeps you alive

There are a few strategies you can try that seem to work for me:

• Early investment in engines - anything that doesn't hit you is a return on investment. Follow that with investment in shields for maximum safety.

• Cheaper, more-shot lasers are often more cost-effectiveness.

• Invest a bit in everything, and a lot in a few things. This is called being "T shaped", and is considered a good standard in real life, too!

• Teleporters are good if you can micromanage. Fortunately, you can pause the game whenever! Watch out for the automated ships, they're airless.

• Sensors are more valuable than you'd think. If you've got spare change, consider them strongly.

• Try and help the NPCs. Not every time you do will pay off, but it can pay off in a BIG way. Consider: Drone Recovery augment in the first stage with the Engi drone ship due to my going out of my way to help someone. It. Was. Glorious.

The message I hope you take away from this is that your question is, in a way, not the best one to ask. If this game was made well, there shouldn't be a real answer to your question. As it is, the best I can say is that some things have tended to work better for me, but at other times they've still failed spectacularly.