Just Zhalk and the Mind Flayer (who was nearly dead anyways by the time Zhalk fell). After getting the greatsword, I just did the transponder to keep going. Didn't think it was worth it to risk fighting the 2 extras.
What I did:
I split the party into 2 groups with me, Shadowheart, and Lae'zal in group A, and the "Us" in group B. I left "Us" in the room with the restoration pod/thingy in hopes of using it during combat to heal my party, which worked fine. I ended up using it twice total. However, I didn't realize the 2 extra cambians would run into that room and create a second encounter with Us, which basically froze the 2 extra cambians and Us in battle and prevented them from entering the main helm room. I just figured they'd kill Us and continue into room, but Us acted as a blocker to keep them out, which allowed me to (not easily, but not difficult) kill Zhelt. There were lots of misses, average hit was like 30-40%, except with a handful of 65% when they were stunned or I was hidden, etc. Took a while, but when Zhelt fell, the Mind Flayer only had about 13 hp, which I finished him with a couple hits.
And, no. I'm not a troll. I just didn't read the tutorials, so I didn't even know about stuff like how to rotate views and left-alt to see what I can interact with, etc. Also, I didn't use "recommended" stats for Ranger, I just created a better (imho) stat'd ranger than the defaults and understood better where the battle indicators (like disadvantage, etc.) were located at. I didn't even remember seeing the text at top of screen in my first ship play through. I also got lucky with the above spoiler technique that I didn't even know would work that way - worked better than I had intended, plus I knew where I could walk to before the 2nd group (near controls) would enter battle, so I was able to avoid them until I was ready for them. I also felt like I had better gear this time as well, since I could see who I could loot (left-alt), so I looted more corpses and had more throwables as well.
It's not a spoiler, this stuff will likely be fixed in the full release. If you really want to exploit the ship see below.
1. You don't need to use the restoration pad near the entrance to the control room, you can use any restoration pad in the entire ship.
2. Stack all the explosives (the purple containers you find in the ship) near where the 2 extra cambions come in at the choke point. When they get close blow them both up - keep a blocker down there to make sure they stop at the right part. (The cambions have 400 gold on them and scale armor)
3. make sure you kill the mindflayer yourself so you get the 75 XP for that.
4. There is a second mindflayer you can kill in the room off to the side from the helm - that woman that gets turned into one when you press the button. if you toss one of those acid filled sacks at the base of the pod it will slowly die from that and you get 75 xp to the party for the kill. (someone has to be present in the room for the kill)
There now you are an expert.
