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Post by vindroid on Aug 31, 2012 21:44:11 GMT -5
Ok this post is a bit long so skip to the last paragraph if you want the tl;dr. I've been playing and slowly going up in difficulty. I never actually go far in the game without dying but eventually I will feel that it's time to move up even though I've never actually been able to do the stuff that my chosen class are supposed to excel at. Spies, smugglers, military, bounty hunter, pirate; all of them suffered death just as they started their actual trade. And they were all only at demanding.
After a dozen hard difficulty failures as a pirate, I've finally managed to establish myself. Took me something like 30 fricking game years to finally be able to pillage and plunder, doing delivery and escort errands. I'm willing to say that this was hugely pure luck as I was able to avoid encounters and hijack ships higher than me while I pump pilot and stealth followed by tactics and then intimidate almost equally. My first big score was the jango class. That ship took me places and I was able to mow down everything thulun threw at me. What an annoying clan. They pretty much embargod everything and every non aggresive thing I did with any syndicate very early in the game. By the time I was able to actually fight, I've gone terrorist with them. Of course, with my new found power and bravery, and took myself to new heights by making myself become the legendary crimelord with all three houses. I now have -300, -500, -500 reputation with all three of them. This is the furthest I've been with the game even on lower difficulties. I think it was lvl 14 on demanding. I'm now lvl 23.
I got tired with all these houses not being able to scratch me (literally! they cant hit me at all), I tried looking for aliens for a challenge. Of course, I wanted to play it safe and decided to give my ship an emergency pod first. Yeah, amazes me how I lived 50 years in space on hard without them. Took me a while to find them but I did and started looking for alien rumours. Got to the rumoured spot and started patrolling. I've wasted probably hundreds of fuel patrolling these areas and I got no aliens. Where are they!? First and last time I saw one was two decades ago and I didnt even notice they were one till they escaped and I wasnt prepared anyway. What do I do now? I've lost purpose.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2012 23:45:50 GMT -5
Patrol independent dead planets as far away from coordinate (1,1) as possible. I go for the ones in the bottom right corner of the map. Gotta have good fuel consumption to do multiple patrols in a row. It'll take a while, maybe a LONG while, but if your doing it right you will EVENTUALLY ALWAYS encounter an alien. You need --- Money to constantly get fuel and repairs, pacience, good fuel consumption for many patrols in a row, high warrior skill, weapons and offcers to win vs. Aliens, and if yu really want to find them more, carry artifacts. But depending on AI, each artifact could double their power when fighting, so I wouldn't carry any. You also have a MUCH bigger chance finding aliens in red sectors than green sectors. And again, the father from (1,1) the bigger chance of finding aliens. 95% of my encouners have been in red secotrs on th very botom, very right, or bottm right corner of the map, or patroling independent dead planets in the bottom right corner of the map. Also, the higher difficulty, the greater the alien encounters. Happy alien hunting!
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Post by Cory Trese on Sept 3, 2012 19:31:31 GMT -5
I think the first goal after getting established around Level 20 is start setting up a base of operations. That means: - several area planets with 100+ WF and Crystals, Metals, Records stashed. - 5 to 10 fully upgraded ships with 10 Morale Crews - full set of officers - Rank 18 with friendly Different people have different goals. Many people get to the established phase of the game and use that as an excuse to upgrade to the next difficulty
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Post by rabidbite on Sept 9, 2012 21:34:39 GMT -5
I think the first goal after getting established around Level 20 is start setting up a base of operations. Rabid Rabbit was busy cleaning the bits of brain and general flesh stuck in the chainsaw's mechanism after a rather messy little fight with a bounty hunter. Bonnie was reviewing the list of bounties on the crew of the Carrot Stick. "These sort of bounties are going to bring the very best after us, Captain." Rabid glanced up, "So what's your point?" "I think we should establish a relative base of operations. Somewhere we can stash some fuel, weapons, and come back in case things get bad." Rabid Rabbit thought about it, then shrugged, "Ok, no need to get cocky. I know just the place too." Bonnie grunted in satisfaction. Having a base of operations would help general survivability. Rabid Rabbit pressed some buttons on the map screen, "I think this should be the very first place to set up a base of operations." The Mad Rabbit highlighted a planet and brought it up to screen. Bonnie stared at it for a long ... long ... minute, "That's Thulun Prime. Most of the bounties are theirs." Rabid Rabbit shrugged, "So what's your point?" rabid
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2012 21:58:54 GMT -5
Lmao
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Post by slayernz on Sept 9, 2012 22:20:38 GMT -5
Great thing about Thulun Prime is that the Thulun Honor ship is always a perfect emergency ship. Always available, decently specced, even straight off the factory line. Thulun might be up themselves, overly snobby, but they do know how to build a good rank ship.
Xeen Prime, on the other hand, might have been a good base of operations at early last century, but now you have to spend inordinate amounts of time weaving through large debris fields of Steel Song scrap. When you do get to the surface, you have to wear hazmat suits all the time because of the nuclear fallout from thousands (yes thousands) of Cadar nukes*.
*Annotation 2196.1: In 32.39AE, Cadar became the final signatory to the Nuke Minimization Effort Accord (NME Accord), which aimed to minimize the nuke stockpile within the six recognized factions of the Quadrant. It had taken 6 years of tiring negotiation, not to mention the fact a couple of Council delegations were accidentally blown to smithereens by Cadar patrol ships, but the Cadar Government agreed that although Cadar held 97% of all nuclear weapons in the Galaxy, there should be some limit to the number stored.
In reality, the Cadar Military had discovered that they simply weren't going through their nukes fast enough to use them up before their "Best Before" date was reached. Nonetheless, Cadar agreed to decrease its holdings of Nukes by a significant 70%.
The economic depression in Cadar (32.49AE - 34.21AE) was a direct result of the signing of the NME Accord because approximately 38,000 nuclear weapons manufacturers filed for bankruptcy during this period. So many companies went through hardship that the Cadar Government was forced to initiate stimulus programs like: * Fire Cadar Made. A campaign launched to promote purchase and use of Cadar made ordinance * Shoot First, Second, Third, then Acknowledge. This encouraged captains to communicate in morse code via the medium of torpedoes. Coincidentally, this is how the now-standard Cadar Greeting was started.
Finally, in 34.15AE, Commander John Squishem actually READ the NME Accord, and discovered that the Accord did not restrict manufacture, but rather total numbers of nukes. This meant, if Cadar captains used up the stockpile, new nukes could be manufactured!
He immediately arranged for a battlegroup of 20 Cadar warships to surreptitiously fly 9AU south of Cadar Prime to dump 16,000 Nukes on a small backwater planed called Xeen Prime.
The resulting solar war between Cadar and Steel Song lasted a record 17 years! Cadar has been trying to break that record ever since.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2012 0:22:58 GMT -5
There should be something special that happens once you reach -10000 with a Faction. Maybe they try to kill you while your docked?
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Post by slayernz on Sept 10, 2012 1:52:35 GMT -5
You get cake.
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BlastGT1
Templar
[ Heroes of Steel Supporter ]
Turning ships into shards with Alchemy
Posts: 920
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Post by BlastGT1 on Sept 10, 2012 8:34:41 GMT -5
The cake is a lie.
_______________________________
Every day I'm torpin'.....
Party Torp is in the tube tonight, Everybody just have a Torp time. Hull breach will make you lose your find, Pirates stealin', just have a Torp time!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2012 8:42:02 GMT -5
I found that out to late. I got a message from steel long saying they'd like to give me cake as bribe so I stop blockading them. But it wasn't a cake, it was a torp
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Post by slayernz on Sept 10, 2012 17:43:08 GMT -5
That's okay. At least they didn't kill you. And tear you to pieces. And throw every piece into a fire.
Hmmm ... makes me want to listen to the end-credits all over again.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2012 20:11:25 GMT -5
I was actually thinking of a new "nuke" operation idea. Its like patrol except it causes HUUUGE rep loss and rather than finding low level merchants and smuglers, you'd find high level military and aliens. Nukes would only be gven during a Solar War, and you'd have to have rank 21 to have them.
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Post by starlandra on Jan 4, 2013 13:43:02 GMT -5
Sorry, new to the game for the most part (can't freaking stop playing it) and very new here (first post) what is the bonus to drydocking extra ships? (in reference to Cory's post above about the 5-10 ships with crews and officers...)
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Post by Cory Trese on Jan 4, 2013 13:45:40 GMT -5
Sorry, new to the game for the most part (can't freaking stop playing it) and very new here (first post) what is the bonus to drydocking extra ships? (in reference to Cory's post above about the 5-10 ships with crews and officers...) Welcome to the forum. Glad you're enjoying Star Traders Dry Docking ships allows the Captain to build up a personal fleet of ships and stash them across the Quadrant at friendly military bases or with Indy worlds. This way, my Captain can have a long-haul merchant ship (with large Cargo and a Water Tank) and a fast/agile warship with extra Torps and Armor. It also increases the chances of survival to have a backup ship to run to!
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Post by starlandra on Jan 4, 2013 13:52:25 GMT -5
I love that there is so much to learn with this game. I started with the free version and played easy and it was just that... easy and I got a little worried. But there was so much content I went ahead and got the elite and I love it (though hard seems to be a little overwhelming, I have had about 4 level up nicely just to suddenly be snuffed in a fight, the worst was mopping up an alien only to be attacked by pirates in a crap ship, but I was so weak that they killed me... so sad) ANYWAYS, docking some ships and maybe getting the escape pods does kinda make sense now that I have removed my head from my arse. Thank you for the quick response, great game (the first alien really freaked me out, thought they were just added for text flavor not actual game play)
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