Ships capable of killing aliens

[linzamin]

I have been playing as Bounty Hunter on Hard and the farthest I have been able to get is year 482. I always get killed by an alien ship that I am unable to escape from. My current game has reached year 300 and I am flying a Resilient Cruiser with Cargo upgrade, Leviathan, Mercenaries, Water Fuel Recycling Plant and Predator Tracking Array. I am using boarding strategy this time around as opposed to using stealth and torps and have been successful against non-alien ships but wonder how I will do when I have to fight my first alien. Oh, and I am carrying 80 weapons. My captain Strength and Pilot are at about 110% level. Will I have enough power to fight aliens or should I try and get a Carnifex? I do like the fuel efficiency of the Resilient over the Carnifex though. Your opinions will be welcomed.

[Zer0Winds]

Tagging poryg

He's most likely going to have a pretty good answer.

You may want to look around the forum. There's alien hunting tips around here. I can link a few, if you want.

[poryg]

I read that your previous captain was a torper. What was the captain build of the torper?

You'll always be more successful against normal ships than against aliens. Aliens have more specified builds and their level cap is higher.
As for your build, I would prefer more strength/warrior to level ratio, maybe like 130% or even 150% (I prefer 200%, but that much strength and warrior doesn't allow me to survive against ramming pirates). Damage on hard difficulty is so low that with a good build you cannot lose against aliens on hard though, so maybe even the 110% strength is enough (not sure about that though, because I've never pushed it so low). 80 weapons on cargo are definitely fine, no need for more until time passes.
When boarding aliens, you generally want to have a huge ship with lots of armor and lots of crew. This is where ship designer comes in handy, because I use only custom ships. From stock ships the Carnifex is definitely one of the best boarding ships out there. I'm not sure if the Resilient cruiser is enough, since I've never seen its' stats.
However, if you have huge strength, Leviathan and lots of weapons, then the ship build isn't that important and you can definitely spare some money on hull and armor and as a result spare fuel consumption. The reason behind this is simple. The only two things that take damage with a very strong build are crew and solar sails and you deal focused damage to engines and crew, meaning either the alien ship runs out of crew or its' captain dies or it's engines blow up (blown engines happened only once to me, the rest was killed captain that received 2 damage every turn).
If you don't have enough warrior to cause critical damage though... You are more in danger, because the damage you deal:
1. Your crew doesn't cause enough damage to hurt the captain unless they run out of crew
2. The ship damage you deal is scattered through the ship and the damage you receive is scattered through the ship too. Here is when damage tankers (weapons and torps) might come in handy to limit the damage dealt to ship hull. But other than that it's just more expensive and more dangerous too.
And now off I go, because I just got a very crazy idea of a build that I want to try

[grävling]

Yay for "crazy idea of a build you want to try".

[poryg]

Jun 6, 2017 6:39:35 GMT -5 grävling said:

Yay for "crazy idea of a build you want to try".

Haha
My crazy idea ended up quite badly, because in last few months the RNG screws me over anytime it can I got off to a good start, but then the lack of possibilities completely stunned my growth. First it were badly placed shortages, then unexpected solar wars and last but not least spy battles mixed with trade embargoes. I have too low reputation to participate in these conflicts, so I'm just collecting money through contracts

[resistor]

Jun 6, 2017 17:57:05 GMT -5 poryg said:

Jun 6, 2017 6:39:35 GMT -5 grävling said:

Yay for "crazy idea of a build you want to try".

Haha
My crazy idea ended up quite badly, because in last few months the RNG screws me over anytime it can I got off to a good start, but then the lack of possibilities completely stunned my growth. First it were badly placed shortages, then unexpected solar wars and last but not least spy battles mixed with trade embargoes. I have too low reputation to participate in these conflicts, so I'm just collecting money through contracts

So what was your crazy idea, anyway?

[poryg]

resistor dumping all intimidate and unnecessary tactics and putting the spare experience in pilot. I will have huge casualties, I know, but I want to try if they are manageable.

[grävling]

Jun 7, 2017 16:30:17 GMT -5 poryg said:

resistor dumping all intimidate and unnecessary tactics and putting the spare experience in pilot. I will have huge casualties, I know, but I want to try if they are manageable.

And you wonder why the other captains call your ship 'The Abattoir'.

[poryg]

Jun 8, 2017 0:05:34 GMT -5 grävling said:

Jun 7, 2017 16:30:17 GMT -5 poryg said:

resistor dumping all intimidate and unnecessary tactics and putting the spare experience in pilot. I will have huge casualties, I know, but I want to try if they are manageable.

And you wonder why the other captains call your ship 'The Abattoir'.

This is not my ship. This is the Father's ship!
But frankly, I only want to make use of the huge crew I have. During the pre6 games, with 240 crew members I could do 2 or 3 battles with aliens before I needed to resupply it (I did the three battles only once though. Two regular and one was an unexpected encounter when I went on to refill my crew). And my intimidate wasn't even that huge.
But during the pre6 I had no worries about being rammed to death with pirates. So I want to address these worries while not weakening my attack power