Morale

[Punslinger]

Hi folks. I'm new to STF and of course jump right into Hard difficulty fighter style, because masochism. 

I haven't met a crew battle where I can't come out healthier then I started, with xenos being a wash. That being said ship battles mess me up. Every turn it's evasive manuevers or one of the other 20% defense buffs and I still get hit too much. I have a boarding module for pilot assist. I can usually get into range, board them to death(it's my personality and try not to be too offended), but morale is so low afterwards. Commander morale actions be damned. 

What can I do better about ship combat, are there key upgrades I need? I try to stack command on officers for the bonus dice but I'm wondering if that's a drop in the bucket.    

[aj]

Jul 7, 2018 9:12:58 GMT -5 Punslinger said:

Hi folks. I'm new to STF and of course jump right into Hard difficulty fighter style, because masochism. 

I haven't met a crew battle where I can't come out healthier then I started, with xenos being a wash. That being said ship battles mess me up. Every turn it's evasive manuevers or one of the other 20% defense buffs and I still get hit too much. I have a boarding module for pilot assist. I can usually get into range, board them to death(it's my personality and try not to be too offended), but morale is so low afterwards. Commander morale actions be damned. 

What can I do better about ship combat, are there key upgrades I need? I try to stack command on officers for the bonus dice but I'm wondering if that's a drop in the bucket.    

You will need to concentrate on evasion to reduce hits.  If your defensive dice pools are not high to begin with, defense buffs won't do much.  Bombardment helps a bit against enemies with high accuracy.  I'll keep the tips as brief as possible:

1) Check your combat logs as combat develops to get a feel for ship and enemies.  You can see what they roll vs your roll to see how your defenses look against theirs.

2) Your defensive pools are based on Pilot (strong dice), Speed at Long range (strong dice), Agility at Short Range (strong dice), Electronics (standard dice) and Command (standard dice).  Your engine vs their engine is also compared for a % bonus or negative.

As a general rule of thumb, get your piloting above 25-ish in a medium or smaller ship and up around 40 for large ships.  Then pump up your electronics score to be decent.  Make sure both are at 200% on your ship readout.  Last, add in a number of crew/officers that have command dice.  That means adding in Commanders and Military Officers.

3) You get defensive bonuses against weapons that aren't at their nominal range.  Weapons get nice accuracy bonuses at certain ranges.  Torpedos get large bonuses at range 5 and are harder to dodge than most weapons.

4) Your armor and shielding will help to protect against hits you do take and minimize the damage to your crew.  Remember to clear crippling debuffs that apply damage to your crew and components. 

5) The talents to repair your ship, heal your crew and boost your morale during ship combat are not optional if you plan on doing a lot of ship combat.  Otherwise, you will find yourself in bad situations afterwards too often.

[daveal]

I always get the biggest pilot assist I can buy, and get all the after battle repair talents I can. You mention the commander morale talent, but the two morale things I rely on are the merchant boost to morale with every paycheck and the commander after battle speech. There is another player drspendlove who mentions his ships are unhittable even on impossible, maybe he will drop by and give his tips too.

[Punslinger]

Jul 7, 2018 10:05:52 GMT -5 aj said:

Jul 7, 2018 9:12:58 GMT -5 Punslinger said:

Hi folks. I'm new to STF and of course jump right into Hard difficulty fighter style, because masochism. 

I haven't met a crew battle where I can't come out healthier then I started, with xenos being a wash. That being said ship battles mess me up. Every turn it's evasive manuevers or one of the other 20% defense buffs and I still get hit too much. I have a boarding module for pilot assist. I can usually get into range, board them to death(it's my personality and try not to be too offended), but morale is so low afterwards. Commander morale actions be damned. 

What can I do better about ship combat, are there key upgrades I need? I try to stack command on officers for the bonus dice but I'm wondering if that's a drop in the bucket.    

You will need to concentrate on evasion to reduce hits.  If your defensive dice pools are not high to begin with, defense buffs won't do much.  Bombardment helps a bit against enemies with high accuracy.  I'll keep the tips as brief as possible:

1) Check your combat logs as combat develops to get a feel for ship and enemies.  You can see what they roll vs your roll to see how your defenses look against theirs.

2) Your defensive pools are based on Pilot (strong dice), Speed at Long range (strong dice), Agility at Short Range (strong dice), Electronics (standard dice) and Command (standard dice).  Your engine vs their engine is also compared for a % bonus or negative.

As a general rule of thumb, get your piloting above 25-ish in a medium or smaller ship and up around 40 for large ships.  Then pump up your electronics score to be decent.  Make sure both are at 200% on your ship readout.  Last, add in a number of crew/officers that have command dice.  That means adding in Commanders and Military Officers.

3) You get defensive bonuses against weapons that aren't at their nominal range.  Weapons get nice accuracy bonuses at certain ranges.  Torpedos get large bonuses at range 5 and are harder to dodge than most weapons.

4) Your armor and shielding will help to protect against hits you do take and minimize the damage to your crew.  Remember to clear crippling debuffs that apply damage to your crew and components. 

5) The talents to repair your ship, heal your crew and boost your morale during ship combat are not optional if you plan on doing a lot of ship combat.  Otherwise, you will find yourself in bad situations afterwards too often.

That was all the general idea of what I was trying. To confirm my understanding  your piloting and electronics were maxxed out by your 100% of your ship, not 200% in combat? If that's the
case it'll be an easy fix, just get more pilots. 

A ship of 10 pilots still only uses it's ship pilot dice whereas a ship of 10 commanders would have all those commander dice pools (standard dice but still).

[aj]

Jul 7, 2018 11:44:04 GMT -5 Punslinger said:

Jul 7, 2018 10:05:52 GMT -5 aj said:

You will need to concentrate on evasion to reduce hits.  If your defensive dice pools are not high to begin with, defense buffs won't do much.  Bombardment helps a bit against enemies with high accuracy.  I'll keep the tips as brief as possible:

1) Check your combat logs as combat develops to get a feel for ship and enemies.  You can see what they roll vs your roll to see how your defenses look against theirs.

2) Your defensive pools are based on Pilot (strong dice), Speed at Long range (strong dice), Agility at Short Range (strong dice), Electronics (standard dice) and Command (standard dice).  Your engine vs their engine is also compared for a % bonus or negative.

As a general rule of thumb, get your piloting above 25-ish in a medium or smaller ship and up around 40 for large ships.  Then pump up your electronics score to be decent.  Make sure both are at 200% on your ship readout.  Last, add in a number of crew/officers that have command dice.  That means adding in Commanders and Military Officers.

3) You get defensive bonuses against weapons that aren't at their nominal range.  Weapons get nice accuracy bonuses at certain ranges.  Torpedos get large bonuses at range 5 and are harder to dodge than most weapons.

4) Your armor and shielding will help to protect against hits you do take and minimize the damage to your crew.  Remember to clear crippling debuffs that apply damage to your crew and components. 

5) The talents to repair your ship, heal your crew and boost your morale during ship combat are not optional if you plan on doing a lot of ship combat.  Otherwise, you will find yourself in bad situations afterwards too often.

That was all the general idea of what I was trying. To confirm my understanding  your piloting and electronics were maxxed out by your 100% of your ship, not 200% in combat? If that's the
case it'll be an easy fix, just get more pilots. 

A ship of 10 pilots still only uses it's ship pilot dice whereas a ship of 10 commanders would have all those commander dice pools (standard dice but still).

You can use 200% of your ship dice.  If your ship's piloting is 40, you can use up to 80 in combat.

Command is not a drop in the bucket and one of the reasons you will move from getting hit sometimes to not getting hit at all. You can treat standard dice as half your strong dice. You consistently want to roll 80+ successes on evasion (once you activate a 25% defense bonus skill) if you want to dodge everything on brutal+ in mid-game and later.

A quick guide is something like:
80 Pilot
95 Electronics
78 Command

This is something you would see on a larger ship to compensate for the engine speed.

[daveal]

Is there any hope for mid and small size ships on brutal+ in midgame? Small ships seem almost impossible to use as a starting ship, but (on normal) I had reasonable success in midgame once I had crew levels and upgraded components. If the only way to do well is with super dice pools from huge crew, that is a bad sign for small/medium ships.

What is a good crew composition for midgame brutal+? You mention 10 commanders but I hope you were only illustrating. There are several games where I haven't concentrated enough on getting contacts, and I can only get base crew plus one or two other types.

[aj]

Jul 7, 2018 14:17:04 GMT -5 daveal said:

Is there any hope for mid and small size ships on brutal+ in midgame? Small ships seem almost impossible to use as a starting ship, but (on normal) I had reasonable success in midgame once I had crew levels and upgraded components. If the only way to do well is with super dice pools from huge crew, that is a bad sign for small/medium ships.

What is a good crew composition for midgame brutal+? You mention 10 commanders but I hope you were only illustrating. There are several games where I haven't concentrated enough on getting contacts, and I can only get base crew plus one or two other types.

Yes.  You have little room for extra specialists, though.  You get a bonus to your evasion dice by % of your high speed and agility over most other ships so your effective evasion numbers are higher than those listed below.  Here's an example that achieves high evasion:

Crew Name: Dart Liner - Mission Runner
================================================================
---------------------------------------------------
Ship Readout
---------------------------------------------------

Ship	Dart Liner
Price	$327.0k
Engine	M3400 Void Engine-Chaser
Current Mass	3375
Max Mass	3400
Total Slots	17
Large	2
Mid	3
Small	12
Hull	950
Armour	13
Shield	17
Max Officers	5
Max Crew	24
Cargo	45
Speed	29
Agility	24
Fuel Cost	2
Fuel Tank	115
Fuel Range	57
Jump Cost	11
Pilot	45
Navigation	18
Ship Ops	36
Electronics	23
Gunnery	14
Tier	2

---------------------------------------------------
Ship Components
---------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Large Components
-------------------------------------------

Cargo Hold 4

M3400 Void Engine-Traveler

-------------------------------------------
Medium Components
-------------------------------------------

Barracks 3

M3400 Hyperwarp

Prison Cellblock

-------------------------------------------
Small Components
-------------------------------------------

Lionheart Cannon

Lionheart Cannon

Pilot Assist Module 4

Pilot Assist Module 4

Pilot Assist Module 4

Pilot Assist Module 4

Pilot Assist Module 4

Reinforced Officer Cabin

Reinforced Officer Cabin

Scout Bridge 4

Sensor Array 4

Sensor Array 4

Name	Type	Range	Damage	Radiation	Void	AP	Accuracy	Critical Chance	Cripple Chance	Level
Lionheart Cannon	Autocannon	1-2	90	0	0	1	10	15	40	7
Lionheart Cannon	Autocannon	1-2	90	0	0	1	10	15	40	7

================================================================
---------------------------------------------------
Dice Pools
---------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Ship Combat Dice (Standard Dice counted as 1/2 Strong Dice)
-------------------------------------------

Type	Dice
Long Accuracy	108
Short Accuracy	130
Long Evasion	150
Short Evasion	145
Long Range Change	166
Short Range Change	188
Escape	193

-------------------------------------------
Crew Dice
-------------------------------------------

Skill	Crew	Ship	Percent
Electronics	71	23	308.7
Gunnery	59	14	421.43
Navigation	60	18	333.33
Pilot	94	45	208.89
Ship Ops	85	36	236.11

================================================================
---------------------------------------------------
Captain
---------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Jobs
-------------------------------------------

Commander	14
Military Officer	11
Zealot	11

-------------------------------------------
Skills
-------------------------------------------

Blades	4
Command	25
Intimidate	13
Pistols	5
Tactics	7

================================================================
---------------------------------------------------
First Officer
---------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Jobs
-------------------------------------------

Commander	11
Pirate	11
Quartermaster	10

-------------------------------------------
Skills
-------------------------------------------

Command	12
Gunnery	3
Intimidate	19
Pilot	9
Ship Ops	3
Tactics	3

================================================================
---------------------------------------------------
Second Officer
---------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Jobs
-------------------------------------------

Diplomat	11
Merchant	11
Military Officer	10

-------------------------------------------
Skills
-------------------------------------------

Command	13
Intimidate	6
Negotiate	20
Pistols	4
Tactics	6

================================================================
---------------------------------------------------
Third Officer
---------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Jobs
-------------------------------------------

Combat Medic	11
Doctor	16
Engineer	5

-------------------------------------------
Skills
-------------------------------------------

Command	5
Doctor	25
Electronics	4
Pistols	6
Repair	6
Tactics	4

================================================================
---------------------------------------------------
Fourth Officer
---------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Jobs
-------------------------------------------

Bounty Hunter	11
Exo-Scout	10
Soldier	11

-------------------------------------------
Skills
-------------------------------------------

Evasion	9
Explore	10
Intimidate	9
Rifles	21

================================================================
================================================================
---------------------------------------------------
Crew Manifest
---------------------------------------------------
Job Num Rank

Job	Num	Rank
Commander	2	24
Crew Dog	2	24
Diplomat	1	24
Doctor	1	24
Electronics Tech	2	24
Engineer	1	24
Explorer	1	24
Gunner	1	24
Hyperwarp Navigator	3	24
Mechanic	2	24
Military Officer	2	24
Pilot	3	24
Pirate	2	24
Soldier	1	24

================================================================

[daveal]

Wow! 5 pilot assist modules! I thought 2 was extra special.

[drspendlove]

Jul 7, 2018 10:56:06 GMT -5 daveal said:

I always get the biggest pilot assist I can buy, and get all the after battle repair talents I can. You mention the commander morale talent, but the two morale things I rely on are the merchant boost to morale with every paycheck and the commander after battle speech. There is another player drspendlove who mentions his ships are unhittable even on impossible, maybe he will drop by and give his tips too.

Ah, if I said "Impossible" I was wrong. At the time I said anything about that, I would've been on Brutal. Pilot skill is king for avoiding hits. Get that as high as humanely possible and the E.M. a ton. Bombardment helps against truly accurate foes but it was recently nerfed to not be quite as effective. Get the heck out of range 5 though. Range 4 is FAR safer if you're doing anything but escaping. Torpedo accuracy at higher levels is obscene at range 5.

I'll try to give better advice once I get my Impossible playthroughs succeeding. Give me another 200 hours of gametime first.

[Cory Trese]

Great stuff for a Steam Guide!

[Cory Trese]

Ouch.