Ships: Top Speed & Agility +Spy Ship Ratings

[spooky]

My Setup: I'm playing a Spy Captain built for crew combat, but avoiding ship combat.  My template started Ships at D to buy the Scout Cutter with a small crew that levels quickly and it has served me well.  Once I was over 500K credits, I started wondering what a Spy ship upgrade would be and noticed none of the ship stats jumped out at me as being obviously good or bad for a Spy.  Also, since I'm going for a ship combat avoidance build, having great speed (24+) for those unavoidable ship battles I found is key to consistent turn 1 escapes that are successful.

Spy Reward Factors: Captain: Resilience & Wisdom, Skills: Navigation & Electronics 
- Captain Attributes are handled on template creation.  Since I was going for crew combat and Attributes are essentially static (don't level up), I put an A in Attributes (top skill roll/crew combat value).
- Where your ship & crew helps is the two Skills: Navigation & Electronics

Spy Ship Rating = Base Ship Navigation + Electronics
- This gives you a starting point to compare ships against to see which ones have the highest value for Spy operations.  

Ships: Best Balanced Tier > 27 Speed & 27 Agility = 54 Total 
Scout Cutter - 2400 Mass, $190K - 900 Hull, 12 Armor, 12 Shield - 4/24 Max Crew, 13 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 18 Ship Ops, 12 Pilot/Nav/Electronics/Gunnery
- Spy Rating: 24
Allistar Liner - 2400 Mass, $340K - 1000 Hull, 10 Armor, 14 Shield - 4/24 Max Crew, 15 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 21 Ship Ops/Gunnery, 14 Electronics, 11 Pilot, 10 Nav
- Spy Rating: 24
Volk Frigate - 2400 Mass, $320K - 1350 Hull, 6 Armor, 12 Shield - 5/24 Max Crew, 16 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 21 Gunnery, 20 Ship Ops, 14 Electronics, 11 Pilot, 10 Nav
- Spy Rating: 24
Aetemum Vindex - 2400 Mass, $370K - 1000 Hull, 14 Armor, 10 Shield - 5/24 Max Crew, 16 Compartments > Warrior Achieve unlock
- Skill Pools: 20 Ship Ops, 17 Gunnery, 13 Electronics, 11 Pilot, 10 Nav
- Spy Rating: 23

Notes: The 27/27 tier are nearly the same from a Spy Ops point of view with three 24s.  That said, the costly Allistar Liner & Volk Frigate both have 2-3 more compartments to specialize with compared to the Scout Cutter which provides a lot of speed and agility bang for the buck.

Ships: Maximum Speed Tier > 29 Speed & 24 Agility = 53 Total
Callus Freighter - 3400 Mass, $300K - 1500 Hull, 5 Armor, 12 Shield - 5/30 Max Crew, 18 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 25 Ship Ops, 18 Nav, 16 Electronics/Gunnery, 15 Pilot
- Spy Rating: 34
Dart Liner - 3400 Mass, $327K - 950 Hull, 10 Armor, 15 Shield - 5/24 Max Crew, 17 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 21 Ship Ops, 19 Nav/Gunnery, 16 Electronics, 13 Pilot
- Spy Rating: 35
Palace Interceptor - 3400 Mass, $315K - 1200 Hull, 11 Armor, 11 Shield - 5/24 Max Crew, 17 Compartments > Perfect Contractor Achieve unlock
- Skill Pools: 21 Ship Ops, 19 Nav/Gunnery, 16 Electronics, 13 Pilot
- Spy Rating: 35
Corsair Interceptor - 3400 Mass, $325K - 1100 Hull, 10 Armor, 10 Shield - 5/24 Max Crew, 17 Compartments > De Valtos unique
- Skill Pools: 21 Ship Ops, 19 Nav/Gunnery, 16 Electronics, 13 Pilot
- Spy Rating: 35

Notes: If you have the need for speed, these are the fastest ships in the 'verse!  The 29/24 tier are the best for long range battles and escaping bigger warships.  The increased mass leads to bigger ship skill pools and hence higher Spy ratings with three 35s catching my eye as upgrades from the Scout Cutter.  These ships also all run five officers while my starting Scout Cutter in the 27/27 tier only has four.  

Ships: Second Best Balanced Tier > 24 Speed & 24 Agility = 48 Total
Lightbow Raptor - 3400 Mass, $230K - 1200 Hull, 12 Armor, 10 Shield - 4/24 Max Crew, 16 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 22 Ship Ops, 17 Nav, 16 Gunnery, 15 Electronics, 13 Pilot
- Spy Rating: 32
Dart Jammer - 3400 Mass, $185K - 1000 Hull, 15 Armor, 8 Shield - 5/30 Max Crew, 16 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 22 Ship Ops, 21 Nav, 16 Electronics, 15 Gunnery, 13 Pilot
- Spy Rating: 37
Strikecruiser - 3400 Mass, $375K - 1250 Hull, 12 Armor, 10 Shield - 4/24 Max Crew, 17 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 27 Ship Ops, 20 Gunnery, 18 Nav, 16 Electronics, 14 Pilot
- Spy Rating: 34
Vulture Liner - 3400 Mass, $325K - 1000 Hull, 8 Armor, 12 Shield - 4/24 Max Crew, 16 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 24 Ship Ops, 23 Gunnery, 15 Nav, 14 Electronics, 12 Pilot
- Spy Rating: 34
Bolt Raptor - 3400 Mass, $400K - 1050 Hull, 11 Armor, 12 Shield - 5/24 Max Crew, 18 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 25 Ship Ops, 20 Gunnery, 16 Pilot, 15 Nav, 14 Electronics
- Spy Rating: 29
Juror Class - 3400 Mass, $160K - 1100 Hull, 10 Armor, 10 Shield - 4/24 Max Crew, 15 Compartments
- Skill Pools: 21 Ship Ops, 17 Nav, 15 Gunnery, 14 Electronics, 13 Pilot
- Spy Rating: 31

Notes: The 24/24 tier has better Spy ratings than the 27/27 tier, but is mostly under the speedy 29/24 tier.  The one exception is the Dart Jammer with a 37 Spy Rating, giving it the highest rating of all three tiers.

Spy Ship Conclusion: The top options are the Dart Jammer (37), Dart Liner (35), Palace Interceptor (35), and Corsair Interceptor (35). 

In my case, I liked the idea of flying one of the fastest ships in the galaxy, so I focused on the 29/24 tier.  I have a De Valtos contact that gives a -15% ship purchase effect and combined that with the ship purchase discount talent to get a shiny Corsair Interceptor at a very nice price which I'm currently flying and testing modules on.  One thing I noticed about the Corsair Interceptor was that the default engine was actually 24 Speed & 29 Agility, so I switched it for the 29 Speed & 24 Agility option which does add on to the initial cost.

Spy Ship Modules: The only ship component that aids in spy rewards are the Signal Arrays.  Once your crew is at 200+% efficiency, any other +Nav/Electronics components cease adding to the spy reward factors.
Triple Arc Signal Array: Increase data records gathered when Spying by 25% ~$21K
Small Fuel Tank 4: +3 Ship Ops, +2 Electronics, +38 Fuel Capactiy ~$15K > Additional fuel capacity on the cheap is still good, but the +Elec won't help with spying
Reference - steamcommunity.com/app/335620/discussions/0/1734336452572564103/?ctp=2 

Ship Info from the wiki - startraders.gamepedia.com/Ships 
Ship Achieve Unlocks - startraders.gamepedia.com/Unlocks 

So what do you guys think?  Any veteran Spy Captains out there that can share their experiences with their ship choices/builds?  Any Spy Captains built for ship combat out there? If so, what did you find successful?

[fallen]

Wow, great analysis. Hopefully some veteran Spies will come forward

[spooky]

Spy Ship Module - Triple Arc Signal Array: I tested this one out about a half dozen times on gathering Intel and was surprised to learn that the module damages itself every time it's used (4-9%/per success). I just hit the third era story wise so I can sell Intel with some nice talent bonuses for more credits/rep which more than makes up for the module damage. That said, you'll be doing small repairs more often if you equip that signal array.

[marko]

Is there any reason to choose Corsair Interceptor over Palace Interceptor? Palace Interceptor seems equal or slightly better on every base stat and $10k less. It does have to be unlocked though.

[spooky]

Aug 17, 2018 17:56:07 GMT -5 marko said:

Is there any reason to choose Corsair Interceptor over Palace Interceptor? Palace Interceptor seems equal or slightly better on every base stat and $10k less. It does have to be unlocked though.

You're correct, the Palace Interceptor has slightly better defensive stats while saving $10K over the Corsair Interceptor.  The catch is you have to have completed the Perfect Contractor Achievement to unlock it which at the time I hadn't finished.  

Perfect Contractor: Complete 25 missions without failing any > Difficulty: normal > Time Limit: none

[sigurdcole]

Okay, this has me overall intrigued.

The thing is, the skill pools are solely determined by components, last I checked. So the default Spy values are good, but just a surface skim.

For example, if you take a Scout Cutter, rip out the weapons and bolt in a Sensor Array 1, Nav Assist Module 1, and Sig Dampener, its Spy Rating jumps to a whopping 35 (21 ELEC + 15 NAVI) - solid competition for any of the more advanced ships, and a darned sight cheaper.

Or, from another angle, the Bridge contributes to ELEC and NAVI, so bridge size places a hard cap on this. I'm not clear if you can swap to a larger/smaller bridge, though?

[spooky]

Aug 24, 2018 14:39:18 GMT -5 sigurdcole said:

Okay, this has me overall intrigued.

The thing is, the skill pools are solely determined by components, last I checked. So the default Spy values are good, but just a surface skim.

For example, if you take a Scout Cutter, rip out the weapons and bolt in a Sensor Array 1, Nav Assist Module 1, and Sig Dampener, its Spy Rating jumps to a whopping 35 (21 ELEC + 15 NAVI) - solid competition for any of the more advanced ships, and a darned sight cheaper.

Or, from another angle, the Bridge contributes to ELEC and NAVI, so bridge size places a hard cap on this. I'm not clear if you can swap to a larger/smaller bridge, though?

My goal was to find a starting point to see which ships were better for the Spying role.  As you noted you can definitely boost the Nav/Electronics further buy spending credits on new components.  Add on top of the that your crew's Nav/Electronics skills.  Early game, the ship's skill pools will be a bigger percentage of your Spying reward factor.  As you progress through the years and your crew levels up, their total Nav/Electronics will get pretty high. 

Moving up to a bigger mass ship with more crew pushes those skill pools up further (Ex: 2400 Mass to 3400 Mass in my scenario).  Medium mass/moderate speed ships will have even bigger skill pools, but that leaves my small/agile/speedy scenario.

I think the bridge size is locked to the ship, so I doubt that can be changed.  The bridge also doubles as Captain and sometimes extra officer staterooms too, so I don't think you'd be able to adjust that.

[tideofkhatanga]

I see one major issue with that approach: the ship's dice pools are only used when making skill tests aboard your ship (see here steamcommunity.com/app/335620/discussions/0/1734336452572564103/#c1734336452574384799). Meaning that they don't matter when running missions on a planet (you're not on the ship) and they don't matter when spying, patrolling, blockading or exploring since deck construction isn't a skill check.

So all those fancy ships and nav assists don't actually do anything to improve your spying. The only things that matter are your crew and signal array modules.

Edit: you still need to build your ship so that it can deal with spying mishaps (crew/ship damage, curious ships) since those events typically involve testing against your ship dice pools.

[sigurdcole]

Aug 25, 2018 1:16:15 GMT -5 spooky said:

Aug 24, 2018 14:39:18 GMT -5 sigurdcole said:

Okay, this has me overall intrigued.

The thing is, the skill pools are solely determined by components, last I checked. So the default Spy values are good, but just a surface skim.

For example, if you take a Scout Cutter, rip out the weapons and bolt in a Sensor Array 1, Nav Assist Module 1, and Sig Dampener, its Spy Rating jumps to a whopping 35 (21 ELEC + 15 NAVI) - solid competition for any of the more advanced ships, and a darned sight cheaper.

Or, from another angle, the Bridge contributes to ELEC and NAVI, so bridge size places a hard cap on this. I'm not clear if you can swap to a larger/smaller bridge, though?

My goal was to find a starting point to see which ships were better for the Spying role.  As you noted you can definitely boost the Nav/Electronics further buy spending credits on new components.  Add on top of the that your crew's Nav/Electronics skills.  Early game, the ship's skill pools will be a bigger percentage of your Spying reward factor.  As you progress through the years and your crew levels up, their total Nav/Electronics will get pretty high. 

Right! Your analysis is a great digest of out-of-the-box functionality. My intent was only to demonstrate that ships are extremely configurable  - an expansion, not a counterargument.

[spooky]

Aug 27, 2018 9:36:23 GMT -5 tideofkhatanga said:

I see one major issue with that approach: the ship's dice pools are only used when making skill tests aboard your ship (see here steamcommunity.com/app/335620/discussions/0/1734336452572564103/#c1734336452574384799). Meaning that they don't matter when running missions on a planet (you're not on the ship) and they don't matter when spying, patrolling, blockading or exploring since deck construction isn't a skill check.

So all those fancy ships and nav assists don't actually do anything to improve your spying. The only things that matter are your crew and signal array modules.

Edit: you still need to build your ship so that it can deal with spying mishaps (crew/ship damage, curious ships) since those events typically involve testing against your ship dice pools.

I checked out that steam discussion and tested it in game, and verified that the Nav Assist Module has no effect once your crew is over 200% effectiveness.  That means ship components that give +Nav/Elec have no effect on Spying with a decently experienced crew (200+%).  I'll edit my component section to reflect this. 


I did discover something odd between my ship skill pool (Nav/Elec) vs the Spy Reward Factors.  Somehow I'm getting an extra +5 Electronics on the Rewards screen and I'm not sure how.

[fallen]

Ok, will take a look!

[daveal]

Aug 27, 2018 9:36:23 GMT -5 tideofkhatanga said:

the ship's dice pools ... don't matter when spying, patrolling, blockading or exploring since deck construction isn't a skill check.

Is that true? I am pretty sure the dice pools go into the reward factors, meaning you will get better stuff.
startraders.gamepedia.com/Spying

[fallen]

To be clear, the Risk and Reward factors are set by your entire Skill among the crew. In this case, you can see that Navigation is used is 107.

[drspendlove]

Aug 29, 2018 10:09:24 GMT -5 fallen said:

To be clear, the Risk and Reward factors are set by your entire Skill among the crew. In this case, you can see that Navigation is used is 107.

TIL!