Bounty Hunter guide

[cipher]

The Realm's Justice

Templates :

Justice

A) ATTRIBUTES

14 Strenght 18 Charisma

30 Quickness 30 Wisdom

20 Fortitude 24 Resilience

B) Skills

5/9 Rifles

9/5 Evasion

1 Intimidate

C) Contacts

EX-Bounty Hunter , Prince , Politician , Ex-Mercenary (NOT LOCAL)

D) Ships

Scout Cutter

E) Experience

Bounty Hunter , Starting Level 1

FAQ

Why the low STR ? Str is not really useful for a combat captain because you won't be the frontline. And I always go for long range weapons such SMG or Sniper Rifle

Why putting points into Charisma? Charisma is good because sometimes you're gonna blockade for Ship Combat based missions

Why maxing out Quickness and Wisdom ? Maxed Quickness and Wisdom for rolling high initiative and always starting first. You will also need high wisdom for "security checkpoints" in Prisoner Exchange missions and similar.

What about low fortitude and Resilience? You won't be into the frontline so 20 fortitude is kinda okay. Resilience is for "broken fingers" , "threating demands" and such when you're into "diplomatic" missions.Plus if things go badly in combat (Harder difficult and above) there is a slight hope you won't die for good.

Your Skills choice is abit weird , why ? This Table shows all the BH Stats. As you can see this game supports even numbers and round odd numbers down. So we need to mitigate that "damage" by raising the numbers till we make them even. You can swap the 5 and 9 about evasion and rifles. I'm very aggressive to I always go for 9 Rifles  , 5 Evasion. 1 Point into intimidate because there are levels where Intimidate is into the ODD number spot.

Contacts choices : EX-BH for obvious reasons.

Prince because the initial prince you get gives "particular" missions that don't involve anything related to the "prince objectives".

Politician because you will need some diplomats that gives you morale , credits gain , conflicts related talents. They are REALLY mandatory , believe me.

Ex-Mercenary because not only he's kinda close to Ex-Bh missions but also for combat armor merchandise. They are useful but not mandatory since I , most of times , one shot the enemy with my BH / Soldier Wombo Combo ( Stead Fast + Full Auto).

Scout Cutter ? Are you crazy !? According to my doctor , I'm a violent sociopath but that's not the case....I guess. Basically you will stack moneys and exp for buying a better ship. But trust me : if you're good and know what you're doing , even a small ship is okay.

Starting level 1 ? You won't need a higher starting level because the exp you will get will be plenty and easy even at harder difficulties.

Supremacy Boba

Attribute A

20 Strenght

16 Charisma

30 Quickness

30 Wisdom

20 Fortitude

20 Resilience

SHIP B

GUARDIAN INTERCEPTOR

CONTACTS C

EX-BH , Retired Explorer , Diplomat , Prince(NOT LOCAL)

SKILLD D

4 Points into Explore or Tactics ( They are both influential for wild lands, but differ in other matters like Ship Combat; for Tactics, Exploring for reward factor in exploring wild planets)

EXPERIENCE E

Bounty Hunter Multi classed with Exo-Scout after lvl 14

OR

Explorer multi classed wih Exo-Scout after LVL 15

Early game

You will start with package delivery and some diplomat escorting. Select the closest one with highest pay. You've got plenty of times before choosing to escort the arbiter. So get some moneys and buy another passenger cabin. Keep stacking moneys and once the arbiter hits the 20 weeks go for her.

Buy an edict and upgrade it to level 3 , promote the military rank to lvl 5.

Once you do that you have around 30 weeks before the prince hires another Star Traders . Just do some missions and once you've got enough money go and select the "arbiter neutrality" mission.

DON'T RUSH JUST YET! You've got 2 years before the missions expires. You need more moneys! You will want some prisoners and passenger cabins. Do prisoner trade and escort diplomat missions. If you see an alliance between your starting faction and another one , SPAM THE MISSIONS FOR IT. Not only it's easy moneys but you can even farm the reputation!

The trick is to do crew combat only missions against the main plot (most of times it's Cadar if you're Steel Song) faction. So upgrade your weapon Locker ASAP! (thanks to assisted installation and similar talents you can get it for 94k or even less!).

When you've completed the Arbiter Neutrality mission you will get "political crusade" missions from Faen. Do the "prime pilgrimage" mission so you get a High Princess contact for free! This little girl can upgrade you rank even more but also gives a 15% ship discount!

Mid Game

This is where things are getting interesting. Your captain is around level 10 and you've got your first million. What to do you ask ? Alright , eyes on the prize!

SITUATION A)

You want a small ship cause you're love being a firefly. Do that :

Buy 2 Missiles Batteries , 1 prisoner cell , 1 passenger cabin and Chaser Engine. Upgrade the other stuff as you please.

Hire some Explorers , Multiclass your Quarter Master with Military Officer , You can go either pure BH captain or multi class with Exo-Scout

Why ? Missiles Batteries can cripple the enemy engine and grant you a fast victory. I usually end up winning at round 3 54% of times! If you're unlucky you will win at round 4 , or you will just blow the enemy ship up if you're terribly unlucky.

Thanks to the chaser engine and the small ship you can advance , open fire and use (MUST) Evasive maneuvers. You will want High electronics and some average commands for optimal defense.

QM is the optimal choice for Military officer because of intimidate and command. You will also want Stiff Salute for annoying Zealots and Military officer that have you their faction crossed.

Exo-Scout is great because it gives you rifles and explore skills. You will need if you want to go for "Wilderness Hunt" or "Wildrness Tombstone" Missions. I personally go for Urban Catch but that's up to you.

Important thing is : Don't cross more than 2 factions , you will need to be in good terms for Arbiter missions and you need plants for refueling and resupply.

You're supposed to have at LEAST 3/4 millions. So buy the biggest modafacka ship (I'm looking at you , Cautela Titan!) and upgrade it slowly. Don't rush or you're gonna bankrupt.

LATE GAME

Look at you , you've got big modafacka ship and level 6 weapons! Now all you gotta do is hunting down Zerodd (if you ever see him) and getting the bounties!

This guide is under development. More templates and explanations are coming!

MY BH wishlist :

More Talents once you hit level 15

More Talents about getting bigger pay once you completed a bounty mission

More reputation gain talent with the contact once you complete a bounty mission

A talent named "Realm's Justice" which involves more credits and rep at once if you hit lvl 15

More Ship combat talents (we've got only blood game and Tireless Pursuit)

More will come if they catch my mind

[fallen]

Great post, very happy to see it from one of our pro Hunters!

[maddemiurg]

Some advice:

STR - LMGs use it, but you're still right dumping it. +16 STR is only worth 4 rifle skill and accuracy is generally much less of an issue than evasion, especially if you stick to soldier for the most part and start with 5+ in rifles. It's still better than CHA or RES as it gives some HP too. Sniper rifles are scary when enemies use them because of the damage spike potential but imo they are underwhelming in player's hands as other rifle types have far more damage output on average.
CHA - it only gives slightly better odds for rewards in blockading, impacted by a ton of other stuff like your piloting pool. It's 100% worthless in this build unless you're blockading 24/7 and even then it's not that great.
RES - it's a dump stat.

I'd go 18/30/30/14/30/14 or 30/18/30/14/30/14 for a full auto bot (doesn't need ini as much), although overall I still like the 1st option much more (for using full auto earlier if nothing else).

Odd skills - I'm not sure where you got that, but every point in evasion and rifles gives you a strong attack/defense dice. Intimidate is not worth it. 10 evasion/5 rifles is probably the safest build, but if you have a lot of hp you can afford to go for 10 rifles/5 evasion for bigger crits.

Captain's job - You don't really need to be a BH to do BH stuff. MO and Assassin are imo the best choices for this playstyle actually, but BH is also fine.

Contacts:
Diplomats are not that mandatory if you take reliable hand for your QM. But can still be nice. Rep is much better managed by MOs.

If you have unlocks the best combo imo is:

FDF commander - MOs give a ton of command and tactics to dominate ship combat and dominate the reputation game with commanding sweep
Blackheart - Armor, buys intel and pirates are good for boosting your piloting pool while providing access to some talents you wouldn't get by just spamming more pilots. Ok as non local
Salvage Broker - this one is a bit iffy as it can spawn on a planet where it's useless but if you're ok with rerolling or start as a faction with starport bonus -15% discount on ship upgrades is hard to beat
Ex-Bounty Hunter - for weapons and missions mostly, you don't need BHs, although they're still better than Diplos for mitigating rep loss (but just patrol with 5+ MOs instead).
If you side with Zette she gives you Spies and specialist gear, giving you access to all the crew combat stuff (except military gear) and an amazing combo of special recruits (MOs, Spies, Pirates) that allows you to do pretty much whatever you want.

Ship
Scout cutter is ok, but personally I prefer Juror as it has more crew at start giving you more potential picks for your combat team and doesn't require upgrading barracks ASAP. I switch to Dart Jammer as soon as I make 180k (which isn't really all that long and you can sell Juror for like 100k). Jammer is much better than SC with +6 crew/+1 officer while still having up to 29 speed.

Explores/exos
You don't really need them in a crew combat heavy build if you're not artifact hunting imo, the worst you can roll is xeno and you should eat them for breakfast

Ship Combat
There are other threads about this, won't copy them here, look up "Favorite ships" thread on steam. Basically the best approach atm is to stack pilot modules and command, you don't even need weapons at all if you do although you can still use some for fun. Boarding combat is tedious, but gives you more XP and more money for scrapping enemy ships as their cost is reduced when they take damage. Using missiles for crippling is viable and is less tedious, but you won't earn as much. Stacking piloting and PAs/Defense matrices still stands, as long as you do this the rest doesn't matter that much.

[resistor]

Nov 25, 2018 17:45:29 GMT -5 maddemiurg said:

...CHA - it only gives slightly better odds for rewards in blockading, impacted by a ton of other stuff like your piloting pool. It's 100% worthless in this build unless you're blockading 24/7 and even then it's not that great...

CHA is also used in Patrolling, which some missions also require, and Charisma increases how often you discover unknown traits from your crew. I wouldn't say CHA is useless for a BH, although I personally wouldn't put it as high as 18.

[maddemiurg]

Nov 25, 2018 18:02:50 GMT -5 resistor said:

Nov 25, 2018 17:45:29 GMT -5 maddemiurg said:

...CHA - it only gives slightly better odds for rewards in blockading, impacted by a ton of other stuff like your piloting pool. It's 100% worthless in this build unless you're blockading 24/7 and even then it's not that great...

CHA is also used in Patrolling, which some missions also require, and Charisma increases how often you discover unknown traits from your crew. I wouldn't say CHA is useless for a BH, although I personally wouldn't put it as high as 18.

Yep, but it doesn't impact your odds to pull mission success. Also, impact on odds of reward cards is really minor compared to other factors like skill pools. Discovering unknown traits is probably the best part, but you have QM for that. Well, 100% worthless was probably an overstatement, but given the opportunity cost it's worse than pretty much any other stat on a crew combat captain. You'' have it at 14 anyway with A or B stats. It's one of the better non combat stats, especially for Merchants.

[cipher]

I posted the reason why Resilience is important. You can't imagine how many dice rolls can fail with a bad resilience. I played on hard with 14 STR and 30 QUICKNESS/WISDOM. It worked greatly and i didn't fail once. Choosing BH as a job is good for red badge / bonus accuracy because early game you will want not to miss and not losing too much reputation with factions. Anyway : tomorrow I will upgrade the build with more templates and such

[maddemiurg]

Nov 25, 2018 18:12:07 GMT -5 cipher said:

I posted the reason why Resilience is important. You can't imagine how many dice rolls can fail with a bad resilience. I played on hard with 14 STR and 30 QUICKNESS/WISDOM. It worked greatly and i didn't fail once. Choosing BH as a job is good for red badge / bonus accuracy because early game you will want not to miss and not losing too much reputation with factions. Anyway : tomorrow I will upgrade the build with more templates and such

You're not gonna miss much if at all with +5-10 weapon skill as long as you level up mostly in jobs that give you enough attack dice (soldier, pistoleer, swordsman, assassin and sniper to a lesser extent). +10% accuracy is decent but accuracy is one of the easier stats to stack in crew combat. So bonuses like Assassin's +3 ini and +15% parry and dodge are much more powerful. In the end, depends on your build but in my experience Assassin is a better crew combat carry and MO is as good as BH in CC while also boosting ship combat a bit.

Red Badge has a huge ass cooldown so for it to have enough of an impact you need to be running several crew BHs with it but generally it's a waste of space. MOs and proactive patrolling would do much more for your rep than BHs ever will.

Resilience might be more important if you're still learning the game, but generally on hard+ chances of survival are not high enough to be something you can actually rely on (on impossible 30 resilience is still basically a coin flip). You need to build and fight in a way where you'll never go down in the first place and other stats help more in this regard. If you're running a heavily optimized combat crew you're not going to lose anyone even on impossible.

[cipher]

Nov 25, 2018 18:28:12 GMT -5 maddemiurg said:

Nov 25, 2018 18:12:07 GMT -5 cipher said:

I posted the reason why Resilience is important. You can't imagine how many dice rolls can fail with a bad resilience. I played on hard with 14 STR and 30 QUICKNESS/WISDOM. It worked greatly and i didn't fail once. Choosing BH as a job is good for red badge / bonus accuracy because early game you will want not to miss and not losing too much reputation with factions. Anyway : tomorrow I will upgrade the build with more templates and such

You're not gonna miss much if at all with +5-10 weapon skill as long as you level up mostly in jobs that give you enough attack dice (soldier, pistoleer, swordsman, assassin and sniper to a lesser extent). +10% accuracy is decent but accuracy is one of the easier stats to stack in crew combat. So bonuses like Assassin's +3 ini and +15% parry and dodge are much more powerful. In the end, depends on your build but in my experience Assassin is a better crew combat carry in my experience and MO is as good as BH in CC while also boosting ship combat a bit.

Red Badge has a huge ass cooldown so for it to have enough of an impact you need to be running several crew BHs with it but generally it's a waste of space. MOs and proactive patrolling would do much more for your rep than BHs ever will.

Resilience might be more important if you're still learning the game, but generally on hard+ chances of survival are not high enough to be something you can actually rely on (on impossible 30 resilience is still basically a coin flip). You need to build and fight in a way where you'll never go down in the first place and other stats help more in this regard. If you're running a heavily optimized combat crew you're not going to lose anyone even on impossible.

Then we can always request to lower Red Badge cooldown in order to make it optimal. Also I multi class into BH/SO/EXO or BH /EXO , it really depends on the situation. I , however , can't stress enough with accuracy bonuses. Early game you're pretty much tight and you need as much help as you can. I'm gonna post another template in 10 minutes or so. You can share your informations! Let's make the Bounty Hunting great again!

[maddemiurg]

Nov 25, 2018 18:37:06 GMT -5 cipher said:

Nov 25, 2018 18:28:12 GMT -5 maddemiurg said:

You're not gonna miss much if at all with +5-10 weapon skill as long as you level up mostly in jobs that give you enough attack dice (soldier, pistoleer, swordsman, assassin and sniper to a lesser extent). +10% accuracy is decent but accuracy is one of the easier stats to stack in crew combat. So bonuses like Assassin's +3 ini and +15% parry and dodge are much more powerful. In the end, depends on your build but in my experience Assassin is a better crew combat carry in my experience and MO is as good as BH in CC while also boosting ship combat a bit.

Red Badge has a huge ass cooldown so for it to have enough of an impact you need to be running several crew BHs with it but generally it's a waste of space. MOs and proactive patrolling would do much more for your rep than BHs ever will.

Resilience might be more important if you're still learning the game, but generally on hard+ chances of survival are not high enough to be something you can actually rely on (on impossible 30 resilience is still basically a coin flip). You need to build and fight in a way where you'll never go down in the first place and other stats help more in this regard. If you're running a heavily optimized combat crew you're not going to lose anyone even on impossible.

Then we can always request to lower Red Badge cooldown in order to make it optimal. Also I multi class into BH/SO/EXO or BH /EXO , it really depends on the situation. I , however , can't stress enough with accuracy bonuses. Early game you're pretty much tight and you need as much help as you can. I'm gonna post another template in 10 minutes or so. You can share your informations! Let's make the Bounty Hunting great again!

Rep loss mitigation talents are bit weak/flawed in general imo, they have really high cooldowns and apply to a narrow subset of situations. Red badge is still one of the better ones, but it doesn't even work for all BH missions, like anything including wilderness hunts. So you'll end up at -40 rep pretty fast anyway without patrolling and if you build for patrolling you don't need red badge. Like with many other talents you also need multiple copies, especially with the high cooldown, but it's hard to justify having multiple BHs on board just for intimidate checks, blood game and Red Badge. I usually have 1 or 2 (My rifleman always has some BH ranks, and I sometimes do non combat QM/BH) but you need more. Crew BHs are not good enough for combat as they have poor combat skill progression, but it's a common problem with all "hybrid" combat classes.

I usually do BH/Soldier/Exo, BH/Soldier/Sniper or BH/Soldier/Pistoleer for my non captain rifle users. Emphasis is on Soldier though, BH would get 5 to 8 ranks and the 3rd job would get 2. Focusing on Soldier (I would get 1 Soldeir rank ASAP and a 2nd one right after BH 5) means you have really high rifle skill at which point hitting stuff is really not an issue (suppressing fire also has +25% built in accuracy for the earlygame). Hitting stuff gets even easier later on with faster attack dice progression, and earlygame shouldn't really be hard unless you go for super early xeno hunting. BH 5 is a must for Unfaltering Ire, that's the best BH talent imo, although it falls off later on (not that it's bad, just not needed).

For captain rifle build you could consider some weirder stuff just due to the starting traits, like Explorer/BH/Soldier (for Device Freak), Zealot/BH/Soldier (bonus damage is nice for snubber/HMG oneshots) or even Assassin/BH/Soldier for better tanking and initiative (even blades are useful for parry if you go p2 with a snubber). Starting as BH still has its merit as it leaves the 3rd job slot open, which lets you squeeze in a little bit more rifle skill and/or evasion if nothing else.

Why I think Assassin/MO are more "meta" though - it's much easier to find a good dps officer. I had Steel Song guys with Berserker and Device Freak and high ini, that's a combo that's tough to beat even for a captain. Good tank has much more strict requirements for skill and stats bonuses and is overall more vital for a "safe" playthrough. Assassin makes a really good dodge or hybrid tank, MO/Pistoleer with Fading shot and innate +10% armor is a great armor tank and pistol damage dealer and his command bonus helps ship combat, even if you stop MO at 5 ranks or so. Menacing is not quite as good as Inspiring. But these differences are not that big, and you can probably make a good captain BH tank with BH 8, resolute hound, 10 evasion and a snubber.

Bounty hunting is already great though, bounty missions pay very well with high Edict and Military rank. It doesn't make as much money as RTG trade but you can focus purely on combat from the get go. It's just that BH captain or BHs in general are not really vital to do it.

[fallen]

The part about Red Badge + Wilderness is under review to change.

[cipher]

Nov 25, 2018 20:50:04 GMT -5 maddemiurg said:

Nov 25, 2018 18:37:06 GMT -5 cipher said:

Then we can always request to lower Red Badge cooldown in order to make it optimal. Also I multi class into BH/SO/EXO or BH /EXO , it really depends on the situation. I , however , can't stress enough with accuracy bonuses. Early game you're pretty much tight and you need as much help as you can. I'm gonna post another template in 10 minutes or so. You can share your informations! Let's make the Bounty Hunting great again!

Rep loss mitigation talents are bit weak/flawed in general imo, they have really high cooldowns and apply to a narrow subset of situations. Red badge is still one of the better ones, but it doesn't even work for all BH missions, like anything including wilderness hunts. So you'll end up at -40 rep pretty fast anyway without patrolling and if you build for patrolling you don't need red badge. Like with many other talents you also need multiple copies, especially with the high cooldown, but it's hard to justify having multiple BHs on board just for intimidate checks, blood game and Red Badge. I usually have 1 or 2 (My rifleman always has some BH ranks, and I sometimes do non combat QM/BH) but you need more. Crew BHs are not good enough for combat as they have poor combat skill progression, but it's a common problem with all "hybrid" combat classes.

I usually do BH/Soldier/Exo, BH/Soldier/Sniper or BH/Soldier/Pistoleer for my non captain rifle users. Emphasis is on Soldier though, BH would get 5 to 8 ranks and the 3rd job would get 2. Focusing on Soldier (I would get 1 Soldeir rank ASAP and a 2nd one right after BH 5) means you have really high rifle skill at which point hitting stuff is really not an issue (suppressing fire also has +25% built in accuracy for the earlygame). Hitting stuff gets even easier later on with faster attack dice progression, and earlygame shouldn't really be hard unless you go for super early xeno hunting. BH 5 is a must for Unfaltering Ire, that's the best BH talent imo, although it falls off later on (not that it's bad, just not needed).

For captain rifle build you could consider some weirder stuff just due to the starting traits, like Explorer/BH/Soldier (for Device Freak), Zealot/BH/Soldier (bonus damage is nice for snubber/HMG oneshots) or even Assassin/BH/Soldier for better tanking and initiative (even blades are useful for parry if you go p2 with a snubber). Starting as BH still has its merit as it leaves the 3rd job slot open, which lets you squeeze in a little bit more rifle skill and/or evasion if nothing else.

Why I think Assassin/MO are more "meta" though - it's much easier to find a good dps officer. I had Steel Song guys with Berserker and Device Freak and high ini, that's a combo that's tough to beat even for a captain. Good tank has much more strict requirements for skill and stats bonuses and is overall more vital for a "safe" playthrough. Assassin makes a really good dodge or hybrid tank, MO/Pistoleer with Fading shot and innate +10% armor is a great armor tank and pistol damage dealer and his command bonus helps ship combat, even if you stop MO at 5 ranks or so. Menacing is not quite as good as Inspiring. But these differences are not that big, and you can probably make a good captain BH tank with BH 8, resolute hound, 10 evasion and a snubber.

Bounty hunting is already great though, bounty missions pay very well with high Edict and Military rank. It doesn't make as much money as RTG trade but you can focus purely on combat from the get go. It's just that BH captain or BHs in general are not really vital to do it.

About wilderness missions , do you hire some explorer or exo scout ? Do you also try to even the odd numbers when you level up ? I always try to create a balance about the numbers! What's you ideal template for combat rifle captain? How much strenght do you use and what about resilience ?

Also it would be really nice if we had the Menacing class talent reworked. 20% chance is too low and I don't like luck based things. How about a SURE bonus gain but capped only at 8 instead of 12?

[maddemiurg]

Nov 26, 2018 7:09:35 GMT -5 cipher said:

Nov 25, 2018 20:50:04 GMT -5 maddemiurg said:

Rep loss mitigation talents are bit weak/flawed in general imo, they have really high cooldowns and apply to a narrow subset of situations. Red badge is still one of the better ones, but it doesn't even work for all BH missions, like anything including wilderness hunts. So you'll end up at -40 rep pretty fast anyway without patrolling and if you build for patrolling you don't need red badge. Like with many other talents you also need multiple copies, especially with the high cooldown, but it's hard to justify having multiple BHs on board just for intimidate checks, blood game and Red Badge. I usually have 1 or 2 (My rifleman always has some BH ranks, and I sometimes do non combat QM/BH) but you need more. Crew BHs are not good enough for combat as they have poor combat skill progression, but it's a common problem with all "hybrid" combat classes.

I usually do BH/Soldier/Exo, BH/Soldier/Sniper or BH/Soldier/Pistoleer for my non captain rifle users. Emphasis is on Soldier though, BH would get 5 to 8 ranks and the 3rd job would get 2. Focusing on Soldier (I would get 1 Soldeir rank ASAP and a 2nd one right after BH 5) means you have really high rifle skill at which point hitting stuff is really not an issue (suppressing fire also has +25% built in accuracy for the earlygame). Hitting stuff gets even easier later on with faster attack dice progression, and earlygame shouldn't really be hard unless you go for super early xeno hunting. BH 5 is a must for Unfaltering Ire, that's the best BH talent imo, although it falls off later on (not that it's bad, just not needed).

For captain rifle build you could consider some weirder stuff just due to the starting traits, like Explorer/BH/Soldier (for Device Freak), Zealot/BH/Soldier (bonus damage is nice for snubber/HMG oneshots) or even Assassin/BH/Soldier for better tanking and initiative (even blades are useful for parry if you go p2 with a snubber). Starting as BH still has its merit as it leaves the 3rd job slot open, which lets you squeeze in a little bit more rifle skill and/or evasion if nothing else.

Why I think Assassin/MO are more "meta" though - it's much easier to find a good dps officer. I had Steel Song guys with Berserker and Device Freak and high ini, that's a combo that's tough to beat even for a captain. Good tank has much more strict requirements for skill and stats bonuses and is overall more vital for a "safe" playthrough. Assassin makes a really good dodge or hybrid tank, MO/Pistoleer with Fading shot and innate +10% armor is a great armor tank and pistol damage dealer and his command bonus helps ship combat, even if you stop MO at 5 ranks or so. Menacing is not quite as good as Inspiring. But these differences are not that big, and you can probably make a good captain BH tank with BH 8, resolute hound, 10 evasion and a snubber.

Bounty hunting is already great though, bounty missions pay very well with high Edict and Military rank. It doesn't make as much money as RTG trade but you can focus purely on combat from the get go. It's just that BH captain or BHs in general are not really vital to do it.

About wilderness missions , do you hire some explorer or exo scout ? Do you also try to even the odd numbers when you level up ? I always try to create a balance about the numbers! What's you ideal template for combat rifle captain? How much strenght do you use and what about resilience ?

Also it would be really nice if we had the Menacing class talent reworked. 20% chance is too low and I don't like luck based things. How about a SURE bonus gain but capped only at 8 instead of 12?

I don't hire any explorers or exos unless I'm artifact hunting. Explorers can be useful for Driven Prospector at rank 11 to finish missions faster, but the opportunity cost to keep them just for that is too high and it comes pretty late. Simple card removal also boosts your mission success chances a bit but it's not impactful enough to bother. I'm not really afraid of any cards I can roll during exploration if I have a strong crew combat team. They aren't useless, but I have better uses for these crew slots.

Actually one of the things that could boost BHs as a non combat job is gaining access to various mission success swaps, I can probably see keeping a few in a mission runner build in this case.

I don't try to even the odd numbers, I'm not sure where you got that but this is no DnD. +1 rifles is always +1 strong attack dice whether your rifle skill is even or not. In case of skills that are applied as 1/2 it's probably rounded down (e.g. Tactics defense dice in crew combat although you still get the crit bonus), but most important skills such as weapon skills and evasion give benefit for each point.

I haven't run too many rifle captains. As I said, I don't see any point putting anything into RES. The one I've used was 18 STR/30 QUI/30 FORT/14 CHA/30 WIS/14 RES. Fort would serve you much better to not die in the first place. I actually did a BH 8/Soldier max/Pistoleer 2 build as I wanted to run a BH but I've posted a few combos you could do instead above. Strength is decent for some builds but quickness, fortitude and wisdom are the best combat stats overall, so the leftovers go into str. Although you could make a case for 30 STR/18 QUI/30 FORT/14 CHA/30 WIS/14 RES build that would have ~200 hp and just spam full auto with HMG for 32 ini every turn not caring about ini that much. But I still like being able to move first. 200 hp is also bit wasted in p3-p4 where you use full auto and burst fire is a poor replacement.

If you run a p3-4 (full auto) dps rifle build I'd go 10 rifles 5 evasion but for the reasons described above I prefer tank captains so I think the best rifle captain would be a p2 BH/Soldier with a snubber, 10 evasion and 5 rifles. I'd probably go Zealot/BH/Soldier or Assassin/BH/Soldier starting as either Zealot or Assassin though. Should still be a dps beast with the t11 snubber from Eryn Razor's quests or even regular t6/t7 ones.

Randomness on Menacing and similar traits can be a bit irritating, but it's not the main issue with it. It's just that Intimidate isn't really a great skill. BH actually uses it the best as it at least gives a bit of extra healing to Resolute hound, but it's still not that good overall. Few good non combat uses it has (Reliable hand) are not a great option for a combat captain and non combat intimidate build doesn't do enough to justify building your captain like that.

[resistor]

Nov 26, 2018 7:09:35 GMT -5 cipher said:

About wilderness missions , do you hire some explorer or exo scout ? Do you also try to even the odd numbers when you level up ? I always try to create a balance about the numbers! What's you ideal template for combat rifle captain? How much strenght do you use and what about resilience ?

Also it would be really nice if we had the Menacing class talent reworked. 20% chance is too low and I don't like luck based things. How about a SURE bonus gain but capped only at 8 instead of 12?

I'll usually give one of my officers Spy/Explorer when I'm playing a BH so I can get exploration talents and a Stealth save.

[cipher]

A) Attributes

28 Strenght

14 Charisma

30 Quickness

30 Wisdom

20 Fortitude

14 Resilience

B) Experience

Bounty Hunter LVL 4

C) Contacts

EX-Bounty Hunter

FDF Commander(Only if you've unlocked it) / Policitian

EX-Spy

Prince (NOT LOCAL)

D) SHIP

Scout Cutter

E)SKILLS

Main Goals : Get 3 prisoners cells and 3 passenger cells. You're gonna transport plenty of people for stacking credits

Buy Quarters for 24 crew (you start off with 18)

Hire Pilots and some 2 pilots , 1 e-tech , 2 military officers (from FDF Commander) / 2 diplomats , 1 Spy

Buy weapon locker lvl 5 !

Improve your current ship and THEN stack credits for a bigger one

I played on hard and didn't have any problems even with a small ship in ship combat

[xdesperado]

cipher why did you give EXP a B and Skills an E on your template, seems that swapping those two would make for your Captain being much more effective long term with the bonus Skills.