Favorite Star Traders RPG Profession?

[Cory Trese]

What is your favorite Star Traders RPG character class?

Bounty Hunter? Explorer? Smuggler? Pirate? Military Officer? Spy?

Do you tend to match your play style to the character class? Or is there a hybrid of style and class you prefer?

Andrew and I would love to hear why!

[Cory Trese]

Signing off for the night -- been a really rough day.

Be back tomorrow for more answering questions and maybe even some coding on a game (gasp!)

[Cory Trese]

My favorite profession is Bounty Hunter or a Smuggler/Explorer hybrid (classed as Smuggler, skill built as Explorer.)

Been trying Spy/Explorer hybrid as well, which has been an interesting challenge to get right.

[starfixer]

I like all professions. Currently I'm playing as a Zealot/Alien Hunter hybrid

[pokerjunky]

i've always been pulled towards explorer/merchant/smuggler. the risks and rewards are highly quantifiable. what makes problems of optimization more challenging (and thus interesting) is working with partial information and shifting statistical outcomes. there may be another play that has a higher statistical outcome but also a higher variance that can put you out of the game completely. this is exactly why poker is such a fun game to me ;D

because that's how life is. we use the information we are given to make the most optimal play we can given our knowledge and experience. the reason things stay interesting is because even the most statistically perfect play could fail because there is always information we don't have.

in strpg, buying and selling allows me to make decisions with the least possible amount of unknown information. it even makes managing my reputation pretty straightforward. the fact that it still forces me to take risks that could kill me is what keeps it fun. dying doesn't mean i made the 'wrong' choice, sometimes things just go bad. that's where it takes some discipline to stick with the optimal play even when it killed me last time. i tend to play at Crazy because there is a break point where things get easy and never really get hard again. it feels like my hard work paid off. with Insane, i haven't lived long enough to find that break point, if it even exists. when survival is a constant struggle, flashier high-risk professions get a lot less fun.

combat in general terrifies me. i would love to understand combat well enough to make a reliable Insane combat-based build but there is so much data flying around back there that i can only vaguely quantify. i finally started following some of the things you kept saying about advance->gun->retreat->etc combos and got better results. that tells me there is WAY more going on there than i can precisely calculate. as far as i can tell, the algorithm favors diverse play in general. hitting any button more then twice has diminishing returns. combat is about not being predictable?

it takes some courage to turn around again and attack when one more hit will kill me, yet it is the optimal play sometimes. i used to wonder why i could suddenly die in combat with a strong undamaged ship. i assumed i was just unlucky. i finally noticed its when i hit advance right when they hit ram. BOOM

with exploring, i began to pick up on the phrase 'as many men as the captain can manage'. base number: explorer skill. roughly add or subtract based on the leadership skills (charisma and intimidation, primarily). the 'bad outcome' curve increases dramatically above that number. based on a number of other variables, that curve may have already been pretty nasty.

of course exploring outcomes are also affected by exosuit, scouts, records, morale, etc. and it seems the amount of loot is tied to how large the exploration party is. with a crew of 220 i'm fine throwing 100 of them to the aliens to get some quick results. but that seems to have a ceiling as well, where too large of a party actually finds less total loot. i like to show up with enough crew to run some high/low experiments, all the while being on the lookout for the explorer gods to get angry! even the most determined explorer can't find what is no longer there.

cory, as always, would love to hear any insight or corrections on my understanding of the dynamics. i especially want to understand combat better, those scary victories are pretty satisfying.

[Cory Trese]

Combat has some dangerous button combinations -- StarFixer is particularly famous for mashing them into stacked critical hits and suffering hull breach.

I definitely agree, however, that in terms of ST dice rolling you'll get the most dice rolled in combat, and you can rip through a ton of rolls really fast.

Trading and Exploring roll the dice slower, you have to make different types of decisions.

I think in terms of combat it is critical to look carefully at the enemy ship stats and type before selecting a strategy. You know that the game heavily favors FAST/AGILE ships and the metric for determining that attribute of a ship is easily computed from looking at the numbers.

Fear a AGILE Pirate and a FAST Bounty Hunter. Be aware of the Armor to Hull Ratio of all your enemies. Look at the enemies Level carefully, and remember the game has optimized AI trainers -- so a Level 68 Pirate will be dangerous on Tactics, Pilot, Warrior (but not so much on Stealth.) The AI trainers are based mostly on the starting character's stats, so look there for clues.

I think one of the most important moments on Impossible is the 30 second evaluation period before a Combat. Don't start mashing buttons right out of the gate -- look at them and think about strategy first and foremost.

Also, Torp as the first most is universally a good idea if you have decent Pilot and Stealth.

[BlastGT1]

I haven't pinned down a particular class to stick with, because my play style shifts during a game depending on my mood. Get bored with one pursuit, start on another. Of course I've yet to try BH or MO type characters yet, also because I shift styles during the game.

_______________________________


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!

[pokerjunky]

Dec 11, 2012 1:39:38 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

You know that the game heavily favors FAST/AGILE ships and the metric for determining that attribute of a ship is easily computed from looking at the numbers.

Also, Torp as the first most is universally a good idea if you have decent Pilot and Stealth.

as an explorer i maximize stealth and sails to avoid encounters. i've been learning sails and stealth are my primary source of speed in a battle when it first begins and we still have a lot of distance between us. once i get above 50 sails i will hit Battle Stations and then Retreat and silent flutter off into the night. with combat effectively nullified i can explore and trade with impunity so my wealth skyrockets. but understanding combat would be incredibly helpful for early game when i constantly have to weigh surrendering goods against fighting for them. plus it would be fun to be the hunter for once!

[hellion7776]

I have been a long time fan of Military officers and BH, But last night i started a Pirate...
All i can say is WOW!!! What a fun class... Easy to play, easy level! Easy easy easy to be universal loved! With that in mind, this leaves everything else up to you.

Thanks again for Trese brothers, for making a truly opened end game!

[starfixer]

Ultimate pirates don't patrol urban zones for low-level merchants to make a quick credit. They get a veteran officer and patrol independent dead planets for aliens. Thier ships have a salvage value of 250,000 credits with a vet (270k with a templar)! Thats what I call a super pirate! (or super bounty hunter, or super officer)

[hellion7776]

That may be a good end goal, but mastering the factions is my game right now. Ill leave the Aliens to the young and the bold! ... and to Rabid... that guy scares me a little bit.

[starfixer]

Aliens are actually quite easy if you specialize in boarding. Specialize in torp, gun or even ram and theres alwayes a slight chanze that you won't be able to beat to them. But specialize almost exclusively in boarding and they'll never beat you (just get an escape shuttle in case you get rammed by pirates).

[Baker420]

Bounty hunter/spy or explorer/smuggler. (This post refers to my bounty hunter spy game) I always start as and Independent just cause those four professions dont fit in with "faction loyalty" and I must say I still have my custom starting ship and three more custom ships stashed with 2 different factions, yewww!! Also I have a rep of over 170 with all three great houses, about 210 with de valtos syndicate and -500 something with cadar syndicate "flips the bird" but Rychart is a bit tempermental (keeps getting into alliance with Cadar) so im forever back and fourth with them, criminal one month hero the next ahahaha. And I have not lost a single battle yet and only failed one contract cause I forgot about it when I re-fueled and went spying lol