Starting Ships?

[Cory Trese]

What's your favorite starting ship in Star Traders RPG?

Are you Captain of the Vae Victus every time or do you prefer one of the unlockable ships?

Maybe the starting ships included in the Elite edition are your choice?

The List:
- Vae Victus
- Aperio Caliga
- Neutiquam Erro
- Serpent Tooth's
- Picky Beggar
- Tempus Fugit
- Aeternam Vale
- Fidei Defensor
- Vark Mordi
- Danti Cautela
- Mortifer Telum

If we add some more -- which type do you like? Do you prefer to unlock them or just get them with the Elite version?

[fallen]

The existing starting ships provide a pretty wide profile of ship types. What types of ship styles do you think are missing from starting ships?

[BlastGT1]

Big cargo bay as well as fast/quick would be my preference, it doesn't have to have high guns/torps as well, that would just be asking for an unfair advantage. I like to loot, hoard, and run away.

_______________________________


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!

[starfixer]

If some new ships were to be added, unlockables hands down. Unlocking them makes them that much more fun.

How about a big crew ship? Not like 200, but a ship with enough crew that it could be good for boarding or exploring, and would be slow for balance. Also, how bout having some more ships have upgrades pre-installed like the smugglers hold for tempus fugit and the escape shuttle for picky beggar? Here's some I was thinking of
-Omni-stealth array (for a merchant, smuggler or spy ship)
- Templar Armor (for a MO, BH or Zealot/board-based ship)
- Impact Sheild Generator (for a pirate ship)
- Titan Components (for a gun-based ship)
- Spybank (for a spy-based ship)
- Exo-Planetary Crawler (for a explorer ship)
- Extended sails/Prow sails/Torpedo combat upgrade (for a torpedo-based ship)

[xdesperado]

Fidei Defensor is my usual starting ship of choice.
That being said I generally look to grab the first Pirate Skylift I can as soon as possible to replace my starting ship.
For a new starting ship I think something fairly tough defensively with a larger cargo capacity and limited crew size would be great.
Another idea for a starting ship would be one intended for very short term use most likely which would have a large crew and decent guns but very limited cargo. Think of it as the Boarding Captains starter ship that he'll abandon as soon as he successfully takes over a better ship.

[Cory Trese]

Keep the ideas coming, thanks for posting!

[hellion7776]

I am LOVING the Mortifer Telum! It seems to always fight my playstyle. With that in mind, If I am going to try a new playstyle, I always try to balance it with a different starting ship. I haven't found a class/playstyle that doesn't fit one of the unlockables, yet.

[callidus]

Picky Beggar

I've always thought it had a nice balance to it. Although I've yet to give Serpent's Tooth a decent try so that may supplant it.

As for adding more ships, I don't mind if they need to be unlocked or are just available with elite, either way works for me.

[tomdini]

Currently been working on the exemplar contractor and hardcore captain awards, so my starting ship is very important as I will be holding on to it til after level 20.

In general, I tend towards ships with a fast and/or agile rating.

Probably the two most common starting ships for me are the Danti Cautela and the Vark Mordi, with the Picky Beggar a close runner-up. I really like the Mortifer Telum as it is kinda the flip-side of what the Danti Cautela has to offer, but takes some upgrades before it is as combat-ready as my strategy requires. I play bounty hunters, pirates, and zealots almost exclusively and tend towards a torp-heavy strategy as it allows me to obliterate armor and weapons systems without having to chance a savage ram or board from the enemy while their ship is still mostly operational.

The Danti Cautela is my favorite, overall. Even though it's not billed as a combat vessel, I find it to be devastatingly effective in the role of a strike cruiser. The high engines keep pirate rams at bay and give my guns greater accuracy and potency, and its medium speed rating paired with appropriate piloting skill makes it a decent headhunter for running down merchants and smugglers. The nano-solar coating and sail command probe put the sails over 20 for excellent fuel consumption and pretty solid long-range combat abilities. With battleship architecture, you get a massive crew of 65 for the early and mid-game, and a weapons cabinet or leviathan system upgrade provides a bounty hunter or pirate a vicious advantage in hostile hull boarding.

The starting ship I use the least frequently (other than the merchant vessels, because they don't really serve my purposes as a combat-oriented captain) is probably the Aeternam Vale... I like the fact that it has a very large crew for boarding purposes, and is extremely quick with good torp capacity, but the low agility means I usually get wrecked when within 10km. I tend to put the Titan Components upgrade on the Aeternam Vale to give the ship more of a fighting chance at medium and close range, plus even with 16 engines you have 24 crew for boarding purposes and with a weapons cabinet and water-fuel tank, you can pack significant punch and range, respectively. It's possible, however, that I haven't quite figured out the best character build and strategy for utilizing this ship most effectively.

I really enjoy unlocking awards in this game... new ships should be unlockable, the starting ships as-is are pretty nice and cover just about anything you'd want for a new character, but I guess you could always add some more to the Elite edition too. I'd prefer unlockable ships.

[travail]

On anything up to crazy, I love me the Vark Mordi- add in a water tank and you can go anywhere with it, and I try to mainly torpedo and target engines or deck from medium range, and it is pretty awesome.

On insane, there's only 2 choices which make sense to me- the Aperigo Caliga with its starting water tank so you can take long distance contracts without having your crew toss you out an airlock, and the Tempus Fugit for the built in smuggler's hold. Knowing that you're way outgunned in the early game on insane, the best thing to do is surrender early, and having the hold in place means you don't lose your contracts, just a little water (if you don't keep contraband stuff early).

I agree with Starfixer, creating unlockables with strategic challenges to overcome to earn them is the bomb.

[contributor]

I haven't seen a lot of recommendations for starting out with the Tempus Fugit. It's recently been my go-to ship, mostly because of the smuggler's hold, but the decent water-fuel usage helps too.

The smuggler's hold makes it the perfect ship for running lots of delivery contracts to build up some initial rep with all the factions until you can build up your skills and money to buy a proper fighting ship.

If you're finding that you're having trouble getting started and getting your captains established (level 10 or so and a decent 2nd ship), you should definitely give the Tempus a try. With the smuggler's hold you can just surrender to military, bounty or pirate ships and you won't lose your contract or reputation (I guess there's a 3% chance you could lose your contract, but that's not bad). Stay away from fighting at first, build up your reputation with all factions and collect enough cash to get a real fighting ship.

I managed to get my first ever captain on impossible to level 14 with this strategy. He would have gone further if it were not for meeting aliens on back-to-back turns, wicked.