Post by xdesperado on Jun 10, 2013 4:10:06 GMT -5
A while back I decided to re create my most succesful Insane Captain to date as a Military Officer. The original one that I used as inspiration for my Fan Fic was a Spy but I decided that her attitude and the MO benefits were a better fit long term.
Along the way there have been a huge number of failures with many early deaths. Finally I started trying a much more cautious approach early game and have found a simple way with limited risks to get any character through those first 10-15 levels as long as faction politics don't make a hash of the program to early.
This is by no means a quick method in terms of game time so don't try it if your looking for time sensitive unlocks. Also note that because of its slow nature you may end up behind the XP curve compared to game date.
With that said, if your a diehard Syndicate player quit reading now as this program requires your captain be from the Clans or at least willing to work with them.
Personally I'm a Thulun loyalist but Javat would probably be the safest choice.
So how does this work?
The Military Officer doesn't start with any of the typical skills for running a Starship and surviving combats unless they can get to boarding action, and frankly at low levels with the limited crew size your starting ship will have boarding is a real crap shoot. So we need to raise Pilot as quickly as possible and tactics in fairly short order. Starting the game, before I ever even move the ship I'll spend my starting XP on pilot. Every time I get XP it goes to pilot until I hit attribute max. After Pilot is at attribute max I'll split XP between raising tactics and raising my Dex and pilot. By level 10 my Pilot should be 20+ and my Tactics, Warrior and Intimidate should all be around 10-12 with Stealth around 5-6. If you like stealth and plan to avoid boarding as much as possible then you can leave Warrior alone and put less into intimidate.
So now we have a plan to spend XP to try building a survivable Captain. Next we need a plan on how to earn that XP and the cash to get better ships that won't see us dead.
When I first land the brand new Captain I go straight to the Exchange and sell my luxury rations then buy all the W-F I can. Next go to the Spice Hall and check rumors. Odds are there won't be any you'll want to act on immediately but make this a habit so when ones do show up of interest you've heard and logged them. In fact after your first landing the Spice Hall and/or Palace to check for rumors should be the first order of business on any landing. After buying the limited amount of W-F I can and checking rumors I grab a delivery/transport contract. Only after all that's taken care of will I make my initial contract delivery to the Palace.
Remember once you finish a contract it kicks you off planet, so you want to have all other business conducted before then to conserve fuel.
If your lucky this intial contract you take will leave you within 5 or less AU of Gamma Javat II. If it doesn't you may need to take a couple more to get close to Gamma Javat II. Your early goal is to land on Javat Prime with at least 10 W-F and enough money to buy 5+ spice. Buy all the spice you can afford then fly to Ursae-Thulun. This is only 3 AU in green sectors and you can sell the spice at a profit of usually no less than $150 a unit and often $200+. On Ursae-Thulun Outpost buy 15-20W-F then return to Javat Prime to buy as much spice as you can. W-F tends to be slightly cheaper at Ursae-Thulun and when leaving Javat Prime you want to give as much space to spice as possible. I tend to start with the Fidei Defensor which holds 52 cargo and it should only take a half dozen round trips to get to the point where I can max that out with Spice and start having extra cash.
Once you reach the point that you can max your cargo loads from Javat Prime and have cash left over you want trade permits. Buy and sell records to raise enough rep to get the trade permits if you didn't do enough contracts at the start to get enough rep. Also achnowledge/surrender to any ships met except pirates when your hauling spice or if one of the Syndicates has trade embargos that have generated severe negative rep. (This is where a little luck is needed, if Thulun and Javat have trade embargo at this early stage you'll either need to write off Thulun and make the slightly longer and more hazardous trip to Xi Clan World or forget this entire program until later in the game.)
Anyways no combat unless really forced into it at this stage as combats can be both very risky (you probably don't have great skills yet) and financially devistating trying to repair the ship. (Personal thing here that has cost me a number of captains, but if I meet a Pirate Skylift early game I will try boarding it to capture as nearly undamaged as possible since it is a huge upgrade over the starting ships in my opinion.)
Once you have trade permits for both Thulun and Javat you ca proceed to the next step in the program. Note at this point I'll generally make a few runs to Xi Clan World with records to get a trade permit with Steel Song as well but that's not a must have. With trade permits you can start buying electronics at Javat Prime for sale at Ursae-Thulun Outpost. Both your rep with Thulun and your Bank account should really start to climb at this point. Get at least rank 1 promotion to be able to fully repair your ship at this point with at least one of the factions. By now your probably around level 4-5 and you can start really paying close attention to both rumors and the political situation. Watch for very close surplus/shortages, officers and Spy Wars (sorry Cadar fans but because of location they and DeValtos are prime spy targets.)
You don't want anything farther away generally than 10-15 AU as your trying to play safe not get rich quick and no officer is worth losing a captain for. The starting corner of the Quadrant should see most of your short excursions away from the Javat - Thulun trade run at this stage. If you go elsewhere get back to Javat Prime as quick as possible.
Build your bank account up and between level 5-10 you'll most likely have banked enough even without any shortage/surplus trading to buy a muchbetter ship and fully upgrade it.
That's pretty much it. Not the most exciting maybe and certainly not the fastest, but with trade permits that 3 AU run between Gamma Javat II and Ursae-Thulun is one of the safest trips you can make and is as close to a guaranteed money maker as you'll get. Keeping good relations with Steel Song and Xi Clan World as a back up increases your security greatly.
My current Captain is level 17 using this basic strategy.
She has her fully upgraded Fidei Defensor (sentimental keepsake) in dry dock, a fully upgraded Royal Dark in dry dock as primary back-up and is flying a fully upgraded Tiberia Dark (one of the top ships in my opinion)
Bank account is at $574,845 and sshe's looking for another top ship to buy.
Thanks to a number of Spy Battles she's got the following reps:
Thulun +1020
Steel Song +628
Javat +260
De Valtos -384
Rychart -431
Cadar -803
Rank 17 with Thulun and rank 7 with Steel Song and Javat.
Pilot 33
Stealth 6
Tactics 14
Warrior 13
Intimidate 14
Game date is 201.30AE and I feel like she has a decent chance to survive any sort of mission in the Quadrant at this point.
Yes it was a slow climb in game time but she is still alive unlike so many others that tried to rush out and ended up dead at an early age. Surprisingly she's only taken and completed 4 contracts to this point, but she has destroyed 105 ships and looted 94 including a Krang Alien so those 144 years haven't all been spent hiding in trade exchanges and spice halls.
Along the way there have been a huge number of failures with many early deaths. Finally I started trying a much more cautious approach early game and have found a simple way with limited risks to get any character through those first 10-15 levels as long as faction politics don't make a hash of the program to early.
This is by no means a quick method in terms of game time so don't try it if your looking for time sensitive unlocks. Also note that because of its slow nature you may end up behind the XP curve compared to game date.
With that said, if your a diehard Syndicate player quit reading now as this program requires your captain be from the Clans or at least willing to work with them.
Personally I'm a Thulun loyalist but Javat would probably be the safest choice.
So how does this work?
The Military Officer doesn't start with any of the typical skills for running a Starship and surviving combats unless they can get to boarding action, and frankly at low levels with the limited crew size your starting ship will have boarding is a real crap shoot. So we need to raise Pilot as quickly as possible and tactics in fairly short order. Starting the game, before I ever even move the ship I'll spend my starting XP on pilot. Every time I get XP it goes to pilot until I hit attribute max. After Pilot is at attribute max I'll split XP between raising tactics and raising my Dex and pilot. By level 10 my Pilot should be 20+ and my Tactics, Warrior and Intimidate should all be around 10-12 with Stealth around 5-6. If you like stealth and plan to avoid boarding as much as possible then you can leave Warrior alone and put less into intimidate.
So now we have a plan to spend XP to try building a survivable Captain. Next we need a plan on how to earn that XP and the cash to get better ships that won't see us dead.
When I first land the brand new Captain I go straight to the Exchange and sell my luxury rations then buy all the W-F I can. Next go to the Spice Hall and check rumors. Odds are there won't be any you'll want to act on immediately but make this a habit so when ones do show up of interest you've heard and logged them. In fact after your first landing the Spice Hall and/or Palace to check for rumors should be the first order of business on any landing. After buying the limited amount of W-F I can and checking rumors I grab a delivery/transport contract. Only after all that's taken care of will I make my initial contract delivery to the Palace.
Remember once you finish a contract it kicks you off planet, so you want to have all other business conducted before then to conserve fuel.
If your lucky this intial contract you take will leave you within 5 or less AU of Gamma Javat II. If it doesn't you may need to take a couple more to get close to Gamma Javat II. Your early goal is to land on Javat Prime with at least 10 W-F and enough money to buy 5+ spice. Buy all the spice you can afford then fly to Ursae-Thulun. This is only 3 AU in green sectors and you can sell the spice at a profit of usually no less than $150 a unit and often $200+. On Ursae-Thulun Outpost buy 15-20W-F then return to Javat Prime to buy as much spice as you can. W-F tends to be slightly cheaper at Ursae-Thulun and when leaving Javat Prime you want to give as much space to spice as possible. I tend to start with the Fidei Defensor which holds 52 cargo and it should only take a half dozen round trips to get to the point where I can max that out with Spice and start having extra cash.
Once you reach the point that you can max your cargo loads from Javat Prime and have cash left over you want trade permits. Buy and sell records to raise enough rep to get the trade permits if you didn't do enough contracts at the start to get enough rep. Also achnowledge/surrender to any ships met except pirates when your hauling spice or if one of the Syndicates has trade embargos that have generated severe negative rep. (This is where a little luck is needed, if Thulun and Javat have trade embargo at this early stage you'll either need to write off Thulun and make the slightly longer and more hazardous trip to Xi Clan World or forget this entire program until later in the game.)
Anyways no combat unless really forced into it at this stage as combats can be both very risky (you probably don't have great skills yet) and financially devistating trying to repair the ship. (Personal thing here that has cost me a number of captains, but if I meet a Pirate Skylift early game I will try boarding it to capture as nearly undamaged as possible since it is a huge upgrade over the starting ships in my opinion.)
Once you have trade permits for both Thulun and Javat you ca proceed to the next step in the program. Note at this point I'll generally make a few runs to Xi Clan World with records to get a trade permit with Steel Song as well but that's not a must have. With trade permits you can start buying electronics at Javat Prime for sale at Ursae-Thulun Outpost. Both your rep with Thulun and your Bank account should really start to climb at this point. Get at least rank 1 promotion to be able to fully repair your ship at this point with at least one of the factions. By now your probably around level 4-5 and you can start really paying close attention to both rumors and the political situation. Watch for very close surplus/shortages, officers and Spy Wars (sorry Cadar fans but because of location they and DeValtos are prime spy targets.)
You don't want anything farther away generally than 10-15 AU as your trying to play safe not get rich quick and no officer is worth losing a captain for. The starting corner of the Quadrant should see most of your short excursions away from the Javat - Thulun trade run at this stage. If you go elsewhere get back to Javat Prime as quick as possible.
Build your bank account up and between level 5-10 you'll most likely have banked enough even without any shortage/surplus trading to buy a muchbetter ship and fully upgrade it.
That's pretty much it. Not the most exciting maybe and certainly not the fastest, but with trade permits that 3 AU run between Gamma Javat II and Ursae-Thulun is one of the safest trips you can make and is as close to a guaranteed money maker as you'll get. Keeping good relations with Steel Song and Xi Clan World as a back up increases your security greatly.
My current Captain is level 17 using this basic strategy.
She has her fully upgraded Fidei Defensor (sentimental keepsake) in dry dock, a fully upgraded Royal Dark in dry dock as primary back-up and is flying a fully upgraded Tiberia Dark (one of the top ships in my opinion)
Bank account is at $574,845 and sshe's looking for another top ship to buy.
Thanks to a number of Spy Battles she's got the following reps:
Thulun +1020
Steel Song +628
Javat +260
De Valtos -384
Rychart -431
Cadar -803
Rank 17 with Thulun and rank 7 with Steel Song and Javat.
Pilot 33
Stealth 6
Tactics 14
Warrior 13
Intimidate 14
Game date is 201.30AE and I feel like she has a decent chance to survive any sort of mission in the Quadrant at this point.
Yes it was a slow climb in game time but she is still alive unlike so many others that tried to rush out and ended up dead at an early age. Surprisingly she's only taken and completed 4 contracts to this point, but she has destroyed 105 ships and looted 94 including a Krang Alien so those 144 years haven't all been spent hiding in trade exchanges and spice halls.
