Wish: Exotank that works

[leuthesius]

I'm not sure why it does that. All its doing is taking away my fun. I can only level so fast. I try to explore, lose my crew, recruit for a month, go back, try again, oh cool an artifact! lose crew, wash rinse repeat.

Shouldn't I be getting bonuses for it turning to crazy mode or something? I'm supposed to be in normal mode?

[Cory Trese]

I am sorry it is taking away your fun.

Have you considered starting a new game and managing the planet's resources more carefully? It really sounds like you may have tapped them out.

How many Crew are you sending on a mission? In the later part of the game, the Captain is facing higher difficulties and it is easier to maintain Crew numbers if he only takes 19 or less Crew.

A lot of this players determine via experimentation. After a while I find that most people say they found a "rhythmic" and when face with diminishing returns, adjust the parameters until they return to something fun.

Loosing too many Crew? Send less crew?

Not finding enough? Seek out new planets?

Maybe this Captain ruined the worlds? Try another Captain and see.

[slayernz]

I've found that yes, exploring a planet until it starts giving you nothing for the blood sacrifice of your crew means that you move on to a new planet. In Free, there are a good 4 or so planets worth exploring, and in Elite, there are upwards of a dozen that you should get good return for your crew investment.

I've found that in early stages of the game, doing the planetary hop (go to one planet, explore, cache, explore, cache until planet exhausted, then go to next planet), works really well. you definitely have to build up your explore skill and yes, you'll go through bucket-loads of crew (or at least you'll have to clean up bucket-loads of crew ...) but it's definitely a workable living.

In addition to doing planet explorations, I certainly do opportunistic trading of non-restricted goods between planets. You'll be surprised how much you can make just fulfilling 2 or 3 shortage situations where the shortage is clothes or crystals or metal.

At the later stages of the game, I have to admit that most of my explorers actually stop doing their primary job. They become more merchants than explorers, and spend time delivering stuff (always in shortage). By that stage, they have multiple millions of credits, and strategic caches of stuff bought from surpluses or when there is just a reasonable price for the goods in question. As soon as there is any shortage rumor, I find the closet cache, full my hold of that particular good, then high-tail it to the planet in question.

It's not much of a life - but it pays well, and when your delivery ship is a Fast/Quick ship with dozens of turrets and torp tubes, you can't really complain too much

[Fenikso]

Maybe I have some notes for leuthesius too.

I have found that "Enemy ship levels during the course of gameplay" table here www.tresebrothers.com/strpgwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Difficulty is very useful to track if I am getting enough experience in the game or falling behind.

I have ended up with lvl8 Explorer and turn 13000 on Demanding difficulty. As you can imagine, I was unable to find anything on those exhausted planets, everybody died all the time etc. I did not realize that compared to the world's progress I am SO weak! I have found that constantly exploring planets and running away from everybody 1) is no fun at all 2) is not giving me enough experience.

I have tried not-so-peaceful explorer type and made a good living on Impossible. Before Aliens killed me .