I need help!

[althax]

I'm getting frustrated! I keep failing with my explorers. Do I focus on piloting or stealth? Or both? Seems like every time I start doing well I run into an alien who i cannot run from and I'm destroyed. I just died at lvl 2 from a lvl 5 alien that i couldn't escape.

I see posts from people looking for aliens but I don't know why. I seem to run into 1 almost every game. Usually, thats the end for that captain. I know to avoid red spaces and dead planets, but it doesn't help. I once had to flee an alien who showed up while I was blockading a prime planet! Is this normal for crazy mode?

Playing a pirate is easy in comparison to an explorer. Is there a guide or some tips I could get for this class? And are aliens really that easy to find or am I just unlucky?

[slayernz]

Hey Althax,

What difficulty are you playing on? The higher the difficulty, the higher the chance of meeting aliens. Aliens always have a percentage chance of appearing during travel or actions, so having one appear around a Prime planet is possible. You definitely have increased chances of encountering aliens based on things like rumors, traveling in red-sectors or around dead planets, etc.

In terms of what you need to get away from them when you do stumble across them. First up, do you focus on pilot or stealth? If you want to get away from aliens when you are being attacked, then Pilot skill is critical, because it helps you in changing ranges in combat (advancing and retreating). It also helps counter the enemy ship doing an advance or retreat movement as well.

So if you had high pilot skills, you'll probably get away from aliens more often than not. You'll probably get a few holes in your armor/engines/sails, etc but it's better than being vented into space along with your life support huh.

If you had high stealth skills, you'd actually be able to reduce the chances of encountering aliens in the first place. Stealth is used in all encounter calculations, so the higher the number, the lower the probability. Also, Stealth provides the ability to dodge enemy weapons fire (especially Torpedoes), so if you are being attacked, at least you can do some decent ducking and weaving.

Of course there are lots of other factors that influence encounters and the likelihood of surviving them. The game "mostly" wraps you in bubble wrap for the first few years of game play, so theoretically your alien encounter rate is very low. I've stumbled across 3 in the first 2 years of gaming once, so again, you aren't guaranteed to be alien free, but all things being equal, you should be okay there. If you are constantly attracting aliens, then look to get a military officer, a pilot, or an alien hunter as one of your officers. They boost important stats like warrior, pilot, stealth, etc and their bonuses can be stacked.

In terms of guides, there is the mostly kinda-sorta-partially complete Wiki.
Have a look at Kole's Explorer guide:
www.tresebrothers.com/strpgwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Koles%E2%80%99+Explorer+Guide
as a primer to get you going.

I love the Explorer class as one that allows you to get a very good start early on in the game. For me, if you are diplomatic, you can make stacks of money and good trading partners. Most of my explorer class captains focus about 35% of their XP on Pilot, 35% on Stealth, 15% on Explorer, and 15% on Tactics. Then after Explorer gets to be around 20, I reduce focus on Explorer and start focusing on things like negotiation and intimidate.

Good luck and hopefully your future Explorers succeed

[Fenikso]

I have encountered alien hunter on Impossible around turn 7 or so. When you play on higher difficulties, you may encounter a really bad luck. And you have to take it, smile and write fun Captain's Log on forum .

Your solution may also be boosting your Piloting and Tactics until level 5 and then go something like 30% Piloting, 30% Tactics and 30% Explorer. This way you can play not-so-friendly explorer and be much safer against enemy encounters.

[althax]

Forgive the outburst, I was just really frustrated at yet another captain going down to an alien, and at level 2 for crying out loud! Anyway, my new captain is off to a good start. I think the picky beggar might be a bad choice for starting ship with how I play a beginning explorer. The bigger hull and low agility take a lot of piloting upgrades to overcome.

I also happened upon a pilot officer early and i feel like he's a god send! I found it much easier to escape and avoid conflict with him augmenting my piloting skills.