Balance in Demanding and Challenging

[vianna77]

I'm trying for quite some time to play the game in Demanding, but it seems I'm doing that in Impossible! Impossible is 4 levels above Demanding! I know you know that but that's the point!

My 3rd level Spy with 19 Quickness and 4 Pilot using a Picky Beggar was rapidly destroyed by a crappy level 2 pirate with 1/3 of the Guns 1/3 of the torpedoes and 1/4 of the Hull while I was trying to flee! The pirate was from a House that I had 0 reputation and I tried to ignore him.

In my opinion, the permanent death in levels like Demanding and Challenging should be reviewed.

Here is my suggestion:
1- Permanent death should be prevented in exploration. If the captain heath is 3 or less, the game would disable the Explore possibility. You could show a message like "You are feeling too weak to keep going on, blablabla".

2- Permanent death should be prevented if you surrender during an attack. The argument could be something like "Trying to avoid more casualties, you decided to surrender, blablabla".

That would greatly increase game playability, you won't need to make any code changes in the business logic of the game balance and Captains would only die if they really act stupidly.

What do you think about that?

[Mike Pope]

It took me a while (and some reading of forum threads) to realise something which I now _always_ do during encounters:

Check the colour of the text at the top of the screen!

If it is white, then you can safely ignore the other ship. However, if it is red then the opponent is hostile; ignoring them will simply let them close to medium range and open fire. The correct tactic is to go to Battle Stations and then Retreat (if you don't want to fight).

Of course, Pilot (and Stealth) skill will help, as will having an Agile ship (I believe). But, as a Spy, never Ignore contacts which show up in red

[Mike Pope]

Oh, forgot to mention that 0 reputation means that you probably don't have a Trade Permit with that faction. That, in turn, means that faction pirates scan your ship and, spotting your Spy's issue Electronics and Weapons cargo, promptly turn hostile to try and steal them. This is why Trade Permits are good

[salendrak]

Aug 13, 2011 18:59:36 GMT -5 @Mike Pope said:

However, if it is red then the opponent is hostile; ignoring them will simply let them close to medium range and open fire.

Actually, I'm pretty sure I read in the player's guide / manual somewhere that hitting ignore is the equivalent of pressing battle stations and then retreat.

I could be wrong though, but in my own experience, I've been able to end combat with initially red opponents simply by hitting ignore from the get-go.

[Fenikso]

Aug 13, 2011 17:17:28 GMT -5 vianna77 said:

My 3rd level Spy with 19 Quickness and 4 Pilot

As Quickness is attribute, you should not increase it over your skill much. There is probably no point. Improve your skills first and attributes only when you hit the skill limit. So in your case you could be something like 12 Quickness, 12 Pilot. I bet you would feel the difference.

Aug 13, 2011 17:17:28 GMT -5 vianna77 said:

Permanent death should be prevented in exploration.

Exploration screen tells you your health so you should be watching it easily.

Aug 13, 2011 17:17:28 GMT -5 vianna77 said:

Permanent death should be prevented if you surrender during an attack.

Only the faction who hates you a lot will execute captain. But you should get the warning when trying to surrender. But you also get 1 injury when surrendering, so doing so with 1 Health is not a good option.

[Fenikso]

Aug 14, 2011 0:28:46 GMT -5 salendrak said:

Ignore is the equivalent of pressing battle stations and then retreat.

That is correct.

[slayernz]

Hey Vianna,

There are a number of threads on surviving encounters, and they all focus on the Pilot and Stealth skills. Pilot skill allows you to more easily change ranges (or retreat), and Stealth allows you to avoid enemy weapons fire, especially at medium/long ranges.

Having 19 in Quickness but only 4 in Pilot means that although you have general dexterity, you haven't converted enough into actual useable skills. Having only 4 in Pilot against a level 2 enemy would put you pretty much on par with that skill. Then it comes down to the engine to hull ratio and other attributes.

By the way, what was your Stealth skill level? It's my guess that it wasn't very high and with a low Pilot skill level, you were effectively reeled in and gutted.

I'd recommend that you only increase your base stats (Chr, Wis, Qui, Str) if you are running out of head-room in your actual skills. In other words, only increase your Quickness stat from its base of 9 when you get to 9 Stealth and/or 9 Pilot.

I can confirm that with a Level 2 Spy, you can definitely have a captain with 9 pilot, 6 Tactics, 6 Stealth, which will give you very comfortable combat survival rates against enemy captains around the same level as you.


Regarding permanent death in exploration. Once you move beyond "Normal" level, then the game assumes that every action you do is deliberate. Sometimes you can find yourself in a situation where you have to do an action even if your HP is very low. Stopping a player from doing explorations or harvests because they have low health could make the difference between having enough to sell at the next planet (for fuel), or being killed in a mutiny 5 turns later. Also, where would the protection end. If you take the approach of stopping captains from exploring/harvesting at health 3 or below, what about ship encounters? Should you automatically surrender if you come into close range with an enemy and your health is 2 or less? That way you don't get too shot up and killed?

That leads onto the surrender thing. In all but a select few situations, surrendering will definitely result in your survival. You might be arrested, have some stuff stolen/confiscated, but you'll almost always survive as a result of your action. When will you get killed if you surrender?
1) If you have -35 or more reputation with a particular faction and it is a military/bounty hunter
2) If you have only 1 Health point because when you surrender, they have to beat you up at least once to show you who's boss
3) If you surrender to an Alien ... that's just baaad.

[phantum]

My experience over the last few months going from constant death on demanding to mostly survive on Crazy has taught me the game is well balanced in difficulty, (maybe still to easy). However it is more complicated than it appears on the surface, and death follows fast if you play outside of an optimised strategy. That is when I was dieing, although what I was doing made sense to me, it was miss-interpretation of the game rules.

There is lots of advice and help available here so keep at it!

[Cory Trese]

I would never Raise Quickness more than 1 point above the Pilot or Stealth Skill.

[Cory Trese]

phantum, slayernz, Fenikso and Mike Pope

THANK YOU for your posts. Great work, fun to read and spot on.

[vianna77]

Hey guys, thanks for the advice!

Now I see that I was using my attributes/skills in the wrong way.

But there are a few things that bother me a lot in this game:

1- I'm constantly encountering ships that won't let me flee because they are way too powerful compared with mine and they will kill me no matter what. So, how are we suppose to act here??? Just give up, that's how the game is?

2- I died many times trying to flee ships with less hull, less armor, less guns and torpedoes and piloted by pirates with 1 or 2 levels BELOW me! How is that possible? It's like a kid with a spoon killing a soldier. Just give up, that's how the game is?

3- I died many times by a mutiny that apparently can fly my ship much better without a captain! It simple doesn't make any sense in my head. Just give up, that's how the game is?

Well... I guess if I want to have fun with this game, I will have to play it in normal.

[Fenikso]

Can you share some of your unsuccessful Captains statistics? Such as Profession, Skills, Attributes, used ship, game's year / turn?

I am probably not the best guy to give you advices, there are much more experienced players around. But your constant mutiny problem indicates that you do not understand some of the basic game rules. Have you read the player's guide? It can be found in the game menu under "Help".

[vianna77]

Hey Fenikso, you know what... I will do a second run on the help! I just gave more attention to other things that I thought would be important to start playing, but now that I have being playing for quite some time in Crazy without the usual death, I will focus on other parts of the help.

Thank you guys for your help!

[slayernz]

Hi Vianna,

1- I'm constantly encountering ships that won't let me flee because they are way too powerful compared with mine and they will kill me no matter what. So, how are we suppose to act here??? Just give up, that's how the game is?
This is where your Pilot skill is important. Higher pilot skills means better ability to (a) retreat/advance during combat, and (b), preventing the enemy from advancing/retreating during combat.

So several scenarios can happen:
1) Your ship and Enemy ship has same hull size and number of engines, but enemy has higher Pilot skill level. Enemy will be able to advance and retreat more easily than you can.
2) Your Enemy ship has same hull size and larger number of engines, and enemy has same Pilot skill level. Enemy will be able to advance and retreat more easily than you can.
3) Enemy has same engines and Pilot skill, but Hull size is smaller. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the enemy will be able to advance and retreat more easily than you can because his Engines/Hull ratio is higher than yours is.

So the summary is - Pilot skill is very important. Also, getting a ship with good numbers of engines is also useful.


2- I died many times trying to flee ships with less hull, less armor, less guns and torpedoes and piloted by pirates with 1 or 2 levels BELOW me! How is that possible? It's like a kid with a spoon killing a soldier. Just give up, that's how the game is?
As per above - look at number of engines and your pilot skill level. If he's coming at you with a ship with hull of 10 but 22 engines (eg Vegas Class), it'll stomp all over the Vae, which has hull of 12, 13 engines.

3- I died many times by a mutiny that apparently can fly my ship much better without a captain! It simple doesn't make any sense in my head. Just give up, that's how the game is?
Don't run out of water-fuel and keep an eye out for crew morale. If you can avoid running out of W-F, you should be able to avoid 99% of mutinies. Crew only get upset when there's no fuel and it doesn't help that the ship's food synthesizer also uses W-F as the key ingredient. No W-F means no food and a very long voyage, hence crew morale plummets.

Good pilot skills means that your ship runs more efficiently (lower W-F cost per sector traveled). Actually, Intimidate skill is also very useful because it not only does it help the ship run more efficiently, but it also helps keep the crew morale from dropping so fast.

Again though - if you can keep your W-F level above zero, you should be able to avoid mutinies.

As you can probably tell from this reply, Pilot skill is an absolutely critical skill to have if you want to succeed in the game. Funny that, given the game is centered around flying a ship around