Shawarazan pirates (Counter-Stealth strategy)

[sgtcookie]

For a start, warrior is more important. You will board ships more than you will shoot out the engines as you may blow up the ship instead of disabling it.

Secondly, cargo space is a tertiary (the one after secondary, not sure if I have spelled that right) concern for a BH. You cash is made from contracts. As a result, the water-fuel tank is a MUST and even then you will fill up your cargo hold with water-fuel.

Heavy bulkheads are not *as* important for a BH as your warrior skill will help defend you against boarding. So a leviathan system is much more useful.

I'll write up a guide better explaining it.

[ichon]

So apparently ramming is sometimes just very lucky and can destroy you no matter what ship you are running? I guess I'll start running with escape shuttles now because 5 times in a row died to ramming when I had just passed level 25 and gotten a mil creds. Was about to give up on ever attempting boarding since ramming and aliens seem to be the only true dangers once reach decent levels. The ramming can happen even with mid level opponents though and is much less predictable than the Alien.

[Fenikso]

There are ways how to defend against ramming:
1) Impact Shielding Generator upgrade - should provide powerful defense against ram attacks.
2) Lots of Armor - I usually use Dreadnought Architecture and Heavy Bulkheads upgrades to have +8 Armor. It can be combined with Hyperion Superstructure for additional +5. Armor makes your ship much more durable and safe against ramming.
3) Quickness-Piloting or Stealth - I am not sure which skill provides better defense against ram. Probably stealth but I cannot really tell as just one of my characters uses the skill. Piloting should be favored at short range, so maybe that is also good way to go. I usually have only to fear rams from attackers who have 2x my level.
4) BIG ship - if I recall correctly Fast / Quick (aka paper-back) ships are more prone to critical hits.
5) Escape shuttle - obvious but not very popular .

[boeu]

Love the theory of it but cant get past lvl 9 lol. I can own 9 ships in that time. Mines shot to hell, oh well take thiers

[Cory Trese]

Oct 11, 2011 23:30:15 GMT -5 boeu said:

Love the theory of it but cant get past lvl 9 lol. I can own 9 ships in that time. Mines shot to hell, oh well take thiers

100% right there with you, I can't seem to get "Counter Stealth" to perform on Impossible past like level 10.

[Fenikso]

Funny, it goes other way with my games. If I get past level 5 I am pretty safe. And after level 10 I am usually invincible except very bad luck ;D.

At what turn do you get to your final levels? I will try it again today to see if some game balance did not change during last few updates.

[boeu]

Not syre lol i delete when dead. Got one at lvl 11 atm at 1827 turns trying for the 22 yr wanted award. Im scared he gunna die before i get it pmsl

[boeu]

On crazy

[Fenikso]

Inspired by your lack of success, I have tried it yesterday to verify if the strategy still applies.

I nearly died around level 3 and then suffered heavy damage around level 7 from high-level pirate ram. Apart from that I did not have any issues. I have reached level 25 and still do not feel threatened.

I did not level up as fast as I usually did before using this strategy. I did much more rumor hunting, surveillance / blockading, trading, contracts, officer searching etc. I also blockaded Cadar's enemy for 3 years without any XP reward to improve my reputation with them starting at circa -300. So it was not optimal at all.

Starting as Rychart Pirate, Alia III. Shawarazan, with Serpent Tooth
• Turn 375 - Level 5, Pilot 15, Tactics 15, Scimitar Class (pirated ), 105k$
• Turn 1340 - Level 9, Pilot 20, Tactics 20, Warrior 5, Intimidate 5, Scimitar Class + all upgrades, 417k$
• Turn 2185 - Level 15, Pilot 25, Tactics 25, Warrior 10, Intimidate 10, 622k$
• Turn 3800 - Level 20, Pilot 30, Tactics 35, Warrior 10, Intimidate 10, Royal Class (bought ) + all upgrades, 345k$
• Turn 5006 - Level 25, Pilot 30, Tactics 50, Warrior 10, Intimidate 12, 704k$
(last time I got this level at turn 3800, but with Zealot)

I have to admit that some "recent" balancing changes have made this more difficult. Especially fuel consumption changes. But all these changes made game-play much more diverse, fun, and challenging. I especially like:
• The new fuel consumption curves - because now I can rob merchants saying: "I do not care about your treasures, give me the bloody water!"
• Conflict relation to surveillance and blockade - as now I look at the conflict page more often looking for rogue opportunities.

It is even more fun than before. Thanks Cory!

I am not sure why you guys do not have much success as I do. Would you care to share more details on what went wrong in your case? Maybe my tips are missing some details which are more of player's personality so I forgot to mention it. This may be also the cause of me being unsuccessful Explorer or Spy ;D.

[boeu]

Atm: turn 2303
Zealot
Lvl 14
STATS: Wisdom - 17
Quick - 18
Strength- 13
Pilot - 18
Tactics - 16
Stealth - 12
Warrior - 12
42k in an appropriated Raptor class.
FACTIONS : Steel Song : -46
Thuluun : -159
Javat : -424
Cadar : 134
De Valtos : 44
Rychart : 5
Yr is now 101.16AE

[Fenikso]

Still doable on 4.0.5, but much harder. I would not advice it as a good strategy anymore. Play this for fun or as Hardcore mode. It may be good at lower difficulties, but it is not good when playing Impossible.

Stealth is more important now so playing without it is even harder. Few tips for combat 4.x using this strategy:
• Close range as soon as possible! Without Stealth you are very vulnerable to torpedo fire.
• Improve your Warrior skill as soon as possible. First, without stealth when it comes to Duel, you WILL die. Second, as you may know, Warrior is IMPORTANT .

[Cory Trese]

In the boarding test Stealth makes up 2.6% of the total roll.

Stealth is not important when it comes to Duel or damage avoidance.

Warrior, Strength, Morale, Weapons and Upgrades.

[Fenikso]

Hmmm. So then the Warrior is even more IMPORTANT ;D. Thanks for info.

[Cory Trese]

Warrior is important -- VERY important if you intend to fight for extended (mashing the Board button many times in a row.)

[Slide87]

So for piracy you advise a elevated warrior skill cory?? 'cause i want to start a porate capt and i first want to planify my exp...I tought pilot and tactics..maybe is it better pilot and warrior firstly,then tactics and stealth???