(Gunner BH Guide) The Hunter's Four Legs

[resistor]

This is intended to be an ultimate guide for a gun-specialist bounty hunter, although the first two chapters are still very useful to non-BH gunners, as the last two chapters are to non-gunner BHs. This guide has been updated multiple times in the past, and is currently up-to-date with v6.1.33 of STRPG.

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By the request of Warlord Cosvick,
A lecture to a bounty hunter academy on Corelloth,

from the infamous assassin "Hautreq of Steel"

299.22 A.E.

I am Hautreq of Steel, a bounty hunter with many triumphs to my name. My hope is that by imparting my wisdom to you, you might also bring much glory to our Clan.
A lone wolf, or some similar predator, may catch its prey with ease, but if just one if its legs is broken, it will starve. Like a wolf, we can catch our prey, so long as keep these four principles: know yourself, know your opponent, honor, and logistics.

Chapter One — Know Yourself

If you wish to defeat your enemies, you ought to first know your own capabilities and limitations.

Your Ship

Upon graduation, you will have several starting ship designs to choose from. The ones I would recommend are, Aperio Caliga, Neutiquam Erro, Fidei Defensor, and Serpent Tooth. The Serpent Tooth is the only starting ship suitable for engaging in combat with, but even still, it is inadvisable to get into fights before upgrading it a few times. The others are recommended for their cargo hold size, so that you can make enough money to purchase a good combat ship.

When looking for a new ship, the most important factors in order of greatest to least are: agility rating, engine-to-hull ratio, amount of guns, distance traversable before requiring more water-fuel, torpedo count, and speed rating.

The ship of a gun specialist must have a QUICK agility rating, as anything else is not acceptable. Having a higher engine-to-hull ratio will make you more effective at close range, but it doesn't make as large of a difference as whether or not your ship has QUICK agility. Large cargo holds are useful for holding tons of water-fuel for long range contracts, but you must also account for how much water-fuel is consumed per AU travelled. Torpedoes only serve a secondary purpose, and I don't recall ever using up more then nine torpedoes before restocking. Having a FAST ship is really only useful if you intend to escape, which, when in a fully upgraded combat ship, you should only do if the opponent is part of a temporary alliance with our Clan, and you want to avoid political complications.

Upgrades

The ship upgrades I recommend are as follows:

Structural: Ancient Reactors or, possibly, Extended Gun Decks, for extra barrage guns if you cannot acquire Ancient Reactors

Combat: Escape Shuttle

Interior: Advanced Bridge System or Water-Fuel Tank for ships with small cargo holds (like Serpent Tooth)

Propulsion: Titan Components

Armament: Titan Gun Batteries, Sail Command Probe, Torpedo Control Pods, Torpedo Battle Prow, or Aft Torpedo Lance Battery (I would only recommend the Aft Lance Battery if your ship has an extremely small torpedo bay)

Training

As a Captain, you must train whenever you have the time to do so. I recommend maintaining your Tactics at one-third of your level, training in Negotiation only twice, and pledging all the rest of your experience to training your Pilot Skill.
It is essential to master the Pilot Skill, as we need it to dodge enemy torpedoes, barrage guns, and boarding attempts. The Tactics Skill is useful for increasing our accuracy with torpedoes and barrage guns. Having some Skill in Negotiation will cut back weeks of waiting for water-fuel purchases to process in the Exchange, but I do not recommend training Negotiation higher than 3, as it would be a distraction from more important Skills. Stealth could only be useful early in your career, when you need to dodge Syndicate patrols instead of crushing them into shrapnel. In the long run, it is better to not invest in Stealth, as you would be sacrificing Pilot and Tactics. Although Intimidate improves fuel efficiency, it isn't worth sacrificing combat skills to invest in. Exploration training couldn't be less relevant, so Pilot, Tactics, and a little Negotiation are the only training investments you should make.

Officers

You ought to hire officers for Pilot, Mechanic, and Fire Commander positions aboard your ship.
The effectiveness of officers is not affected by the planet they came from.

Chapter Two — Know Your Opponent

It is said that if two warriors understand themselves, but do not understand each other, they will be about evenly matched, but if one understands both himself and his enemy, then he will win one-hundred battles out of one-hundred.

Enemy Ships

I will name the varieties of hostile ships you will encounter: pirates, bounty hunters, warships, Xenoforms, and Narvidians. Pirates might try to ram, gun, or hit you with a torpedo, but cannot stand against any decent combat ship. Bounty hunters and warships will generally focus on attempting to board you. Xenoform and Narvidian ships can be unpredictable, but do not allow them to get close enough to board you at any cost, for they will leave no survivors.
Occasionally, you might be up against a ship that is too quick to hit with guns, even after several hundred attempted barrages. Such ships are still vulnerable to ramming and torpedoes.

Disengaging

Striking a ship with a torpedo will temporarily disorient them, causing your next action to be more likely to succeed. This is why I recommend that if you encounter a hostile combat ship while you are not very experienced, or if you do not have a fully upgraded ship, I recommend launching a torpedo at them before trying to flee. If that doesn't work, and they do not consider you a terrorist or worse (rep -35), consider that Syndicate ships will not kill you if you surrender. Warships and bounty hunters may arrest you, but pirates will not attempt to arrest you, preferring to steal from your cargo hold.

Capturing Targets

If you intend to capture an opponents ship rather then destroy it, it is generally best to start by targeting their engines with your guns. If, after your barrage, their armor is severely damaged or destroyed, do not risk destroying the hull by attacking with barrage guns again. Instead, retreat to a distant point, and finish off their engines with torpedoes.
If you are attempting to capture a particularly squishy ship, it may be better to not use guns at all, but attack only with torpedoes.
Torpedoes have a much lower chance of destroying the enemies hull, while being very destructive to their engines.

[resistor]

Chapter Three — Honor

If you are haughty and dismissive of the priorities of the Clans, only to wind up on the brink of destruction with no allies to call upon, you only have yourself to blame.

Contracts

At the beginning of your career, you will have to take delivery contracts to claw your way to a position of anything noteworthy, as other types of contracts are too risky until you have a combat-ready ship. Do not take contracts that you will not be able to complete, as that is dishonorable, and the faction that offered the contract will view you as less reputable.
There will be increased pay for contracts offered by a faction that you have a very positive reputation with, and there will be increased danger and pay for contracts offered by a faction you have a high military rank with.

Pardons

If one of the factions view you with some suspicion after completing a contract in their sector, consider visiting one of their princes to purchase a pardon (even if it is a Syndicate, if you do not yet have a combat-ready ship).
The quantity of suspicious activities a faction perceives will increase the price of a pardon exponentially. For example, after causing one small offense to a faction (-1 rep), you would typically be charged less then two-hundred credits for a pardon, while they would charge over one-thousand after three such offenses (-3 rep).

Ranks and Permits

Trade permits are the first legal documents you should seek to acquire from the Clans, as it provides protection from their pirates, as well as allowing you to carry restricted goods without risk of confiscation by bounty hunters and warships. Death warrants are useful once you have a combat-ready ship, and will increase the danger, pay, and quantity offered of assassination and capture contracts. Having military ranks are necessary for getting access to a faction's military base and restricted ship upgrades.
I would not seek a Javat or Thulun military rank above that of a Dragoon (Rank 5), as the rank of Reaver (Rank 6) and higher are subject to demotions if a contract is taken against them, or if you destroy any ship in a faction they are allied with. Our first loyalty is to the Song, and it is simple enough to avoid taking contracts against them and whoever the Song's allies might be, but dancing around the politics and contracts of three factions at once can constrain you.

Conflicts and Alliances

Some conflicts and alliances can greatly affect your reputation with the Clans. If you do a contract for a faction in an alliance, you will gain reputation with that faction's ally as well, but if you take a contract against that faction's ally, or destroy any of their ships, you will lose reputation with both factions. Duels of assassins are very convenient for our skill sets, and you can earn more experience and higher pay for assassination and capture contracts against a faction involved in one, especially if you have a death warrant. In a solar war, taking contracts against, destroying the ships, or blockading the worlds of one of the factions involved will increase your reputation with the other faction involved, especially if you have a military rank with the other faction. Spy battles are the final type of conflict that is particularly useful to us, as it enables us to gain much experience and reputation by spying on one of the factions involved. During a spy battle, keep in mind that you can also gain much reputation by selling records to one of the factions involved, although that causes you to lose reputation with the other faction. Also, you will only gain experience from Spy Battles if you have a Death Warrant with the enemy of the faction you spy on.

Chapter Four — Logistics

Foresight is critical for success and survival. If you are clueless as to where you are going and how you will get there, you might as well gouge out your eyes.

Water-fuel

Having water-fuel is essential. Without it, the ship will suffer more accidents, and crew morale will drop.
If you are running low on time to complete a contract, it is sometimes preferable to travel without restocking on water-fuel, as it would be a detour of several weeks.
The higher your Pilot skill, the more efficient your ship will be with water-fuel.

Tracking Bounties

As you are a Bounty Hunter, you will have a special surveillance ability for assassination and capture contracts. This ability will allow you to reattempt defeating your target if they get away. Many bounty targets are chameleons, and will change ships and flags on every subsequent confrontation. This can be used to your advantage to avoid destroying a Clan ship, or a Syndicate ally of our Clan. This surveillance ability can be used as many times as needed while the contract is still active, but must be used before engaging the target to track them.

Signature

The Syndicates will ceaselessly attempt to track you. Any regular cargo, contracted packages, or contracted passengers you have will increase your signature, and therefore the frequency of encounters with their ships.

Contract Deadlines

Expired contracts can still be completed with the same award of reputation and credits if you do not land in another urban zone after the deadline. For example, if you have an expired delivery contract for Javat Prime, and you land on the Rift Trading Camp to refuel, you will lose the contract and the opportunity to complete it. If you fly to Javat Prime without landing on another urban zone, and immediately complete the delivery, you will officially complete it and collect the reward.
There is a third possible outcome: If you fly to Javat Prime without landing on another urban zone and, instead of immediately completing the contract, you first go to the Exchange or some other facility unrelated to your contract, and then proceed to complete the contract, you will officially fail the contract, with reputation being penalized, while also fulfilling the contract, with reputation and credits being awarded.

[resistor]

My most succesful captain, Hautreq of Steel was rather popular among the Clans, especially Steel Song. Not so popular among the Syndicates. He died a Hyperion Overlord (lvl 51), and a Star Hero Centurian to Steel Song Clan (over 1800 rep, I think). The Syndicates couldn't scratch him, in fact, it was a Xytox Alien that finally killed him in 311.48 A.E, much to the relief of some Rychart agent I was about to assassinate. Oh, and this was on Impossible difficulty.

In retrospect, he should've tried to retreat to medium range and fight from there, possibly retreat-by-ramming would've worked for keeping range. What he really did was try to take out the Xytox Xeno's engines. He was boarded and killed.

Hautreq made entries in various books of assassins a total of 47 times, and completed 95 bounty hunter contracts with a death warrant, as well as at least one off-the-records assassination contract when I was starting out.

Feel free to comment or criticize

[poryg]

This guide is very incomplete.
It has literally no explanation. Well, except for starting ships and several other things... But much information is missing.

You recommend upgrades. But why do you recommend them? You haven't really said.
I understand the dreadnought, the bridge system and sail command probe. But the rest? Let me see...
You recommended heavy bulkheads. Your reason is to be protected from boarding action. But let me tell you... When you have a build like that (pilot 250%, tactics 75%), you are just dominating the battlefield and basically the only three things that can stop you are:
1. A torper (but torpers in ST RPG aren't very clever, and I don't believe there actually is an AI that intends to kill you with torps, so you can be damaged, but should remain alive)
2. A higher level build like this (never happened to me though)
3. A ridiculously huge level alien
Points 2 and 3 are important. And both are answered with an escape shuttle. Even your ship is destroyed, you will still survive.

As for armaments, since you are a gunner, you hardly have any need for torps. Therefore the torp upgrades are pointless.
Titan gun batteries are debatable though. As a gunner you don't necessarily need to have as many guns as you can.
Actually, even 18 guns are enough. It ensures a longer, but safer battle. More guns mean you deal more damage and risk breaching enemy's hull. But again, you have completely left out the pros and cons of having more or less guns.

You have completely left out the explanation of many search criteria for a ship.
Agility rating is indeed important and I agree that not having a quick ship is a sin. That is without a discussion. But...
Large cargo holds are nice for holding lots of water-fuel, but 80 cargo is enough, although if I can, I go for a 100 cargo ship. But again, having a ship with 160 cargo is unnecessary, because you won't use this much cargo.
As for the hull to armor ratio, I can't imagine a case when you actually want to ram, except for wanting to breach your own hull against a high level alien to escape in an escape shuttle.
Fuel efficiency is completely left out. Just like crew numbers. You want bigger crew or smaller crew? And why?
The answer is, you don't want a too large ship. Too large ship increases fuel consumption unnecessarily. Just like engines and solar sails needed. While I agree that it's not compulsory to have fast ship, it's better, because it helps you close range to medium. Something you left out as well.
Also, depending on how many engines you have, the fuel efficiency decreases with the amount of engines. More engines also mean more crew, but your crew is there to be employed with engines and guns, so you don't need too much of a crew.
As for torps, you have left them out as well... But you don't need too many torps, as I have said.

That was just a quick look through it.

[resistor]

Thanks for posting poryg , you're right that I should give more of an explanation of why I recommended the things I did. I'll just explain it all here.

Ancient Reactors give +6 Engines. They also give a special bonus to landing on planets without getting interrupted by a ship encounter. That special bonus is useful because orbital encounters take a week each, which can cause time to run short for contracts.

Heavy Bulkheads is a lot more useful then Escape Shuttle for this build, because Boarding is actually the main threat to gunners. Torpers aren't remotely a problem. Having huge Pilot skill actually helps you dodge torps easily even with MEDIUM speed (or maybe it is actually the Quickness attribute). I suppose with the escape shuttle I could survive most aliens by ramming them to death, but I could then be easily picked off by a high level faction ship or another alien. Getting an Escape Shuttle to destroy yourself in a fight you could've otherwise won with Bulkheads could just put yourself in more danger.

Escape Shuttle is what I use now instead of Heavy Bulkheads, because I learned that Heavy Bulkheads do not reduce the chances of an enemy boarding your ship, but rather, it merely reduces the damage taken once you have been boarded. The actual shuttle itself has QUICK Agility, therefore I can easily defend myself from any faction ship with it if I have to use it at a high level.

Advanced Bridge System gives useful bonuses that help with pretty much every relevant thing.

Titan Components gives useful bonuses at medium and close range.

Titan Gun Batteries... I'm not really sure if they are worth it, but I suspect they give some kind of hidden special bonus, as all the other gun and engine upgrades give a special bonus.

Sail Command Probe gives a Pilot bonus for traveling through space, which translates into reduced water-fuel consumption.

Torpedo Control Pods and Torpedo Battle Prow give a bonuses to torpedo accuracy. Why would a gunner need torps, you say? Well... I've found torps to be useful in three different ways.
1) Capture contracts. There's a lot of squishy ships that you could easily destroy the hull of if you try to aim for their engines with your guns. Torps, on the other hand, barely scratch the hull while doing damage to engines and crew
2) Occasionally, you will find high level ships that are way too quick to hit with guns. Somehow, torps with a torp accuracy upgrade is much more accurate against them.
3) Trying to weaken a high level enemy before it gets close. This is almost never necessary late-game, however.

Cargo holds... wait how did you know my ship had 160 cargo? Maybe I typed it in Chapter One then edited it out yesterday, or something. Anyway, I admit 160 was probably overkill for WF storage, but it was convenient to not need to refuel for such long times.
As for ramming, it is almost never a useful action. The only times I'd consider doing it in combat is if I can't hit the enemy with guns and don't want to torp or I'm out of torps. It could also be an action worth considering if an alien doesn't have too much armor and you want to retreat to mid-range. (Edit: ramming is also useful if you've encountered an Alien while having an Escape Shuttle upgrade equipped, and you'd rather escape by destroying you own ship than face the risk of being killed by an Alien boarding party.)
As for your statement about crew count, I don't really see the amount of crew as something that matters at all, except how it factors into W-F efficiency. If I for some reason have 80 more crew then I need, I don't think it would make any difference in combat. I don't need to worry about having too few crew either, since nearly every ship has enough crew for both engines and guns, considering having super high Pilot decreases crew required for them (I read that somewhere on the forum).

[poryg]

I have never been boarded while having so much pilot, so I will never believe that until it comes. As for torpers, it would definitely be interesting to see a torp build against a gun bunny,... But truth is, it's quite unachievable
Well, torping indeed avoids enemy hull and armor as well. The same can be achieved by reducing guns. This is just a matter of taste though
I didn't know your ship had 160 cargo. But I have a ship designer and therefore I know that 160 cargo is the most you can have with no upgrades.
If you can't hit an enemy with guns, then ramming will hurt you more than it can help. It's better to try again, one day you will hit

[resistor]

Chapter 2 is out! It's shorter then chapter 1, but I think I included all the relevant information about enemy ships and what I would do about them. No, wait, there's a couple more sentences I will edit in...

There we go. Chapter 2 seems complete now.

[poryg]

Well, chapter 2 passes

[resistor]

Chapter 3 is out!!!

And I edited some text, including dividing chapters into different subsections in the first 2.

[poryg]

When you attack a non pirate ship and win, you lose a death warrant in case of battle classes and trade permit in case of merchant classes.
If you destroy a ship, you get stripped of all edicts and demoted. Rank 5 only means that you don't lose your rank in it's entirety.

AS for being attacked by syndicates, it seems I carry some weird sickness, but everyone likes me

[resistor]

That's right poryg , I just edited out the claim that you can't be demoted by destroying that faction's ships with less then 5 rank. It wasn't really relevant as this build shouldn't target friendly ships anyway. (Also, added another paragraph under contract.)

[poryg]

Yes, it shouldn't target friendly ships, but chameleons still happen. It's true that with the predator tracking ability it's not that relevant, but I don't use it too often as a bounty hunter. Instead I just don't buy military rank unless I need it
As for the pardon, the best explanation is through reputation instead of contracts, because I have had some really weird case when I actually profited in reputation from contracts.

[resistor]

Aug 15, 2016 0:49:03 GMT -5 poryg said:

Yes, it shouldn't target friendly ships, but chameleons still happen. It's true that with the predator tracking ability it's not that relevant, but I don't use it too often as a bounty hunter. Instead I just don't buy military rank unless I need it
As for the pardon, the best explanation is through reputation instead of contracts, because I have had some really weird case when I actually profited in reputation from contracts.

I took your pardon explanation advice, and edited the post.

[poryg]

Hey, Rychart spy, wake up you lazy bum!

[Deleted]

I like your guide. A few things though:
1.Your training math is wrong. You cannot have 250% Pilot and 75% Tactics. You can have 250% and 50% though.
2. For the ship, I disagree that engines play a minor role with a QUICK agility. The difference between 40 engines and 60 engines can be significant regardless of agility (though agility is more important than engines). In fact I'd argue that engine numbers are more important than gun numbers. Crew numbers greater than engines + guns is also important in my oppinion.
3. The BH is also a possible officer. BH officers increase bounty contract pay and hence are good for BHs.