(Gunner BH Guide) The Hunter's Four Legs

[resistor]

Sept 20, 2016 11:05:01 GMT -5 @starfixer said:

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.

1) It should say that Tactics is 75% level and Pilot over 225% of level. I'll fix that.
2) Now that I think about it, you're probably right that engines are more important than guns. I disagree with Crew>Guns+Engines being an important factor, because having high Pilot reduces the crew required for Guns.
3) Are you sure about that? I assume that BH officer means bodyguard, and the help file says she only increases the pay for passenger contracts. As far as I know, the only officer that increases pay for assassination contracts is the Templar officer, but he also will sometimes get you into a kill contract vs an alien, and this build isn't great against aliens.

[Deleted]

Sept 20, 2016 11:37:02 GMT -5 resistor said:

Sept 20, 2016 11:05:01 GMT -5 @starfixer said:

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.

1) It should say that Tactics is 75% level and Pilot over 225% of level. I'll fix that.
2) Now that I think about it, you're probably right that engines are more important than guns. I disagree with Crew>Guns+Engines being an important factor, because having high Pilot reduces the crew required for Guns.
3) Are you sure about that? I assume that BH officer means bodyguard, and the help file says she only increases the pay for passenger contracts. As far as I know, the only officer that increases pay for assassination contracts is the Templar officer, but he also will sometimes get you into a kill contract vs an alien, and this build isn't great against aliens.

2. Resister, no it doesn't. Each gun and engine requires a crew member to operate. Your crew can of course compensate, but it won't be as effective. Having more pilot will help offset such a penalty, but it does not directly decrease the amount of crew required to operate the engines and guns. At least, not that I know off.
3. I was wrong. I think the Bodyguard helps with only capture contracts (http://startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/2371/star-traders-rpg-v4-2012). The Templar helps with both though (http://startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/3043/star-traders-rpg-v4-released). I've played the game for years, and I think only once has the Templar put me into a bounty contract with a xeno. It's really, REALLY rare.

[Zer0Winds]

Well, I just read this. Maybe my Steel Song Bounty Hunter (do I play as any other faction...? ......nope.) can actually succeed! Now I actually need to HAVE a bounty hunter character!

I play Military Officer mostly, sometimes Zealot.

[poryg]

I play mostly spy, because I don't care about ranks. And if I do, then I use military officer.
On rare occasions I use smuggler and explorer... Somehow I don't use other classes anymore, since their traits are quite useless to me. Although for the Independent captain I used a Star trader. And then I couldn't stop wondering how many repairs there were on independent planets...

[resistor]

Sept 21, 2016 0:12:21 GMT -5 @starfixer said:

Sept 20, 2016 11:37:02 GMT -5 resistor said:

1) It should say that Tactics is 75% level and Pilot over 225% of level. I'll fix that.
2) Now that I think about it, you're probably right that engines are more important than guns. I disagree with Crew>Guns+Engines being an important factor, because having high Pilot reduces the crew required for Guns.
3) Are you sure about that? I assume that BH officer means bodyguard, and the help file says she only increases the pay for passenger contracts. As far as I know, the only officer that increases pay for assassination contracts is the Templar officer, but he also will sometimes get you into a kill contract vs an alien, and this build isn't great against aliens.

2. Resister, no it doesn't. Each gun and engine requires a crew member to operate. Your crew can of course compensate, but it won't be as effective. Having more pilot will help offset such a penalty, but it does not directly decrease the amount of crew required to operate the engines and guns. At least, not that I know off.
3. I was wrong. I think the Bodyguard helps with only capture contracts (http://startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/2371/star-traders-rpg-v4-2012). The Templar helps with both though (http://startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/3043/star-traders-rpg-v4-released). I've played the game for years, and I think only once has the Templar put me into a bounty contract with a xeno. It's really, REALLY rare.

I dug through some of Cory's posts, and it seems you were right that high Pilot offsets the penalty, rather than directly decreasing the amount of crew required, however, it seems only 34 Pilot is needed to overcome the effect, which seems low enough to me to not really need mentioning.

[Deleted]

Sept 22, 2016 19:21:45 GMT -5 resistor said:

Sept 21, 2016 0:12:21 GMT -5 @starfixer said:

2. Resister, no it doesn't. Each gun and engine requires a crew member to operate. Your crew can of course compensate, but it won't be as effective. Having more pilot will help offset such a penalty, but it does not directly decrease the amount of crew required to operate the engines and guns. At least, not that I know off.
3. I was wrong. I think the Bodyguard helps with only capture contracts (http://startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/2371/star-traders-rpg-v4-2012). The Templar helps with both though (http://startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/3043/star-traders-rpg-v4-released). I've played the game for years, and I think only once has the Templar put me into a bounty contract with a xeno. It's really, REALLY rare.

I dug through some of Cory's posts, and it seems you were right that high Pilot offsets the penalty, rather than directly decreasing the amount of crew required, however, it seems only 34 Pilot is needed to overcome the effect, which seems low enough to me to not really need mentioning.

There's still a fixed penalty without having crew > engines + guns though. Yes, with a high Pilot is can of course be overcome, but so can low engines. When I get a ship, I want to get every possible edge, no matter how minor: high engines, high guns, crew > engines + guns.

[poryg]

I don't like having huge numbers of engines on bounty hunting ships since I either use boarding, so I need the crew, or torping, where the engine numbers are irrelevant.
Although... Maybe I should try a Hi-engine low gun build someday...

[Black Cat]

We're very slow about this whole decrypting process. For steel song, they have quite the security it seems.

[resistor]

Finally! Chapter 4 is out. Comments and criticism, please!

[poryg]

This has been written too hastily and the quality corresponds to it.
1. Encounters don't slow your progress by a week. The week simply doesn't get count when you move after a battle, so it returns the weeks to normal.
2. Bounty hunters don't need other cargo than water-fuel, which doesn't increase the signature too much, and weapons/electronics/artifacts, which increases signature a lot and also makes you encounter more powerful enemies. Since we are talking about a gun bunny bounty hunter though, it's pointless to carry any other cargo than water-fuel, so talking about signature doesn't really mean much. You are a bounty hunter, not a looter. Also, it's a pain to always sell all that cargo by two or three units
3. The Water-fuel chapter is seriously incomplete.
Yes, it may be considered to not refuel when you are running low on time... But if you invest points in negotiation skill, it may not be entirely true that you should consider not refueling. The weeks that pass during a trade are simply calculated as total price/negotiation/1000. Meaning that when you have 3 negotiation, you can refuel for up to $3000 worth of water-fuel in just one week. With landing, which takes another week, you spent 2 weeks refueling. Not that much. With more negotiation it's even better. Having 5 negotiation should be enough and since it's a bounty, not an alien hunter, it shouldn't unbalance him badly.

Second point about refueling is that there are too many conditions to consider for the decision between voiding a contract or running short of Wf. And it's not just distance or morale... But also the independents and enemy territory. You always want to have good morale prior to crew decimated by accidents in an independent or enemy territory.

P.S I don't understand why do you talk about signature in two chapters when in one of them you don't really say anything about it. 

[filthyluca]

I'm just sitting here taking notes on what everyone is saying

[poryg]

The most important thing to note is... Rychart spies are very slow! They spend too much time camouflaging their hats...

[filthyluca]

Too... much... time.. camouflaging... hats... got it😃

[resistor]

Oct 24, 2016 12:11:29 GMT -5 poryg said:

This has been written too hastily and the quality corresponds to it.
1. Encounters don't slow your progress by a week. The week simply doesn't get count when you move after a battle, so it returns the weeks to normal.
2. Bounty hunters don't need other cargo than water-fuel, which doesn't increase the signature too much, and weapons/electronics/artifacts, which increases signature a lot and also makes you encounter more powerful enemies. Since we are talking about a gun bunny bounty hunter though, it's pointless to carry any other cargo than water-fuel, so talking about signature doesn't really mean much. You are a bounty hunter, not a looter. Also, it's a pain to always sell all that cargo by two or three units
3. The Water-fuel chapter is seriously incomplete.
Yes, it may be considered to not refuel when you are running low on time... But if you invest points in negotiation skill, it may not be entirely true that you should consider not refueling. The weeks that pass during a trade are simply calculated as total price/negotiation/1000. Meaning that when you have 3 negotiation, you can refuel for up to $3000 worth of water-fuel in just one week. With landing, which takes another week, you spent 2 weeks refueling. Not that much. With more negotiation it's even better. Having 5 negotiation should be enough and since it's a bounty, not an alien hunter, it shouldn't unbalance him badly.

Second point about refueling is that there are too many conditions to consider for the decision between voiding a contract or running short of Wf. And it's not just distance or morale... But also the independents and enemy territory. You always want to have good morale prior to crew decimated by accidents in an independent or enemy territory.

P.S I don't understand why do you talk about signature in two chapters when in one of them you don't really say anything about it. 

1. It doesn't work that way for me. When I encounter a ship it does take up an extra week, and the next move still counts as another week.
2. True that this build doesn't need cargo besides W-F (and Spice for Pilot officer), but I believe it is still worth pointing out. Trading can be useful for this build early in the game, to build up credits. Also, we can't always have assassination or capture contracts, we have to make due with delivery contracts sometimes, so I might as well inform that those packages also increase signature.
3. Your right that the W-F section should be more detailed. I'll get around to editing that... eventually.

Also, I just deleted the signature section in chapter 2. There's no reason to make people read the same thing twice .

SPOILER: Click to show

There's no reason to make people read the same thing twice.

[poryg]

Maybe it's because you fight with them too much But seriously, if it works like this for you, isn't it a 🐛?