Battles

[killerkev]

So I built my first custom ship the other day thinking I would have a good killing machine. I kept it fast and quick with 18 hull, 9 armor, 40 guns. Cost me 800k plus mods. Got the escape pod to. 2 days later I head out to kill someone and my ship is doing great. I find the pirate and his ship is a joke compared to mine. His first shot took out my 9 armor and his second shot took out 18 hull and I escaped in my pod. Limped back to get one of my other ships and the next killing I do the same thing happens but the little ship kills my whole crew in 3 shots and then boards my ship and kills me. After my death I cried a little over the time spent and noticed I was on turn 10190. Did the opponents get way harder at 10k turns or something. I got totally destroyed by wimpy pea shooters.
I also heard you don't lose rep for embargoes if you are rank 17 or higher and you get a new ship option so I upgraded to lev 20 in 2 syndicates and still lost rep when trading and no new ship to buy. Thanks for any help

[athios]

The game difficulty scales upwards continuously based on game turns, so nothing special about 10k turns, but it will be significantly harder by then.

You didn't mention your profession, so I'll ask. Did you keep your Pilot skill higher than your Hull?

[poryg]

First of all, you are viewing the game concept wrong.
It's not about ship. You say that you had a ship for $800k and the pirate ships were a joke compared to yours. But you forget one thing.
Pirates and aliens are the most frequent killers in the game. Why would pirates be good killers if their ships are a joke?
That's because a well built captain is far more important than an expensive ship.
So yeah, you got totally destroyed by wimpy pea shooters.
As far as your questions go... Due to my playstyle I don't experience difficulty increasing over time. Things like exploring etc. get gradually more difficult (although I can't confirm it, because as my captain progresses, it looks the same to me). The captains are as tough as they can be. With well built captain the battles get in fact easier.
You need to be rank 18 or higher to be protected from trade embargoes. Rank 17 grants you flagships.
If you buy rank 18 at Cadar and there is a trade embargo between Cadar and Javat... If you trade with javat, you lose no reputation with Cadar, because your rank will protect you. But if you trade with Cadar, there is no Javat rank to protect you from Javat rep loss.

P.S I usually buy ships at price of $500k. Fairly mediocre, but they are enough. I also buy them at steel song, it's cheaper than at Thulun for example. 

[Cory Trese]

Oct 8, 2016 15:23:48 GMT -5 killerkev said:

I also heard you don't lose rep for embargoes if you are rank 17 or higher and you get a new ship option so I upgraded to lev 20 in 2 syndicates and still lost rep when trading and no new ship to buy.

Where did that information come from?

[killerkev]

Oct 9, 2016 9:32:49 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Oct 8, 2016 15:23:48 GMT -5 killerkev said:

I also heard you don't lose rep for embargoes if you are rank 17 or higher and you get a new ship option so I upgraded to lev 20 in 2 syndicates and still lost rep when trading and no new ship to buy.

Where did that information come from?

Got the info off the forum from other threads. Poryg on the comment above is saying the same thing about no rep loss and new ships. I meant rep 20 not level.
When I lost my ship I had at least 10 sails and engines more than the other ships had also had double the crew and double the weapons. I couldn't flee from the attacks and all my stats except explore were over 25. If a crazy good enemy captain can 2 shot me with a pretty big ship shouldn't there be some kind of warning about the level of the opponent your facing. The ship I get that you don't see stats until you decide to attack but even going into battle you have no idea if you have the slightest chance of winning no matter what ship your up against. I was a military officer guy. Can't remember if that's the exact name. Pretty new at this. Heh. Should have taken screen shots so I could remember exactly what I was up against.

[Cory Trese]

The level in question is Rank 20, which requires like 400+ Reputation, and a boat tonne of credits.

[killerkev]

Oct 9, 2016 13:44:36 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

The level in question is Rank 20, which requires like 400+ Reputation, and a boat tonne of credits.

Yes. I'm a good trader. . I had rep 20 in 2 syndicates and was rep 10 in the other 4. I was working on the reward for over 151 points for rep in the 3 factions and had already got it in the syndicates.

[killerkev]

Sorry. Rank 20. My rep in the syndicates was 380, 402 and 385 or something. Had 2 of them high enough for rank 20 but lost a little doing contracts.

[killerkev]

I more thing. 😬. Can't find anything in help about this. If I'm a fugitive of royal justice and have never been below -2 rep with anyone how can I clear that? I tried getting fought by ships but all they do is attack and kill me. No one will arrest me or anything to put me in jail to clear my name. I think that's how it will get cleared..

[bookworm21]

Oct 9, 2016 14:14:23 GMT -5 killerkev said:

I more thing. 😬. Can't find anything in help about this. If I'm a fugitive of royal justice and have never been below -2 rep with anyone how can I clear that? I tried getting fought by ships but all they do is attack and kill me. No one will arrest me or anything to put me in jail to clear my name. I think that's how it will get cleared..

i think a pardon should clear that up. You will need to drop rep to -ve though

[poryg]

Rank 20 requires around 200 reputation and in total something like 400k or 420k credits, at least on Android, unless some update has changed it in last two months. And as I said, it depends on who you trade with in order for the rank to protect you.
But nevermind that.
You had all stats on 25 (except for explorer). Which means that your build was far from focused on anything. In other words it wasn't a good build.
For a pirate focused on pilot it's easy to blow your ship to pieces.
With someone focused on boarding it's easy to board you to death.

As for the fights... With a good build you will be able to defeat enemies twice your level. I say again, twice your level.. Because it's not about ship. Yes, you may have greater ship stats, but a captain's build is way more important than the ship stats. Of course I can't say that ship stats are unimportant, but in order to explain it smoothly... Your captain is the head of the chain. Your ship is just a tool. If you are a gunner, you are able to dominate the game easily. While it's easier to dominate the game with a good fast/quick ship, you would be able to use the "jokes" pirate ships with huge efficiency too.
There are several threads about how to build your captain in the forum, but the simplest one is a so called Gun bunny. Pilot 200%-250% your level, tactics 70% your level, some little stealth to avoid torps. Other stats are dead weight.
With this and a good ship you are almost unstoppable... But you can manage well with even a mediocre ship as long as it is fast/quick and has guns.

As for your saying about warnings, let me disagree with you. This is a sandbox game. Warnings that you are facing a strong foe would make it quite weird, because you would be able to just avoid the strong foes.
Also, learn to surrender. You don't have to fight every battle. You can just surrender. As long as you can survive it of course... Or you can try to run away in the worst case.
Which brings us to another topic.
I can't understand the fugitive thing clearly. But let me tell you one thing.
If you want to get to jail, you need to have reputation -15 to -35 against a Warship or worse than -35 for a smuggler. In both cases it is the same... You need to surrender without fighting! If you do, they will imprison you and take half of your money... But bring your rep to -5.
Also, at least in Android version, in the very first turn of the battle you can still take back the Battle stations. So you can use the first turn to look at the enemy (but as I said, ship stats aren't everything, every alien hunter will confirm that, since they have faced Heela aliens with 100 hull and 50 armor, Narvidian hunters with 1000 crew,... etc.) And you can still acknowledge/surrender in the first turn like nothing happened. So that means:
I meet a pirate, click on battle stations... But see that the pirate is too strong for me. So in the very first turn I surrender and the trade permit protects me from him.
However, if I click on any other button, the battle has started... And from there surrendering would result in him looting me not caring about the trade permit.

Then there is an option to buy pardons in palace. They clear your negative reputation and wanted flag.

[killerkev]

Cool thx. I'll look up more on my stats and what is useful. I'll try paying off my rep with more of the syndicates and see what happens. Lots to learn in this game.

[poryg]

I always maintain positive rep with everyone, leaves me nothing to worry about

[redartrats]

I've played a few Blackheart/indy captains before (legendary criminal with all factions, < -500 rep or worse). I just do whatever I want and shoot down anybody that tries to stop me. But like poryg said, your captain needs to be built right. Build him wrong, and you won't survive a single bounty hunter at -25 rep. Build him right, and you can sail the quadrant like you own it and nobody can stop you. Except maybe high level aliens. I lost a couple of blackheart captains to aliens appearing out of nowhere and taking me down easily. I guess you can call it poetic justice.

[abysmal]

A good way that I kind of see it is you have a person with a Sniper Rifle but with absolutely no training for it, to include loading the first clip, and a person with a .22 but training in every weapon imaginable. Even if you were 2 miles away, I'm going to put my money on the guy with the .22 just because I expect him to be able to get the clip in and control his breathing and recoil much better than the untrained guy with the cooler looking gun around.