Newish player questions

[Curious Captain]

Hi all!

I've been playing Star Traders for a few days, and I've been slowly working things out but there are still things I'm a bit confused on, particularly the stats.

1. I know broadly what all the Captain stats do, but I'm not sure how to distribute xp for a successful captain - none of the skills look like they can be skipped (apart from explorer, depending on playstyle, and maybe negotiation) regardless of what role I'm mostly doing, because sometimes you get unavoidable situations (all of my deaths so far have been aliens I can't escape from and can't hurt).
       1.a. How do I choose which stat to improve at any given time? Is there a minimum that any stat should never be below or a maximum that is unnecessary? If I just want to survive as long as I can, am I better off balancing xp between Pilot,   Stealth, Warrior, Intimidate, Tactics, or maxing 1 at a time?
       1.b. If an encounter is unavoidable, what stats give me the best chance of escape? It looks like pilot or stealth, but I'm not sure which helps more.
       1.c. When it says that Intimidate helps when being Searched and Looted, what exactly does that mean? Does it mean that I'm less likely to be searched and looted, that they're less likely to confiscate stuff when I'm searched and looted, or that I'm less likely to take damage when I'm searched and looted? Or something else?

2. Does raising attributes improve your captain in any way or does it only allow skills to be raised higher?

3. Do I want higher Engines or Sails for escaping from combat? Are there any other (ship based) factors?
       3.a. When I'm trying to escape, should I only be pressing Retreat, or are there other factors? If I don't escape on the first turn, does that mean I won't be able to escape at all?

4. How does the Merchant Economic Records ability work? I generated records on my very first exchange on my very first planet, but never again in 296 turns. Is it a 1 time bonus?

Those are my most pressing questions. Thanks in advance!

[Cory Trese]

Fun game. We recently released a sequel. There are some really in-depth advanced guides for ST RPG, but the game is many years old so you may have to search around if you are trying to find them.

Stats is a balancing game, best considered in terms of ratios. You don't want to ignore anything, but you might put 10::1 points between two skills or attributes and have a totally valid build. Best to experiment.

Picking attributes is a lot driven by how your playing and what skills you want to increase long term.

Speed and Stealth, and a low signature ship, help avoid encounters. Sails and speed, but definitely not spamming retreat is best. Advanced combat guides and even the game's manual explain why.

MER ability is threshold based, you have to hit them to get records.

I take it your are on the Elite edition?

[Curious Captain]

Thanks for the answers, that's really helpful! I found a lot of guides and walkthroughs, but most of them were either for more advanced strategies or just didn't answer the specific questions I had. I am indeed on Elite. I didn't realise it was an old game, I was just looking for a good rpg to play on my phone, and found this.

Dec 30, 2017 11:15:04 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Fun game. We recently released a sequel.

Ooh, that's good to know!

[Cory Trese]

store.steampowered.com/app/335620

[resistor]

Dec 30, 2017 7:24:19 GMT -5 Curious Captain said:

Hi all!

I've been playing Star Traders for a few days, and I've been slowly working things out but there are still things I'm a bit confused on, particularly the stats.

1. I know broadly what all the Captain stats do, but I'm not sure how to distribute xp for a successful captain - none of the skills look like they can be skipped (apart from explorer, depending on playstyle, and maybe negotiation) regardless of what role I'm mostly doing, because sometimes you get unavoidable situations (all of my deaths so far have been aliens I can't escape from and can't hurt).
       1.a. How do I choose which stat to improve at any given time? Is there a minimum that any stat should never be below or a maximum that is unnecessary? If I just want to survive as long as I can, am I better off balancing xp between Pilot,   Stealth, Warrior, Intimidate, Tactics, or maxing 1 at a time?
       1.b. If an encounter is unavoidable, what stats give me the best chance of escape? It looks like pilot or stealth, but I'm not sure which helps more.
       1.c. When it says that Intimidate helps when being Searched and Looted, what exactly does that mean? Does it mean that I'm less likely to be searched and looted, that they're less likely to confiscate stuff when I'm searched and looted, or that I'm less likely to take damage when I'm searched and looted? Or something else?

2. Does raising attributes improve your captain in any way or does it only allow skills to be raised higher?

3. Do I want higher Engines or Sails for escaping from combat? Are there any other (ship based) factors?
       3.a. When I'm trying to escape, should I only be pressing Retreat, or are there other factors? If I don't escape on the first turn, does that mean I won't be able to escape at all?

4. How does the Merchant Economic Records ability work? I generated records on my very first exchange on my very first planet, but never again in 296 turns. Is it a 1 time bonus?

Those are my most pressing questions. Thanks in advance!

Star Traders: Frontiers (the sequel to STRPG) will have mobile ports released sometime in 2018.

1) What stats you raise depends on your playstyle. For example, a Bounty Hunter that only uses barrage guns might have over 200% of his level in Pilot skill, some Tactics, and not invest in any other skill.

2) Yes, raising attributes improves your captain, but generally not as much as skills would.

3) Engines helps you move at mid-short range, sails help to move at mid-long range. More sails are what you need if you want to escape at long range.

Another thing that can help you escape is to launch a torpedo. If you hit an enemy with a torp, then you will get a bonus to any action (including escape) the next turn.

4) That ability can be used more than once, but I'm not entirely sure what triggers it.

[Zer0Winds]

4) My merchant gets them randomly, really.

3) Resistor Answered.

2) Raise those attributes. They do matter. In what way, I don't know specifics.

1) Resistor answered better than I could.


Why'd I go backwards?

[poryg]

I've never really noticed having more sails or more engines to be beneficial in any way apart from fast/quick ships. But it may be because my playing style doesn't care about small values.
But yeah, having a quick ship has more impact than having 30 or 40 engines. You only need 30+ engines and sails to receive bonus in reduced fuel consumption.

As for the captain, as it was said. Depending on the build you'll be omitting certain stats. Merchants and smugglers for example need high stealth to be able to avoid hostile encounters (very high to be able to avoid even high level aliens, llet's say 200-250% of his level, the rest will be gained from fast bonuses), merchant skill is enough on 20... And with good ship fuel is not an issue, so pilot is not too necessary.

As for merchant's special ability, that is chance to receive records when you make a transaction of licensed cargo (bigger transactions give more chance). If water-fuel, artifacts, electronics, weapons and records are the only things you trade in huge numbers, you won't ever get any. For these purposes smuggler is better, because he has this ability for restricted cargo (artifacts, electronics and weapons) instead of licensed cargo. I have all IAP purchased, so my captains never have any junk stats (for example tactics are very useful for avoiding ships during landing and for retreating while being boarded, but for the smuggler it's completely useless, because he needs to be able to escape any encounter much more than he needs to be able to avoid one portion of them). Except of course you build a combat smuggler, but spy is much better as a combat class due to the boost in surveillance (faster leveling during spy wars)