I quit! I can't do it!

[meatabstract]

A routine crew combat on hard - I think one of the ones on the Caleb whathisname mission from the Faens. About lvl 7. My combat squad was all officers - CM, BH, SW, XH. All with good stats - 25ish wisdom, quickness, and strength on all of them. I had chosen my talents carefully so that I had lots of buffs and defence. Lvl 5 locker. Lvl 4 armour from contact - the heavy stuff with the init penalty.

My healer healed, my BH debuffed, my SW buffed herself, my XH shot her rifle. And they all died.

This is about my 8th attempt to get an explorer captain functioning. They all end with me getting massacred in CC or blown to bits by a ship that only gives me a "fight" option.

I've read the guides, tweaked my templates, varied my approaches. I've run missions before exploring, not run them, done the Faen stuff, abandoned the Faens. Steam says I've spent 300 hours in this game. But I'm not learning anything anymore - I'm just getting my ass kicked. And it's not fun.

[fallen]

Sorry to hear you're having such a hard go of it. What difficulty are you playing on meatabstract? Often, its harder to learn something by hard failing than it is by succeeding. I'd suggest reducing difficulty or playing on Custom to help get through more of the game so you can see your crew in successful action instead of getting wiped.

[resistor]

Personally, I'm generally effective with damage-focused CC teams.

Everyone plays a little differently, but here are my maxims:
Focus on killing enemies in as few turns as possible
It is almost never worth spending init on buffing (unless it clears debuffs at the same time)
CMs are overrated, it is more reliable to out-damage the enemy than to try to out-heal their damage

Always have at least one team member that has an attack talent that strips enemy buffs, such as Damning Aim

fallen did you skip coffee or something?

Oct 8, 2019 12:03:06 GMT -5 fallen said:

...What difficulty are you playing on meatabstract ?...

Oct 8, 2019 4:26:52 GMT -5 meatabstract said:

A routine crew combat on hard...

[daveal]

I personally found explorer one of the harder classes to get running. Have you tried other classes like smuggler or spy? One of the things that goes into exploration is your explorer dice (shown in the ship status sheet along with negotiate, stealth, etc), so it helps to have quite a number of explorers as supercargo or second/third jobs on your officers. Having a high dice count keeps your max risk percentage down (shown in the exploration panel lower left), which makes the encounters safer.

Also, regardless of which class I am going to eventually focus upon, I tend to spend the first couple of years as a merchant, waiting for the crew to level up some more.

Regarding ship combat, do you have high positive rep with a few factions, or have you let it get negative for almost all? It takes a little work but you can avoid high negative rep with most of the factions. This makes the captains less aggressive, so the retreat button will be active and you will also have the option to use other combat avoidance buttons like bribe, or the smuggler ones.

[meatabstract]

Previously I managed to get a spy rolling on hard who was actually doing quite well. That's a CC captain and I focused on crit stacking from the beginning. But I should be able to run a non-combat captain and still be successful. Many players allegedly do it.

Yes, I'm careful not to aggravate numerous factions at once, but in order to run any missions at all you need aggravate at least one of them. When I'm still too poor to have made any serious ship upgrades and I get monster bounty hunter ship on me... I guess I'm meant to click "Surrender to Execution?". I suppose that might be less embarrassing than the ship combat that otherwise follows.

The explore card game works fine, but no matter how many card manipulation talents you have, eventually you land on pirates or xeno. And, as above, they can kick the crap out of a well equipped officer squad, even at low levels. My only success has been when I've made the captain themselves a min/max'd damage machine. Is that the only way to succeed at CC?

I guess I'm just unusually upset about having to quit. I really ought to like a game like this. It's procedural generated, turn-based, systematic, not too talky, in space, difficult - all the things I was looking for. But it's difficult in such a random way that I just end up feeling like I'm playing russian roulette with a very elaborate space revolver.

[fallen]

meatabstract - I think we'd have to go back to the question of what difficulty you are playing on and perhaps more importantly what part of the difficulty do you think is like "playing russian roulette with a very elaborate space revolver"? That part fascinates me, because there is RNG in the game but your decisions are mostly about how to nerf that RNG down to 0%. So many of the abilities and decisions you make in the game remove *all* RNG from elements. I'd love to hear more about the specifics of what you're experiencing so we can either improve the game or help adjust your play style so that you can enjoy the game.

[daveal]

Are you running all the Faen missions? It is true that it is hard to avoid the initial trade ban, and resulting negative rep; but in the early game, that will hardly result in sending a monster BH after you. Usually the trade ban will give you one unfriendly faction; fine, I don't accept any missions which run me through that sector till I have more levels. I also tend to have smuggler levels on one of my officers to get the talents that let me avoid unfriendly ships. With no high negative factions, and these talents, and money for a bribe, I don't usually get stuck in ship combat at all till I have a well equipped second ship.

In case I do get stuck in combat, I try to have a nav booster and ECCM modules as high as I can afford (usually L2 or sometimes L3 if I did well trading) and enough nav levels to run them. Spy bolt talent and the various nav, pilot talents to boost escape and range change help. If you have unlocked the FDF commander starting contact (which is worth doing) then having a couple of military officers also boosts dice in a useful way.

I tend to stop doing exploration missions when I either run out of talents, or see two xeno/pirate cards in the hand of cards. Nobody is forcing me to keep exploring; I can go do some trading or patrolling or other missions till my talents cool down.

[fallen]

Another thing that could help is grabbing a few easy Ship Encounter Talents -- easy to avoid Military Officers, Bounty Hunters, etc, even the ones who ask to "Surrender to Execution" -- forge some permits, garble some identities and slip right by!
startraders.gamepedia.com/Ship_Encounters

[meatabstract]

Oct 9, 2019 9:05:33 GMT -5 fallen said:

meatabstract - I think we'd have to go back to the question of what difficulty you are playing on and perhaps more importantly what part of the difficulty do you think is like "playing russian roulette with a very elaborate space revolver"? That part fascinates me, because there is RNG in the game but your decisions are mostly about how to nerf that RNG down to 0%. So many of the abilities and decisions you make in the game remove *all* RNG from elements. I'd love to hear more about the specifics of what you're experiencing so we can either improve the game or help adjust your play style so that you can enjoy the game.

OK, I'll give you a concrete example: about 2 captains ago I was playing through the Zette Faen arc. I've done it several times before on hard and got the unlock. So, I made it to the giant monster fight and in the first or second turn of combat the sniper one-shots my swordsman from full health with a hit for 120 damage. Needless to say, I failed the mission. What was I supposed to learn from that which would allow me to succeed next time? I already had heavy armor equipped. I don't think there was any guaranteed way to kill the sniper before turn 2. My guys missed and their guy didn't. The RNG returned "dead" and so I was. I can't wait until I'm lvl 15 before I take that combat - the mission would have timed out long before then.



Obviously, I could avoid this outcome by not doing that storyline and otherwise trying my damndest to avoid any crew combat that might include a sniper. But if I'm just paying as Captain Risk-Averse who only does "deliver crate" missions because everything else is too risky, it's really boring. Nobody wants to play a game called Space Coward.



Yes, I know there are talents that help get you out of ship combat. But lvl 10, for instance, I haven't had the opportunity to get most them because I don't have the necessary contacts yet, and my officer jobs and talents were devoted to crew combat. This is exactly the problem - I wasn't spreading myself thin and trying to be good at everything. I threw everything - talents, jobs, officer slots, contact choices, money - at just crew combat. And repeatedly, I lost at it anyway.



In games where I've managed to get to the end of the Faen stuff I generally end up with about 1 mil credits (not enough to buy a new ship and equip it) and about -100 rep with whichever faction Char was assigned to. At that point I'm forced to blow my accumulated cash upgrading my starter ship so that I can at least run from combat reliably. And thus when it ticks over to the second era I'm still flying the Scout Cutter... which feels embarrassing.

[daveal]

I agree that one-shot kills are really fun when I do them, and not fun at all when the other guy does them.

After doing each of the Faen branches once, I tend to just ignore that storyline, which also helps avoid negative rep with that faction.

I admit I haven't tried a run where none of my officers have ship jobs. At most, I have had 2 officers for combat and plenty of room for the combat-avoiding jobs like smuggler (level 5) and military officer (level 1) to avoid ship combats. Maybe in the early and mid game, it's better to have ship officers and some plain crew for combat; the officers may have a little better stats, *maybe*, but the advantage of three different classes may not show up till high levels.

I find 1M credits is a good amount to buy a midsize ship and outfit it with high level gear, and I don't find it embarrassing at all to do that during third era. I have probably spent around 400-500K on upgrading my first ship before then, as I mentioned with nav booster and eccm to allow escaping ship combat.

[fallen]

meatabstract - thanks for the specifics! That's a tough one, as it's a boss fight. From your post before, it sounded like you found the entire game to be a game our roulette.

What I can say -- from what you've described it sounds like you've built a combat strategy based on DPS. You are relying on killing the enemy before they kill you. You mow them down, they can't kill you. Certainly, you could have moved the Sniper a rank so he couldn't use some of his Talents or hit him with some Stun ability or used a defensive buff to raise your own Armor or Deflection. In the case when the build is DPS focused the only answer is to kill the sniper before he snipes you, and as you said -- your guy missed. If we're just looking at the dice rolls of the combat, then yes RNG handed you a loss.

Thanks for taking the time to post. I'm sorry that you are disappointed in the end with the game and I hope you find happier gaming elsewhere.

[cerseisadvocate]

Lessons I learnd regarding CC
1. Ini beats Armor 9 of 10 times
2. Have Talents to clear debuffs from your guys
3. Have talents to clear buffs from the enemy
4. Buffing yourself is overrated 9 of 10 times
5. More when two on init talents in your team are pretty much wasted talent slots
6. Build your team robust to position change and/or have talents to get back into position effectively.
7. Messing with the opponents positions is the best defensive tactic. Talents that can push back opponents on slot 3 are especialy good (commander and Bodyguard) Have one of these and turn from on shooting you into being useless.

[pendell]

At the risk of sounding like a complete coward .. why not just turn off the permadeath option? Then, if you're coming up against a fight that's going to be difficult, save beforehand. If it doesn't go the way you expected, reload your save and try again, this time with different tactics.

I realize this is not what the best players do, and Cory and Fallen enjoy permadeath -- but I personally never use it. I don't like it. In ANY roguelike or similar game where you can't restore a save state, you're always one dice roll or one game glitch away from losing your file. I could tolerate that in the 1980s when I had no investment in the characters or the ship. I could tolerate that in nethack when I was building up one character that could be lost -- BUT when I'm playing a game where I have to invest in and keep track of NO LESS THAN FORTY-NINE CHARACTERS, having to start over from scratch is , to me, simply unacceptable.

So I turn off permadeath and save regularly.

And I enjoy the game immensely that way.

This means I have to forfeit any claims to be "the best" or even a good player. Playing on permadeath means you have to be much more careful of your characters and you have to greatly restrict those tactics and abilities you explore in any given run to minimize the chance of a rapid and untimely death. It may even mean foregoing quests you would otherwise enjoy playing through because the risk is unacceptably high. It means treating the game more as a simulation and less as something "for fun". Back in the 80s, even strategy games that could end instantly with one bad dice roll were common.

I ... don't enjoy playing that sort of thing any more. I have enough stress in my real life that I get no pleasure from additional stress from games.

So I turn off permadeath and have fun. And I'm happy that way. It's not for everyone, but it works for me, giving me the fun and challenge I want rather than pushing me to deal with something I'd rather not.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[cerseisadvocate]

Some people (like me for example) do not like to play without permadeath even if they get their ass wiped on a regular base.

[pendell]

Oct 11, 2019 5:18:11 GMT -5 cerseisadvocate said:

Some people (like me for example) do not like to play without permadeath even if they get their ass wiped on a regular base.

Yes;  but you're not the person who's quitting in disgust because a routine combat ends their game.    Clearly you benefit from permadeath, and that's good!   It's the way the game is intended to be played, I think.  

Thing is, not everyone who plays STF wants a game which is less about winning than it is about survival, especially at the higher difficulties. Not everyone can simply shake it off and start fresh when the game ends two game-years on because an ordinary battle killed critical crew, or even ended the game altogether.   And those players need to either play at a lower level of difficulty, or disable permadeath on their existing level. That's why the Trese brothers created the custom difficulty level ; so that if (say) having your Captain one-shotted by a sniper and ending the game isn't something players enjoy, that is a part of the game which is now optional.   That doesn't have to be your STF experience unless you want it to be.  

My view of permadeath is: You have to treat every combat like a gamble, which means you can't afford to "bet" more than you can afford to lose.   Any crew combat means potentially losing all four members of the fighting crew; this is a hand of poker, and they are your table stakes.  Any SHIP combat potentially means losing the ship; if you don't have an escape capability and another ship berthed somewhere, you're risking your entire game.   

So, yes, permadeath makes every card game , every combat, roulette. And the higher the difficulty level, the more bullets the RNG puts in the gun.  

So the game becomes about stacking the deck your own way;   the reason combats are roulette but the game ISN'T is because you have the option both of not giving the gun to the RNG , and of taking bullets out of the gun. 

Practically speaking, this means making friends with almost all factions  so that most ship encounters are friendly. It means cultivating talents like skip off the void or stiff salute to escape independents or xeno who can't be bought. It means being willing to pay bribes to lower hostility. It means buying trade permits so you can surrender with minimal penalty. And, yes, it means surrendering even without a permit , forfeiting cargo and contract, if that's what it takes to avoid being killed prematurely. It means ignoring the early missions and skipping out on some sidequests so that you don't antagonize one faction or another down into -100 and get bounty hunters sicced on you.  It means walking away from blockade/salvage/patrol/explore card games if there's a risk card you can't accept.  

In short, it means being an abject coward until you get rich enough in terms of credits and experience that you can soak a few lost combats and start being brave.  And even then, you've got to pick your battles carefully , ensure that you have just the right mix of talents and crew and ship such that you have five bullets to shoot at the RNG and it only has one.  It still means you need to pick your battles and avoid those which you haven't planned and prepared for.  It still means that you could lose critical crew and go back to coward phase until you've been able to recruit and train new crew.  


STF on permadeath and on the higher difficulty levels isn't so much about gambling as it is about risk management ; about determining what risks you are willing to accept and doing whatever you possibly can to avoid or mitigate the unacceptable ones.  And the higher the difficulty level, the more stringent and careful you have to be.  

In my view, this is what it takes to win on permadeath at the higher difficulty levels, and if this isn't fun for a player, both those aspects are optional. 

I will say that in some ways Frontiers is far more forgiving than the original ST.  The original ST had no one-year grace period and no talents to avoid combats. So for most players the game would end when they eventually ran into a Xeno which they could neither escape nor fight.   The Brothers have done a lot of work to make it easier to survive without being killed by random chance, and I for one am grateful for their efforts! 


Respectfully, 

Brian P.