Ship Design for Insane Alien Hunt

[airfries]

So I've been playing for years and years, with many successful captains surviving Insane difficulty, and crushing everything they encounter.

Now after a few tragic deaths I've only recently raised a successful captain for Impossible difficulty, currently at level 23 and with my designed ship, I'm destroying everything I come across.

I want to start hunting Aliens, so I want to make sure which of these two designs should work best.

(I've already read every guide available here. This is a new question!)

A Fast/Fast ship with just 25 hull, 16 armor, max engines 51 and sails 77, 202 crew and 192 cargo after upgrades. I've had her for a while and it hasn't failed me yet. I just close in, board, and win.

Or a Medium/Medium ship with 42 hull, 27 armor, max engines and sails, 170 crew and 190 cargo. (Thulum shipyard, still a concept that I haven't built or upgraded yet so it will have even higher stats)

And one more question about upgrades. Crew xeno or Leviathan or Weapons storage for fighting Aliens?

I've never run against an Alien I couldn't finish off in just a few turns after boarding them, as I'm always carrying 80+ Weapons, but I fear running into one immune to Weapons. It never happened to me with any previous captain, but I know it's lurking somewhere out there in the void.

And I've also read in many posts here that weapons are less useful in later turns, but I've never seen an explanation. Would someone please help?

Thanks a lot for the awesome game. I've put more time into it than my top ten PC games of all time!

[ntsheep]

With luck some of the OG alien hunters will come to help. I can offer a few tips for impossible play in general. I've got to over level 100 before. Pilot and Stealth will be some of the most important skills to focus on later. If you fight by boarding a lot then Strength is a good skill. If your doing ok now, don't level up so much. Save your points for level up for when you find a newer ship. The enemies on impossible will be very high level the more you level up. Aliens tend to have high crew numbers, you should try and do the same by having ships with large crew. Your two ship you mentioned seem good for that. Weapons are always helpful. Any bonus you can give yourself is worth it.

[airfries]

In the past I thought enemy and alien captains level up with the passage of turns regardless of which level I am now at. But you're right, I've done some research, they DO level up proportionately to my level, so I can afford to let my XP accumulate for a while.

One of my captains on insane had all clans as enemies, with reputation below 5K for each. So most encounters turned to fights, hence much more XP and higher level gained during turns passed compared to other captains who had just one clan or house as an enemy, who'd be acknowledging most encounters and fighting just that clan's ships.

The captain with more enemies and higher level did have higher level enemies indeed.


Back to my original question. Regarding the ships, I'm trying to balance to specific death scenarios here and how to avoid each of them.

Is 25 hull, 17 armor enough to avoid the occasional ramming pirate? For now at level 25 they don't even ram, I just board them and win in a few rounds, but I'm not sure about much later turns.

And the other ship with 42 hull, 25 armor can definitely withstand a couple of rams, but will I be able to advance and board, or their better pilots will just torp and gun me to death while I'm a huge sitting duck?

[ntsheep]

A lot of which ship will be better is going to be determined by your skill points at higher levels. It's always been best to have your pilot skill double what your ships hull and armor are. When playing at difficulties higher than crazy, having pilot at three times your hull/armor is advisable in my opinion. That's how I've been able to get to level 50+.

If we can get slayernz here, he can give some good tips. He keeps his reputation with Steel Song at -20K+

[airfries]

An enemy of Steel Song is my friend.

[ntsheep]

The ongoing war between slayernz and Steel Song has become one of the great forum legends. He has a ship you can get in the game named after him and he says he never been able to get it. Many of us have and have noticed something strange, they mostly appear on Steel Song planets. De Valtos is the second most common. There's a theory the TB's coded the game to tease him so he can't get his own ship.

[slayernz]

Must ... not ... derail .... although in saying that I have ONE Steel Song captain in my roster (Captian Glurk the Stoopid).

I must confess in Impossible, I have had reasonably good success (one in five captains make it to level 20, but most of those captains go on to at least level 50 then to 100), but that is because I do NOT hunt Xenos in Impossible. I never board enemy ships until I have killed their engines and/or they have surrendered. I focus on Pilot first, Pilot second, and ... yeah, that's about it. You need to have some tactics to be able to be more accurate in combat (at least that's what I remember in my captain's basic training lessons). "Only increase tactics when you start missing". Investing in Stealth allows you to avoid encounters, but if you have a good ship and high pilot (with a spritzer of Tactics), you should be golden. Orbiting above a Steel Song planet, with multiple strobe lights, RF emitters, and a trail of Steel Song debris is more beneficial than running silent.

Pilot at 2+ times your level will keep you alive.

Now in saying all of that, you're after specific advice on how to deal with Xenos, especially in mid-late stage games.

First up on levels. The whole adage of an enemy captain = 190% of your level in impossible is true. Does this mean you should avoid adding any XP to your captain to artificially keep your captain level low? Myeahmaybedependsnotreallykindasortano. Don't forget that there are two parts to the game difficulty. One is the enemy captains = 190% of your level, but the other part is that the game becomes more difficult as time goes by. You mentioned this already so do know about it. The difference isn't that dramatic though and the formula is pretty straight forward:

Formula for calculating turn difficulty is as follows:
INT ( Turn / (200+5xDifficulty Level) )

As Cory's mentioned in other posts, the difficulty level is a bit backwards.
Impossible = 0
Insane = 1
...
Basic = 7

SO that means at turn 1000 (about 3 years in), the game level is 4 for most levels, but 5 for Impossible.
At turn 10,000 Basic is at level 42, Crazy is level 47, and Impossible is level 50.


Balance your captain's level to try and at least keep up with the game turn level, otherwise you'll find that even basic things will give you grief.

So back to what you need to do. Boost your Warrior and Intimidate to at least your captain level - if not a smidgen higher. Of course it means you are investing in:
Physical Stats:
* Quickness
* Strength
Trained Skills
* Pilot
* Warrior
* Intimidate

with a blurp towards Stealth and Tactics.

Get some officers. THe ones to use are the Alien hunter, the Pilot, and then either the Military officer or the Veteran officer.
Ship upgrades should include
Structure
* Dreadnought Architecture
Combat
* Leviathan System OR Escape shuttle. If you have unlocked Star Paragon, consider the Crew Xeno Suit or Hyperion Exo-Suit, but bear in mind the latter only boosts the captain.
Interior
* Mercenaries
Propulsion
* Don't really care
Armament
* Predator Xeno Torp array or Hyperion Superstructure

Escape shuttles are extremely useful when you're about to get hull breached with the Xeno, but if you are focusing on boarding, then flag it.


Finally, carry Weapons - I don't remember ever seeing a post saying they lose effectiveness in the long game, however I don't board and I don't Xeno hunt, so I could be wrong Carry some artifacts too, as they are the aphrodisiac of choice when trying to ensnare a Xeno lover.

Fly in red zones - away from the green shipping lanes. Alternatively orbit dead planets and do your thang.

Good luck - you're a braver captain than I am and I hope that you will live to level 30.

[slayernz]

And Steel Song do steal ships that are named after me. Evil Steel Song. MUST NUKE THEM ALL.

[airfries]

The thing about Aliens is, they provide a good challenge. When you're flying a custom ship as good as mine, loaded with enough weapons to take out a goddam planet, everything is suddenly so much easier.

You hear a rumor about Electronics shortage? You can dump 200 of them for a million credits in profit in a jiffy. An independent bounty hunter encounters you? You can torp him and kill him, board him and kill him, or just ignore him and he'll die of old age someday. You receive a contract to kill this Steel Song dude? He's dead the moment you sign the contract.

But the Alien is different. Even the weakest ones are a bit better than the average captain. But the best ones? They're real good. I just boarded and defeated one with 500 crew. It was messy. Almost lost half my 200 man crew. But my Templar Command officer was having the day of his life. "Just like the old days."

I'm at level 30, and I just enjoy my ship a bit too much to build another one. Almost every upgrade I have is different from what you recommend, slayernz, I'll make some changes following your advice but maybe hear me out on it as it stands now.

Structural: Cargo hold +20%. That's an extra 32 slots for water fuel, weapons, whatever. It's fun as long as I haven't hit 5 million credits. But now that I'm there, I might just change it. Dreadnought Architecture looks fine.

Combat: Weapons storage. It was a complete game changer for me once I discovered it. More Weapons, and more space for everything else. More time between port calls for water fuel. But still I might get Leviathan or Crew Zeno suits IF it's more effective than an extra 25 Weapons.

Interior: Battleship architecture. A ton more crew (added like 70 or more) AND the description says better resistance against boarding from just having the upgrade. And that penalty for avoiding encounters? It's more than welcome. I think I'll stick with it, probably more effective than 15 crew. UNLESS they function differently from normal crew. Waiting for your input on this.

Propulsion: Advanced sail system. Allows me to change range even easier. My Rychart made ship has 77 sails. Lots of envious stares and free drinks.

Armament: Sail command probe. Even more sails, more pilot bonuses, more rapid engagement, less time for the hypothetical ultra-high level torping captain to shower me with supersonics.

25 hull, 16 armor, 50 engines, 77 sails, 202 crew, 192 cargo, 30 guns, 30 torps. Maybe I'll keep flying it for a while.

My captains are Templar Command (first time I've found him in like 6 years of playing), Military, and Pilot.

Stats: Pilot and Warrior higher than my level. Stealth got to 25 and stopped (to avoid torps). No tactics, no time for that. And no intimidate. I'm not sure what it adds to a boarding captain.

And I have to say I'm effective. Took out like twenty Xeno ships.

Yet never even touched a Space Hive. They disappear as soon as glimpsed through the void.

[ntsheep]

slayernz now that we have both offered good basic advice and tips. The rules say this thread is fair game for a derail. Rules is rules

[slayernz]

airfries You're right - I re-checked and Intimidate does bugger-all for your Alien encounters. Tactics helps a little in trying to evade boarding, but since you're not trying to do that, it's wasted too.

Warrior and weapons and lots of crew. You're a braver man than me.

BTW, I have got some techs working on upgrading your torp tubes. That should help you for your next encounter

[ntsheep]

Rails? Where we're going this thread doesn't need any rails.

[slayernz]

For the record, the train was derailed before I got here. I'm just an innocent bystander like yourself

[ntsheep]

Someone need to tell the kid in the lower right, slingshots don't work on pussies that size.

[airfries]

Dark creatures of the Void, murderous and vile, they must be avoided by all who value life!