Why do you get "deep space encounters" on a planet

[littlebum2002]

The only issue I have with this game are the incredible amount of encounters. Especially once you have landed on a planet and are just flying from city to jungle how can you have a deep space encounter? Besides, there are so many encounters that by the time I land after 5 or so my contract is expired. Even if I do finish a contract I am constantly spending tens of thousands on repair and health care. Even though I have invested heavily in escape skill is never seem to succeed and always end up fighting and angering factions and dying. I
It's a great game, but is it just me or is it too encounter heavy? I would like it to be a bit more balanced IMHO.

[Cory Trese]

Great post -- what Difficulty and Turn are you on? Those are the really big factors in Encounter rates -- along with Ship Signature, Planetary Defense, Rumors, Quandrant location, Current Cargo, Pilot, Tactics, Morale, Speed and several other factors that are used for game balance.

Balance of the game is an on-going effort for us -- even after two years of daily work on it, we're still not happy. I don't know if it will ever be perfect but it is something we work on all the time.

You mention "escape skill" but that isn't a skill in Star Traders RPG. Which one did you mean?

Post some more details and we'll get you some tips, advice and debate the merits of changing the encounter rate.

[littlebum2002]

I am playing the game on easy difficulty, but I find this happens from the very beginning of the game onward. It just seems like unless I have maxed out the "strength" skill and shoot down anyone who crosses me, or the "quickness" skill to escape (that is the skill I referred to earlier", all my games end in an early tragic death. I even try to abstain from all illegal activity, but even as an explorer that is hard since much of the items I find are contraband.

I guess I really should have made this into 2 issues. The first is the high amount of encounters and how, in my opinion, they are hard to avoid or escape from. This issue is perhaps a result of my not being familiar enough with the game mechanics or strategy.

The second issue is I feel that, once you land on a planet, you should be encounter-free until you leave. These encounters are supposed to be deep-space battles, so I do not feel they belong when shuttling between the city and wilderness on a planet.



I do have one more thing I think would be an improvement. I like the missions, and I realize they often have very tight time margins, which is OK because it just adds another level of strategy to the game. However, it seems that even scrolling through the menu ticks time away. So if I am on a mission, and land on a planet to refuel, I don't usually have time to flip through menus to look at trade bans, etc., so many of my missions result in me accidently violating a trade ban or another on accident.

I thought of two solutions to this problem, either of which I believe would improve the game, both of which in my opinion should be implemented. First, the time should only pass when flying. Like encounters, the time should be paused when exploring a planet or looking through a menu. This way, one can fell free to check out the menu before trading, as I often try to do, to avoid ticking someone off.

A second suggestion would be that water and fuel are exempt from trade embargoes. In reality, even the most stringent trade embargoes with the most ruthless nations still allow for food and vital supplies. If I am flying from planet to planet I should not have to choose between starving my crew or violating a trade embargo and greatly lowering my reputation with a faction. Water-fuel should be a special category good which is exempt from this restriction.

[shallowthought]

Time shouldn't pass when looking through menus. It will pass when you buy stuff though, based on (I think) the security and economy ratings (you want low security, high economy for a fast transaction, I think). Indy worlds are 10x faster than faction planets.

While water fuel does cause you to lose rep in an embargo, it's nowhere near as much as with other resources, and restricted goods are way worse than anything else.

[BlastGT1]

I can't remember time ever passing when buying or selling goods, though it will when buying or upgrading a ship. It also passes when exploring or harvesting.

I'm tired of customizing sigs every time I flash a ROM. This time it's plain old Torp City!

[Cory Trese]

There are so many balance rules tied to the passage of time -- I've spent many months tuning these rules against the skills, actions and mission durations. I don't think I would want to rebalance all of that -- the end result, in my opinion, would be inferior.

The resource of "Water-Fuel" is actually starship fuel -- consider it refined fuel. Any military trade embargo or ban would cover Water-Fuel.

[Cory Trese]

The primary skill for avoiding encounters are Stealth and Pilot.

You should avoid raising Quickness or Strength until you are required to by your Skills.

Quickness is nothing compared to Stealth, Pilot and Tactics.

The encounters in orbit are from a different table, different percentage and are intended to simulate planetary patrols and low-orbit encounters.

A high encounter rate is probably a result of non-optimal ship and character configuration.

Post some stats and we can help!

[rabidbite]

Aug 6, 2012 10:36:18 GMT -5 littlebum2002 said:

I am playing the game on easy difficulty, but I find this happens from the very beginning of the game onward. It just seems like unless I have maxed out the "strength" skill and shoot down anyone who crosses me, or the "quickness" skill to escape (that is the skill I referred to earlier", all my games end in an early tragic death. I even try to abstain from all illegal activity, but even as an explorer that is hard since much of the items I find are contraband.

I guess I really should have made this into 2 issues. The first is the high amount of encounters and how, in my opinion, they are hard to avoid or escape from. This issue is perhaps a result of my not being familiar enough with the game mechanics or strategy.

The second issue is I feel that, once you land on a planet, you should be encounter-free until you leave. These encounters are supposed to be deep-space battles, so I do not feel they belong when shuttling between the city and wilderness on a planet.



I do have one more thing I think would be an improvement. I like the missions, and I realize they often have very tight time margins, which is OK because it just adds another level of strategy to the game. However, it seems that even scrolling through the menu ticks time away. So if I am on a mission, and land on a planet to refuel, I don't usually have time to flip through menus to look at trade bans, etc., so many of my missions result in me accidently violating a trade ban or another on accident.

I thought of two solutions to this problem, either of which I believe would improve the game, both of which in my opinion should be implemented. First, the time should only pass when flying. Like encounters, the time should be paused when exploring a planet or looking through a menu. This way, one can fell free to check out the menu before trading, as I often try to do, to avoid ticking someone off.

A second suggestion would be that water and fuel are exempt from trade embargoes. In reality, even the most stringent trade embargoes with the most ruthless nations still allow for food and vital supplies. If I am flying from planet to planet I should not have to choose between starving my crew or violating a trade embargo and greatly lowering my reputation with a faction. Water-fuel should be a special category good which is exempt from this restriction.

I grant you, the game is hard to get to know well. I'm a veteran who was loosing and winning battles on INSANE and I left for a couple of months Come back and I couldn't survive on freaking DEMANDING. Ugh. I had to relearn the game one broken hull at a time.

As you can see, you will get A LOT of encounters. There just is no easy way around it. Even with STEALTH and PILOT, you'll get a pretty heavy density of 'run ins'.

SO, what to do? How to adapt? I chose PIRATE, because I can anihilate INDEPENDENT ships without loss of morale for XP, Loot, and just plain fun. I ALWAYS check RUMORS and CONFLICT. The most dangerous of all the conflicts I've seen is Trade Embargo, that one is a reputation killer. SPY WAR is another, but since I try to keep away from RECORDS (which give reputation BUT can give negative reputation if you give it to the oposite faction of a SPY WAR) that one doesn't affect me a lot. Since I hardly EVER fight faction ships, all the other warnings I can ignore.

So, how to have contraband AND keep your reputation? 1st thing I do, I buy a Trade Pertmit with my starting faction. That way I can sell contraband to it with impunity and military ships of that fation will not search your ship.

Though having a TRADE PERMIT keeps A particular faction from searching you, all NON - Trade Permit Military Ships want your lovely contraband. Since you don't want to loose your loot ... you can't let em, but resisting hurts your reputation with the faction involved.

The answer to this is as simple as it makes me nervous: Stash it. That's right, stash it. You harvest/loot Artifacts, Weapons, Electronics or Records, and put them in a stash on a planet. (You get a nice little tag on your cargo manifest telling you which planet, how far you are from it, and what's in the stash) Keep all the legimitate stuff, and sell it, with an eye on Trade Embargo and Spy War.

If you need quick cash, do a PATROL on top of an independent world, killing and destroying the faction ships you want to kill and destroy (I kill independents thus independent planets). That way you are always close to a source of fuel, repairs, ammo AND you can kill, drop to planet, sell, go back up, kill kill, etc.

The moment you see a TRADE ALLIANCE, with YOUR faction, jump on it (always keeping an eye on Trade Embargo and Spy War). Grab your stash, sell it at your Faction planet, watch your rep go up with another space empire. Then what? Well, go to that other empire, once you have enough rep, and buy a TRADE PERMIT. Thus now you have 2 factions you can sell contraband to, and who won't take what's yours. Rince repeat for good rep with ALL factions.

Another way to raise faction is: contract missions. Though those are tricky cause many times I choose independent targets, and it turns out to be affiliated with some faction or another. But mostly I do these missions for MORALE GAIN. Yep, if I want to get to that lovely 10 morale, do a couple of these babies and your crew is going to be rolling in bloodlusted ecstasy (Blood for the Blood God!!) Um .. err.. *cough*.

Whewwww, loads of typing.

Stat wise, I go for PILOT over anything else, because .. well... pirate. Initially I keep my PILOT stat TWICE that of Tactics, and 3 times that of stealth. In the mid game I continue increasing Pilot to about 2.5 times that of tactics, and 3.5 that of stealth. In the later game, I'm easily up to 3 times that of tactics and 4 times that of stealth. Those are the only stats I been raising.

Later in life I'll try a Military Officer. I want to hunt ALIENS, and boarding is the way to go for that.

rabid
I hope all this helps

[Cory Trese]

@rabit -- really great post. Pirate is a class I haven't played in a while, I'm going to play a new game right now using your strategies

[Deleted]

Actually, if you have a trade permit, Military for the faction you have a permit in should not be taking your loot as you are legally allowed by shaulan law to carry banned goods (artifacts, electronics, weapons, records) in the faction's space. Now military from other factions, they don't care.
The best thing to do is to get rep to at least 4 with at least 3 factions. Once your rep is at 4, you can buy a trade permit cheap. Once you have a trade permit with faction x, not only will military/bounties of faction x never take your contraband, but pirates of faction x wont take it either if you surrender! Also, you should have a polital officer on board. This way, when you visit an exchange of a faction involved in a trade embargo, a giant pop-up comes up: Warning this faction is involved in a trade embargo with faction y!

[Cory Trese]

Great tips StarFixer. There is a lot to be said about keeping Trade Permits on as many Factions as possible

[littlebum2002]

Thank you very much for your advice! I figured something was wrong. I will try to create another character and power up better stats instead. I also need one of those political officers!

[BlastGT1]

You don't need the political officer if you diligently check the Conflicts screen.

I'm tired of customizing sigs every time I flash a ROM. This time it's plain old Torp City!

[Alex Fury]

BlastGT1

Technically true, however I've had some of the conflict toasts or alerts get blended in with others as I land... Or just a brief look-away, and next thing I know I'm trading with an embargo just about the moment I land, that wasn't there before.

BTW, Cory, side-note... Any chance we can get a toast or some update for when the embargoes and the trade alliances END? Really annoying to haul a dozen sectors out of your way to sell for an alliance, only as soon as you land, it's not there anymore, when it was when you were still in space.

Perhaps some kind of hyper-merchant officer who can help with those, maybe add a few points of Negotiation too?

[Cory Trese]

Sadly, I cannot post a toast in the game engine at the end of a conflict.

The code doesn't realize that it has ended, sorry.