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Post by morten on Apr 21, 2013 2:18:16 GMT -5
We all know and love the feeling of getting royally screwed by an unnoticed trade embargo or landing to end a shortage only to find the embargo in effect.
Experienced players will know the super fast rep earning of trade alliances.
Both of these conflicts can radically change rep in a magnitude and speed unequalled by other conflicts. That's my experience, anyway.
Am I wrong, or are trade embargoes and alliances too powerful?
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Post by slayernz on Apr 21, 2013 5:36:15 GMT -5
Hey Morten,
Knowledge of conflicts (of all sorts) can make the difference between surviving and thriving. The key challenge is to be aware of the benefits of ALL of the different conflict types. You're aware of Trade Alliances and Trade Embargoes, but understanding the benefits that, say, a spy war or solar war can imbue on a clued-on captain is huge.
If you're not used to going into the conflicts screen on a regular basis, invest in a political officer. They can save your bacon in so many ways.
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Post by morten on Apr 21, 2013 5:49:12 GMT -5
I do use the conflict screen constantly, mainly to avoid embargoes and I rarely make mistakes of this sort anymore.
It appears you think Spy Wars and Solar Wars equal the trade conflicts. Maybe you can explain how you utilize those conflicts.
During Solar Wars I fight pirates to gain rep at no loss with the opposing faction. Should I include other targets?
During Spy Wars I use surveillance if my rep is around 0 so I can constantly pardon the faction I spy against. The records are difficult to sell correctly. I found the rep change is 1 up 1 down in a 1v1 spy war. So the spy war needs to be 2v1 and with no conflicting embargo to be a net gain in rep. Am I wrong?
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Post by slayernz on Apr 21, 2013 7:26:17 GMT -5
Solar wars means that if you do a blockade, you get bonuses to rep for your actions, PLUS you get XP for your blockade actions. If you find one faction has solar wars with 2 or more factions, watch that XP shoot up, AND you usually get more RP than you lose Spy wars are great because you get boosts with surveillance actions. This is similar to the XP and RP boosts you get with Solar Wars. Of course, you get the bonuses with selling those records you generate with the surveillance as well. Have you ever had a planet that was in a spy war, and had a shortage of records? I have and I made hundreds of thousands of credits, AND hundreds of RP both at the same time. I did lose RP with the other faction, but it was Steel Song, so I didn't care too much  |
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Post by Cory Trese on Apr 21, 2013 13:51:04 GMT -5
Thanks for the post -- welcome to the forum.
I understand what you are saying about the trade conflicts.
One thing that makes them seem so powerful is that trade with Faction planets is a required action, not an optional one.
Half of the balance for a Solar War or a Spy War is in optional actions, like Blockade, Spy, Military Base Contracts, etc. They're designed to play a slightly different role -- not all of the conflict types are intended to be 100% symmetrical.
One balancing point that is central is the XP earned on the different types of Conflicts.
XP/Turn rate is important on high difficulty games which turns the advantage heavily to Spy and Solar Wars.
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Post by contributor on Apr 21, 2013 14:25:25 GMT -5
I actually want to agree with the original post. I was thinking about this as I was playing the Independent Captain Community Challenge. Based on my experience, I actually thought we would have much lower rep than we did. We didn't because there is no faster way to sink your rep than trading during an embargo, but when you can't trade at any faction planets you can't do that. That's what got me thinking about this. Why do I lose more rep buying a tank of water-fuel than I do blockading your capitol and destroying ships from your military and merchant fleet? I'm not really complaining about this, but I did notice the imbalance in terms of realism. Countries are always trading against other countries wishes and that's easily forgiven, but if you blow up some of their military hardware that's war. I can see reasons for keeping things the way they are and I find the trade embargoes add a lot of dimension to the game, but at the same time it seems like the rep penalty for trading against an embargo is over-weighted. morten, as for spy wars, they are excellent opportunities to boost you rep with both parties involved. If you sell the records at the planet you're spying on you should end up with net positive rep in both factions. It helps to have a death warrant with the faction you spying on behalf of. Also the rep gain and loss is not static. There is a dice-roll for it and you will find that sometimes it can really bite you. One way to even this out is to sell records in smaller chunks. It takes more time, but sell them in groups of 10 or 20 and the odds should even out in your favor. If you're still gaining more rep with the faction your spying on and then selling to, go and sell a few loads of records at to another faction. That way you will boost rep in all three factions. |
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Post by Cory Trese on Apr 21, 2013 22:26:20 GMT -5
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Post by morten on Apr 22, 2013 1:52:12 GMT -5
Cory, I had not considered the xp component, thank you for that.
As lurker says, it's just a little odd that trading can be a harsher crime (or positive deed in an alliance) than the destruction of a patrol ship and execution of its soldiers.
Add to that the fact that you get war advice for free when encountering ships, but you need officers to get trading advice.
When all that is said, I do like that I have to plan around embargoes. Running out of fuel in a situation where trading into an embargo or losing crew and morale are the only options is great. I love surviving mutinies and buying them spice later and laugh about it!
So I wish this made more sense to me, but I am sorry I have no good solution. I can certainly live with it as is.
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