Less encounters for lower difficulty settings

[antoniouslj]

Okay, so first off let me say that I seriously love this game and am very addicted to it! Great job!

As for the reasoning behind my request... On any typical mission or trip, I encounter at least 50 ships en route... sometimes 10 or more just in one space! Of course, when this happens, it drains all of my fuel without even going anywhere.

Now I understand this is an RPG and is based on random encounters, but that is ridiculous and is becoming increasingly annoying. What are the possibilities of reducing encounters on lower difficulty captains?

EDIT: Some information about my Captain and ship:

lvl 12 Explorer on Basic difficulty
My stats are in order from top to bottom: 12-15-11-13
My skills are in order from top to bottom: 15-11-8-10-10-11-10
My ship is a Flagship Cruiser with stats from top to bottom: 44-20-37-40-325-97-27-31-SLOW-LOW

[slayernz]

Hi there and welcome to the forums.

I kind of agree that you tend to have more encounters now that the auto-continue your path is active due to there being a possible movement bug where even with battle victories/acknowledges, you still begin the next turn on the same square that you started in. In other words:
If you are moving from (0,0) to (0,1) on the way to (0,3) and have an encounter, regardless of your response (retreat/ignore/acknowledge/respond with extreme prejudice), you still begin the next turn at (0,0). Retreat/Ignore should see you go back to (0,0), but all other actions should see you move to (0,1).

However, that's just one minor part of your post. The things that really influence your rate of encounters are things like stealth skill, size of ship, full and high-morale crew, pilot skill vs size of ship, ship location in space, number of turns already passed, etc.

In your example, your 12th level character has decidedly average Stealth skill (11). The higher the Stealth skill, the more able you are to avoid encounters. However, note that a Stealth skill of 20 in turn 1000 is great, but Stealth skill of 20 in turn 8000 is not so good.

Also, he is flying one of the largest ships around and he won't be flying it very effectively because his pilot skill is only 11 vs hull of 44. In other threads, you will often see people saying you need to have pilot+intimidation > hull to get reasonable performance from your ship. In your case, if you combined pilot + intimidation skills, you only have 21 vs hull of 44.

Recommendations - pick a smaller and faster ship and focus on stealth for a while.

From the players guide that EHKamp is working on, here is a more detailed list of what helps decrease or increase chances of encounters.

Reduces Encounters
* Stealth Skill (after 2K-3K turns, 22 Stealth is fine; but after 10K turns, 50 Stealth is good)
* Fast Ship (High Speed)
* small Signature (small Hull, Ship Upgrades that decrease Signature)
* full Crew (at 100% capacity)
* good Morale
* Pilot Skill
* lightly armed Ship (< 10 Torpedoes, <20 Guns, and no Torpedo or Gun Ship Upgrades)
* Independent Sectors (Red)
* near the edge of the map
* in Deep Space
* in Orbit of Dead planets

Increases Encounters
* each unit of Cargo in Hold
* Artifacts, Weapons, and Electronics in Hold
* Faction-controlled Sectors (green)
* further increased when the controlling Faction is involved in a Conflict
* near Sector 0,0
* near a Capital planet
* in Orbit of Civilized, Feral, and Fringe Planets
* most Rumors
* any Recent Combat (Combat makes your Ship easier to track)

[Cory Trese]

I kind of agree that you tend to have more encounters now that the auto-continue your path is active due to there being a possible movement bug where even with battle victories/acknowledges, you still begin the next turn on the same square that you started in. In other words:
If you are moving from (0,0) to (0,1) on the way to (0,3) and have an encounter, regardless of your response (retreat/ignore/acknowledge/respond with extreme prejudice), you still begin the next turn at (0,0). Retreat/Ignore should see you go back to (0,0), but all other actions should see you move to (0,1).

I swear this is fixed! Testing ...

[slayernz]

Sorry boss, ... I haven't tested for a while - I thought it was just something to live with for now

I'll also test in the next 15 mins or so and provide an update. Steel-song bait time <insert evil chuckle here>

[Cory Trese]

Hey no seriously tho I do take bug reports on the forum seriously. If it still happens then I am going to have to go fix it again =)

[slayernz]

I know you take the reports seriously ... you're probably one of the most responsive developers I have ever known, and I work for a friggin software development company!

Aaaanyway, after my 15 minutes of testing, I can confirm that it still definitely happens. In one case, I had 3 encounters going from one sector to another (two were Steel Song scum ships that I blew to pieces, and one was a Cadarian ship that I acknowledged).

I'm using the latest build (3.6.11)