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Post by slayernz on Apr 4, 2014 2:55:50 GMT -5
Cool additional info @starfixer. I agree that the lower difficulties are definitely more lenient when it comes to skills selection - and playing loose and fast in the really hard difficulties results in a quick and painful game  Yes there are lots more options for success but goosting pilot to obscene levels will not put you at a disadvantage in lower levels, but I've been doing the high pilot thing for so long now that I can't honestly think of playing without boosting Pilot. You can't teach a cat new tricks  Stealth is definitely useful for avoiding encounters or evading encounters when they turn hostile. Too high a Stealth rating does reduce the amount of encounters you ultimately experience, which means you get reduced XP and it would take longer to get that 800 kills (to unlock the 45 guns) Explorer is a short-lived skill. You can make a ton of money in the short-game, but once you've gone a few thousand turns in, the risk/reward ratio changes and you're better off doing other things to make your money. Negotiate helps a bunch when it comes to the exchange, and also helps when it comes to trying to land without hostile encounters. Intimidate helps if you are really bad in other skills and have been defeated, mutinied, etc. It also helps when you're traveling through red sectors. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2014 14:32:23 GMT -5
Cool additional info @starfixer. I agree that the lower difficulties are definitely more lenient when it comes to skills selection - and playing loose and fast in the really hard difficulties results in a quick and painful game Yes there are lots more options for success but goosting pilot to obscene levels will not put you at a disadvantage in lower levels, but I've been doing the high pilot thing for so long now that I can't honestly think of playing without boosting Pilot. You can't teach a cat new tricks Stealth is definitely useful for avoiding encounters or evading encounters when they turn hostile. Too high a Stealth rating does reduce the amount of encounters you ultimately experience, which means you get reduced XP and it would take longer to get that 800 kills (to unlock the 45 guns) Explorer is a short-lived skill. You can make a ton of money in the short-game, but once you've gone a few thousand turns in, the risk/reward ratio changes and you're better off doing other things to make your money. Negotiate helps a bunch when it comes to the exchange, and also helps when it comes to trying to land without hostile encounters. Intimidate helps if you are really bad in other skills and have been defeated, mutinied, etc. It also helps when you're traveling through red sectors. You are correct that intimidate and negotiate has lots of benefits, but id avoid investing too much in those silks because they won't help for combat (and hence survival). Explorer certainly does get harder with game time, but so does the amount of goods obtained per succesful exploration. Hence, at least on lower difficulties, you can still be succesful at least 1 of 10 times even very late in the game with the right skill allocation, crew number, planet etc and when you are you can get over 100 contraband units. And its not just success difficulty that makes me anti-explorer. Its the insane amount of XP you need to invest in explore, causing much less XP for combat. Thats why I like to be a merchant when I decide to be a non hostile captain. Because you only need to invest in negotiate until about 20, and, combined with a political, tradesman, spice, rep, and high cargo hold, you can be extremely profitable. |
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Post by Officer Genious on Apr 4, 2014 15:12:10 GMT -5
slayernz, @starfixer, Alex Fury: Thank all of you guys for the feedback and hints; they all really helped me out and reading the posts here kept me from slamming my head on my Kindle Fire more than once. In addition to everything pointed out on the thread, I think my issue was that as soon as I had points to burn, I immediately started investing and investing until I spent them all. Basically, I struggled for money to use on my ship/goods and still insisted on pumping my stats, which made my life harder rather than easier (being broke and doing all right in combat vs. being broke and having enemy captains get more difficult to kill). I swear this always happens to me going from CK to ST after a longish break. I need to sticky a memo to show up everytime I start ST or something. x.x (Oh, and I remembered advice I had gotten late last year about not promoting myself every chance i get as contracts became more difficult/farther away. Would've saved many a smuggler in my graveyard if I remembered this stuff earlier, but whatever...)
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Post by Officer Genious on Apr 4, 2014 16:14:10 GMT -5
slayernz, @starfixer, Alex Fury: Thank all of you guys for the feedback and hints; they all really helped me out and reading the posts here kept me from slamming my head on my Kindle Fire more than once. In addition to everything pointed out on the thread, I think my issue was that as soon as I had points to burn, I immediately started investing and investing until I spent them all. Basically, I struggled for money to use on my ship/goods and still insisted on pumping my stats, which made my life harder rather than easier (being broke and doing all right in combat vs. being broke and having enemy captains get more difficult to kill). I swear this always happens to me going from CK to ST after a longish break. I need to sticky a memo to show up everytime I start ST or something. x.x (Oh, and I remembered advice I had gotten late last year about not promoting myself every chance i get as contracts became more difficult/farther away. Would've saved many a smuggler in my graveyard if I remembered this stuff earlier, but whatever...) Lost another smuggler, but this time I'm happy to say that it was because I got too cocky in my Fidei Defensor and took bounty missions at lvl 2. Ran into a Templar Cruister or something with very, very good ship stats. I knew I screwed up big time at that point. lol! |
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Post by Officer Genious on Apr 4, 2014 18:09:13 GMT -5
Crunched by an Xrangg Alien, lvl 6??? to my 2. Wanted to put up a screenshot but my file is 200+kbs... lol
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Post by Officer Genious on Apr 4, 2014 18:37:47 GMT -5
Crunched by an Xrangg Alien, lvl 6??? to my 2. Wanted to put up a screenshot but my file is 200+kbs... lol Sorry for spamming, but I made a second smuggler and mauled a Krangg Alien despite still being level one (and under 50 turns). And got the 'kill alien with 20 odd hull' award too. Picky Beggar FTW. |
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Post by slayernz on Apr 4, 2014 20:24:19 GMT -5
What on earth are you doing - the poor captains are being minced at every opportunity <grin> ... bumping into an Alien multiple times is not good. I've been hunting for them a lot to test out some theories when it comes to points allocations, but I haven't seen them anywhere. very frustrating. Wanna swap - I'll give you a few dozen chewed-over Steel Song ships and you can give me your Xrangg and Krangg
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Post by Officer Genious on Apr 4, 2014 20:46:27 GMT -5
I'm the reason space insurance just keeps going up. I can say that my smuggler in the Picky Beggar is still kicking at lvl 5, but even though I have a cache with 6 weapons, 2 electronics and 60-something records, I'm not finding good rumors or close contracts anymore.  If I get one more rumor about Scouts exploring some no-name planet... |
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Post by Officer Genious on Apr 5, 2014 20:14:36 GMT -5
What on earth are you doing - the poor captains are being minced at every opportunity <grin> ... bumping into an Alien multiple times is not good. I've been hunting for them a lot to test out some theories when it comes to points allocations, but I haven't seen them anywhere. very frustrating. Wanna swap - I'll give you a few dozen chewed-over Steel Song ships and you can give me your Xrangg and Krangg Figured out how to take screenshots- so far I got pics of Xrangg, Krangg, a Damaged Hive (my ship was wrecked when I found it, so I ran) and a Zorga. ... I think I'm cursed. |
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Post by Officer Genious on Apr 26, 2014 23:48:08 GMT -5
Hey, got a question:
I'm looking to build a torp captain again, and I'd like to make him a custom ship. I can get to medium agility, but I need a backup plan for when a pilot gets up in my grill. Should I keep stacking engines and hope for the best or get gun upgrades in the game to compensate?
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Post by Officer Genious on Apr 27, 2014 17:10:30 GMT -5
What are the chances of me getting a damaged lvl 1 hive that escapes me, and immediately after get a Krangg alien looking for my soul? Still wanna switch, slayernz?  Boarded and whooped it-- had nothing but two water fuels the cheap bastard. :c |
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Post by CAB on May 12, 2014 8:00:56 GMT -5
Once your pilot is 200%, you can pretty much win every battle you go into, even if you are flying in an escape shuttle. Okay maybe an exaggeration, but with a semi-good ship (and the Javat Cutter falls into that category), you should be unstoppable. By the time you are level 40 with pilot 80, Tactics 25-30ish, you'll be able to pass your phone onto a 5 year old and get him/her to do your Thulun fishing for you. I know because I did just that (on Crazy difficulty) .. "move like this, press that top-left button (Battlestations), press that button that makes you go closer twice. Press that button labelled "Engines" a couple of times, then tell me if there is anything left of the enemy ship". My captain is up to 950+ battles (I'm working hard to get to the 1117 battle victories) and I bribe my children to help get through the sheer quantity of killing. Thulun really hate me right now OMG isn't 1,117 battles TEDIOUS?! I don't have children old enough to do the job for me either. I'm not even going to embarrass myself by saying how far away I still am. |
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Post by slayernz on May 12, 2014 17:37:57 GMT -5
Yes, 1117 is a ridiculous number - I haven't gotten there yet and am already at year 297!
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Post by ChocoCrowbar on May 12, 2014 19:33:37 GMT -5
No lie, it's pretty brutal. Year 454.40AE, and I barely have 245 hostile encounters. Total encounters are 958.
What makes it hard it that I managed to get the Big Tent, Triple Clan, Triple Syn, Clan Hero, Syndicate Hero, and the Star Paragon with this captain, which means I I had good rep with all factions, and didn't have hostile encounters until recently, while trying to get the Paragon Contractor, independent Captain, Dark Nemesis, and Black Heart awards.
It only counts towards ships that appear with a red text from the beginning.
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Post by CAB on May 13, 2014 6:57:30 GMT -5
No lie, it's pretty brutal. Year 454.40AE, and I barely have 245 hostile encounters. Total encounters are 958. What makes it hard it that I managed to get the Big Tent, Triple Clan, Triple Syn, Clan Hero, Syndicate Hero, and the Star Paragon with this captain, which means I I had good rep with all factions, and didn't have hostile encounters until recently, while trying to get the Paragon Contractor, independent Captain, Dark Nemesis, and Black Heart awards. It only counts towards ships that appear with a red text from the beginning. I'm not so sure about that. I just had a clarification from Cory in a different thread that said that all victories count. But yeah, at the current rate I am going to be something like 4,000 years old when I get the award. Seriously. The time calculations could maybe make more sense. I don't think your age and the official year go up at the same rate and I'm not sure how I can live that long. I must be 99% cyborg like in Cyber Knights. |
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If I get one more rumor about Scouts exploring some no-name planet...
