I want more XP!!!

[celu]

I seem to fall behind on character level vs other captains, all the time. By the time I hit level 20s, I encounter level 36-38, if hostile, will almost guarantee my death, unless I'm a pirate and maxes out quickness and flying a super quick swiss cheese maker vessel.
The most notorious profession (I think) on falling behind is the explorer. Because he spends too many weeks on planet surface instead of flying around.
This makes me think that experience is gained when flying around and dealing with encounters, and time lapsed vs completing a contract.
Experience gaining opportunity is lost vs time lapsed if you are doing something else beside flying around, like landing, departing, promotion ceremony, partying and getting drunk, regrowing limbs and facial features, and dilli-dallying on planet surface.

Does anyone know (other than Cory) on how to exploit XP gain for each profession?
Or is it just simpler to as Cory?

Edit: I'm still on trying to get the feel of all profession and unlocking everything, before I start experimenting on specifics.

[slayernz]

There are a bunch of ways to earn XP and a number of them have already been discussed in the forum.

Things like flying through red zones, blockading, surveillance, undertaking missions, doing successful trading, successful explore and harvests. Don't forget also XP gained for space encounters.

Some of these things pay out much higher XP rates than others ... for example, one I know gives you around 40XP per game year, whereas some others only pay out about 15XP per game year. It's a matter of trying some actions and tracking their rate of XP gain.

Good luck

[jameskuyper]

Other aspects of the game get more difficult as time goes by, and they get bad faster at higher difficulty levels. However, as I understand it, the level of the enemy captains is the one key exception to that rule: there's a fixed ratio between your level and the average level of the captains you face, that depends solely upon which difficulty level you chose. At least, that's how I understand things I've read here that were written by other people - I don't have enough high-level experience to confirm this.

If that's correct, It shouldn't matter if the explorer advances slowly, because his opponents will advance correspondingly slowly. If you're routinely running into trouble due to enemy captains being too much higher level, then play at a lower difficulty level.

[slayernz]

Your opponent captains are definitely influenced by your level, but are also influenced by the "game turn level" as well.

For example, if you stoically didn't use any of your XP, then at turn 1 you'd be at level 1 and the game turn level would be around level 0 ("there is now a level zero")

At turn 2000, the level of the game would be the equivalent of enemy captains being between level 8 to 10 (8 on basic through to 10 on impossible). So even though you remained on level 1, your enemy captains will become more and more skilled.

The game does take into account your level though and helps balance things a bit more, but there is no stopping the game from becoming more and more difficult as the game goes on.

There is a Wiki page that provides more detail:
www.tresebrothers.com/strpgwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Difficulty

Hopefully this helps ... if not I've probably just gone and confused you more.

[accidic]

I called myself checking but I've not had much in the way of luck in xp for exploring even when it's successful. Is this Explorer only or possibly only available on the levels beyond crazy? I've been zerging it lately working on the 22yr KoS award and I always manage to get whack a moled @ 18-20yrs.

[Cory Trese]

The Explorer should be moving around enough early in the game (so as to avoid tapping out any key worlds) that the XP balances out, especially in Elite.

Figure out an Explorer starting circuit you like and watch your rumors. Explorers can fall behind if they blindly trade in for just money instead of trading under difficulty (AKA, XP granting) conditions.

The game is designed to reward different types of play differently. Sometimes the reward is pure credits, sometimes a mix of credits and XP, sometimes pure XP. Finding the right balance for your style is one of the "features" of ST RPG

[celu]

ok, thanks Cory.
I'll be testing then. And hopefully one day, I might get motivated to write some sort of a misguided player's guide on gaining xp.

XP

[Cory Trese]

and if you did that I would post links to it on my blog and everywhere else they'll let me.

or on the wiki or whatever =)

[celu]

holy crap Cory!
I started testing...
looks like the possibilities are endless.
1st: I need to have a common starting point (start a new game: normal). starts with 7xp [actually 6 xp {according to accumulative counter} meaning: 1xp is default starting point then stacks.

flying around, landing, missions, exchange?
auto pilot (several squares per touch) vs manual (1 square per touch)
diagonal vs straight
own faction deep space vs other faction's deep space
with vs without orbiting (I find this not as influential)
completing first mission vs flying around without completing first mission
encounters vs no encounters
green square vs red square (so much possibilities on green square alone, I can't even start on the red squares)
planet's security rating.

my brain is fried XP

[Tenebrous Pirate]

I like the XP bonus you get for using the john behind the run-down, seedy spice hall on Syndicate Prime, on leap years. It is great, if you don't mind the itch afterwards. >.>

[absimiliard]

I just wanna say . . .

This is why I don't ship out w. TB any more.

How anyone can think that the itch is worth the XP is beyond me. Might as well just go ask for some alien "interfacing", at least that heals without the shot of neo-cillin.

-abs

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Hey! Alien interfacing?

What would Captain Kirk do?

Huh? Huh?

That's what I thought!

[gearheadwhat]

So far I think the fastest way I have seen to earn xp is to do blockades. By quite a large margin at that. Better for somewhat developed characters though. Makes me think that the zealots class may be one of the more powerful ones out there.

[celu]

Alright, I could agree with gearheadwhat that blockading is the best way to gain XP. But the side effect is, if you are playing on higher difficulty the other captains gain more than you do.
When I reached around level 48 on insane, an Indy Bounty cought me blockading and he's level 80+. I almost died (that would suck, before the level 50 award), but got away. mwehehe!

[Tenebrous Pirate]

I think my highest overkill so far was a level 111 BH with a level 56 Pirate.

But yeah, ya gotta look out when blockading. You will get attacked by some big guys, but also random events will happen while you are cruising around looking for trouble, and you may not see the toasts if you button mash too much.

Gotta love it when your main faction is inspired to form an alliance with the faction you are blockading, and you miss that toast. Just watch your faction plummet like the career of Tiger Woods.