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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2014 19:02:21 GMT -5
I have been playing ST as a Thulun Star Trader (please forgive me Clan Thulun haters :-)), but I was thinking about trying a game as an Independant.
I know there are probably a few people who have played as an Independent, so I'm asking for some insight.
What are the pros and cons to playing as an independant?
Are there any benefits to one profession over another?
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Post by Brutus Aurelius on Aug 26, 2014 19:20:19 GMT -5
Some pros are:
No need for Permits to trade illegal cargo
You can get military upgrades at Indy worlds
Cons:
No permits means no protection from pirates or Military ships
It is usually more expensive to trade with Indy Exchanges than Faction ones as Indies have no rep
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Post by Cory Trese on Aug 26, 2014 22:48:49 GMT -5
As an Indy by birth, you can still participate in Faction Star Trader politics, achieve promotions and so forth.
It has some differences, mostly that you get better deals and access at Indy worlds. You still cannot buy a permit or rank from Indies, as each world is it's own thing.
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Post by slayernz on Aug 27, 2014 1:25:11 GMT -5
Also with Indy worlds, you don't get the benefit of reputation, so your buy/sell prices are crappy. Yes, you can sell pretty much anything at an Indy location, but you're gonna get shafted at each opportunity. You don't even get to build up a reputation with an individual planet because it's a cat-eat-cat world in the indy sphere, and they don't care that you just saved them from imminent starvation through a shortage haul, they still want to charge you ridiculous amounts of money for your next bag of kitty litter!
In terms of ship upgrades and military gear, you are limited in the types of things you can get for ship upgrades. This means if you only frequent indy planets, you're not going to fully kit out your new fandangled star ship. It's pimping your ride with just the imp portion available.
When it comes to arms and armor, let's face it, Indy torps are very low spec. There is a hidden value in the torps that you buy/plunder that marks their quality. This quality marker helps determine hit rate and damage. If you buy from an indy planet, you're buying budget ACME brand torps. Those are the ones that Steel Song have rejected (And that's saying something)! There is only one grade of torp lower than indy torps, and they are torps you have stolen off another ship after combat victory.
Indy planets are useful if you have pissed everyone off, if you have come across trade embargoes through all of your favorable factions, or if you find yourself running out of WF a long way from home or a nearby cache.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2014 5:45:46 GMT -5
Brutus Aurelius, Cory Trese, slayernz - it doesn't seem like a benefit at all in playing as an Independant. Playing as a true Independant without the factions would be near impossible, it sounds like. And I guess if you need at least one faction to work for, you would probably be better off as a captain for that faction. Does an independant working for a faction get the same treatment from the faction as a captain for that faction? Thanks.
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Post by slayernz on Aug 27, 2014 18:43:36 GMT -5
No,you can play as an independent (esp if you have -ve RP for all 6 of the factions. There are a number of awards that encourage that exact behavior. You can certainly survive - if not flourish. We had a community challenge last year where the aim was to get the most negative with all 6 factions, and it's liberating because you don't need to worry about trade embargoes, stupid alliances, and all that grief associated with currying favor with the factional base. Instead, you can focus on doing what feels right - kill anything that moves, sell stuff, kill some more. The kill anything that moves thing is particularly relevant. You can kill any factional ship, AND you can kill any independent ship. Remember, independents don't care about RP, so use that omission to your advantage. Don't feel bad about wiping out an independent merchant or bounty hunter. The fact you are indiscriminately killing means your RP with the factions will only go lower. Lower RP = potentially more encounters (as the idiot factions send bounty hunters and military vessels your way). You can sell anything at any independent. Yes you don't make as much money, but you still make money. If you are selling things you legitimately acquired through plunder, it's pure profit anyway, so sell an Artifact at $800, it's still $800 in your pocket! Caveats about going the Indy route. Make sure you are a decent, nay, exceptional pilot and captain first. You need to build up your skills so that you can reliably win battles without getting a scratch. You can do that by being a gun bunny or being a boarder. Gun bunnies and boarders each require a distinct strategy for upskilling, and there are plenty of forum threads on that topic. But I regularly play Crazy difficulty with high level captains and have not been boarded or scratched in like forever. If you do get damaged during combat on a regular basis, then don't try and be an indy. You need to be able to keep costs down - and the only safe way of doing that is not getting shot up.  If you do have +RP for one faction, and -RP for all the others, that's okay as well. The +RP faction doesn't care about your indy behavior so long as you are doing what they want you to do. IF, however that faction you are tying to curry favor with is Steel Song, then I'll have to hunt you down myself. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2014 19:19:59 GMT -5
slayernz Thanks. You've given me something more to think about. I think I might stay with the factions till I get a few more years and miles, I mean AU's , behind me. As far as playing for Steel Song Clan, I only tried a Zealot once. The kill anything 'scorched earth' policy was fun. Unfortunately, you can't hunt me down cuz an alien already did. :-)
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Post by beuns on Aug 28, 2014 1:13:17 GMT -5
slayernz Thanks. You've given me something more to think about. I think I might stay with the factions till I get a few more years and miles, I mean AU's , behind me. As far as playing for Steel Song Clan, I only tried a Zealot once. The kill anything 'scorched earth' policy was fun. Unfortunately, you can't hunt me down cuz an alien already did. :-) The stain is still in your mind  |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 10:31:53 GMT -5
So tell me beuns, out of curiosity, what faction does your captain work for? Oh, and what's wrong with Steel Song Clan anyway? |
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Post by beuns on Aug 28, 2014 11:07:09 GMT -5
I mostly play Cadar for their access to great military upgrades and their perfect proverb : "Torpedoes, if they can't solve all your problem, you don't use them enough" The Steel Song problem is an old joke on the forum (don't ask me how it started, I couldn't answer that ) slayernz is the most virulent part of this joke. But to be true Steel Song has great mercenary contract available. |
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Post by Jacob on Aug 28, 2014 11:51:23 GMT -5
The first Cat once created this joke, and as it seems, he really hates SS... Tried to get a bag of kitty litter and a few lil cats for him from Steel Prime, ended up with a bag of dog poop and a few rats, as big as my hand... Their customerservice is a mess, I tell ya...
Sent from my rooted Falcon
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 12:33:54 GMT -5
A few rats shouldn't have been a problem for one cat....
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Post by Officer Genious on Aug 28, 2014 12:56:36 GMT -5
I mostly play Cadar for their access to great military upgrades and their perfect proverb : "Torpedoes, if they can't solve all your problem, you don't use them enough" The Steel Song problem is an old joke on the forum (don't ask me how it started, I couldn't answer that ) slayernz is the most virulent part of this joke. But to be true Steel Song has great mercenary contract available. This is very, very true. As much as it burns me to say it, I enjoy using Steel Song when I make Boarder-Type captains- especially if I have Zealots unlocked. Steel Song planets are surprisingly well-placed for raiding Syndicate space (better than Cadar raiding Clan space) and make some pretty solid boarder ships as well. ;D |
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Post by slayernz on Aug 28, 2014 18:06:57 GMT -5
For the record, Steel Song are only one step further along the evolutionary food chain than the rats that Jacob picked up. They must have, in their distant past have had a really decent program of inbreeding. They thought that Thulun was doing really well with their extremely powerful royal family, and took a leaf out of history books (yes, back in those days, they actually could read, albeit picture books). For their advisers, inbreeding made sense. Keep the good genes, avoid the genes from the great unwashed. They weren't quite sure *what* genes were, but decided decent laundry was a priority. Here is a useful bit of trivia. Did you know that Steel Song still has the best drycleaning service out of the entire quadrant. "If you want to get that blood stain out of your shirt, go to Xenox Dry Clean and ask for Burt" was an instantly recognizable jingle for almost a decade. Of course Burt actually died in a freak accident involving one of the clothes presses, resulting in a lot of additional blood going onto many shirts. But I digress. So, about 800 years ago, Steel Song decided that keeping their jeans clean was critical, and that keeping it within the family meant they could stick it to Thulun. Of course, not literally, because let's face it, Thulun weren't part of the Steel Song family circle. The first couple of generations some how made it through the mix relatively unscathed, but unbeknown to the broader family, Lady Grumple Smurg IV fell in love with a creature she met in a cave on some backwater planet. Would you believe, this planet had gone through some cataclysm where all of the population were forced to live underground for their entire lives!!! Anyway, poor Grumple landed on this planet hunting for treasure (as explorers often do). She came across this lone warrior and it was love at first sight. The warrior grunted that he was from a powerful clan within the Ratkin, and was one of the clans that specialized in training Deathkin. Grumple was smitten, and finding out how powerful Deathkin were only made her more certain that a little "addition" to the jeans pool, especially from such a powerful Deathkin producing clan would be perfect. They married in secret, had several litters that almost looked humanish. And it spelled the demise of genetic purity for all of future Song. Ratkin are only annoying because of their numbers … and this trait spilled into Steel Song like a flood. By the time Grumple Smurg the LVII was born, the Smurgs were related to at least 60 percent of key Steel Song family trees. Also, the rat-like genetic traits began to become more prominent, and prominent front teeth became all the rage. Fast Forward to three and a half years ago – Steel Song were pretty much all rat-like, and bred like, well rats. They let their vast armadas of warships fall into disarray, and spent most of the time living under the surfaces of the planets they populate. In space, like rats, they became another plague. Their ships turned to piracy and swarmed the shipping routes, looting and pillaging. They weren’t very successful, but a million cuts from a pen knife might still be enough to fell a tree. Steel Song had numbers, and they flew anything that could fly. It was during this time that a younger, less experienced Captain flying Cadar-True colors came across this scourge. He encountered Steel Song pirates everywhere. The most prevalent ship he came across was the Pirate Hawk, flown by Steel Song. I still can’t quite fathom the odds of (a) encountering such a large number of Steel Song Pirate Hawkes, and (b) losing multiple – I’m talking dozens – of captains to that ship. It was after all of these deaths, that SlayerNZ decided enough was enough. This tolerance to the Song had gone on long enough. They leeched on society, didn’t contribute in technology (apart from apparently creating this mythical ship “Slayernz Cruiser”), and worst of all, they smelled. Bad. Really really bad. I mean, if you board ships, you’d know the second you opened their airlock type bad. SlayerNZ devoted the rest of his life to eliminate Steel Song from creation. He also decided that he would never board other ships because there could always be the possibility that there was some rank Steel Songer on board. The Gun Bunny approach was adopted, and has worked well since. So now days, you will see SlayerNZ often orbiting a Steel Song planet, blockading and bombarding the planet. It’s soothing, watching the large explosions plume into the upper atmosphere, whilst Ratkin Steel Song ships try and fail and get past. Maybe in a decade or so, we’ll see some new rings of ship debris form around the planet, making it somewhat beautiful (for a Steel Song planet). |
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Post by ntsheep on Aug 28, 2014 22:31:48 GMT -5
It's not a mythical ship. I have blasted several to pieces in my continuous quest for the last few cases of Crystal Pepsi. They're actually pretty darn hard to crack open, you wouldn't believe how many Mecha Pidgeons I've had to fire at them.
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