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I got this game a few days ago based on goon recommends in the Steam thread and it really is way better than the weird, mobile style graphics would suggest. How are you guys building your officers? After having done a couple of captains just to get a feel for the game, I think I'm going to go with the following: Captain - Spy / Explorer / Exo Scout Obviously this is for an exploration focused captain. Explorer / Exo Scout are a pretty self contained combo, so I picked my first job as Spy since it gets what seems to be a really good starting bonus (+25% XP and also +3 CHA) and it combos with the Electronics that Explorer provides. XO - Quartermaster / Commander / Zealot - Stacking Command and Intimidate, I found on my other starts that Intimidate was one skill I was consistently failing rolls on since it's hard to get it on your crew if you don't specifically try to. Negotiator - Diplomat / Merchant / Smuggler - obvious synergies Doctor - Doctor / Combat Medic / Military Officer - Doctor and Medic are obvious, Military Officer is because it has a great skill that lets you automatically score draws with enemy Military and Zealot ships without rep loss, and Doctor has both Tactics and Command to combo with. Engineer - Engineer / Mechanic / Spy - obvious synergies Also as far as crewmen go - I don't like using my officers for crew combat as they're less disposable, are officer combatants powerful enough to justify risking them / making them worse at other jobs? So far I feel like I'm going to build my team as: Slot 1 - Swordsman - the counter attack is insanely good and they have other good buffs / attacks besides Slot 4 - Soldier - They have a good team buff and a bunch of good ranged attacks too Slots 2 and 3 I'm less sure on. I'm thinking Combat Medic and Exo Scout, partly because I want those guys in my crew anyway for non combat purposes.
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May 19, 2018 00:55
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 23:47 |
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TheBlandName posted:When you promote an officer they get a free respec, the only thing you can't change is their first job. Since officers "only" cost $2,500, mid to late game officers are meaningfully stronger in crew combat and affordable to replace. And officers get 33% more job ranks than an equal level crewman, plus a gear slot. So once you're well established (honestly past the point where the game is interesting, though) you can milk your contacts for specialist crew to The main cost of an officer is the opportunity cost of losing their xp though, no? And the fact that they can get much better synergies from skill / ability stacking. That said, I already lost a game since my last post now that I'm playing on hard, and found that some of those 2nd / 3rd jobs are distantly behind the 1st ones in terms of job leveling priority. I can now see that the Doctor / Combat Medic would easily be the best 'obvious' option for a combat officer. On another note, just had a super frustrating moment. I'm an hour or two into a new run, just got my starting crew how I wanted it (cut loose some of the excess basic crew, hired 3 exo scouts + 1 merchant officer after buttering up the appropriate contacts) then a random pirate encounter wrecked my poo poo, since I still have gently caress all for combat skills. Turns out I didn't die though... because he decided to stop short because I held a good trading permit. Because he was my own faction.  As of the next stop, I have 8 open crew slots from all the dead + deserters. gently caress.
metasynthetic fucked around with this message at 06:59 on May 19, 2018 |
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May 19, 2018 06:51
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The wiki for the game seems to be decent, there's a bunch of guides for stuff in the top right section of the main page: https://startraders.gamepedia.com/Star_Traders_Wiki
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May 20, 2018 00:01
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Thanks for the tips, it's helping clear up some half-baked notions I have so far about the game's flow, especially the last part. On that note, if you allow an independent military vessel to board and search for contraband, despite the fact that everything is legal in indie markets, stuff that normally counts as permit only still counts as contraband... especially since there's no such thing as an indie trading license. And that's how I lost a cargo hold full of cambrinite I got through one explorer encounter event.
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May 20, 2018 04:59
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Panzeh posted:So i've been playing this game a lot and have learned a ton of things- I'm finding that officers are best off as combatants, once you get a good pool of crew recruits beyond the basic crew jobs. Now that I'm about 10ish hours into a hard playthrough, I'm starting to think maybe I should be doing this instead. Crew combat has gotten stupidly difficult now - I've been in 2 storyline related fights: one involving taking on a young noble as an apprentice for a couple years (who got assassinated no thanks to me) and another to put down a revolutionary protesting the union of the factions and both times I got my poo poo rolled hard. Just now, one of my guys got killed before I even got a chance to move, and it didn't seem like simple bad luck. I went out of my way to get a Goliath A5 weapons locker and to put new armor / guns on my guys as appropriate first. My team was a pistoleer and bounty hunter around level 10, and a soldier and swordsman recently hired. (I split my A team of all 10s into 2 because the game warned me I'd have 2 fights.) I'm at the point that it's got me afraid to engage in crew combat ever since it feels like I'm guaranteed to lose at least one crewman and my only chance is to just passively keep them out of fights and leveling up in the background until the day they are ready to emerge from their delicate cocoon. It sucks. So, basically, are officer combatants 2 - 3x more powerful than a crewman or what? Because I feel like they'd have to be to be capable of routine use for crew combat. What am I doing wrong? metasynthetic fucked around with this message at 02:35 on May 21, 2018 |
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May 21, 2018 02:28
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Still playing, current conclusions: - Probably the most crucial single skill to get as soon as you can is Skip Off the Void from Navigators. It damages your hyperdrive which will take anywhere from 2 - 4 weeks to get fixed, but the cost in repairs + downtime is going to be roughly $2-5k, which is much better than the average repairs from a fight, surrendering your cargo or, you know, actually dying. Definitely get the other automatic-escape type talents when you can since their downsides aren't so harsh, but this works on everything, including xenos. I know this first tip is long but drat does it make a huge difference to survivability. - Exploring sucks as a method to make money. - Patrolling is good for faction rep building. - Spying seems like it would be a decent way to make money early on with low capital but also low risk. Trading is definitely the best moneymaker, but higher level missions can pay quite well too. The simplest good way to get started is to: 1) Get at least a level 1 trade permit with a faction. (Level 2 is also cheap and good to have ASAP, 3+ is good in the long run but it's better to build some trading capital first.) 2) Find a farm or mine supplier with a high economy rating (16+) and <= 6 trade law, and a refinery also with <= 6 TL. Just run raw spice to the refinery for good profits / run. 3) Alternately (or after doing the previous one if you get lucky) is to find a refinery supplier with <= 7 TL and Lux Pop (or many others but I think Lux Pop has the highest demand) running refined spice. The margins (usually) aren't as good, but it's still good money. All you should need to pull this off is to do the opening quest with the Prince to make a little cash and get enough rep with him to get him to approve the permits. Spice of any kind has pretty good value vs. cargo space so even non hauler ships can pull in some cash like this. Building rep & buying trade permits from more factions will make this easier to pull off with more routes. On that note - the map seed I'm playing on seems really cool, one half of the map is a densely populated zone with lots of trade opportunities, and the other half is this long pipe with few branches but high ranking faction contacts that tend to come up in missions.  Anyone interested in the map parameters / seed? metasynthetic fucked around with this message at 06:10 on May 23, 2018 |
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May 23, 2018 05:26
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Here's the map and seed: st-v01-30-8-107655994 Map notes spoiled just in case anyone wants to try it and discover for themsevles: There's good suppliers / routes for spice trading in Dangia Circle, Kelshar's Pillars, and Delga Drift, all on the left side. Starting as Javat starts you in Dangia Circle, or at least it did for me. I don't know if this is random or not, but when I did the Arbiter's Union questline, the faction princes for Cadar and Zenrin were both along that long pipe in the north of the map.
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May 23, 2018 06:26
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 23:47 |
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The difficulty curve ramps up relatively slowly, over the course of several years. If you have excessive downtime I'm sure it wouldn't help but the game seems balanced to expect you to spend at least a month or two a year in downtime, saying this with a character in year 23. But yes, the main story will trudge on whether you participate or not. I'm not yet sure how much the player actions influence it, given that until recently I haven't interacted with it much. And yeah, easily the game's most glaring flaw is the UI. This game with a good UI and non mobile-looking graphics could totally be an indie darling, considering it's one of the best examples of 'a freelancing space trader dude' I've seen.
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May 23, 2018 15:31
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