How suicidal is 'Dead is Dead'?

[John Hadley]

I just bought the game and I have no idea what I'm doing. Is it possible to play the game on 'Dead is Dead' difficulty and learn as I go as long as I use caution or would that be considered suicidal? Is this the kind of game you can learn as you go as long as you don't anger the wrong people and you stay out of dangerous areas or one that expects you to already know everything if you want to avoid getting killed?

[Patastrophic]

I don't think I'd try Dead is Dead your first time. The game can be pretty difficult and unless you plan on micromanaging every little detail and doing a lot of research it would probably lead to frustration. (My understanding is also that starting as a Boron doesn't put you in the most favorable position reputation-wise, but that can always be solved cautiously if you know how).

Add to that that it can take a really long time to accomplish things when you don't have a grasp on them and the massively long (albeit not all that steep) learning curve...

I still die fairly frequently. I've learned to guess a little earlier when my autopilot is going to smear me across a rock or ram me into a freighter or something, but there are times where I bite off more than I can chew during a weapons test, or I get jumped by a couple dozen Xenon... and plot missions? Nevermind.

If you really want to do Dead is Dead, I would recommend starting a normal save first and at least learning the basics of how to get into the economy and most importantly probably how to handle the ship in and out of combat to avoid colissions and unnecessary deaths. I can certainly see the appeal of doing it that way the first time, I can just also see it getting frustrating very, very quickly.

[Patastrophic]

Didn't think to mention; I don't think there's any actual difficulty ramp for Dead is Dead, it's just exactly what the name implies... Hardcore mode.

When/if I do Dead is Dead, I'm going to be pushing for my favourite ships and weapons ASAP and screw the universe. I can't see myself enjoying the game in the same mindset I'm in right now during normal play.

Like I said, though, definitely see the appeal.

[76561198074131058]

From what I have read on the Egosoft forums it's for people who want even more challenge.. it's not for beginners. In this game if you land in a station you save the game automatically.. So even if something happen after that, you can still load again from this station and play.. And you can make saves for yourself, like you land in an Equipment Dock and did upgrade your ship, or did buy or sell something.. lets say you made some significant change, and you don't want it will be lost because you fly in a unknown territory.. so it is a good measure to save after that change.. :)

[General Paul]

most importand: Dont trust the autopilot!

[John Hadley]

Postat inițial de CreepingWraith:

Didn't think to mention; I don't think there's any actual difficulty ramp for Dead is Dead, it's just exactly what the name implies... Hardcore mode.

After playing this mode for a few days and dying several times along the way I can say that this mode is much more difficult. You start out with a ship with no guns and only 5 cargo space, one which is used by equipment. You start with 1000 credits and about 2500 worth of illegal space fuel that you need to find a pirate base or wander around until you find a lucky barter in order to sell. Your starting ship cannot do any type of mission you are offered whatsoever as far as I can tell. Your ship can only expand up to 16 cargo total I think so even if you buy a life support system and max out your cargo space you still can't do most of the taxi missions. Not knowing where the good trade routes are it took me something like 8 hours of wandering around and doing repetitive cargo missions to get enough money to expand my ship's cargo to 13 spaces, buy a cargo life support system, and buy one small gun for my ship, but I still don't know if that's enough to do any missions.

It may be that once you get money and a decent ship its no more difficult than any other start but before you do, the going is quite slow and tedious unless you happen to know where one or more of the derelict ships are that are lying around to get a free upgrade. I've never found one, but I did notice that there's a whole page of them listed on the wiki. Since ships are incredibly expensive finding one for free is the equivalent of finding a huge sum of money so that probably will jump start your game and make it more similar to a normal start.

I only tried to start out another start once (the retired Argon guy) and I found it far easier. What I still haven't accomplished (getting a medium ship) after 8 or more hours of playing starting as Dead is Dead, you are handed from the start of the game. You can at least do a few of the basic mission types like defending a base and you have 65 cargo space and medium cargo capacity so you have more types of cargo you can carry to earn more faster through trade.

[Patastrophic]

Postat inițial de John Hadley:

Postat inițial de CreepingWraith:

Didn't think to mention; I don't think there's any actual difficulty ramp for Dead is Dead, it's just exactly what the name implies... Hardcore mode.

It may be that once you get money and a decent ship its no more difficult than any other start

That was what I meant, but it does seem like a pretty rough starting condition. Do you remember which sector you start in? Just curious re: the space fuel. I'd probably just jettison it unless I knew where to sell it off hand.

I'd probably go for the TP derelict in Menelaus' Frontier from that start but maybe that would kind of be like cheating... :p The thing is, once you get going, you can gain pretty fast momentum by dealing Nividium too... so I'm really curious now whether a form of fake difficulty gets applied (whether ships have more hull when enemies fly them, for example).

[John Hadley]

If I find a ship through normal play I won't feel guilty about using it, but I won't be using the wiki or out of game hints to do it. The game is as much as anything an exploration game so if I go on the wiki for maps and and coordinates for free loot I'll just be ruining that aspect of the game for myself.

You start in Queen's Harbour in Boron territory in the Dead is Dead start. You don't really start with much so if you can find a place to sell your Space Fuel you'll be a lot better off than if you jettison it. After several tries I eventually found the pirate base in Bright Profit as one place to sell my illicit starting goods. I've not come across Nividium yet, but I've only explored about 7 or 8 sectors so far. I suspect the game will become a lot easier as I get to know more of the galaxy so I can find more profitable trade routes and more small size cargo that I can trade for greater profits. So far I've mostly only traded energy cells, sunrise flowers, and BoGas. None of those really earns windfall profits with the small quantities I am able to move, but they do earn some money and probably if I started over I could accomplish what I've earned in 8 hours in just 2 hours now that I know some trade routes that can reliably earn a bit of money.

[Patastrophic]

Interesting... I'm not that famililar with that corner of the map as of yet. Having played the plot of X3:Reunion first, I'm really familiar with the area around Home of Light, heh. I'll have to scope it out and see if I feel ready to try Dead is Dead. You've got me intrigued.

EDIT: (on Nividium, spoiler'd in case you don't want it) Nividium is mined from asteroids, but only through mobile mining. It's stupidly profitable but relatively difficult to sell. You can make game-breaking amounts of money if you try, though. Even if you tried to use it in Dead is Dead, you'd also need to get to a point where you can put it in a ship... And it wouldn't take much to screw up your plans where you can't save.

[CTHOMP]

You can also break up asteroids and have ships "collect rocks"... if you do it out of sector they will do it for enternity

[John Hadley]

As I try more things in the the game I find that it is trivial to steal ships from ship retrieval missions or do defense missions and just ignore the attacker until he dies on his own. I died, started again, and have four ships already after a few hours of play. I am a bit disappointed at how easy it is even on the toughest difficulty, but I haven't really progressed at all in the story so perhaps that will bring the difficulty up a few notches or the natural evolution of the universe over time as the war progresses will bring a higher level of tension.

[glock30owner]

Postat inițial de John Hadley:

I am a bit disappointed at how easy it is even on the toughest difficulty, but I haven't really progressed at all in the story so perhaps that will bring the difficulty up a few notches or the natural evolution of the universe over time as the war progresses will bring a higher level of tension.

Dead is Dead is only more difficult due to starting equipment money and your saves are erased upon death. Other than this, the difficulty is the exact same as any other start.

One thing to note, as you progress in the game and gain "fight" ranks, hostiles in missions become more and more dangerous.

[John Hadley]

After trying to play it for awhile I will say that the Suicidal Squid start is pretty nasty because its hard to keep from dying in this game due to the autopilot smashing you into things. Probably over 60% of my deaths in Dead is Dead mode have been due to this.

Several times I have flown through a gate then had my ship explode from max hps. I assume this is from colliding with another ship since I got no warning sound like an enemy ship was around, but I never seem to see a ship hit me. It just pulls out the camera from ship and I explode with no indication of what happened. I don't see another ship in the zoomed out picture or see any weapon firing. This accounts for about 10% of my deaths.

I've only had Albion Prelude a short time so I don't know if this is common or not, but one time while playing Albion Prelude the game just froze up completely on me shortly after I flew through a gate and in dead is dead a freeze is the same as dying. You have to start over. I never had any problems like that with Terran Conflict in 100 hours or more, but if the game has any kind of instability at all, be it through memory leaks, video driver issues, bugs, or anything else then you simply won't be able to successfully complete the campaign in dead is dead.

These things haven't stopped me from playing dead is dead because I like to do the Boron start, but I'm pretty sure I will not finish the game in dead is dead mode any time soon.
.

[CTHOMP]

I bet the best strategy would be to sell the fuel at Bright Profit pirate base. Then go get yourself a freight scanner and get speed and maneuvering up to full. Then find a pirate sector and do scan missions for pirates. If you are able to quickly scan many shps you can get a ton of $$$ for them and it is fairly easy to do. Also, asteroid scan missions are great for getting money easily early on in game (or later in game because some scan missions once you have good rep will get you a lot of $$$ per astroid).

[BDK]

DiD depends entirely on steam cloud, the most useless feature known to man, and it will wipe your saves in some way eventually. Total waste of time. Oh and when you die it's game over for good.

[John Hadley]

To a certain extent any kind of hardcore one-life-only mode in an RPG is always a waste of time. This is the first game I've seen that tries to enforce that through Steam cloud saves and I agree that makes it even more likely that you will have to start over due to no fault of your own. Most games are pretty much a waste of time by design though. We wouldn't play them if we didn't have time to waste. Playing in hardcore allows you to experience something closer to actual fear, which makes exploring an unknown universe more exciting. You are trading additional wasted time for higher highs and lower lows.

There's some players that want a walkthrough to follow for every game they play and don't want to waste any time doing things that don't directly lead to completion like exploring, figuring out puzzles, or trying suboptimal strategies which may lead to failure. Other players view those same things as the most worthwhile parts of the game, so if they were to skip doing them themselves and read someone's guide instead there would be no point in playing the game at all. To each his own.