Just started to play, and I have a few questions

[OmegaXesis]

I read a lot that I should stay on mars until I get a lot of resources. Should I just keep passing time until new missions show up? Since I don't have any new missions on Mars or it's moons.

Also how do decide which faction to help? Do you avoid doing missions that go against them or you do missions for them against someone else? So are there times when I should just not do a mission so I don't harm my reputation with them?

[Percussigant]

Regarding the Mars part, I think spending too much time on Mars when you're new to the game can actually teach you bad habits. Yes, Mars and its satellites have the easiest missions, and they're a safe place to farm. But the fact that they do not have a quasimorphosis meter (they're always at "Absentia") might get you into the habit of taking your sweet time looting everything and exploring every room, which is a bad idea on all of the other planets.

My advice would be to play 2-3 missions on Mars & its satellites to learn the very basics, make sure to prioritize bringing back items that reduce the q-meter (morphine, kosmos cigarettes, alcohol), and then move on to missions that help the factions you want to align with.

Speaking of factions, you decide which factions you want to help based on your own tastes. They are not all equally powerful, but none of them are so bad that working for them long-term will harm your run. As they gain power and technology, the rewards they will give you for successful missions and trade will increase in quality.

Most people usually decide on 2-4 factions they want to align with, and then stick to them since factions scale with time. Their technology & power ratings grow with successful missions, whether you participate in them or not, so if you help a faction become really powerful and then go up against them, you will face stronger enemies (but they will also have better equipment, so it's just a high-risk high-reward scenario, not an automatic loss).

Angering a faction only really has consequences over trade and mission rewards. If you have a relatively neutral reputation, they might not trade you their best items (whether those are available depends on their technology level, on a side note), and if they hate you, you won't be able to access their trade hubs at all.

[Deranker on the Tour]

If you're low on resources or you want to go ham on missions without having a regret of losing items then yeah stay on mars is the best option. But then you'll miss the actual things the game want to present to you; the quasimorphs since there's none on mars. So learn the basics and get used to game mechanics then go to other planets. Everytime your clone dies, the game gives you a starter kit which mean it's a zero death penalty and you can use that kit to complete the mission if you actually knows what're you doing.

This game wants you to try again and again until you find the way to fix your mistakes or exploit the game mechanics. The factions won't stop growing for you so the longer the game goes on, the harder the mission will be because they now have better gears. So just hop to other planets and try the mission with the freebie kit. In my playthrough, I finished 2 missions on mars then went to live on the moon using the freebie.

About choosing faction, just look at their gears they offering you and consider which one you want to use because that's what you'll get from helping them doing missions.

The more bases they have, the more tech they will gain each week and the higher gears they will give you so keep an eye on *conquest quests*.

Don't worry much about losing rep. You can always gain it back by helping their missions. You're mercenaries, you only royal to the rewards not to the causes or ideologies. But betraying big techs later on is quite a hassle. Because you won't be facing a chump with a homemade pistol, you'll be facing power rangers or kill squads so keep this in mind before backstabbing them. Takes a very long in-game time to be in that kind of state By then your storage are definitely full with tons of gear and the starter kit is still enough for you to finish the mission.

Just beware of a system being monopoly by one faction except you really want to see them conquer the entire star system. In my game, I helped Tetzclan too much that I have to go full Spanish on them so the other factions can grow. It's kinda boring than anything else.

[OmegaXesis]

Originally posted by Percussigant:

Regarding the Mars part, I think spending too much time on Mars when you're new to the game can actually teach you bad habits. Yes, Mars and its satellites have the easiest missions, and they're a safe place to farm. But the fact that they do not have a quasimorphosis meter (they're always at "Absentia") might get you into the habit of taking your sweet time looting everything and exploring every room, which is a bad idea on all of the other planets.

My advice would be to play 2-3 missions on Mars & its satellites to learn the very basics, make sure to prioritize bringing back items that reduce the q-meter (morphine, kosmos cigarette, alcohol), and then move on to missions that help the factions you want to align with.

Speaking of factions, you decide factions you want to help based on your own tastes. They are not all equally powerful, but none of them are so bad that working for them long-term will harm your run. As they gain power and technology, the rewards they will give you for successful missions and trade will increase in quality.

Most people usually decide on 2-4 factions they want to align with, and then stick to them since factions scale with time. Their technology & power ratings grow with successful missions, whether you participate in them or not, so if you help a faction become really powerful and then go up against them, you will face stronger enemies (but they will also have better equipment, so it's just a high-risk high-reward scenario, not an automatic loss).

Angering a faction only really has consequences over trade and mission rewards. If you have a relatively neutral reputation, they might not trade you their best items (whether those are available depend on their technology level, on a side note), and if they hate you, you won't be able to access their trade hubs at all.

thank you for the advice!

[OmegaXesis]

Originally posted by Deranker on the Tour:

If you're low on resources or you want to go ham on missions without having a regret of losing items then yeah stay on mars is the best option. But then you'll miss the actual things the game want to present to you; the quasimorphs since there's none on mars. So learn the basics and get used to game mechanics then go to other planets. Everytime your clone dies, the game gives you a starter kit which mean it's a zero death penalty and you can use that kit to complete the mission if you actually knows what're you doing.

This game wants you to try again and again until you find the way to fix your mistakes or exploit the game mechanics. The factions won't stop growing for you so the longer the game goes on, the harder the mission will be because they now have better gears. So just hop to other planets and try the mission with the freebie kit. In my playthrough, I finished 2 missions on mars then went to live on the moon using the freebie.

About choosing faction, just look at their gears they offering you and consider which one you want to use because that's what you'll get from helping them doing missions.

The more bases they have, the more tech they will gain each week and the higher gears they will give you so keep an eye on *conquest quests*.

Don't worry much about losing rep. You can always gain it back by helping their missions. You're mercenaries, you only royal to the rewards not to the causes or ideologies. But betraying big techs later on is quite a hassle. Because you won't be facing a chump with a homemade pistol, you'll be facing power rangers or kill squads so keep this in mind before backstabbing them. Takes a very long in-game time to be in that kind of state By then your storage are definitely full with tons of gear and the starter kit is still enough for you to finish the mission.

Just beware of a system being monopoly by one faction except you really want to see them conquer the entire star system. In my game, I helped Tetzclan too much that I have to go full Spanish on them so the other factions can grow. It's kinda boring than anything else.

thank you! I'll keep all of that in mind!

[pgames-food]

hi also try to trade with factions that can give you chips which can help you learn more crafting recipes, classes, and characters :)

i usually like planning out missions and systems based on what (or where) i want to trade next, but sometimes those stars dont always align perfectly :)

[Percussigant]

Originally posted by pgames-food:

i usually like planning out missions and systems based on what (or where) i want to trade next, but sometimes those stars dont always align perfectly :)

Yes, this is also good advice for new players : don't be afraid to take up missions for factions you feel indifferent about if they're right there, your preferred factions have no missions you can reach, and/or the mission that's right there seems like an easy job. You have infinite storage space on your ship, so you could always be grabbing more stuff.

Edit : unless you've decided you want to work with Tezctlan long-term, avoid working side jobs for that specific faction though. These guys scale way harder than the rest and they *will* conquer the entire solar system in a few years if left unchecked, or helped doing so.

[pgames-food]

ah yeah, in one of my games it was like that, and in another i tried to not help them too much (but not attack them either) just so that i could be friendly enough to trade stuff with them, like all the human skulls etc you get from every other faction :) it was good to build up a small stockpile of their own items (from trade) before facing them in bitter battle) :)

[Tantrumus]

As other's have stated a good one early on is to look for corp missions that offer high probability for unlock chips.