Help newbie with factions

[Gom]

I'm loving the game and the lore so far, but I'm a bit confused on how I should go about taking missions.

Should I just go for the highest rewards, and play neutral? Or should I stick with just one or two factions?

[[TwitchTV] TorNis]

You can pick by gameplay (enemies/rewards etc), by faction type, or even by faction lore (roleplaying).
Experiment, get the feel of it first, and then maybe do a roleplaying campaign.

Enjoy c:

[alerell]

It's up to you.

1) Hexarchy don't fight each other, so if they eleminate all other factions the corporate war will stop.
2) Real-w have best armor.
3) Sunlight coven have Archengel backpack and dicent beam weaponary.
4) DeydreamChem are only source of cold weaponary, and it is the most effective elemental demage (is stuns, aply both add. crit chance and damage on wounds).
5) AnCom and Franche-Comte PS have shock weapon, and they are good source of ammo.

[Silvertongued Devil]

So you probably want to somewhat specialise in like.. 4-5 companies.
Since I have some time m'a give you a handy list.

THE HEXARCHS: (basically biggest corporations - you'll want at least one of these, probably); these guys are gonna be dominating the map unless you specifically kick them into the dust.
AnCom: They've got a set to handle most situation and have a variety of different types of weapons, mostly of the plasma or electric variety. A good generalist faction.

SBN: They make lasers and laser accessories, along with electromagnetic weapons. They've got decent armours that give modest protection against most attacks but specialise in countering electrical/beam/etc., weaponry - basically the more advanced the enemy technology, the more convenient their armour is going to be.

Realware: I'll need you to sit down for this stunning reveal: the military equipment company has (arguably) the best overall armour in the game. Ton of 7.97-using ammunition. They also have access to the Buffalo backpack which is the biggest one and lets you haul the most loot out of missions. A very solid company to side with.

Dilthey: Shock, lasers, and hypersonic (basically blunt damage type) weapons are their specialty. Their armours also hard counter that sort of stuff. Honestly seems like a mild liability to me - how are you going to handle a Realware raid when you've got no piercing protection, huh? HUH? Pretty good though as shock damage stuns enemies.

EVERYBODY ELSE
Daydream Chems: Poison and antipoison tech, mostly. Poison also creates acid pools and a ton of armours in the game lack protection against poison so it's just a generally good option to pick up some of their armour in the mid-game to protect yourself against Tzectlan, if nothing else.

PlanetBridge: They're sort of a smattering of different random weapon types and their armours (while I haven't checked them out yet) likely resist stuff related to industrial work - piercing, fire, shock, etc. Most notably they seem to have added a dataminer to their final tech tier which lets you reveal maps - potentially useful in campaign missions or difficult deep dives.

Grasshopper Technologies: They're space truckers. They don't really have anywhere near the best technology but they've got a broad variety of stuff you'd expect civilians to have. Most notably they give out food, grenades and cigarettes, generally keeping you somewhat well-supplied.

Sunlight Coven: They're Mr. Freeze. They're just straight up Mr. Freeze. Also they have access to a new backpack that is really rad.

Franche-Comte Prison System: These guys really, really, really wish they were Realware. They've got Buffalo packs, a wide variety of guns, a slew of maintenance stuff to keep your equipment topped up, grenades, AP ammo, dataminers and just a generally broad selection of useful stuff. You basically give up the best military tech for simply good military tech + logistics support.

Coreward MG: Heavy duty mining gear retooled to be weapons. Nailgun machine guns, giant hull cutter beam weapons, flamethrowers and a saw-throwing weapon that you will, 99% of the time, accidentally remove your own limbs with. Hilarious when you work it properly but one wrong click and you've accidentally lost your leg. Still, they're a decent enough 'heavy weapons' sort of faction.

Church of Revelation: They're LARPing as the Ecclesiarchy of Warhammer 40k and honestly I wouldn't have it any other way. Shotgun and pistol heavy early but with plasma weapons and a melta-flamethrower thrown in. They also inexplicably all the booze in the universe (good for fighting Quasimorphosis), they seem practically designed to murder the ♥♥♥♥ out of Tzectlan. Also their endgame armour is basically God Emperor merc armour.

Civil Resistance: The plucky heroes of our story who have made communism work and are fighting the evil corpos while totally not being super evil themselves, they're sort of an alternative setup to Coreward MG. Tons of industrial stuff, tons of retooled/ghetto weapons, including the cutter, though in the late game they get their hands on some big plasma weaponry.

Unchained Belt: What if I told you you could have slightly cooler looking but slightly crappier versions of all the weapons in the game? That's what these nerds do. Lots of grenades, rifles, and their own unique ammunition type, these guys are space pirates. Also their final gun is basically the chainsaw gun from Gears of War, only you don't get to use the gun as a chainsaw WHICH IS A SERIOUS DEVELOPER OVERSIGHT MIGHT I ADD. Their stuff falls apart if you sneeze too hard but it'll do the job.

Tzectlan: The alien race transposing themselves onto our reality that we accidentally let into the universe and also they're going to kill us all. Aztec-themed, fixated on poison and cutting/blunt weapons, these guys are tremendous douchebags who should probably be opposed at every opportunity you find - they grow alarmingly quickly. That said if you ever wanted to be a bloodthirsty Lovecraftian-Aztec cultist who transforms into monsters then they're a pretty decent shout. That said, befriending them won't stop them from murdering you if you happen to Eccolapse on Venus. They suck and you will learn to hate them.


Also important newbie information:
Mars is safety. This is where happiness is.
If you want to go to Mercury, blunt is pretty useful.
If you want to go to the Moon/the stations there, prepare to get shanked by a wheelchairiot. Ice, lasers, poison are all good options.
If you want to go to Venus for the love of god take anti-poison.
If you want to go to the outer planetoids I suggest not going to the outer planetoids. You're on your own with those. I tend to avoid them.

Final piece of advice: Pay attention to what each faction arms itself with and outfit your mercs to counter the deadlier stuff if you want to be successful. If you go up against Realware without having a metric ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of piercing resistance, for example, you're going to have a terrible time. Rifles also penetrate armour and ignore some of it so you'll probably have a terrible time anyways, but it'll be slightly less terrible. Thankfully factions' own armour sets are usually excellent counters to what they use - so you can just steal the good stuff off of whoever you murder first.

Good luck. Oh, and the game saves the second you die so you can't alt+F4 to save yourself. Be prepared to lose all of the things all of the time. Equipment is transitory. Especially the nice backpacks. You will never get to keep those.

[Gom]

Thank you for the helpful answers, especially SilvertonguedDevil for the indepth explanations.

[Notski]

I would note one overlooked thing.

Chips are among the most useful items on game. They allow you to produce items on your ship after you unllock them, They come in 4 rarities with blue common, green rare and yellow ultra rare. Rarest are faction specific that allow you to produce faction equipment.

Daydream chems provides green chips as a reward already at tech level 3. Church and SBN offer green chips as reward at tech level 4. It's hard to emphasize how rare these the chips are. After 110 missions I have found about 6 green chips on maps. Green chips unlock some awesome equipment and also allows you to modify them to more awesome after ship upgrades.

As for yellow chips, Haven't found a single one on 110 missions. Daydream chems start offering them as a reward from tech level 5 while Church and pirates at tech level 6.

[Silvertongued Devil]

Originally posted by Gom:

Thank you for the helpful answers, especially SilvertonguedDevil for the indepth explanations.

Always happy to help new players learn the things that I've died literally hundreds of times to figure out.

Honestly at this point I'm just hoping that they add new classes for the new weapon and damage types they've added. So much neat stuff that doesn't quite synergise with anything.

[MELLONcollie]

Originally posted by Silvertongued Devil:

So you probably want to somewhat specialise in like.. 4-5 companies.
Since I have some time m'a give you a handy list.

THE HEXARCHS: (basically biggest corporations - you'll want at least one of these, probably); these guys are gonna be dominating the map unless you specifically kick them into the dust.
AnCom: They've got a set to handle most situation and have a variety of different types of weapons, mostly of the plasma or electric variety. A good generalist faction.

This is a better explanation than any I've found before, including on the wiki. Thank you!! (Talking about the whole post, not just the blurb I quoted)

[Silvertongued Devil]

Is it? Why thank you.

Glad to be helpful. Admittedly I can't vouch for the precise accuracy of it given that I haven't fully explored the new beta patch, but it should be broadly accurate. The game is filled with cool stuff and I wish I could explore it more easily without my incompetence interfering. Ha.