How to succeed?

[Nathaniel Prime]

I'm playing on the highest difficulty, and... not really getting anywhere. I can make a little bit of money trading. I used most of it to upgrade my engines and fuel tank, but the delivery missions are still mostly impossible (i.e. involve going straight through dominator space). I need experience to raise my trade skill so I can actually make money, but don't know how to get experience when the missions are rare and I can't usually do them. Any tips?

[Diving Duck]

Ways to get money when starting...

- pick up minerals from asteroids
- trade within a system with 3 inhabited planets (sometimes works)
- nip into and out of dominator space when there is a skirmish and try to grab something valuable that gets dropped before they splat you - research centres sometimes pay double
- wormholes (make sure you have a full fuel tank and save before entering
- courier missions (but as you say, these can be a bit tricky).

It is worth remembering that speed is the trick to keeping alive, heavy components can slow your ship.

I'm sure there are plenty of others on here who can offer more advice.

[Rean]

"I'm playing on the highest difficulty"
that is your mistake, until you fully understand the mechanics of the game its pretty much suicidal. you'll struggle a lot.
150-175% is much more forgiving than 200%.

[Drumbilical]

You can get "trade agendas" (I forget the name) from Business Centers - those will tell you what items are selling low and buying high. Very useful.

You can also look in the Information tab (the paper-looking thing by the Ship tab) when on any Planet. You can search for Goods and see what each planet is selling/buying good for.

[Nathaniel Prime]

Hmm... so after I make some money, what do I even do with it? I've had about 10k at times, but never found anything to spend it on that made much else easier. I'm kind of lost here. Doesn't seem to be a point to buying a bigger trading ship, and even if I buy a "combat" ship and equip it with weapons I'm not even sure who/where to fight. Dominators instakill me, pretty much.

[Nathaniel Prime]

Originally posted by Rean:

"I'm playing on the highest difficulty"
that is your mistake, until you fully understand the mechanics of the game its pretty much suicidal. you'll struggle a lot.
150-175% is much more forgiving than 200%.

I'll understand the mechanics of the game near the end of my playthrough, I assume... and I like a challenge. Unless I just lose no matter what and there doesn't seem to be any way to win, of course. Time is scarce, so I don't tend to play anything through more than once.

[Diving Duck]

If you go combat try nailing pirates.... or become one :o)

[Blinkicide]

I am also playing at highest difficulty on ironman (first play through) Seriously, for those that don't get it, its just fun to do it that way... I play it like a roguelike where the goal is just to get farther than the last time ... its the funnest way for me.

Anyways, here's my non-spoiler tips:

1. Step 1 (optional), head to any friendly planet and ask to do mission. They give you a planetary ground war training missing, and u get between 2 to 4.5k, plus sometimes a micronodule.

2. Next head to business center, and ask to take out a loan. I go far the largest loan. It varies in size...9k-22k or so.

This gives u money to make big transactions. Be careful if you default it will spiral out of control (it adds around 50% of the debt every 6 months or so). Also, dom's may destroy the business center before you repay, in which case u may not be able to repay it. (If every business center in the galaxy is destoryed your loan is forgiven, but if its just the one that u can get to, then its still increasing). Thus, we want to pay off this loan relatively early, cause the business center does tend to get destoryed quite often if we wait the full duration.

3. Use said loan to buy a 400+ cargo space ship. Don't spend all u'r money on the ship, b/c we need cash for transactions. You may want to search for good ships immediately upon entering the game (info search). Other pilots tend to buy up the good ships early, so you may skip the planetary battle, and immediately try to get your loan if that will cover it.

4. Use info search to find good trades, and use your ship + remaining loan funds to make some big trades. Since you quickly got a big ship + balance, the trades you can make early game tend to be quite lucrative (once a lot of other traders catch up, prices tend to be closer in "safe" sectors).

5. Avoid risky situations with extreme prejudice (being far away from a safe planet) until u get a ship with an after burner. That thing will save you a ton.

6. If you choose to salvage in fights or participate, alway always jump into a battle with spare fuel container (or enough fuel) so you can immediately jump the same way you came. So many times i've jumped into a sector, been unable ot land to get fuel, or a lopsided fight, and had a huge fleet about to attack me....and if you can't immediately jump back the way you came, you're probably dead.

7. Sell dominator stuff to the research station, you get full price (sometimes double), of the equipment value, versus like 25% if you sell it normally (wtihout max commercial).

8. Before selling an old hull or anything really expensive, see if the med center has a stimulant to max your commercial abilty.

9. Long range weapons are your friend early game especailly. (missle launchers, trenton, 300-400+ range stuff0. Very early dominator waves tend to have their fastest ships at 400 or so, with capital ships around 350ish... You can run circles around them basically, salvaging, and wearing them down -- early game that is.

10. Relatedly, always get the engigne upgrade as one of yoru starter equipments.

11. Once u have more money then u need to do most transactions, start buying probes as well. If you buy probes to early, it may interfere with getting a quality ship or having cash to do big transactions, which are more important.

12. Even if you don't have a ranger partner, you usually have a greater than 50% chance of getting just about any liner or military vessel to assist you against a solo pirate or dominator if you ask them -- without any points in charisma. Big radar range, can help u get a lot of vessels to assist to deal with annoying pirates early on. Edit: traders are almost alawys down to attack a loan pirate as pay back, but military will often object if they are of the same race.

13. Your presence in a battle area can help a lot, even if your weak. You can open comms and ask ships to focus your target, which is goood way to coordinate fleets -- even if they aren't "under your command."

14. A lot of early ships don't have repair droids, so in early battles even if you can't contribute much damage, playing the "bait" can be very effective with simply a good repair droid.

15. Remember its not just about u. Ironically you tend to make a lot of money as the system crumbles, because there are fewer traders, fewer safe passages -- kind of like being the first food cart to kingdom under siege. But without lots of fighters, traders (who actually do put a great fight as well), the system is too easily taken over by dominators. Fleets are greater than you, at least at the point i'm at. So if all the coalition fleets are dead, you're not going to stop a dominator wave by yourself (at least I haven't, though I have occupied them for a good 30-50 turns waiting for reinforcements, to prevent the sector from falling) Never mind they can attack multiple sectors simultaneously. Helping allies and bases survive (upgrade / repair) is key.

p.s. this game is so damn fun...!

[Rean]

if anybody is interested, i have a playthrough up until year 2043 on highest difficulty with the following conditions:
-no use of free hull on pirate base joining
-no use of rockets
-no use of save/load abuse
UI will be in russian, no commentary. just if you are bored and wonder how to succeed on 200%, you can watch this during free time or smth. planetary battles included

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxRM7CQJuPk1vU3JPr0Zuv_S0-J-7AC0q

[Diving Duck]

I will have to make some time to watch this, but in lieu of watching it right now, would anyone be able to offer some advice on my current predicament?

I am currently a fair few years into the game as a pretty successful pirate, the problem I have is that most rangers loath me, and the special agent ladies seem to have a love for tracking me down. This is not really a problem in itself, but every time I destroy them (special agent or ranger mercenary) my Pirate brethren friendliness scale goes from excellent to hated in a blink of an eye.

There seems to be no way to defend myself apart from turning a whole system against me... even the change nationality option at the pirate base does not help.

Advice?

[Soylent]

Originally posted by sxyz123:

stuff

sxyz, does it really make much of a difference which race and career type you start with? Or do those bonuses only help in the very early stages of the game?

[Rean]

only early. its just starting conditions

[raz334]

So i took out a loan early on, to get a better ship. Like it was recommended above. However i was not able to repay it in time and defaulted 3 times, they put out a bounty on me, shortly after that i was able to pay it off. However now Planet earth is Hostile to me, and the military ships in the sol system attack. I don't want to go to jail i payed off the loan. How can i resolve this?

[incandenzak]

this may have been said, but i feel like the key spec for ship parts, especially early on, is its size or weight parameter, the space it takes up in the ship. the lower that value is the more space you have for trade items, asteriod ore, or weapons and equipment, which is always very helpful. the search function is pretty awesome, and much easier than when i first played the game on a crappy laptop with a $4 copy from big lots.

[incandenzak]

i had to buy $5 worth of ram from ebay just to make it work!

[incandenzak]

also, its important to note that you will die/restart alot. this is kind of like a massive roguelike, and likes to either kill you off or make the situation entirely hopeless fairly early in the game. i wonder if there is a space rangers speedrun?