What I did for Ship Combat Early Game when it comes to Strategy and Colonies. *SPOILERS*

[Balekai]

Before I forget exactly what I did, I wanted to post this long winded starting tips for ship and colony progression. On Unfair I have been trying to take no damage to some surprisingly good success, and stumbled upon things that really helped me in the early game compared to Beta for ships and colonies. This isn't really an in depth combat tutorial play by play. This is more the step by step decisions I made with ship and colony development to get the most rewards and least hassle as early as possible while not taking any damage. Thus saving the most precious resource in the Galaxy.... scrap... still... :p

These tips and colony choices are based off an Iconoclast playthrough so some things may be different from your game or how you want to develop things. Just as a starting off note I plan to make Kiava Gamma weapon focused so I will have very little Mechanisms outside contracts to spare (that and xenotech). THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. Anyways:

1. Savescum is your friend... unfortunately. Especially on unfair in the beginning of the game. I believe crits bypass shields so you don't want to get hit by crits because automatic hull dmg.

2. I picked the DLC Firestorm class ship on character creation. No torpedoes to start, but the extra short range macro cannon and I believe, better broadside plasma macro cannons, allowed me to do a lot of damage quickly and easily eliminate 1 ship pet turn.

3. Make sure you understand Posts and assign the right companions to the right posts. Also, make sure you review your own and companion ship talents under their character features (with your other talents). More info on this stuff can be found on youtube.

4. Like many other posts about this topic, picking the optimal course/direction to move in order to a) Get as many shots off as possible to ideally take down at least one if not two enemy ships, and b) Not take any enemy fire once you end your turn, is key to success and not blowing through scrap every battle.

5. In relation to 3, this is where ship maneuver abilities and enemy ship manipulation come into play. You only get access to Swing Run at the start. You should try to use it to get out of the way of enemy fire by getting behind them, making it near impossible for them to swing around and start firing on your ship. After cheesing the first 1-2 battles in all the systems before Janus via savescumming, you should be able to level. My personal picks to make things easier going forward are:

- Reinforce Shields: This is easily the difference between getting depleted shields and taking hull damage or not. This at least gives you the chance to take no damage when without it, you're gonna take damage especially in the first few battles.

- Warp Wave: When in a pickle and know your going to take damage on the next enemy turn, in many cases this ability is priceless especially on the first few battles. You turn the enemy 90 degrees completely putting them off track and on a different course. This also helps with ships trying to escape after being hit too many times or scripted. Lastly it's an easy finisher on ships that have taken a lot of damage.

On level 3, you're going to want to add more manoeuvrability. Shallow Jump and Strafe are musts too in order to position yourself as perfectly as possible every turn, in combination with the above abilities mentioned.

Later I believe i'm going to pick up the ship talents that allow you to take your turn first. Enemies getting the jump on you especially in the first turn, is when you get peppered the most with shots. Being able to just get out of dodge and make some space would be a big deal and let your Escort Ship take the hits.

6. When you get to Footfall at the start of Chapter 2 I think it's best to take the Reputation gain instead of extractor payment form Opticon 22. So far I have the extractors I need to micro the amount of resources I need for colony upgrades. This Explorator rep will help unlock some rep rankings we (I) needed for getting a jump start on colony development and by extension, ship development. Of course if you're unsure just wait and see if you need the Rep or not. That's what I did until i reached Dargonus.

7. MAKE SURE you pick up Foulstone Colony. Help the refugees get into the Monastery and start a new settlement. You will need this anyways for optimal Colony development and playthroughs in general. What we care about initially, is the Xhronicles of the Protectorate event after completing the Tier 2 upgrade (it may require Good Tidings but I think flavour text of events mostly just changes based off your project choices, with some initial bonus or penalty differences and some different options, like on Janus Chronicle Events. When Abelard is in your party and you ask for advice, he advises you to appoint a Drivestem Monk (related to the Governor of Dragonus). Picking this option gives you access to a project that gives 5K reputation for all factions.

8. In one of the systems Near the Foulstone (it could be north of Janus system), I believe there's a ship battle which gives you the Dorsal Starbreaker Lance Weapon. It does 32-40 damage in a WIDE firing Arc. By wide like a 270 degree shooting arc with good medium range. This can hit pretty much anything every turn. Unfortunately this battle is a bit harder from what I remember so you will need like 1-2 levels.

9. By this point you should be done everything up until Janus when it comes to battles with 0 Hull Damage. Complete Janus. I went Iconoclast with a dogmatic alliance with the Eldar. This may be important to have done if later Protectorate event are blocked or give different rewards other than a certain missile. More on that later.

While travelling the Galaxy Map. you may want to make any orange warp routes you can't avoid yellow that you have to (don't do any that you can go around via yellow routes. you may want them mid/kate game for farming and where you want to spend your scrap).

10. A good time to mention this: Save up as much fuel as you can from the beginning of the game. ALSO you should be leaving a single Multilock Key or something is containers close to your shuttle like in Footfall or Janus, so you have a place to store or create perfect 100% cargo stacks (still can't believe there's no way to manage cargo correctly). Actually this guide is basically based off spending no cargo for reputation early game. save for getting all chapter 1 items with 4500ish Explorer and Void Rep.

You will need this fuel when you go to Mu-Rho system with the Explorator Station in it (this system is on the way to Dargonus). Here you will make a special save. Then you will cheese this event to high heaven via savescumming. The best way to measure your success here is to keep spam pressing 1 but do not close the window with all the reward pop ups until you run out of fuel.

Ideally after doing this for a while (I had 35 stacks of fuel), I got 5 PF bringing me up to 38 PF, 10 stacks of Mechanicus cargo, 6ish weapons and 4 ranged weapons stacks. In total that made up about 50%-55% of my total fuel investment. The reason why I do this is because a lot of Colony upgrades and events, even if done optimally, are gonna hit your PF. At this point of the game this really hurts and can seriously delay your ship/colony development. Having that extra 3-6 PF buffer and keeping about 36PF at this point of the game for for key Navy gear etc. is a good thing.

Later on you will have a gazzilion PF that you don't need but in early Chap 1-2, no. Lastly for the Station I could never figure out the Torpedo thing and one of the random rewards from this gamble event supposedly gives special missiles but doesn't, so avoid that as a reward cause its a waste of fuel (my optimal reward stated above managed to not get it rolled by the numbers). If they fix this, or someone figures out the Torpedo Full Cargo thing, then there's always toy Box to add it to your game lol.


11. Now it's time to head into the eastern (starting in the southeast) part of the Map, completing the eastern systems on the way to Dargonus. Kiava gamma will have to wait. Why? Because we get all the fancy Navy Rep and more importantly, the escort ship from a Dargonus project upgrades. It's also the reason why we have been stacking as much free Rep up to this point.

You will eventually come across an asteroid or something in Forgotten Twins area. Pick up the Adamantine extra node by fixing the extractor and leaving some poor crew members behind. This is more just a general tip so you don't need the build the adamantine project or use contracts for it later on. At least for pure colony stuff.

12. Make your way up to Dargonus, deal with Explorator Station when you want or need to trade in all your fuel for the PF boost (again I had 35 efficient 100% stacks and left any inefficient stacks in a box on Janus for later pickup). Now at Dargonus we want to visit, talk to Governor etc. and get this party started. We should already have 5K Navy from Foulstone event. Pick up 1st tier project (I like restoration for long term colony boosts but whatever). Now build the "Shield of the Emperor" Project. congrats your about to get an Escort Ship +5K Navy. Here is where I make a entirely new Route back to Janus paying 6 Navigator insight to make the lane + make it safe. I jump to Janus for Jae's quest, then make the Janus to Foulstone route green too and spam jump until colony projects are finished. You should have enough Adamantine + Weapons for Adeptus Arbites and then get another 5K Navy Rep. You should have enough PF and Navy Rep to buy everything up to T5 Rep without spending any navy cargo.

Also there's Chronicle Event I like here at tier 1 Dargonus. Where you ally with the Engine Vandals. The Wasteland Torpedo is really good early but I never used it (I got the better ones form Janus). The BIG reason to take this is for the Pascals special outcome that gives you torpedoes AND +1 Mechanism. That one mechanism will allow us to start Dark Sages on Janus, which is really the Capella Biologis project (Icon, rewards, events, later flavour text, later project requirements etc. all line up with Biologis. Owlcat just messed up the names and switched/reversed them). The only other place to get 1 Mechanism is by completing Kiava Gamma. This gives us access to a very important Chronicle early and it's reward I keep hinting at.

13. Start doing the Janus projects. If it's required to get the Torpedo, I personally went Sophocracy --> (Secrets of the Winterscales --> A cure for Sloth but these don't matter) Dark Sages *Note this project is mislabelled and is truly Capella Biologis (EDIT: FIXED NOW I believe as of February 19th, 2024 go with Capella Biologis which gives first aids kits not Dark Sages anymore). If it is corrected in the future and by the time of reading this, choose the project with the medkits + medkit production to be clear* --> Mechanised Servants. My chronicle events were (for Iconoclast Eldar ally) 1. Relocated Retches with Yrliet asvice (I think) --> 2. Send scouts to set up Research posts with Pascal advice (IMPORTANT and the torpedoes!!) --> 4./5. I think? Use Jae's idea for Ghosts which doesn't kill them and builds the Obelisks to protect people. 4. and 5. are just for Iconoclast, but 3. is a MUST PICK and MAKE SURE you have at least 1 plasteel, or else the option to build research stations with Pascal's advice will be greyed out! You would have to use the normal option which kills a whole bunch of people and takes away 3 people resource. There's no way to avoid the efficiency hits for this chronicle Path. They happen during Janris' unavoidable dialogue. Part of the story.

Your reward for the research avenue are the "Audacity of Janus" Aeldari torpedoes. There are 4 missiles each doing 30 damage and the torpedoes DO NOT HAVE A TURN COOLDOWN!

I think this is a good place to end this. So if you're still reading or TLDR, we get:

1. 15K Navy Reputation, 14Kish Explorator Reputation for only spending cargo for 4500 Explorator rep in Chapter 1. We have access to all T5 Navy stuff and almost able to afford PF wise the big Lance upgrade at T6 (Getting Vhaeboros should be enough to get you over the top).
2. We haven't taken any Hull damage by Dargonus mission start. We have Escort ship and more than 50% of total colony projects done for Chapter 2 with only one main mission down (Janus).
3. We have the super Torpedoes "Audacity of Janus" with no cooldown and another special torpedo type "Wasteland Generator" which are nothing to sneeze at (they just last like 1 turn less and still have a cooldown) at least for Early/Midgame. Wasteland Generator Chronicle event got us the 1 Mechanism to do Janus upgrade without Kiava Gamma, unlocking Audacity torpedoes early.
4. Only spent 30 scrap for an extra Adamantine extractor.

[Ash]

Thanks, amazing guide.
Just to clarify - Starbreaker Lance is in the System Speculo which is to the north-west of the Trinnitos system, where Foulstone is. You have to divide your fire in that battle, but it is doable on ship lvl 1 with a couple of hull upgrades, though I couldn't manage to do it with no damage on Daring.

As for fuel exchange with the Explorators in the Mu-Rho system, it is bugged as hell atm (06.01.2024). Every time you should get 2 cargo of stuff, you get only 1,5-1,6 (as in "one 100% cargo and one 50/65% cargo").

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Ash:

Thanks, amazing guide.
Just to clarify - Starbreaker Lance is in the System Speculo which is to the north-west of the Trinnitos system, where Foulstone is. You have to divide your fire in that battle, but it is doable on ship lvl 1 with a couple of hull upgrades, though I couldn't manage to do it with no damage on Daring.

As for fuel exchange with the Explorators in the Mu-Rho system, it is bugged as hell atm (06.01.2024). Every time you should get 2 cargo of stuff, you get only 1,5-1,6 (as in "one 100% cargo and one 50/65% cargo").

Thanks for the compliment and the clarifications on the Starbreaker. I just came back to this thread to add the "second part" of my experiences. By the end of the first post I made just finished Janus, started Dargonus and was on the way to Vhaebos VI. The Explorator Station indeed still feels bugged/unfinished just as it was in the beta lol.

*Also in case it gets patched: At the time of the OP, Dark Sages was incorrectly named/described and is actually the Project Capella Biologis. Owlcat switched the names/descriptions around but until its fixed pick Dark Sages or to be really really clear, pick the Janus Rank 2 upgrade project that gives unlimited medkits. These are good for party play and are another source of unlimited rep for certain reputations that except Mechanicus Creations. Which may be needed to reach reputation levels to unlock future ship bonuses from projects*

Anyways here's the second part:

14. Make your way to Vhaebos making the paths green from Mundus Valancius (Dargonus) --> Narmer IV --> Mortus Acies (Vhaebos VI). A cheap highway to get from Dargonus to the prison planet and back.

15. In Narmer IV system, I skipped the ship battle here until much later in Chapter 2. In this battle I just couldn't avoid taking lots of damage because of the way the enemy starts. Only until I took Stealth Running I and II did it become really easy. You will want to take Stealth Running I ASAP so you can get the first turn on most of the upcoming Drukhari and Aeldari battles where they're using primarily tiny ships.

16. Vhaebos colony isn't important right now until we unlock Kiava Gamma for the needed Mechanisms to upgrade projects here. What's important for this colony later is taking the Rank 3 upgrade Test of Wills. Not only does this give our Torpedoes +15% damage, but it is also perfect for colony development by adding +2 Security to all Colonies. Which will get most colonies very high security for optimal random colony event outcomes... Unless of course you pick for RP reasons like me, Punishment by Calculation (-2 Security) which is the worst Rank 1 Upgrade for Vhaebos but roleplay takes precedent (I have been lucky so far project wise that the optimal projects fit my Iconoclast run)!!! Anyways Test of Wills giving 15% extra damage on the Aeldari torpedoes adds up to about another 18 damage total with a non damaged salvo hitting the enemy ship. 18 more damage for each torpedo against larger ship classes adds up. Not to mention in combination with the torpedo ultimate.

17. I continued exploring, cheesing fights and doing quests. Pick up Adamantine and Flogiston as you're going to need it for Kiava Gamma. You don't need Xenotech that much so just find the best node that gives you the most until we get tons of extractors from Kiava Gamma Giants project.

18. When you unlock your first chance to get an ultimate (Level 4), pick "All hands on Deck." Congratulations again whenever you have the ability to use this ultimate, you can now win basically every and any battle. You get three Torpedoes launched every time you use torpedoes instead of one. Due to us having "Audacity of Janus" Aeldari Torpedoes, we can pump out 3 Torpedoes each turn, every turn, for every round we will need due to high demolitions Argenta in Cannoneer post. You will easily have 6-9 torpedoes constantly that enemy ships target instead of you and can't avoid because there's so many. Just keep your distance and let all your OP Aeldari torpedoes do the work. I also took Arc Argury on this level too.

19. Finish up the Darognus scvenger hunt tracking down Drukari attacks only up until the Webway showdown. Don't do it yet. Make your way to Kiava Gamma first. Also the first stop in this quest after liberating Vhaebos can be done without losing the Cargo ship or whatever (difficult but doable with this ship build). not sure if that maters later on or not but was a nice personal achievement lol.

20. Level 5 ship upgrades: Focused Efforts (you want this to spam abilities especially warp ones to keep distance and use Warp Wave to mess with enemies and finish them off), Stealth Running 1 (This will give you the ability to act first before smaller ships. This makes the ship battles in between Janus and Kiava Gamma much easier).

21. Level 6 Ship Upgrades: I went Shield Pulse and Boarding Party. Shield Pulse so I have something to mess with Aeldari and Drukari defences when needed. Boarding Party because of the insane map wide range it seems to have. i haven't used these enough to get a read on their effectiveness or whether they're bugge din any way.

22. Level 7 Ship Upgrades: Silent Running II (A must as now your ship acts first in all combats and doesn't take a pommelling at the onset of combat). That fight i mentioned before when I would take like 50%+ hull damage? With this i kill two ships on the first turn, Warp jump, and pick off the rest with missiles taking no damage. Rugged Repair (Maybe? I took it to lower the cost of fixing the ship due to yellow/orange/red jump encounters). I think that's it for ship upgrades I will leave the rest up for anyone reading to decide what's best for them.

23. When I finished up Kiava Gamma and got the colony projects unlocked, I went for Restoration. Then made an entire new green Warp route from Kiava to Dargonus (Mundus Valancius system). Also in case it matters for future Chronicle events, I did not start clean and wipe out all chaos on Kiava Gamma (Iconoclast run so saving citizens at expense of some corruption remaining). I know that the best path for ship development provides very little mechanisms early on, which we need for a whole host of projects with very little to spare (we get more than enough in Chapter 4 I believe though). So the more Mechanisms we start out with, will relax and prevent any project resource bottlenecks in Chapter 2. Especially if we get some good efficiency for Kiava Gamma to increase base mechanisms.

Because there's so much here for ships i'm just going to give a brief project path + brief descriptions of notable things:

Restoration --> Mag Trans --> Chapel (pays for the mechanisms itself really with efficiency bonus and allows continued project development) --> Flawless Servitors (IMPORTANT needed for Armored Rage. All Colony Efficiency + Servitors for random encounters) --> Armored Rage (IMPORTANT: Requires Servitors. Gives long range unique Titanforge Lance weapon one if not the best lance weapon in game) --> Giants --> Compassion of the Silent (Iconoclast project that gives +20 Ship Hull) --> A Mechanical Trade (IMPORTANT: +15000 Navy AND Archeotech Repulsor Shield, one of if not the best Shield in the game and goes well with a Chronicle upgrade for this planet to your ship) --> Archive of the Expanse (Provides a targeting ship upgrade but i'm not keen on low hit, high crit ones) --> Sky Barrier (Requires Holy Ammunition from Foulstone).

24. Important Chronicles of the Protectorate up until end Chapter 2 from Kiava Gamma:

Kiava Gamma - For the first chronicle I went with Argenta's advice, giving me 5000 Drusians rep I need to get closer to the requirement for Holy Ammunition on Foulstone and still 18Kish short, +1 complacency I don't need and +7 to all persuasion checks. Then for the second IMPORTANT Chronicle, pick Pascal's idea for eradicating the infection and gain "Refuge From the Last Manufactorum" which adds +20 to all shield sectors (Yay!). The third Chronicle I haven't decided and doesn't really effect ships, but had etudes i'm not sure are best so I will leave my opinion to myself (Well i think Yrliet's -1 Security research the function or the safer research the function option, with no security penalty but no Aeldari bonus talent with Pascal, look like the best for an Iconoclast run).

25. I might have mention this in the OP, but you can change the "seed" of your warp jumps by travelling safe green jumps etc. then coming back to the jump you want to make that's yellow or worse. That way you can avoid unnecessary damage to your ship or safely farm navigator points etc. on yellow jumps.

26. Back to Vhaebos project construction. I personally needed to deal with Security since i killed it with Rank 1 project. So I went Rank 2 Enviro-Domes (also seems Iconoclasty). Now we take Test of Wills at Rank 3 as mentioned for +2 Security to all colonies and Unerring Shots (the +15% torpedo damage). Instead of going for Rank 1 Punishment of Calculation I would definitely go for Punishment of Thinkers to meta here for +1000 Drusian Rep, -2 complacency and if you're like me you have TONS of complacency I would probably take Probably Ergonomics too at Rank 2. All the other projects up to this point are optional. I will be taking Warp Guides for sure though. Do what you want to do but make sure you get Test of Wills.

The Chronicles for Vhaebos VI up until the end of Chapter 2 don't effect ship combat that I know of.

27. We should have enough Rep for Cemetery of the Faithful project on Foulstone for +2500 Drusian rep (Now closer to the 40K needed for a project requirement). and "Blessing of the Fallen" (Ship gains 5% more evasion). Also +1 Complacency for all colonies.

28. As I write this i'm going back to the Space Webway in Last chance of Cyrene system to face off against Drukhari plot Ambush. There's two other systems I could go to if i manually created warp routes tot hem, which I may do. That's it for this part of my ship/colony upgrades.

29. Upgrade your abilities in the ship posts menu. This will make many of them a fair bit better. If only to decrease the max cooldown time in some instances. :)

Notable things by the end of this part of my Journey:

- Titanforge Lance top end long ranged lance weapon unlocked.
- +20 to Hull from a project
- +20 Shields in all sectors from Kiava Gamma Rank 2 Chronicle
- +5% ship evasion from Blessing of the Fallen on Foulstone.
- All required colony projects that I wanted to build done (I don't build everything since I may need the space for Rank 4-5 Projects later).
- I'm sitting at 65 PF with possibly around 10-20 PF sitting around in the way of non built projects and contracts.
- Ship is basically the Normandy from Mass Effect now due to all the cool unique weapons and Silent Running perks making me go first. REAPERS HERE I COME! :p
- I still haven't spent any cargo other than during Chapter 1, during Exploratory Station encounter and for unique system encounters when required for optimal completion. I probably have enough Holy Relics etc to get to 40K Drusians for Holy ammunition requirement needed for Sky Barrier Project later.
- I have unlimited production of various stims, medkits and grenades that can be turned in for Mechanicus Creations as cargo (Translation: I could spam green jumps forever and max out Explorator Rep or any rep that accepts these as cargo).
- For Ascension ceremony, I chose to have Jae and Yrliet by my side. Both give +1 to all colony stats each, and Abelard gives his +2 Efficiency to all colonies regardless.

[Toadally Awesome]

Nice collections of tips. A few more that you could add that I haven't seen so far off of a quick Ctrl + F:

-The tier 1 Emporium project on Dargonus is currently bugged, and instead of making charting new routes cost 2 instead of 3, it overwrites the cost of charting a new route with the +1 Insight it pays you back. Which means you cannot create infinite, but more than enough Navigator Insight by just charting routes to planets and getting +1 insight for each. This should basically eliminate any need for careful spending of Insight, and even if it gets fixed, people can use it to bank a lot of Insight.

-Bit of reading between the lines, but if you just barely scratch a ship that can be affected by Warp Wave, there is no shame in just running away and using that ability to finish off enemies very slowly in non-timed battles, so you don't take unnecessary hull damage.

-I don't remember the exact system now but there is somewhere a station of friendly scavengers which you can board and pass some checks to open a vault and get some items. If you do not kill them all, you can later return after a few warp jumps and sell them provisions in return for scrap. After you do that, if you do a few more warp jumps and return, they will have left the station and you can loot the remaining debris for about 150 scrap. As long as you do not exit the dialogue window, which makes the node unavailable, you can keep doing this for infinite scrap, if you are willing to do so.

Also I am slightly mad that the Janus torpedoes have no cooldown now because I skipped them as that feature was nowhere in the weapon description lol.

[Marcos_DS]

You should consider posting it as a guide as well. Would be a shame if this gets pushed too far back ib the board,,,