What I've learned playing Starpoint Gemini 2

[what]

This assumes you want to play the campaign mode. I'm now in the freeplay mode since I've finished the campaign. I have all the DLC's installed but no mods.

1. Nothing protects you from attacks that disable your PTE. I have a titan and I'm still knocked out of superspeed. So always have a speed enhancer on your equipment bar. It keeps the enemies from ganging up on you too long.

2. stealth is your friend. Having a ship with stealth prevents you from having to spend a lot of time battling to your destination when all you want to do is continue the quest lines. The best low end stealth is the Hydra S but you will probably have to go into enemy space to capture one. That means that you need to add enhancements to your teleporter to increase the number of troopers in a transporter session. There is an system enhancement and also an officer that does this.

3. There is no better way to make money than capturing and selling ships. The same space station that has almost nothing in cargo to buy will buy your 7 million credit ship without batting an eye. You can capture up to 3 ships at a time but you have to tractor them to a space station individually. Always do the quick loot so you get their weapons in your inventory.

4. As a corollary, You can't really make money buying and selling or I am really missing something. Other games do this very well (like Rebel Galaxy).

5. Always buy salvage swarms when available. I've never seen it not be paid back by increased salvage. Same is probably true for Borehole torpedo.

6. Once you have amassed a large amount of credits, stop capturing or salvaging ships and start destroying them. That will greatly increase finding blueprints which are usually considerably better than the system enhancements for sale.

7. I like firing at a distance so I went primarily with railguns. there is at least one quest where the opponent is much more powerful than you but has a fairly short range on weapons so you can complete the quest by circling and bombarding at a distance, When I solved the mystery of Aetheria, I went with a kepler beam with a range of 900.

8. Beam weapons don't look like much but they do their damage per second not shot. Most weapons take a few seconds to hit the target. So a relatively weak beam weapon is far more effective than expected in combat. Also it can be used for mining. Later in the game your ship may have trouble capturing smaller ships because you easily destroy them instead. A beam weapon lets you do less damage by tapping for a fraction of a second, rather than other light weapons that have set amounts of damage.

9. Most space stations won't let you dock during a battle. Better to run out and circle back. You can drop your captured ships right next to the space station and easily get them later.

10. If you don't complete a taxi mission you end up with a permanent passenger. This can also happen with carrying a shipment. Looks weird later when you review your ship contents.

11. You really can't fly safely through high radiation areas until you complete the Secrets of Aetheria dlc. Sometimes your shields and hull integrity will appear completely wrong. I've only been able to fix that by saving and then restarting the game.

12. fighter wings are great. They don't look like much but like the beam weapons they do damage very quickly which really adds up. Also they are great for distracting ships in groups so you can capture a specific ship.

13. Capturing rather than assassinating is always best. The game doesn't care and it is more profitable to you.

14. No matter how tough you are, 3 carriers with a seth each will be brutal on your ship.

15. The best way to find enemies is to scan an anomaly. There are usually 2 or 3 cloaked nearby.

16. Never bother trying to find a balance in ship power. You are always going to be dragging the focus to one of the triangle points (shield, speed, firepower) depending on your immediate need.

17. PTE is always the best way to more around. Event with max power to speed it isn't that fast. However, you cannot use your grappler in PTE.

18. The game breaks during combat quite a bit. I've seen considerable improvement by turning off everything in my task bar I can, especially anything that might send a notification. I play now with just the virus checker active.

hope this helps someone.

[Geek]

note on #11 : the Aethera shield only works for the Aethera, other radioactive nebulas still do the same damage.

[Zenoslaf]

This is cool, you should make a short guide. Something like a Hitchiker's Guide to Gemini. :)

[leemug]

Thanks - wanted to print these tips but can't figure out how.

[Duneman]

I'll craft a response based on your point numbers.

1. Yeah, always keep a Speed Booster on hand. Make sure to do an Energy Transfer to Propulsion too. Even if enemies pop out of cloak and hits you, when you're moving at 305 units the PTE Torpedo takes 1,500 units to finally catch up to you. So enemies are often at a range of 2,000 units when your speed drops, and are likely to not even bother chasing you at that point.

2. Yeah. Stealth is handy. I tend to purchase a Frigate early on that can Cloak and use that to explore the map. A SupraTravel-made Horizon is fairly slick for exploration.

3. Definitely true in the early levels, prior to LIcenses opening up. Capturing Lyra Gunships near Planet Trinity is relatively easy since they only have 12 crew members. There are alternatives though. Going to Sigil Station to purchase Combat Mechs to sell to Vigo Station will make you ~1,000 credits per unit for your cargo hold. Once you have 820,000 credits or so you can go to Memphis Station and purchase a Mainz Freighter. It has 275 cargo space, so you can make a quarter to a half million credits on a single trading trip.

4. The big money from trading comes once you open up Licenses. Groups like LeGard Province, Wasteland, Union, Fenicia Stations, and a few others provide big bonuses. Also, the same applies to capturing ships. Send captured ships to your Garage and sell it in regions that offer a License for Ships or All Goods. Ship Systems and Equipment work in a similar way. Eventually a good trader can make 1,000,000+ credits per journey.

5. Yes! Scavenging Swarms can yield Ship Systems and Equipment. Once Licenses are unlocked selling a decent weapon System can give 0.3-1.0 million credits.

6. In my experience Blueprint items are generally better, but sometimes I'll pass on them. But, yeah, sometimes at high level you just want to assault an enemy station and blast several dozen ships into scrap in your search for Blueprints.

7. 500-600 seems to be a sweet spot, IMO. At that range enemies have trouble hitting you, and if you can line up your Turrets while having them trail you then generally the Side Battery and Back Battery will fire away at opponents. Railguns definitely have a nice range advantage. Beams are a nice option for ships with weaker energy supplies for weapons.

8. Beams definitely have a place in the game. If you have the Aetherius DLC then Kepler Beams basically outstrip everything, but it can cost something insane like 200 millions credits to max out their abilities. Even without the enhancements though they can are customizable and can suit most styles.

9. Yeah, you need to 'break combat' to Anchor at a structure. If a strong foe is chansing you then try looping around behind a station and waiting for friendly Security or Military forces to show up and chase off the interloper.

10. Heh... I do most of my Ferry and Taxi missions with a ship that can Cloak. That makes things so much simpler. Eventually when I'm cruising around in a Carrier or Dreadnought with level 40 Battleships in tow as mercencary forces I'll just blast through enemy groups.

11. Radiation and EMP clouds definitely suck. I tend to avoid them as much as possible, or use T-Jump items to escape quickly.

12. They're definitely nice. If they get destroyed they respawn after you dock at a station.

13. The main exception is that you cannot capture basic Hero units. So feel free to destroy those.

14. On the flipside, consider splurging on some SETH units for Side Missions. They last a long time as the AI tends to not target them.

15. Derelicts and Maintainence missions can draw them out too.

16. I tend to swap between Balanced, half-Propulsion, or all Weapons depending on range and what the enemies are targeting at the moment.

17. Yup. PTE speeds are normalized so even fat Carriers can move with purpose.

[Arbadacarba]

curious how the Myrmidan stacks up as a cloaky ship?

[what]

Originally posted by leemug:

Thanks - wanted to print these tips but can't figure out how.

try selecting the text, doing a control-c to copy and paste into notepad.

[Zenoslaf]

Or you can create a guide and paste that there. :)

[Duneman]

I've been somewhat tempted to create a guide on how to make money trading, since most people completely blow that off in favor of capturing ships. Just yesterday I made 3 million credits in one trip, which isn't shabby at all: noticed that AI Robotics had their prices fall and thus purchased 700 cargo worth of stuff that sold for twice the value at Fenicia.

[Zenoslaf]

That sounds cool. I know everyone is going for easy money on capturing, but it's true that mining and trading can be viable too.