The Taurus gunship

[fivemilesmile]

Since the Taurus will be the starter ship for a new player - or at least that is what I heard, please correct me if not - I have started to test the game play with that ship in earnest.
You can do the same by subscribing to a mod called Taurus Start by Ryouchan in the Workshop section.
A short summary of the Taurus:
720 hull, 270 shield, 45 cargo, 25 troopers, one small weapon (three turrets), one heavy weapon hard point.
It is amongst the strongest gunships and my favourite design, it looks and feels like I imagine a space faring gunship would be in the future.
It has one turret on the front top side, one on the top middle half and one on the front bottom side with forward looking firing arcs - about 50 degrees both left and right (it could be better in my opinion, the top and bottom turret should be able to fire in 360 degrees in their plane) so you have to use it as an attack fighter rather than a crewed battle unit. My biggest pain is that you cannot deliver full broadside salvoes despite the fact the both turrets can in theory face the sides unobstructed.
So I will start a new game every time and try to use any means necessary got get rich fast and see how the game reacts to me.
I have intended to write my experiences right here but because the fast updates it makes no sense so I will just simply write a new post every time highlighting the game version first.

Others are more than welcome to post their experience with this gunship, so we could create a sort of 'collection of wisdom' on how the first few hours of the freeroam could play out. The aim is to get to a higher class ship, any means necessary.

[Enervate]

Good luck longstar!

[mmihokovic]

We're looking forward to experiences...

[Brat Corrections Officer]

I just streamed something similar this morning, note that I have amended the Taurus Challenge rules, bounties are fair game, level doesn't matter as they attack you, so yeah, wrong to not let you fight back. Was definitely different from using my test ship that' near unkillable lol. Good luck with your adventures Longstar, just, don't be like me and try to take down a batteship in a corvette head on xD.

[fivemilesmile]

Thanks guys.
v0.7023
I have done the first run yesterday before the new balancing kicked in, so not really relevant, but here it is:

The Taurus mod puts you far out of Planet Trinity and I knew I'm a puny noob now. First I fired my turrets around in turret mode to see my firing arcs and then PTE and I headed straight to Vigo. On the way in I met with two derelicts nobody was claiming, so I blew them up, first easy 10k credit earned in loot.
I did not want to bother with mining, I went for the big money: capture and sell. I knew there is an exploit with the save files, so I saved at Vigo, reloaded it right away, undocked and voila:
a pirate Pegasus appeared for me to capture. This was the way in the 'olden days':
1 - you made a new save
2 - reloaded it right away
3 - undocked Vigo
4 - captured the appearing Pegasus
5 - docked, sold it
repeat from step 1 about six-seven times and you had your first million.
Now it does not work any more; the police or other ships around kills the pirate too fast for you to to capture. It happened to me too: I was halfway to boarding when a Tokio jumped in with its escort and we were done.

Right I said, missions then. I knew if I choose a ferry mission, I will have pirates jumping on me on the way which I will be able to capture with my 25 troops easily if I play it right, plus finish the mission in one go, so I went for it.
Docked to Planet Trinity (smuggled myself in to save on money), got the girl aboard and went to a station 20k away. Sure as sunrise, a Lyra jumped in but got torn apart by a Tokio before I could engage my grappler. The next Lyra ambushed me just 3k out of the destination, and got me to work hard for my capture but could not avoid its destiny: my hull is at 50%, shields regenerating slowly but I started to tow it home. I noticed that my 'change speed and direction randomly' tactic works well, the Lyra only got in some lucky hits and all the received damage was due to my old blunt killing ways of fighting where I did not care about what the enemy can do to me - this has to change. I enjoyed the fight, the only strange thing was when the Lyra stopped dead for a few seconds so I was able to get behind it and stay there from then.
So I got to tow it to the station when suddenly a pirate cruiser jumped in and - when I realized it was really a cruiser class vessel - I got panicky and did not really know what to do next. I was so close to that station... I hesitated for a few seconds thinking on what to do and as I was just about to drop the grapple line and turn around to face her the cruiser simply blew me to Hell - my shields were just recovering from the previous fight and my hull is on 50% - but anyway, a gunship is no match for a cruiser so I died, period.

That was my first go ended by a very unlucky event, I will give it a second try this afternoon.

[mmihokovic]

tense story this is! Nice to read though, despite not a happy ending...

[fivemilesmile]

v0.7024
Easy mode
New game

Headed to Vigo right away. I have noticed if I sell my heavy gun and the rail I have got with the ship, I will just have the money to buy a Ripper II turret, so I did. Feeling much more confident now with three Ripper II turrets. The Taurus is pretty good when it comes to battery recharge; if you set the energy distro to feed the weapons fully, you get your battery back in seconds..

Picked a ferry mission to Hamilton Shipyard and on the way a Lyra tried its luck with me... My first 120k. Combat is much more enjoyable now with the second balancing, still have to be careful but it is not fatal any more if you make a small mistake. The Lyra depleted my left side shield before I got her, but that was ok.

Next I went for an assassination mission, an other Lyra, an other 120k. By then I got greedy: if this continues, I will be soon rich, RICH, RIIIIICH!!!
hehh.

Accepted the next assassination, and as I went to the waypoint, I saw a bounty... Lv50, reward 5M. Just watched the Zuirra sail by, I almost went for it... and almost got killed by the Prowess that was waiting for me as my assassinatee. Turned tail right away, I even didn't say goodbye.

I felt uneasy, a destroyer as level 1 opponent for my gunship. Oh well I said, let's see what next. Ferry mission, 20k distance. Accepted and got to go. Saw again the Zuirra and licked my lips. What if I...? Stopped at Vigo, made a save game file and went for the kill.
Naturally I had no chance, but lasted long enough to escape.

On the way to my ferry destination I've met with Zoemin station, a strong pirate centre and this reminded me the importance of looking a bit ahead and at the star map more often, plus plan my journey with a bit more care: I'm definitely not invincible now...and the masses of cruisers and freight liners around that station was frightening. Frankly I though I'm toast now, fortunately none of the pirates fired a PTE disruptor on me. Maybe I was not worth the effort...

Some 4k distance from my ferry destination an other gunship tried me and failed, again 130k into my pocket.

Next a rescue mission, and this time it was a Taurus, earned me 160k.
I found the area (Divide and Crossroads) a bit too dangerous for my taste (flying a gunship that is) so I went back to Vigo and was rewarded there with a Pegasus, which I promptly towed home, 160k. One more rescue, one more Lyra, an other 140k. The next rescue left me with a Prowess, I didn't even got out of PTE, turned around and got back Vigo.
I have noticed that I have more than 1M now, so I bought a Wolverine, unequipped my Ripper II from the Taurus, transferred to my Wolverine, bought a Ripper III for the front hard point, and equipped both sides with Ripper II, installed Locust II on the transporter.

..and for good measure I went back to see what that Prowess (I have just left alone before) got to say to my shiny new corvette.

One hour 13 minutes from new start to buy the Wolverine.
Gravy train.

[fivemilesmile]

I think from a new player viewpoint - who presumably done some missions with the storyline and knows at least the basics - the game on easy level is just right. Yes, you have to run from stronger opponents, but that is sensible and to be expected. You are far from being helpless - if you play it right you can step up fairly quickly, you just have to pick those who are in your league and try to avoid being cornered.

[Enervate]

good work longstar I would have tried to do the same kind of thing to get my next ship. Piracy is the fastest way to make quick cash early in SPG2.

[Brat Corrections Officer]

A little secret about the Taurus, the turrets might see a little repositioning as they don't offer proper coverage. Now I can't reveal my sources, just a quick heads up.

[fivemilesmile]

Originally posted by Enervate:

good work longstar I would have tried to do the same kind of thing to get my next ship. Piracy is the fastest way to make quick cash early in SPG2.

Thanks, yeah snatching anything you can early on instead of blowing stuff up can get you rich pretty soon. The Taurus is just the ship for that with 25 troopers, three turrets and beefed up battery recharge.

[fivemilesmile]

Originally posted by Ryouchan:

A little secret about the Taurus, the turrets might see a little repositioning as they don't offer proper coverage. Now I can't reveal my sources, just a quick heads up.

Good news, thanks! The Taurus is already a good starter ship, all I could criticise was only the tight firing arcs, but if that will be addressed and say I could deliver full broadside salvoes - well, we may have the ultimate gunship in the making.

To be honest I have enjoyed so much my last play I wrote about - the feeling that if you pick carefully your fights and know when to avoid much stronger enemies, you can get along well - so I have decided I will try it again. First game where I actually enjoyed being at the bottom and wiggle around to get higher. Up until now in all the games I had to focus on getting the strongest ship the faster I can, but in SG2 I actually enjoy the progress.
Just to quote a classic:
"The chase is better than the catch."
/Scooter/
:-D

[Brat Corrections Officer]

I had no idea how much my crazy modding would help things lol. Good luck Captain Longstar, my your career be long and fortuitous!

[MeepdragonVII]

I'll add a few of my experiences with the Taurus:

First, thanks to Ryouchan for the Taurus Start mod and to longstar for this thread that new players might find quite useful.

Whether the Taurus will be the default starting ship in all play modes available on release remains to be seen, since I recall there was a devs' poll that asked players which ship they'd like to begin the game with; there many posters pointed out they'd prefer an approach that would match the starting ship with the decisions you make during character creation (i.e. the 3 classes begin with different gunships each).
I don't know if this is what the devs went for though.

One thing is for sure: We'll start with a gunship and basic armament.
And for that I believe the Taurus is a very valid choice.
While I don't consider it one of the strongest (in fact most others do excel in several aspects), I think it's a quite versatile gunship and a good jack-of-all-trades design.
Now its weapon loadout isn't the best among the gunships, it doesn't have a cloaking device, and the ship systems are not impressive, but the cargo hold is quite large (45 units) and the trooper capacity is remarkable as well (25), so it is well rounded for giving everything a proper try that you can do in Gemini.

The rather restrictive firing arcs have been mentioned already, but I didn't find them especially hampering, since gunships are nimble enough to balance that shortcoming easily.

So, I started a new game on Normal as an Engineer a short while ago and was lvl2 when the new balancing updates came online; I was curious about the differences in the challenge of course:
The first mission I took was a lvl2 assassination and on getting within scanner range I was quite surprised to encounter two Reliant battleships (both of "impossible" threat ranking naturally), one of them the designated target.
After the 1st attack run (head on as I've been used to from the olden days...) and quick realisation that it was more akin to suicide I already feared this kind of freelance mission might be impossible to finish with the current balancing.
But: Seeing that there are always other ships around in Gemini that will also engage enemies and that the 2 battleships had not managed to destroy my Taurus in the first place I decided to be patient and use a hit and run tactic which eventually paid off.
It was a very interesting battle that saw the destruction of ~6 vessels over several minutes and made it obvious that occasionally the player will depend on the assistance of neutrals/allies to succeed (or even survive) - and that felt both rewarding and realistic; also it added to the immersion since now I had to wait for new ships to arrive and then take advantage of the enemies firing at bigger targets than my gunship.
Of course there was plenty of loot in the end as well.

The battle took that long partly due to the low damage of the Taurus' initial SBR railguns; but as soon as I had replaced them with Ripper railguns, taking on single Reliant battleships (they seem to be omnipresent with the new patch ;-)) was totally manageable.
If you make good use of superior weapon range, the gunship's maneuverability and the occasional skill, you can get out of such a battle victorious & almost unscathed.
I usually set the energy distribution to ~60% weapons, 40% shields and could fire the Ripper turrets almost continuously.

Like longstar I've also noticed how capturing small enemy ships can be quite tricky since they usually get destroyed far too quickly as soon as other ships get involved; and when I tried to capture one in a situation where only another enemy ship was around I soon had to stop and flee because of the heavy fire that was coming in from all angles.

All in all I can state combat has become more tense, interesting and dangerous (in short: rewarding) with the balancing updates.
Still the Taurus can do quite well in all fields that a lvl1 space greenhorn would want to try out (at least if they're reasonable) and I really like the ship; I think it has a very backwatery feeling to it and it reminds me of Privateer's Tarsus in a pleasant way.

Just something I want to add since I guess some of you might not be aware of it yet:
Selling stuff also provides you with experience points; there is no notification on the HUD and you can only see the difference after undocking, but it's now an additional way of levelling up.
Kele gave a thorough description how it works exactly in a different thread, but in short whenever you sell commodities (be they loot, salvaged or mined stuff, commodities bought somewhere else) and make a profit you'll gain exp.
When I sold a cargo hold (45 units) full of the spoils of various battles and salvage parts, I received more than 4.000 exp which made me level up immediately after leaving the station.
I'm not exactly sure how the exact credits value was, but I believe the cargo sold for about 40.000 credits, so I guess the ratio might be(ep) 1 exp per 10 credits profit.

Sorry for the wall of text, hope you'll find some of it useful.

[fivemilesmile]

Quite a good one and made me jump into my Taurus against those Reliants of course.
Have you ever been stopped by the Police and did they made you jettison the counterfeit? Was an interesting thing, I kind of sorry now that I was a 'good boy'. Next time then.
Like the be(ep), you are a true Beepalot.

[MeepdragonVII]

No, the police did scan for contraband, but couldn't detect the Shard Blade in the hold.
Of course that may be(ep) be(ep)cause I had my chamberlain tell them it was Excalibur.

I take the comparison with "Beepalot" as a complime(ep)nt, seeing that Sir Beepalot is a knight at my Round Table, and a very distinguished one at that. He sits directly opposite of Sir Meepalot.

And don't worry too much about not be(ep)ing a "good boy" - it's never too late to change your ways! If fate has it one day you may even join the Round Table and be(ep)come Sir Longstar of Came(ep)lot...

Farewell, good man!

[Heavens, it's contagious! It may be a rare epidemic of both Meepingitis and Beephilis!]