Hammerhead vs Icarus

[Yosharian]

So I'm piloting that piece of ♥♥♥♥ ship you start with and its stats are

http://s30.postimg.org/jwuacnl0x/hammerhead.png

So I save up 95k and buy the Icarus

http://s23.postimg.org/83p63p5uz/Icarus.png

And I drop in it to find my missions are now rated several ranks higher (more difficult) than they were... am I missing something? To me the Icarus appears to be way better? But apparently it isn't?

I mean it has 'Medium' hull class and far more turrets, so it should be better right?

Really confused by this, and irritated by the lack of 'stats' in the game. I don't want to see just vague details like 'very fast'. I want actual numbers for god's sake.

[PuppiesFTW]

Same issue going from the Mastadon to the Icarus, by the displayed stats the Icarus should be the better ship, yet my missions jumped up in difficulty when switched to the Icarus.

[Cap'n Darwin]

Basically more ports, more turrets and more component spaces is good. More cargo hold space means more good to sell for profit. Hull class is important as a rating of the toughness of the core ship. Add on good hull plating and shields and deflector and that sets your defense. The bigger the ships get the slower they move and turn. General rating is fine and would be the same as a 1, 2, or 3, unless you want degrees/second of turn and sm/sec of speed. Both of which get modified by items in the game. You find out the general stats are good enough as you play.

[GodlySnack]

Maybe you're using the wrong loadout? What turrets are you using? I'm not an expert of the game but I've gone from the Hammerhead to the Icarus as well and I'm able to do some "very high" risk missions that I wasn't able to get done in the Hammerhead.

Could it be possible that the difficulty in missions go up as your networth goes up and not the ship?

[Yosharian]

Originally posted by Cap'n Darwin:

Basically more ports, more turrets and more component spaces is good. More cargo hold space means more good to sell for profit. Hull class is important as a rating of the toughness of the core ship. Add on good hull plating and shields and deflector and that sets your defense. The bigger the ships get the slower they move and turn. General rating is fine and would be the same as a 1, 2, or 3, unless you want degrees/second of turn and sm/sec of speed. Both of which get modified by items in the game. You find out the general stats are good enough as you play.

So why did the game suddenly appear to get harder?

Originally posted by PuppiesFTW:

Same issue going from the Mastadon to the Icarus, by the displayed stats the Icarus should be the better ship, yet my missions jumped up in difficulty when switched to the Icarus.

Did the same thing happen when you switched to the Mastodon from the Hammerhead?

Trying to figure out if it's a bug specific to the Icarus.

Originally posted by GodlySnack:

Maybe you're using the wrong loadout? What turrets are you using? I'm not an expert of the game but I've gone from the Hammerhead to the Icarus as well and I'm able to do some "very high" risk missions that I wasn't able to get done in the Hammerhead.

Could it be possible that the difficulty in missions go up as your networth goes up and not the ship?

I'm using exactly the same equipment. The only thing that changed was the ship, and suddenly my missions (including a story mission) went up by several ranks.

However if you're using the Icarus without problems then it's fine, probably just a glitch. I was primarily worried that the ship was accidentally ♥♥♥♥ =p

[GodlySnack]

Originally posted by Yosharian:

However if you're using the Icarus without problems then it's fine, probably just a glitch. I was primarily worried that the ship was accidentally ♥♥♥♥ =p

Well it might just be ♥♥♥♥. I'm not that far into the game yet (haven't even left the first system) but the Icarus is working for me. However I'm hopping around the line of keeping the Icarus for a bit or upgrading to the Tennhaus.

Also have you gotten a good merc yet? I just upgraded my merc from a 5k pricetag to a 20k one and he/she/it seems to be doing more work.

[Hobbit]

Make sure you buy the best shields/hull/ deflectors you can afford before buying a new ship, will make your life way easier.

[obliviondoll]

Some missions scale to your ship's capabilities. Also some missions list themselves as being harder without actually changing when you upgrade your ship, I'm not sure why. But you should usually still be able to handle anything it throws at you when this happens.

Did you downgrade some of your gear to be able to get the new ship? High-grade weapons, shields, armour, etc. make more of a difference than your base hull a lot of the time.

[PuppiesFTW]

Did the same thing happen when you switched to the Mastodon from the Hammerhead?

Trying to figure out if it's a bug specific to the Icarus.

Seems like the issue is with the Icarus, missions stayed the same from Hammerhead to Mastadon.

[Yosharian]

Originally posted by obliviondoll:

Some missions scale to your ship's capabilities. Also some missions list themselves as being harder without actually changing when you upgrade your ship, I'm not sure why. But you should usually still be able to handle anything it throws at you when this happens.

Did you downgrade some of your gear to be able to get the new ship? High-grade weapons, shields, armour, etc. make more of a difference than your base hull a lot of the time.

No I did not

Originally posted by GodlySnack:

Originally posted by Yosharian:

However if you're using the Icarus without problems then it's fine, probably just a glitch. I was primarily worried that the ship was accidentally ♥♥♥♥ =p

Well it might just be ♥♥♥♥. I'm not that far into the game yet (haven't even left the first system) but the Icarus is working for me. However I'm hopping around the line of keeping the Icarus for a bit or upgrading to the Tennhaus.

Also have you gotten a good merc yet? I just upgraded my merc from a 5k pricetag to a 20k one and he/she/it seems to be doing more work.

Meh I haven't felt like hiring a mercenary yet. I prefer a lone wolf style of play.

UPDATE:

Ok so I sold my Icarus and got back into my Hammerhead. All the missions have immediately dropped to lower ranks.

In addition, I tested switching to the Mastodon and that also raised the mission difficulty (though not as much as the Icarus).

Therefore it's 100% confirmed that missions at least APPEAR to get more difficult when you climb into a more powerful ship.

I'm currently testing upgrading the Hammerhead up to the eyeballs (just spent like 70k) to see if that affects anything- doesn't seem to.

It all seems to point towards the following:

---Upgrade your ship completely before even considering buying another one!--

[Fjordland]

I have an Icarus with mk3 engines and it's absurdly effective at sticking to blind zones and herding fighter screens. Renamed it Harlequin.

[<click here>]

Risk difficulty is what the game thinks the player can handle, not the actual difficulty of what spawns. Spawn difficulty is determined by the credit reward.

An Icarus doing a 12k destroy mission will face the same enemy as a Hammerhead doing a 12k destroy mission. If the risk difficulty is higher on the Icarus, then that means either the risk algorithm is bugged, or the Icarus' stats are bugged.

[Oghier]

Are you equipping something into the Icarus's extra turret slots? If all you did was switch ships, you have some empty hardpoints, which the game might interpret as a sign you'll find missions difficult.

I like the Icarus quite a bit more than the Hammerhead. It's a nimbler ship with more firepower. Next up, save for the Barracuda :)

[Yosharian]

Originally posted by <click here>:

Risk difficulty is what the game thinks the player can handle, not the actual difficulty of what spawns. Spawn difficulty is determined by the credit reward.

An Icarus doing a 12k destroy mission will face the same enemy as a Hammerhead doing a 12k destroy mission. If the risk difficulty is higher on the Icarus, then that means either the risk algorithm is bugged, or the Icarus' stats are bugged.

Then something is wrong because I changed NOTHING except the ship and the risk rank goes up (more difficult). It goes up no matter what ship I buy, but it goes up MORE when buying the Icarus (can't test other ships don't have enough cash).

I did not fill the turret slots on the Icarus but that should not affect anything. The ship is tougher so it should NOT say the mission is harder.

[RustyRobot]

A few things that I have noticed about ship rank and difficulty.

Think of your ship as more of a platform to hold your equipment. Your rank (how easy or hard a mission is labeled as) is almost entirely dictated by the components that you have on your ship. If you kept your components when upgrading to the new ship, over whatever it says, the difficulty of the missions in question will either stay the same, or get easier--even if it doesn't say so. You will see a much more drastic increase in "rank" as you start to buy new components. (I generally start with the shields, then the broadsides, and then whatever you feel like)

It seems at the time that the mission "difficulty" labels are a little bugged at times in general as well. I've played missions that have been "low risk" and gotten my face absolutly rekd, and then played missions on "very risky" and breezed through it like it was nothing more than an "average".

In relation to the speed indicators (and other) aspects of the game not being descriptive enough.
You can tell if the ship you're looking at has a better or worse speed (or any other stat) than the ship you currently have based on if the stat of the ship that you do not own. I know that this isn't a solution, but you can gain perspective on where the ships fall in relation to each other's stats.

For the time being try to judge you're ships worth, not by what it tells you, but what you know about the game.

Hope this helps,
RustyRobot

[Yosharian]

Originally posted by RustyRobot:

A few things that I have noticed about ship rank and difficulty.

Think of your ship as more of a platform to hold your equipment. Your rank (how easy or hard a mission is labeled as) is almost entirely dictated by the components that you have on your ship. If you kept your components when upgrading to the new ship, over whatever it says, the difficulty of the missions in question will either stay the same, or get easier--even if it doesn't say so. You will see a much more drastic increase in "rank" as you start to buy new components. (I generally start with the shields, then the broadsides, and then whatever you feel like)

It seems at the time that the mission "difficulty" labels are a little bugged at times in general as well. I've played missions that have been "low risk" and gotten my face absolutly rekd, and then played missions on "very risky" and breezed through it like it was nothing more than an "average".

In relation to the speed indicators (and other) aspects of the game not being descriptive enough.
You can tell if the ship you're looking at has a better or worse speed (or any other stat) than the ship you currently have based on if the stat of the ship that you do not own. I know that this isn't a solution, but you can gain perspective on where the ships fall in relation to each other's stats.

For the time being try to judge you're ships worth, not by what it tells you, but what you know about the game.

Hope this helps,
RustyRobot

Well thanks but you have to admit it's counter-intuitive to 'not trust what the game tells you'

=D