Please help a newbie explorer

[Rook (FR)]

Hi everybody!

I bought the game one week ago (nice to have such a game on Linux, thanks devs!) and I'm having a blast!

I've never played a RPG before so the learning curve is real but again, I'm enjoying it.

I decided to play an explorer and I'm trying to follow the Explorer Guide[startraders.gamepedia.com] with a non-combat captain who I configured exactly as said in the guide (max wisdom and charisma, Fixer and Retired Explorer as contacts, ship is the Galtak Freighter).

I'm playing on normal difficulty but when I have a better understanding of the game I will increase that.

One thing I'm struggling with is what jobs to give to my officers, I finally settled on this:

• Captain: Explorer, Exo-Scout, Merchant
  
• Doctor, Combat Medic, Pistoleer
  
• Quartermaster, Commander, Doctor
  
• Engineer, Explorer, Smuggler

Is that even good? I have doubts about my Quartermaster and Engineer... I added Doctor and Explorer on them to get more points in these categories, but, I don't know... And it would be more useful to have the Commander in crew combat I think?

For combat I use a swordsman, a snubber, the medic, and... the captain (as a sniper), yes I know he doesn't have combat stats but the fights are not too difficult (for now) so I do that to give him more XP.

After 2.5 years I have about $400K, trade permit 3, the only thing I changed in my ship is the Weapons Locker (now A3).

Also I've noticed that all my current missions will decrease my reputation with other factions, and my retired explorer contact doesn't have much influence and I can only recruit very low level exo-scouts, I guess I didn't do enough missions for him.

So, my main concern is that I feel like I'm playing in a suboptimal way and don't really know where I'm going.
I wouldn't mind restarting at all but some advice about what I should do (especially with officers) would be welcome :)

[Kaerius]

It's generally recommended to have 4 combat officers, all starting officers other than the doctor are disposable. I recommend a military officer contact at start to replace engineer officer with enginer crewman, and re-rolling start until you have a good doctor and swordsman(promote), hire other combatants to fill slots, good if you have a contact with bounty hunter or exo scout recruiting to fill pos 4 (bounty hunter/exo scout/xeno hunter).

Captain should either be dedicated combatant, or dedicated non-combat.
If you upgrade to a 6 officer ship your two non-combat officers(one can be cap) should be:
Smuggler/merchant/diplomat (max negotiate).
Explorer/exo scout/scavanger (max explore). This could be pos 4 combat stand-in for 5 officer ship, thanks to exo scout class component. Captain needs attrib A/B for this.

For combat cap ship should be E(Juror).

[darion-neclador]

There is literally no reason to choose a juror over a longbolt.

[Kaerius]

Should also note that any military officer or commander recruit contacts are worth their weight in gold, great to get as crew.

[Kaerius]

Originally posted by darion-neclador:

There is literally no reason to choose a juror over a longbolt.

Ship D vs Ship E. There's literally no reason to choose a longbolt over a juror either. (Also longbolt is an unlock, and this is a newbie needs help thread).
With experience D you get lvl 2 officers, which give you a class point to put into commander, to pick up discerning glance, so you can recruit better combat officer replacements from the very beginning, how's that for a reason?

[darion-neclador]

yes that why i answered, the Longbolt has about twice the stock defense of Juror. I would say that that is worth delaying discerning glance for 3 weeks. So how's that for a reason?

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Depends if you actually want to fight in crew combat or .....

You can just sacrifice 4 crew to the xeno fights. Even when they die you get the artifacts. You can just surrender on turn 1.

Aka the redshirt method.

If you actually want to fight and win against Xeno I probably change my crew combat lineup. Xeno are the easiest early and late game. Mid game they can be challenging if they out level you. On impossible they can 15+ levels on you. I'm not sure about normal.

Xeno mostly attack melee so you want good melee protection armor. I like to have 2 blade users, 1 dedicated healer, and 1 snubber who has at least 1 job for bounty Hunter. Great debuffs.

Exploring you don't need missions. You just go to the planet and play the card game. Mostly trying to get xeno artifacts which lead to xeno fights.

Missions will get you negative rep and your ship and crew setup won't last 4 turns in space combat. It's normal mode so you can't die but you can go bankrupt which is basically game over.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Side note I think that guide was before scavengers and xeno hunters existed too. Exo scouts, explorers, scavengers, xeno hunters will give you talents to manipulate the explorer card game.

Contacts is where the game can get complicated. You either need to run missions which will get you negative rep with 1 faction. Enough missions and you will be hated. And if you don't have a combat ship setup your dead or bankrupt.

Or you interact with contacts via selling Intel and patrolling for positive rep. Might be able to skip patrolling if you are just trying to recruit level 1 specialized crew. But if you want max level recruits then it takes a lot more effort.

Spying isn't bad to go along with exploring. Since you get Intel via exploring anyway. You would probably need 2 or 3 jobs dedicated to spying.

I probably make my captain a explorer/military officer/spy that way he can help in 3 card games. No combat.

The doctor needs to go into crew combat. I probably go doctor/combat medic then spy or military officer. Spot 3 or 4. Spies stealthed can fire from spot 4. If he goes military officer in spot 4 he can't shoot. But he can heal and buff all day long. If you want to play spy card game then go spy.

You could have 2 crew swordsman in spot 1 and 2.

Then you might need another officer cause you have no contacts yet to give you good high level specialized crew. Basically go through your starting crew and promote the 1 crew who has the best combat stats. Turn him into a bounty Hunter/exo scout. He will have 1 level of whatever he started the game as, example a pilot or crew dog or whatever. It's ok.

Bounty Hunter, swordsmen can all self heal. So it helps to take burden off of your combat healer.

Your 4th officer I probably promote a random crew member into a explorer/scavenger. If you wanted to play spy game you probably drop scavenger for spy.

You can get by without contact interaction. But later play throughs you will want it. No matter what my build or job is I almost always play patrol and spy card games. Then whatever my job is. Contacts give you specialized crew recruits, weapons, armor, gear etc.

[Rook (FR)]

Wow, thanks so much everybody for the tips :) Now I have a better understanding of how I can use my officers, this is really helpful!

Edit: I guess I could choose a Spice Trader contact, so I can recruit a merchant ASAP for his talents that help find contacts when trading and spicing. With more contacts I will be able to recruit proper explorers, smuggler, etc...

[ROE]

This is a pretty rough game to cut your RPG teeth on, but at least the learning if fun.


Playing on normal allows you alot of leeway in how you build out your away parties. Xeno will be your biggest threat by far.


If it were me, I would make an explorer/Spy/Combat Medic captain and take him into battle. Make sure you give him high starting attributes like quickness and wisdom. (At least 25 in each.) With shadow fire at LVL 1, and Distracting shots at Lvl 5, you can fight from the fourth spot and avoid most dangerous combat situations unless you fight Xeno. Start them in the third spot and use distracting shots to fall back to the forth spot.

The rest is your choice, but the new bodyguard job is pretty sweet up front. Good for protecting the captain in the back during Xeno fights too. You probably want a Xeno hunter in there somewhere and another combat medic or doctor. XH plasma burn is nice on normal. Doctor/Combat medic/Military Officer in 3rd isn't bad for buffs and heals.

You need to make sure the contacts you select at the start provide you with most everything that you need. That means one for weapons, one for armor, one for explorer recruits, and one for gear\black market. Buy top level armor, and at least level 6 weapons. Heavy armor for those up front. Invest in some gear as well. It really helps.

If this looks combat heavy, well, this game is combat heavy. At the end of the day it's either smash them in the face or try to run away, and running doesn't always work.

Get some explorer recruits to make the card game easier and more profitable. Your pilots have talents that can help with the spy card game, and gunners (3) help with patrol game. Get a couple of MO or Commanders to help with your command stat and escape. A smuggler to help with black market. You will be using the black market often and it can be...a PITA.

Once you step up to hard most of the above advice goes out the window as things become much more specific as far as building a crew goes.

Don't piss off more than one faction at a time. That means using patrol game to keep other faction's opinion levels above -15 at least. Ideally you want to be positive but ♥♥♥♥ happens.
Stay out of enemy sectors if you can, use the escape talents like stiff salute from your MOs, and commanders to avoid Zealots and enemy MOs. Skip off the void from your Nav people is a must. I repeat, is a must.

Ship building, well, that's a whole other story. Good luck. You'll get it.

[ROE]

Forget merchants. They kinda blow unless your just being a merchant. You will be using the black market to sell Xeno artifacts. You need a smuggler who had many of the same talents as a merchant. You could make a extra officer later on that is a Merchant\Smuggler\Diplomat. I've done that and it's interesting.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Plus if your on normal you don't necessarily have to worry about getting armor/weapons/gear from contacts. Once you master the basics you can expand on what you are doing.

The most important thing for newbies that are engaging in crew combat is the A5 weapons locker. You might need an A3 in between if its taking you a long time to save up for the A5.

Gear is awesome but you don't really need it at normal especially early to early mid game.

You want to try and keep it simple. Even if you waste a couple of captains to the void. I think when I picked this up at launch I probably wasted a dozen captains on normal until it started to click.

MantheMakers on youtube is doing an Impossible Explorer Lets Play currently where he is going after some of the explorer achievements. Might be a good idea to watch them. Its pretty early in the series too,he is just on Episode 6 currently.


Good luck in the void

[Rook (FR)]

A combat medic captain, and then another medic, well that's something different for sure!
That's a lot of contacts though... :/
I admit I didn't have a look at the bodyguard yet.
Anyway now I'm going to bed but I'll make sure to read that again tomorrow. A lot of food for thought, thanks a ton!

[Rook (FR)]

Thanks Jimmy! It reassures me to know you had some troubles too when you started :D
Yeah I'll need to experiment and adapt anyway. I've heard about Manthemaker, I'll make sure to watch his videos.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Originally posted by Rook (FR):

Thanks Jimmy! It reassures me to know you had some troubles too when you started :D
Yeah I'll need to experiment and adapt anyway. I've heard about Manthemaker, I'll make sure to watch his videos.

Yeah I can still die and I've got 400+ hours played. It's anything involving Xeno is a huge risk for a big chunk of the game. Especially salvaging and exploring cause it has lots of xeno cards. Both crew and ship combat is completely different.

There is always the danger of facing xeno too soon or waiting too long.

Faction ships and human crew might never touch you. But Xeno can still have you for breakfast. Normal mode at least you can't lose your captain and ship.

Salvaging requires you to be good in space and crew combat.

Exploring is all crew combat. But plenty of ships still want you dead. So you either need to prepare to escape encounters before combat, escape combat when it starts, or win combat.

While mostly all the other jobs you can do to earn money doesn't really involve crew combat. Some mission running requires crew combat but it can be avoided. Most of any of the story stuff requires both.

Anything requiring both is def harder to start with.

[Rook (FR)]

Yep I understand that being an explorer there will be a lot of crew combat, but I like it, it's fun :)

I want to be something like a "combat explorer" who will not run from every fight, he'll just be picky and engage when the odds are in his favour.

So obviously I'll use another ship, I like the Galtak freighter but it doesn't fit what I'm looking for, I need something a bit more combat-oriented and easier to customize, probably a Frontier Liner or a Paladin.