Combat Captain

[Priestie]

Quick question, is there any advantage to giving your captain combat abilities? Are there times when you can use combat abilities outside of combat? Such as in coordination with a negotiation check? Are there time when your captain is forced to fight? Thank you.

[Priestie]

Also, is quickness mostly used in combat? Can you give me an idea of when it might be used outside of combat?

[prime_resistor]

Combat Attributes are occasionally used as a factor in dice rolls for some of the results of the card mini-games and some mission options, but it probably isn't enough of an effect to be worth it for those reasons alone.

The captain is never forced to fight in any situation, at least, not in the current version of the game.

[Priestie]

Awesome thank you!

[Trese Brothers]

The wiki has a good list of where all the Attributes are used:
https://startraders.gamepedia.com/Attributes

[Grigsey]

To me the main advantage is getting to create a combat character exactly how you want them. No relying on RNG, pick the best stats for the role you want them to fill in combat. Being able to max out crew combat initiative on a combat character is really nice as I don't think I've ever hired someone with a base 30 quickness and 30 wisdom, which can get even higher with the right character jobs. So yeah, you can make them the beasthouse of all beasthouses. In summation, customization control.

[Priestie]

You raise an awesome point!... Except, That you then have to split your talents between leadership and combat abilities.

The main thing is I'm torn so hard between Abilities and Skills... What would you recommend for a smuggler? I'd love to play a Hans Solo type char, you know, one that always shoots first... But its hard to roll a smuggler, have all the smuggling abilities, and still be badarse in a fight.

I guess I could hire a few smugglers onboard to handle the smuggling talents... What are your thoughts?

[219A730]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1699345862

Almost 30 quickness and 30 wisdom recruit, but it took a lot of recruit spamming from top rated ports. Stats and traits aren't as optimal and handpicked as captain creation either, but it show what is possible with random number generation. The low health is still an issue here, but it's very hard to top this recruit other than more insane randomness.

I seen someone else got better overall stats for crew combat than this but that was from a contact. Still not too bad for a spice hall recruit.

I once got fleet-footed in a different play through with similar stats. Another time a starting assassin captain lucky enough to get tense. Mostly just RNG.

[219A730]

A captain is only one person on a ship, although a very experienced individual. In my opinion, the role of ship is heavily determined by the crew composition. They're exceptions to this like crew combat. But for smuggling, you can have your smugglers handle your smuggling unless you're really picky with your dice rolls. I do the same with command & tactics with the unlockable starting FDF commander contact for military officers.

[Priestie]

Originally posted by 219A730:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1699345862

Almost 30 quickness and 30 wisdom recruit, but it took a lot of recruit spamming from top rated ports. Stats and traits aren't as optimal and handpicked as captain creation either, but it show what is possible with random number generation. The low health is still an issue here, but it's very hard to top this recruit other than more insane randomness.

I seen someone else got better overall stats for crew combat than this but that was from a contact. Still not too bad for a spice hall recruit.

I once got fleet-footed in a different play through with similar stats. Another time a starting assassin captain lucky enough to get tense. Mostly just RNG.

Thank you, it's good to have a baseline, for RNG. It stills seems like having a minmaxed combat captain still has benifits though.

[Priestie]

Originally posted by 219A730:

A captain is only one person on a ship, although a very experienced individual. In my opinion, the role of ship is heavily determined by the crew composition. They're exceptions to this like crew combat. But for smuggling, you can have your smugglers handle your smuggling unless you're really picky with your dice rolls. I do the same with command & tactics with the unlockable starting FDF commander contact for military officers.

I think I see what your saying, but if the role of the Captain is best determined by your crew composition, and you have to roll your captain first, then see what crew you roll, okay I don't see what your saying. But thats probably me. I'm RPing a pirate-ish captain atm by drinking myself blind.

What did you mean about command and tactics tough? Sorry i'm having a hard time tracking.

[219A730]

https://startraders.gamepedia.com/Skills

The main reason is command is used as standard dices for avoiding enemy attacks and changing range. Tactics for standard dices for hitting enemy (if gunnery is fully staffed) and changing range. Mostly for ship combat dices but also help a lot with patrolling ops.

Sorry for the confusion, it get better when you figure out the game on your own pace.

Some of the mechanics are obscure if you don't read the wiki, unfortunately. Even then, the wiki is not entirely correct. There still one mistake inside the wiki.

[Grigsey]

Originally posted by Priestie:

You raise an awesome point!... Except, That you then have to split your talents between leadership and combat abilities.

The main thing is I'm torn so hard between Abilities and Skills... What would you recommend for a smuggler? I'd love to play a Hans Solo type char, you know, one that always shoots first... But its hard to roll a smuggler, have all the smuggling abilities, and still be badarse in a fight.

I guess I could hire a few smugglers onboard to handle the smuggling talents... What are your thoughts?

For combat captain, I like attributes 1st, skills 2nd.
You will have enough points left over to have an pretty high amount for a 3rd stat of your choice then fill out the rest according to preference.
Skills for a combat captain: depends on the difficulty setting but in general max out evasion then pick whatever. For a smuggler base stealth might be a good choice. On higher difficulties weapon skill becomes more important to hit stuff so investing some points in that isn't a bad call either.

Smuggler start you have some options for classes to mix in: Spy + Pistoleer can work. Bounty Hunter + Sniper works, could even mix Xeno Hunter in instead of Bounty Hunter. More or less you want skill synergies in the classes you pick. Keep in mind you won't level smuggler as much as you may like. The higher difficulties (hard and up) the more important class synergy becomes so it becomes more and more likely you want 3 combat classes together instead of smuggler the higher you play on for a combat captain, as your captain dies, game over, and fighting xenos in crew combat is boo scary. By the time you get to that point, you'll know what you are doing enough to make amazing captains for whatever play style you may want. Look through the wiki and think of fun combos of classes.

Also anything Jimmythebestcop posts read and take notes, that dude knows his stuff and you can learn a lot!

[Priestie]

Thank you Gents! Well said!

[Dr. Spendlove]

Originally posted by 219A730:

https://startraders.gamepedia.com/Skills

Some of the mechanics are obscure if you don't read the wiki, unfortunately. Even then, the wiki is not entirely correct. There still one mistake inside the wiki.

Please correct the wiki when you find mistakes. I try to maintain the non-guide portions of the wiki, but I'm not all-knowing.

[Ratt]

Originally posted by Priestie:

Quick question, is there any advantage to giving your captain combat abilities? Are there times when you can use combat abilities outside of combat? Such as in coordination with a negotiation check? Are there time when your captain is forced to fight? Thank you.

Combat officer builds are the key to successful crew combat. I vigorously disagree with the advice I've seen here sometimes to make your officers all non-combat. Balanced builds with a non-combat class (like Merchant, Diplomat, etc.), a semi-combat class (like Spy, Military Officer, etc.) and a combat class (like Pistoleer, Swordsman, etc.) have worked very well for me.

My favorite build so far is a Moklemehoweverthef**kyouspellit Merchant/Spy/Pistoleer. At creation, I put skills 2nd, and plunked 10 points into evasion, and 5 points into pistols.

Put attributes first. Gave him very high quickness and wisdom, and moderate scores in all the other abilities.

Wouldn't even consider a combat captain build without 10 points in evasion, and at least reasonably high fortitude and resilience. Best that your captain never go down (and I don't recall that mine has), but if he does, you obviously need him to survive it.

I use him in almost all my crew combats. He's still alive, around 30th level, has a fully maxed out Sword Battle Cruiser, and about 4 million credits to his name. Hard difficulty level.

He has mostly leadership and money making perks. Only combat perk he has is the "distracting shot" spy perk. But he's consistently deadly in combat just because he's so accurate, and gets to fire so often.

Only character build to have survived as many combats, and dished out a similar amount of damage is his promoted Swordsman/Zealot officer with a much heavier emphasis on combat perks. She may actually be deadlier than him overall, but I've never kept a record, and she's gone down in combat a few times.