Need a good guide

[Meme Turtle]

I need some advice on how to play this game on demanding+ difficulty. However, every time I end up in a situation when I have no money, cannot go to another sector because of low rep, and trading is not profitable due to market saturation/pirates. Any tips on what I should do different?

1) First of all, I fire all boarding crew and hire specialists. I am not intending to board initially. The ship is slow and officers are better for boarding. So, if I have a ship with 3+ officers I leave doctor and engineer and replace others with a soldier(exo-scout/bounty-hunter) and blade(assassin+zealot) to use in boarding and exploration.

2) I build captain with max charisma/wisdom/resilience and go for merchant/military officer/diplomat and 2 officers with doctor/commander/quartermaster and engineer/pirate/spy. The idea is to have a core team of 3 that complement each other and allow you to take any job.
The crew covers the operation of the ship.

The game does not tell the exact values of attributes you need to pass a check, so is there any guidelines to how much intimidate/negotiate/etc.. you need?

Also, for skills like discounted repairs, which stat is checked: individual, who has this skill, or combined of the entire crew?

3) I go for 2 contacts: merchant for permits and commander for introductions/fuel and paladin cruiser.

The biggest issue is earning money. Trading in the starting system is slow and not very profitable. Doing missions after some time requires you to fly across 2-3 sectors, which(even with relevant skills) is costly and incurs rep loss. Patroling does not bring any money on its own and even damage from smugglers makes you lose money. Same for spying or blockading.

[Funfrock]

To make good money trading, you want to find sources of high value goods, like industrial or high tech with strong economy, and somewhere nearby to sell them, like population or mining. Some factions are more focused on trade than others and have better starting systems for trade. Try getting your captain to merchant level 8 for the righteous profits talent to really increase your profits on the big sales.

To make good money from missions, you want to be doing bounty missions (which require an edict) and building your edict and military ranks. You can get these missions from the ex-bounty hunter or court assassin starting contacts and sometimes from Calagan or other prince. Supporting Erik throughout the Highwind case can lead to another source of bounty missions. With enough faction ranks and talents to further increase mission reward, you can earn hundreds of thousands per mission. These missions can be dangerous though, requiring orbital operations, ship combat or crew combat.

Patrolling is more about gaining rep than money. If you can get your rep high enough, enemy ships (usually) won't try to inspect or take your cargo, which makes trading easier and more profitable.

If you're taking the merchant as a starting contact just for the trade permits, consider that you can always get them from Calagan.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

You need 4 things in STF:

1. Way to Earn Money
2. Way to Keep Positive Rep
3. Way to Get Contacts
4. Way to Get Rep with Contacts



Military Officers allow you to manipulate and control the deck in the Patrol game. Which gives positive rep. Also give you command dice needed in space combat.

Spies manipulate and control the deck when spying which gets you Intel and selling to contacts is the fastest way to increase rep and their influence. Both need to be high to get the best results out of your contacts. You can get contacts via merchant talents. Spying or exploring just to name a couple ways.

Most Prince contacts are the worst because not all of them buy Intel. Which require you to do missions to get rep/influence thats a bad thing.

If you are non combat then you want as many contacts as you can get so you can find Rare Trade Goods which you can make 100-500k+ on 1 trade depending on how much you can buy and carry in your cargo holds.

Ways you can earn money:
trading, smuggling, salvaging destroyed ships, looting cargo, running missions, and exploring for artifacts and selling.

You need dozens and dozens of contacts maybe hundreds by end game. They get you everything you need from specialized crew to gear to trade goods to removable of bad traits.

Your officers and crew are fluid. You want them to be geared to whatever your current set of goals is. You might have merchant/military officers officers or merchant/spies in the beginning of the game. You might end the game with all Exo Scout Explorer officers.

I would recommend a completely non combat build and career. Geared towards trading rare trade goods and maybe black market. You dont have to play 80 years just play till you earn like 2 million credits. It will really teach you everything you need to know about the game. Don't do any storyline missions or any mission that give you bad rep with another faction. You want to do the starter mission that don't require a jump then get to trading. And mostly not in your sector cause starting faction has a trade ban. That will get you HUGE bad rep points.

Missions and Storyline careers are typically the hardest unless you make sure to only pick missions that mesh well with your lineup. Cause missions can be anything. If you have a 42 sized crew then you can probably do everything but if its 24 not so much.

Far Fallen Rim is a great sector for trading. Low Law Independent Orbital and Mining planets. Early game Indy planets can be incredible for trading.

[Råb!d]

#1 is a very interesting way of playing. Even though my style lately is to stand-off at distance 4 or 5, with appropriate weapons. But I've never gotten rid of a combat team. It almost seems silly now to keep them.

[Meme Turtle]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I think I have finally figured out how to play the game. Dont fight. Doing contact missions(esp. story missions) gives a large amount of money. And with the right skills and flying with empty cargo you rarely pick a fight and have strong skills to disenagage if necessary. Through in occasional patrol/spy to get some reputation or intel and the game becomes suprisingly easy. All I need is to find a way to beat those xenos and farm their artifacts.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

To fight Xeno's you either need 4 officers geared up for combat roles and have either exo scout or explorer jobs ranked up for bonuses while actually exploring.

Or officers still in a combat role but with no explorer jobs and just have to recruit 4-6 explorer/exo scout crew members.

Fighting Xeno's while exploring is nothing like fighting them while boarding. A lot harder while exploring especially certain planets where they are high level. Probably need 1 primary healer and 1 backup healer too. 1 of them can also be your buffer/debuffer.

And its really about initiative, debuffing and buffing. Bounty Hunter has 1 of the best debuffs in game. I don't really like their rifle attacks that much but debuffs/buffs are really good. Exo Scout probably has some of the best buffed rifle attacks.

[Meme Turtle]

Could someone answer this question:

Also, for skills like discounted repairs, which stat is checked: individual, who has this skill, or combined of the entire crew?

For example, engineer has a talent which repairs some of the components for free at a space port. Does this account for his own repair skill or repair of the entire crew?

What happens if I have multiple people with the same talent(in which order do they trigger)? For example, I have crew with talents Efficient Route and Swift Route. Both reduce jump cost but use different formula. Which skill is used first?

[Trese Brothers]

In the case of any Talent, the skill that is checked is that of the Talent owner.

Only one Talent is applied per event.

[Meme Turtle]

Originally posted by Trese Brothers:

Only one Talent is applied per event.

If there are multiple instances of the same talent is there any order in which they are applied? Ex. the owen with the highest skill first. Or is is purely random order?

When you minmax you need to know these things :)


One more thing, sometimes mission description says destroy or capture a person. In case of destroy, do I have to destroy the ship or disabling works just as fine? In case of capture, do I have to disable the ship and not destroy it?

[Trese Brothers]

It is random order.

For ship combat missions, regardless of how you achieve victory, the mission step is a success -- capture, kill, etc. You can blow up the ship and it still counts as capturing the target (they escape shuttle, etc).