Post-Mortem: The Double-Stacked Mission/Cutscene with One-Shot Engine Kill

[Gilmoy]

My 1st Impossible game ended in the blink of an eye. In retrospect, I can't think of a single thing I could do better, or improve on my ship or crew.

It's always the double-stacked ship fight that gets me. I don't have a good strategy to handle that yet.

I described my early ship-upgrading in the thread about xenos in space.

In another thread about xenos on legs, I wrote:

Originally posted by Gilmoy:

In year 13, I fought Lumotte's 1st cruiser for Brokstrom's Era I quest, and it beat me (but I escaped).

(In year 18, I'm on my way to take a 2nd shot at it.)

My Moff Contact is a Javat FDF Commander, so naturally he'd be on a Javat world with max ratings. So:
[x] hire 3-4 junior Moffs from him (I have the +rep now)
[x] upgrade Cargo Hold 1 (the sole remaining original component) to Hull Plating 5 (Javat)
[x] already took out Passenger Cabin for Defense Pattern Matrix 1 (not 2, takes too long)

With that, I think I can beat that Hunna ship. I actually outgun it at range 5, but I have to hit it to win the damage race, and so that's part of the challenge.

I did that, and it worked. And then ... this thread happened.

[Gilmoy]

============
0. Preliminaries
============

Impossible, my 1st game. Previously, I played on Hard for the unlocks, then moved up to Brutal for 1 game (and finished Xeno Slayer), then moved up to this game. Ironically, this game was the furthest I've ever played: 18.6 years, into Era II.

[_] Outside of the game, I don't manually save/restore my saved game to circumvent permadeath. Maybe that's my largest error.

I started with a 12-job crew-combat build, with Captain snubber in #2. I may or may not repeat this idea. It's not the issue; I ended 27-0 vs. xeno crews up to L40s with this build. But I actually do want to see what an Assassin Captain crit build looks like, so I might try that next.

I slowly built up to ship combat, in a maxed-out Paladin Cruiser. "Maxed out" means it soaks 60%/55% with Hull Plating 5 :) At the end, I had 3 Commander 4 Military Officer on board from Contacts, but newly hired at low levels (L4 to L5, I didn't have the p.rep for more).

The game-ending fight was their 1st real action, so the newest ones were only 16 weeks old. If they had lived even 1 full year ...

In this game, I pursued too many paths, and some of them expired. OK, they all expired. I actually missed on every goal I pursued.

In Era I:
[0] (Year 09.6) Went for Master Adventurer, 28+2 at the buzzer
[0] (Year 10.5) Went for Aerlus Char, but the Faen Duel of Assassins ended as I was en route
[0] (Year 13.0) Went for Lumotte's 1st Hunna cruiser. It beat me so hard it killed my engines before it ruptured my hull, and then it looted my cargo and left me alive
[0] (Year 15.7) ======== Era II begins ========

I didn't accomplish either of Brokstrom's tasks before Era II arrived. I tried, but I was no match in the 1st ship fight.

In Era II:
[x] (Years 14-18) Earning +p.rep for a 2nd shot at Lumotte's 1st Hunna cruiser
[x] (Year 15.7) Hired 3 Commander (L4, L4, L3)
[_] (Year 16.8) Accepted Tuemette's mission for Nikolai's Trust

This requires that I win Lumotte's 1st ship fight rematch, then downgrade Defense Pattern Matrix 1 back to Passenger Cabin for this mission, then upgrade back to DPM1 for Lumotte's 2nd ship fight. That's the shortest-path tour. OK, I'll do anything for the storyline.

[_] (Year 17.5) Bought 2nd ship (Reach Cruiser), scheduled $1M of upgrades, left it behind
I've committed to finishing this one last loop of stacked missions in my starting Paladin Cruiser. If I make it back home, I'll finish upgrading the Reach.

[_] (Year 17.6) Aetaan Char puts Huntress Urraca Aurelius on my tail. Nod, shrug.
[x] (Year 18.1) Urraca's 1st lieutenant Huntress Alisya. Skip Off the Void, escaped

Hah. So I finished one task this game, and this was it. I tried, I had a long-term plan and I was on my way to execute it.

========================
1. Lumotte's 1st Hunna Cruiser (1 of 2)
========================

I flew 1 huge loop (in the Boston/Northeast quadrant of the Default map :) in 3 years, laboriously earning the personal rep to hire those 3 Commanders + 4 Military Officers. That part of my plan worked. The payoff at the end was always to fight this Hunna cruiser again. It's still waiting for you on the same planet you met it the 1st time; just patrol again and you'll meet it again. (Except that -- it's a different Hunna ship! :o)

[x] (Year 18.4) As I land on my Commander Contact's zone, he gives me the Rabble Crusher cutscene mission. I accept and finish it in the same turn, and reach 27 p.rep with him. I spend that on Javat rank 2, edict 1, and 4 Military Officers (L5, 3x L4), leaving him with 1 p.rep -- so I milked him for the max I could get.

I dismiss an L14 Navigator, and L10 + L09 swordsmen from my bench, to make room.
I have 3 crew Engineers, 1 crew Doctor. Eventually, I'll dismiss 1-2 Engineers, but not yet, since I can't even afford any more Moffs.

[x] (Year 18.4) Upgrade Cargo Hold 1 to Hull Plating 5 (Javat)
That was the very last original component on my starting ship. Now it's 100% upgraded, every component.

I was expecting the same Hunna cruiser as in the 1st time I fight it. That was my benchmark for 5 years, which drove my entire upgrade plan.

The 1st time I fought it, I was insufficiently prepared.

======== 1st fight (Year 13.0) ========
armor/shields = leak, expected attack/defense/move die rolls:
57%/43% = .236, 35/33/32: Paladin Cruiser, L20 Bounty Hunter <== me, then
60%/53% = .189, 50/50/50: Freedom Ship, L27 Asouk <== his name is his job

From its 2350 hull, I infer that this was a 6000-mass Vengeance Class. Hovering over it showed all 5 die rolls in red.

He had exactly the same kind of components I advocate, only his weren't even top-tier:
+ (L) Armored Cargo Hold 4, Hull Plating 3
+ (M) Shielded Barracks 4, Deflector Array 4
+ (S) DPM4, Interlocking Sensor Matrix 4, Sensor Array 2
+ Goliath Missile Battery 7(M), 2x Inferno Torpedo 5(S)

But he had level advantage and dice advantage, so he never missed me, and I almost never hit him. He killed my engines about 1 turn before my hull would have ruptured, and that's how I lived. He also killed 10 crew up to L14s, most of whom I never replaced, which is how I opened up bunk space for the new military staff.

From this, I learned that being 2 components short of fully-upgraded is 2 components short. Also, I need more dice. In 5 years, I accomplished this:

[x] 3 Commander: L10, L10, L08. In 3 years, they gained +6 levels
[x] 4 Moff: L05, 3x L04 -- only 16 weeks old, +0 levels
[x] Hull Plating 5
[x] DPM1 instead of a Passenger Cabin

That's absolutely everything my ship can hold. I won't tear out my (L) Interrogation Ward for a one-off fight, because I have to plan to actually play the rest of the game. I have no spare (M) slots, and all of my (S) components are already dice, weapons, or officers.

[Gilmoy]

======== 2nd fight (Year 18.7) ========
Yes, this unfinished narrative mission just sits in your mission queue that long :) After all that prep, I fought Lumotte's "1st Hunna cruiser" again -- but it's a different ship! This one is ... much easier! (I took so long that Asouk retired, haha)

60%/55% = .178, 39/43/38: Paladin Cruiser, L23 Bounty Hunter <== me, now
51%/45% = .270, 54/44/__: Fidelis Cutter, L22 Pirate Holt <== who?

Surprise! I soak more, and I'm higher level. All that prep for Asouk, and he got away :(
My ship has 83 Command 66 Tactics, already baked into my expected die rolls. That's low, but it's all I could afford to buy.

In this newbie/tyro phase of my ship-fighting career, my over-arching concept is to win the damage race. That means my priorities are:

1. Buff accuracy% so that I always hit
2. Minimize damage received. This could be +defense% to not get hit, or +soak% to take less damage.

#1 comes before #2, because I've seen the flip side where I take small damage but deal 0 damage, and that's worse.

For this particular fight, I figure I have soak advantage, and my range-5 weapon mix is better, if I can hit. Aramechs at range 5 are non-optimal, so they don't get their own +accuracy, and the defender gets +defense%. (N.B. the enemy has the symmetric problem for his own missile battery.)

==== Pirate Holt's stuff ====
(L) Shielded Barracks 4
(M) Deflector Array 2
(S) Armored Bulkeads 3, Interlocking Sensor Matrix 4 (x2), Sensor Array 3
(S) Torpedo Dual-Laced Array 7, (M) Void-Lance Torpedo 4, Goliath Missile Battery 7

24 rad res, 20 void res, +20% damage +20% critical

==== my stuff is better ====
(L) Hull Plating 5
(M) Shielded Barracks 4, Battle Bridge
(S) Reinforced Fuel Pod, Armored Bulkheads 4, DPM1
(S) Torpedo Dual-Laced Array 7, Aramech X2 Missile Battery (x2)

62 rad res, 49 void res. That's all that will fit on a 5-officer Paladin Cruiser.
Engine small bonus +5%/+8%/+8%, at both range categories (but we stayed at range 5).

I potentially hit harder, with the two Aramechs. So my game plan is to ensure that my Aramechs hit every turn, and then I can focus on repairing while they keep doing that.

Hovering over his ship, I see 4 of 5 categories in white font (all but range change), so the game engine thinks I have "bottom line dice" advantage. I figure I'm in the ballpark where two +25% defense talents will make me unhittable. So I pivot from my usual Brace for Impact soak-gambit, and go all-in on a double-stacked defense play. Also, priority #1 matters.

Adding those 3 Commanders + 4 Moffs has caused some ship encounter text to turn white.

=============================================
Turn 1: my Vigilant Scanners vs. his Bombardment
=============================================
<= 90, 45, 41 = 176 to my hull, 28% to engine (hmm!), 59% Bulkheads, 51% an Aramech
=> 69, 69, 17 = 155 to its hull. I hit his Reinforced Officer Cabins and Cargo Hold 3

All six weapons hit. My defense rolls are close, within 10% of his optimal-range torpedos' rolls, and I lost a coin flip vs. his off-range Goliath, 56-57. My plan is working; surely one more +defense% will suffice.

His +20% damage is serious. We idly note that he hit only 3 things, and all 3 were my combat-critical components. (How unlucky is this? Just wait ...)

1 was-dying, Life Saver saved him. I have Second Shadow in reserve, a few other crew are down around 30 hp. I can heal twice, if I ever get the time.

=============================================
Turn 2: my Vigilant Scanners #2 vs. his wasted talent
=============================================
<= miss, miss miss His Goliath is a fish out of water, 50-78.
=> 29, 58, 73 = 160 to its hull (-10% from Bombardment). 10% its engine, 3 others in the 49-57% range.

===========================================
Turn 3: my Firing Orders vs. his Elusive Barrage
===========================================
<= miss, 24, miss to my hull. +54% = 100% to my damaged Aramech. Can you believe it?
=> 89, 150, 53 = 292 to its hull. I knock out its ... Cargo Hold 3, uh huh.

Now my attack is superior to its defense, 78-45 with my off-range Aramech.
And I have +35 -10 = +25% damage. Plus, its armor is down to 30% from a crippling.

He hit me only 4 times, and knocked out 1 weapon, which cut my damage in 1/2. Wait for it, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Now my Vigilant Scanners are expiring, but I have two cripplings, 1 Electrical Fire + 1 Void Contortions. I seriously ponder 3 choices:

a) Unrivaled Patch to repair my engine (ding!!!!!!!!), purge the fire -- but his Goliath hits me, and then where's my profit?
b) Brace for Impact, which solves none of my problems
c) moar +defense%, so that the Goliath keeps missing me

I opt for (c). Even with just 1 Aramech, I'm winning this damage race, as long as his damage remains near 0.

===========================================
Turn 4: my Evasive Maneuvers vs. his Sharp Steering
===========================================
<= miss, miss, miss!
=> 80, 173 = 253 to its hull = 1,140 / 2,000. I knock out ... its Cargo Hold 3. Yes, really.

===========================================
Turn 5: my Evasive Maneuvers #2 vs. his Lightning Lock
===========================================
He gets +5% = 25% critical. Is that 5% going to save him? Watch ...

=> 174, 57 = 231 to its hull = 909 / 2,000. Its engine to 37% total, knock out Barracks 4
<= 22, 43, miss = 65 to my hull = 1,235 / 1500. My engine for 55% = 83%.

========================
Lost on turn 5 by engine failure
========================
They loot my empty cargo hold, and leave me alive, again.

I hit it 13 of 13, for -1091 = 55% to its hull, 923% to its components, and 37% to its engine.
It hit me 6 of 15, for -265 = 18% to my hull, 344% to my components ... and 83% my engine.

I think my strategy worked, right? I played 3 talents to win the damage race, and I was winning it. Then I played 2 talents to not get hit, it missed me 9 of 12, and ... it one-shotted my engine.

To recap:
- it hit me 4 times, and hit my engine once + knocked out 1 weapon
- it hit me 2 times, and got 2 crippling effects (65% and 50% likely, so ~1 in 3 to get both)
- 3 of 4 damage quanta randomly chose my engine

And that's that. But wait, it gets worse!

In hindsight:
[_] I probably didn't need to stack 2 Vigilant Scanners. If I had played Evasive Maneuvers on turn 2, I wouldn't have been in talent-refresh scramble mode by turn 4. That could have bought me 1 turn to play Unrivaled Patch to repair my engine.

Of course, I didn't know that my attack rolls would be so good, and blindly hoping that they will be isn't a great alternative plan.

[_] Maybe when I'm winning a damage race, but my engine has some damage, I should use a gimmick that absolutely prevents a one-shot loss.

Crew Dog T8 Engine Lockdown:
Buffs Ship with Protection from Damage to Engine component, ...

If I read that correctly, it means for turn of casting +2, your engine is immune to all damage. (Does that mean that a hit that would normally damage your engine gets rerolled onto some other component, or that it hits your engine anyways and is absorbed like nothing? I envision this to be like Honor Guard for Engines :)

This might save you from the 1 loss in 10,000 where a losing ship one-shots your engine. (Is it sad to be even considering this gimmick in a won fight? I'm pondering it now.)

[_] If I had kept both of my Aramechs, I probably would have been rupturing its hull around turn 6.

[_] I dealt breadth-first damage to its components, knocking out almost nothing.
[_] It dealt depth-first damage to mine, pinpoint-targeting exactly the components it needed to not-lose.

On the one hand, I feel that this was simply bad luck. (Like 1 in 10,000 games bad luck.)
But from the other perspective, it has happened 1 out of 1.

Punch line: I don't even mind losing 1 ship fight. If the game continues, I have decades in which to rebound. So this one-shot, as lucky as it feels, didn't even bother me much.

[Gilmoy]

==================
2. Post-Fight Recovery
==================
I fly 8 AU and land at a 10 starport zone. Port Maintenance #1 (of 3) repairs 4 for -11% each.

Recovery time will be:

in ww.d notation:
(1.1) hull + 4 minor components (weapons, pod)
(2.3) Armored Bulkheads 4: 100%
(3.0) Interrogation Ward: 21%
(6.5) engine: 72%
(3.5) heal 17 crew (lowest is 18/129 hp)
(3.x) spice ~15 crew (lowest is 39/100)

So it looks like ~20 weeks total to fully recover.

With the 3 crew Engineers, I do have 3 Port Maintenance. I do my usual temp-pilot-Sure Landfall-orbit-land routine just to trigger them. In dire need (when I have more $$ than weeks left in a deadline), I buy out their cooldowns once. It's worked so far.

I opt for the (1.1) weeks quick repair, and take off once. And --

======================
3. cutscene: Huntress Kaem (Urraca's 2nd)
======================

A big one is coming in!

She is scripted to not give the option for Skip Off the Void. (Pirate Holt was so surgical that my hyperwarp is completely undamaged, and I have enough fuel.)

Since my engines are still damaged, I auto-surrender at start of combat.

Her cutscene script plays, and she kills my captain.

If I were fully repaired, I could have tried to escape, just as if she were a Terrox Heavy Cruiser.

========
4. Exeunt
========

And that's the game. Literally in the blink of an eye, from a won ship fight --

- to a one-shot engine kill

- to a scripted cutscene death.

It was exactly 2 weeks since the ship fight, so none of my talents have cooled down. (Not that I needed those 5 talents again, but still.)

I still hadn't healed, spiced, or fully repaired, so any salvo during an escape try probably would have killed half my crew. (Again. Asouk did that the first time I fought him)

So this was worse than the everyday double-stacked ship fight. It was a double-stacked mission/cutscene, and the mission fight one-shotted my engine to set up the cutscene!

Is this sequence of events rare? Based on my data, it has happened 1 out of 1

Lessons:
[x] Build to soak damage. That worked.
[x] Build to win the damage race. Obviously, not getting hit wins that race, but while you're getting to that stage, focus on winning the race.

[_] When you're the target in a ship-combat narrative chapter, don't take off. Sit on a planet until you're fully ready to fly. Just pay the time cost, whatever it takes.

And most of all:
[_] Don't get one-shotted.

Alas, there's maybe nothing you can build to prevent that. If you stack two +defense% talents and you still get one-shotted, just tip your cap to a Simply Superior Opponent.

=========
Tombstone
=========
Bedaexus Taette, L23 Captain, 9 Bounty Hunter/10 Soldier/8 Exo-Scout.
She was #2 with a snubber, and it worked 27 times vs. xeno.
In space, she had 4 wins, 50 surrenders, and these 3 losses: Asouk, Holt, and Kaem (auto).

For the Era storylines, she failed every narrative objective she pursued.
I'm still 0-fer in Faen and Estelle everything.

The ship, and the rest of the crew, are fine. Huntress Kaem even offered to hire some of them, but she had no room on her ship, and her tow cable is broken.

[Trese Brothers]

Thanks for posting this full post-mortem.

I do very much agree with this statement:

"When you're the target in a ship-combat narrative chapter, don't take off. Sit on a planet until you're fully ready to fly. Just pay the time cost, whatever it takes."

But believe it should be restated:

"When a legendary Bounty Hunter is hot on your trail and you've been warned that they will come at you in ship combat, do not take off. Sit on a planet until you are ready to fly. Just pay the time cost, whatever it takes as any trip to the void is a chance to meet that Bounty Hunter face to face."

Engines are very touchy, and especially if they are damaged its worth using a specific Engine Repair or Engine Protection Talent.

The entire post mortem is good food for thought on how we can provide more options to captains to build out to prevent or mitigate this!

[WiRa]

Love to read it, one advice i could give is, if u want faster money u should go alta messa as starting faction, after estelle leave to fallen rim, faen usually offer a mission to go to minerva helix and if ur lucky he give two or three of them. With distant commision talent u can get 500k gold that way.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Your medium components should house all of your officer quarters. It isn't worth it to put a weapon there or anything else on the paladin.

Then in your smalls you can have 3 weapons, 6 defense matrix 3 or 4, and a mass reducer.

Large slots you can do whatever you like. I wouldn't waste small or medium slots on armor/shields only. It's better to evade in ship combat. Get all of your soak indirectly from components that have a different primary function.

If I read your battle correctly it looked like your engine was hit in turn 1 and turn 5. Being a 2 shot kill not a 1 shot engine death.

You could use the reach cruiser money on the paladin and just go to 2nd ship later. Or just pay the time penalty and fly the reach sooner.

Sometimes trying to do everything and avoiding time passing gets you killed.

[Gilmoy]

Strictly speaking, it was a three-shot kill, and probably more like a four pieces of damage kill:

1. (turn 1) Goliath
2. (turn 5) Dual-Laced, which gave
3. (turn 5) Electrical Fire
4. (turn 5) Void-Lance, which gave
5. (turn 5) Aftershocks -- but 1 of these last 4 hit the Interrogation Ward instead

So 4 of 5 total, and 3 of 4 on the last turn, all hit my engine. At the coarser grain size of a single salvo, it was the last salvo.

In my experience, having used 2x Torpedo Dual Laced myself for several playthroughs, I've never seen 2 lightweight torpedo hits all dogpile one component for 55% in one shot. They don't do that when I'm firing them. Maybe it was its +25% critical, plus colossal luck.

========

Here's my entire ship. I started as a Bounty Hunter with Relentless trait, which pays off every time I do an Edict mission step, so I need prisoners more than passengers.

For 16 years, I had no ship-combat staff, so I had to accept getting hit and soak the damage instead.

Paladin Cruiser:

(L) M5000 Void Engine: Longhaul
(L) Armored Cargo Hold 4 (Thulun)
(L) Hull Plating 5 (Javat)
(L) Interrogation Ward (Steel Song)

(M) Battle Bridge (Alta Mesa)
(M) Combat Hyperwarp Drive
(M) Shielded Barracks 4
(M) Combat Medical Clinic x2 = 12 Medical, 2 officers

I considered the design with 2x Shielded Officer Suites for all 4 officers, but that has 0 Medical, which makes a difference. With 12 Medical, I can land on about 1/3 of zones for Generous in Service, and my Treat Wounded heals 36 people = all 30+5 people on board.

(S) Reinforced Fuel Pod (Alta Mesa)
(S) Reinforced Officer Cabin x2
(S) Aramech X2 Missile Battery x2
(S) Torpedo Dual-Laced Array
(S) Armored Bulkheads 4 (I would have upgraded to 5 at Zenrin, but this fight first)
(S) Nav Assist Module 4
(S) Pilot Assist Module 4
(S) Defense Pattern Matrix 1 <= this is my Passenger Cabin when I'm between ship fights

That's all that fits. It's optimized to sit at range 5 and spend -8 RP to fire all 3 guns. So it needs 3 guns, +2 officers because I've committed this build to the Medical Clinics. The other 5 modules are dice.

The Reinforced Fuel Pod is simultaneously soak, res, and fuel, and all of it is useful/critical. Its fuel capacity enables the wacky Hull Plating 5 gambit.

26 armor = 60% soak
42 shields = 55% soak (a Paladin can't get to 60%; a Reach Cruiser can, with +1M slot)
62 radiation resist
49 void resist

I spent a total of $2.03M on the Paladin, at an average upgrade discount of -22%. It was done; this is its final form, which I fully doodled out on a worksheet around Year 2. It took me 16 years to build it, exactly the way I envisioned it.

========

65 jump cost, 137 fuel capacity. This is actually seriously dangerous (for a ship crew that can't fight xeno). My safe jump-skip radius, which is (fuel capacity - 2x jump cost), is only 7 AU. This matters whenever you:

- fly to a jump
- jump and fail the Navigation skill check, so you pay full jump cost
- fly
- get jumped by a xeno or cutscene (you need full jump cost for Skip Off the Void)

Your safe jump-skip radius is as given above, (capacity - 2x jump cost), in the worst-case that you must pay full jump cost twice. This Paladin is basically screwed: on every failed jump, it cannot flee to safety with full Skip protection. So it was vulnerable to getting bounced by a xeno after every failed jump. That makes Radiation Storm and Xeno Fleet rumors especially dangerous, since they elevate warp gate danger above your Nav dice pools, and you shrug and expect to fail the Nav check.

On a tranquil safe jump, my navigator's Efficient Route saves -17 fuel per jump, and then I have 24 AU safe radius, which is just about enough to fly to the gate on one side, and fly to the nearest planet on the other side. (Then I fear Xeno Spores rumor, which could let a xeno ship bounce me during landing :)

My short-term solution to that was to die before it ever mattered I bought the Hull Plating 5 in the same system as my mission fight, so this was a non-issue before then, and I died before I jumped again.

But I still haven't solved it. So this build isn't truly viable; it would inevitably die on a jump-fail-xeno forced fight. OTOH, that's a very good reason to retire the Paladin and move into the Reach.

Now that I think about it:
[_] In the Paladin, one brutal solution would be to replace a module just for another (S) fuel pod. Then it would probably be (gasp!) the Torpedo Dual-Laced Array 7, because that's only 1 week. You could even sidegrade Torpedo 7 => fuel pod, jump, pod => Torpedo 7, and fight again in the next quadrant.

[0] I can't sidegrade the DPM1 because it must become a Passenger Cabin, for Tuemette's mission.

[x] The Reach Cruiser doesn't have this problem because it has greater built-in fuel capacity. It also has more built-in armor/shield points:

40 fuel, 08 armor, 7 shields: naked Paladin Cruiser
75 fuel, 12 armor, 8 shields: naked Reach Cruiser

That +35 fuel capacity makes a huge difference: its safe jump-skip radius leaps from 7 AU (too short) to 42+ AU (comfortably long). So it could fly to almost any gate on the map, jump, and fly to the nearest planet, and still have full Skip coverage all the way there.

All of this presumes the Longhaul drive, with its 1 fuel per AU cost. It also presumes that you're running from hard ship fights. If you're at the point where you hunt xeno ships for fun and profit, then I guess you don't need to be safe, and you want them to jump you.

The Reach Cruiser's +4 armor, +1 shields is very useful: it can get to 25 armor (28, actually) without even needing Armored Bulkheads. That frees up 1 small slot, which lowers jump costs.

========

Anyways, this build was my long-running experiment in building to soak, and I got about as close to 60%/60% as I could. (My Reach design is similar, at 23 armor = 57%, 53 shields = 60%.) I figured I'll get +defense dice from my crew anyways, but I was always so many years away from getting there that I had to take hits and soak damage instead. It worked in 4 ship fights, and failed in this 1. (I don't count the fight vs. Asouk, as he would have out-diced me regardless.)

The Paladin design with 6 DPM4 is probably a better fighter overall, with +18 electronics more than my Paladin = 51 total, +27% more defense. OTOH, it can't run passenger missions for Tuemette, either, and I am trying to play the storylines. A pure ship-fighter doesn't meet my game goals, so it's not yet within my interest.

I'll try again with a similar ship build, at least until I finish the Faen and Brokstrom storylines once. Ob. joke: I have to do that anyways, just to unlock the Moff starting Contact and Assassin starting profession I start my Captain as Bounty Hunter because I can't start her as Assassin.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

You use large slots for passengers. Honestly medical is a nice thing to have but not needed it's holding you back in combat.

I would also focus on range 5 or range 4 not both. Probably range 4. As range 5 torpedos are accurate.

At range 4 you should have the advantage. Pilot and nav module dump then for dm4. They aren't as good for straight defense.

Get a fuel cargo hold. Dump the armor hold and dump the hull plating. Then go large fuel pod and your passenger slot in large. Solves your girl problems.

If you absolutely need to carry both passenger and prisoner for a mission. I rather dump a 3rd weapon temporarily.

Soaking and damage output doesn't matter as much when you are never getting hit.

Your paladin build looks to be trying to do everything and that's why it's getting hit. You don't get hit. You don't need to heal. So med bays are irrelevant. Armor and shield components irrelevant cause you are not getting hit.


At range 4 your goal is to get the stunned crew crippling effect. It kills their accuracy. So you don't get hit even more.

Take the missiles with the highest cripple. Damage is irrelevant. Once their accuracy is debuffed you got them. Plus secondary explosion cripple debuffs their armor. Getting you more damage.

Then you can start applying damage and crit buffs to yourself.

Honestly the only reason you need armor or soak is on non carrier ships <5000m when you are fighting xeno carriers. Cause you have to take their small craft damage until their ship is wrecked.

Every other situation you should be building to not get hit at all on impossible.

[Gilmoy]

Ultimately, my 1st Impossible game was a success. I went into it expecting to get slaughtered just flying around with Estelle And instead, it was manageable, and quite pleasant. It's ironic that this was my longest single run ever. (Well, not so surprising: it's one of the few games I've played without a 10-year achievement clock, so maybe the 1st game I've ever played where I knew from turn 1 that it would be open-ended.)

+ In-flight skill tests are not much different than Hard or Brutal. With my meticulous quantitative logging, I can see their dice, I see them increase slowly (every ~6 months or so, they get +1 standard die), I see how rumors elevate (or depress) them, and I see how my ship and crew's skill pools compare to them. I'm always ahead of that curve, for two decades. This, by itself, was already a great relief to confirm.

+ Crew combat is the same as ever. Patiently build the combat crew, and even L40 xenos on Impossible aren't mythically strong.

+ Ship combat is attainable. With no alternative, I built to soak, and that approach works. (The AI does this, too, but you can out-build it and win that race.) I could repeat this and unlock the FDF Commander starting contact, then (finally) play the ship-combat bootstrap game.

+ I think Lumotte's 1st cruiser got insanely lucky, like 1 in 10,000 games lucky. I'll take another shot at it with exactly the same ship, and see if it can repeat that shot.

And finally, now that I've seen Impossible, I think my greatest flaws were these:

1.[_] I was too ambitious I knowingly chased many ventures, and missed on almost all of the major ones. (Well, my long-term plan was always Lumotte's quest, and I took two shots at it, so the 8-year plan of building up to that fight succeeded.)

But at the same time:

2.[_] I was too cautious. I played much of this game in constant fear that Something Impossible Will Just Happen. And -- it really didn't. In the next game, I could beeline to some intermediate goals without delay.

2.a) Master Adventurer should be grind-able, even on Impossible. I did harvest 19 of 30 in 7 months, and I can reliably get to that stage by year 7 or sooner. Just build to win xeno crew fights, and then you don't care how many, what level, any time, anywhere, I'll create them from thin air if they hide from me. Every 13 weeks, land at nearest, trigger multiple Macabre, and you don't even need to buy out the cooldowns.

2.b) I could probably win more early ship fights (by soaking damage), and conscript more crew.

2.c) Commit more talent points. Several of my ship crew had 1 talent point each not spent, holding them "just in case" (esp. just in case we stumble into an Abandoned Orbital for impromptu salvage). I should commit some of those talents early into Alert Scanner, Talk in the Hall, and similar, just to massively data-mine rumors and info. That would be more benefit than sitting on those points for 10+ years. If I later need to retrain, then I basically pay $10k for several years' worth of rumors, which is a good deal. (Actually, that's probably a bargain.)

2.d) Spy more often. I almost never did, only 13 runs for missions.
2.e) Blockade more. I had 0, in 18 years. I never blockade. (Well, I don't really have the ship build for blockading, so maybe I got this right.)

I correctly didn't take any talents in blockading, but I did keep 2-3 talents unspent just because I might need blockade removals for a mission. Next game, I could just put those points into play early, earn more $$, and retrain into blockade removals when I need them.

2.f) [_] I bet a 12-job combat crew could beat the Vatborn :) Maybe my biggest early strategic goal was to accept Erik Faen's branch to kill Aerlus Char in ship combat, in a non-ship-combat build. The Faen Duel begins around year 7, and that's just about when I first get my full captain + 3 officer combat crew, so the timing seems right.

================

My single greatest regret was that, in crunch time in the very last fight, I was caught halfway between two paradigms, and didn't fully use either one.

- I spent the entire game building to soak damage, and then I abandoned that idea in turn 4 of the ship fight. I could have played Brace for Impact for thematic consistency, shrank my internal damage window to nearly nil (75%/75% = .06 leak), and leveraged my freaking 3 Engineers who are on the ship for exactly this reason to just out-repair any damage.

- I spent my turn 1, 2, 4, and 5 talents on +defense% to not get hit. On the one hand, they worked. On the other hand, the rest of my ship wasn't quite ready to make that pay off, and so I "needed" 4 of 5 talents just to tread water.

I could have gone in a completely different path. Plan B could look like:
turn 1: Brace for Impact, let him hit me for 5 turns.
I take 1/3 the damage as my unbuffed .18 leak, so 5 full turns of 1/3 hits => 1.67 turns of normal hits. That's exactly what he did do anyways. So right away, this strategy isn't worse. (Isn't hindsight wonderful :)

turn 2: Firing Orders, I'll hit him back even harder and win that race.
Drawback: My unbuffed turn 1 attack% might have missed.

turn 3: Unrivaled Patch, clears any ship crippling effects
turn 4: Unrivaled Patch (2 of 2) or Treat Wounded
turn 5: Brace for Impact (2 of 2)
turn 6: Rushed Patches

And that almost surely would win the damage + crippling race, while nigh-completely defending against two-shot engine kills. If I (gasp) knock out a weapon, I could go for the gusto:

turn 5: Forward Thrusters, helps range-5 boarding (mu-ha-ha, I am a Bounty Hunter)
turn 6: Blood Game (1 of 2) + Ferocious Crossfire
turn 7: Blood Game (2 of 2) + [_] whoops, too conservative again!

[_] Retrain captain with Cold-blooded Threats
[_] Retrain Medic/Moff with Call for Surrender and/or Bio-Agent Bomb

Plan B looks better than Plan A already, right? In hindsight, it couldn't possibly have been worse, and that's reason enough to seriously consider it.

So I should have been thematically consistent, and rode the 16-year plan that got me this far.

[GrimSentinel]

If you want to really invest in a 5000 mass ship for combat, I'm not sure why you would pick the Paladin Cruiser. There are several other 5000 mass options that have more component slots than the Paladin.

I agree with Jimmy about your component selection. If you replace your Combat Medical Clinics with Shielded Officer Suites, you can free up two small slots. Medical Rating is nice to have, but nowhere near as helpful as extra defense.

I may be remembering wrong, but do you actually need a Passenger cabin for Tuemette's mission? I thought that was the one where you choose between fighting Zerod or paying off the guy who placed the bounty.

[Gilmoy]

Jimmy, in crew combat you build to soak damage, and I build to evade,
and in ship combat you build to evade, and I build to soak damage :)

Someday I'll learn what you know. Until then, this is how I learn. It has been an interesting exercise in ship construction and combat tactics, and now I deeply comprehend how it's strong, and how it's weak.

Keep in mind that I don't have FDF Commander starting Contact unlocked, so I can't start any game with Moffs. It took me 18 years to get my first 3 of them.

My Aramechs are for range 5. I know they're sub-optimal at that range, but I've tried the other build with two Torpedo Dual-Laced 7s, and it's just too wimpy to win a race.

I never seriously considered closing range to 4 (or using Flash Charge, even though I have it) because I'm still, at heart, the range-5 escape mouse who's never won a ship fight. That was part of my fear of Impossible. Now that I've actually built to win at range 5 and won a few, I might become more aggressive.

I'm coming to agree about the Combat Medical Clinics. Generous in Service was a nice boost, but not irreplaceable. In ship combats for the critical first 1-3 turns, I never had time for Treat Wounded anyways, and so the 12 Medical never lived up to its 1st job. And they're massive timesinks to repair, 20 weeks(!!) for 100%. Some players love them in big ships, but they probably have enough dice that they don't get hit anyways ;)

I agree completely about the Hull Plating 5. I never loved it in the first place, but there's no other (L) component that would have helped me in the final fight. And it causes problems of its own, described above. It was part of my thematic consistency, which I had to explore once.

The real goal of the soak build isn't to get to 60%/60%, it's to get to the game rule maximum 75%/75% with one talent. Then you don't need to be all-in on the never get hit theme, and it still works, which might make it accessible to non-ship-combat captains who don't have 12 Moffs on-board. Yes, it's probably less effective overall, but a crew-combat (or non-combat) captain with no military ship staff won't be good at the other path anyways.

[Gilmoy]

Originally posted by GrimSentinel:

If you want to really invest in a 5000 mass ship for combat, I'm not sure why you would pick the Paladin Cruiser.

Starting ship, template priority C. And I chose it because, of all starting ships with 5-officer 30-crew max capacity, it has 1 more (L) slot than the Frontier Liner, and 1 more (M) slot than the Galtak Freighter.

I invested in a Reach Cruiser, but I played 18 years in a maxed-out Paladin. (Well ... I played 2 weeks in it -- it's like a cicada)

I agree now that the Paladin isn't enough, but I knew that going in. It was only ever meant to be my 1st ship, and it did earn me enough for my 2nd ship (only about 1/2 upgraded, tho). I probably should have won this fight and finished Lumotte's quest with the Paladin, then retired it, all in one loop. This leg of travel was its swan song, either way.

I hadn't decided on the 3rd ship after the Reach. (Still haven't.) I'm honor-bound to someday explore the 9000-mass jarhead route, like everybody else :) In the opposite direction, I could drop down to a top-end 3400-mass ship like the Victus with the same 5 officers 30 crew.

Originally posted by GrimSentinel:

If you replace your Combat Medical Clinics with Shielded Officer Suites, you can free up two small slots.

Funny: I replaced 1 Shielded Officer Suite with 1 Combat Medical Clinic :) (and installed the 2nd directly over the Paladin's starting Basic Medical Bay.) So I considered that choice, and chose to go in this direction. I had to see it in action in one play-through to get the data to agree with you now.

For Tuemette, first you must earn +20 personal rep with her, yes? With 0 p.rep = 0/1 mission, I received two choices from her:

1. make 12 jumps
2. carry a passenger (and spy, but that I can do)
3. (wait 3 years for #1 and #2 to expire, reroll new ones)

None of those choices fit my schedule, but #2 was the least-worst fit. That should earn about +5 rep with her, so after that there's another 2-3 errand missions before you can even talk to Nikolai. (I dunno, this was as far as I've ever gotten.)

[GrimSentinel]

Originally posted by Gilmoy:

Originally posted by GrimSentinel:

If you want to really invest in a 5000 mass ship for combat, I'm not sure why you would pick the Paladin Cruiser.

Starting ship, template priority C.

I invested in a Reach Cruiser, but I played 18 years in a maxed-out Paladin. (Well ... I played 2 weeks in it -- it's like a cicada)

The question isn't really why you would start in one, but why you would spend so much on upgrading one. Doing a full retrofit of a starting ship seems rather like a waste of credits to me. I usually do fairly minimal upgrades on my starting ship and save up credits to get into something better as soon as I can afford it.

Originally posted by Gilmoy:

For Tuemette, first you must earn +20 personal rep with her, yes? With 0 p.rep = 0/1 mission, I received two choices from her:

1. make 12 jumps
2. carry a passenger
3. (wait 2 years for #1 and #2 to expire, reroll new ones)

4. Doesn't Tuemette buy intel? It shouldn't take too long to scrape together 20 rep worth of intel, surely.

[Gilmoy]

Ah. The overarching thematic goal of this playthrough was, indeed, to max out a Paladin Cruiser and see how it fights. I was half-way there already, just to escape from early xenos before Skip.

It works modestly well. Now that I've seen it once, I'm free to be aggressive in beelining for a better "2nd" ship sooner.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Honestly a maxed out reach over a maxed out paladin is of course better. But it's not like this crushingly huge upgrade or anything. The mass reducer gets moved to medium cause it has an extra medium and now you have 2 more free smalls on the reach over paladin. That's it.

So you can go all in and max the paladin not waste the money on the reach. If you max out a paladin you can use it as your 2nd ship and go right to end game ship. Just pay the time penalty. Seems like your trying to avoid advancing time.

Again I go 6 dm3/4 and 3 weapons and don't split over dm, pilot and nav modules. Me I go either 3 missiles or 3 railguns and a behemoth engine.

Also 3 engineers? I usually don't even have 1. Not needed when you don't get hit. Get 2 pirates instead. Better defensive talents. Gunners not needed either.

Yeah not having the military officer recruit starting contact is a huge handicap on impossible. I still don't think enough ever even spawn. Almost 0 chance at buying Intel as well. Except the story era coalition spawned ones.

Also grab zealot starting contact. They get almost the same command as military officers and great profit blockading. They just have 0 ship combat talents. But you can get tons of Intel with them and sell to contacts.

Zealots just don't get tactics. Only really helpful for range change. Again that's what twitch surge for.


Soaking ship damage is bad. Cause they still land their talent debuffs and their cripples even if they hit for 5 damage. Then you can sit their with a talent debuff and 3+ cripples even if total damage taken was <20.

I always recommend picking 1 range for <=5000m ships.

See if I wanted to go range 5 I go behemoth and 5 torpedos. Stack those cripples. But extremely hard to do on <5000m ships. Do not relevant for this build.

I would go either 3 missiles, 3 rail guns and behemoth or 2 rail guns and a plasma with max speed engine.

Flash charge is a waste. You go max speed engine. Starting at range 5 gives you a chance to buff and move into weapons range.

Only run of the mill faction ships try to flee. And they probably can't hit you anyway so you twitch surge instead of buffing. Then cripple them and proceed to close range.


Only bad thing is on impossible a red xeno will most likely crush you at range 5. Torpedo boats are great against faction ships but red xeno it's meh unless your >5000m.

And torpedos do nothing to cripple enemy offense only defense and morale. But since they do little damage you have the highest chance of getting a disable. Which is why they are popular.

Always have to specialize on impossible especially early and <=5000m. If you don't want to be a disabling ship no need for torpedos. If you want to disable then you need to go ALL IN.

Same if you want to go close range or range 4. Got to go all in. Can't be every where trying to do everything.

Usually why I suggest to new impossible players don't go for crew and ship combat from day 1. It's totally possible just hard. Cause your not specializing.


Good hunting in the void as always