Master Adventurer/Xeno Slayer Unlock Guide (on Impossible)

[Ody]

Hi all,
I returned to this game (as I always do, since it's awesome!) and started working on some unlocks that I skipped before. Then I saw that less than 1% of the players has unlocked these two fairly easily obtainable challenges. It's all in the preparation setup (and a bit in grinding, true) so, without further ado: here's how I've done it!
(If you are already comfortable with kicking the curves out of Xeno, skip to the 'part 3'.)

Step 1: Know Thy Enemy

It's obviously gonna be Xeno and some random pirate/scavenger crews.
Now, some people claim it can be too hard on impossible or whatnot but it's simply incorrect. You can kill absolutely everything on the highest difficulty, including the Vatborn Monster (don't ask how long it took, though). Well built, a single Swordsman captain can destroy hordes of Xeno with 20 levels over her, until she eventually succumbs to the unlucky RNG rolls. But I digress.
Xenos have all the exact talents and jobs of your generic human villains, with one crucial difference: they are all melee. Yes, even the snipers. Defense-wise, that basically means that your top priority is obtaining enough melee soak on your armor and enough %parry on your melee soldiers. Offense-wise, make sure your melee crew members have enough to get past their high defence. You'll want to put almost all of their level-ups into melee jobs.
As for the pirates - you probably have enough experience on that already, so I won't bother you.

Step 2: Team Composition

There are many, many ways to efficiently murder those handsome beasts. Be wild and daring. Otherwise, how are you gonna find out about the B.Hun./Exo-S./Solder hitting for well over 300 damage on a piercing critical with his Tact Snubber, a solo Swordmaster or the insanely tanking Zealot/C. Medic cap? Still, here are some pointers.

Bounty Hunter's Unfaltering Ire Talent

This talent is your best friend. Against anything really. It will make any crew setup so much more durable and it is invaluable against Xeno. As a matter of fact, I think this skill is the main reason I managed to defeat the Vatborn (insane shotgun damage helped, too). Just look at it: you get a purge skill, with a huge direct att/dmg debuff... and it works against two targets... for 10 initiative points... The downside that it works only against the front two opponents is largely irrellevant. If they are already debuffed - great, just shoot them anyway... Imagine this situation: this huge, vicious-looking Xeno that managed to collect buffs for three whole rounds is finally ready to end your puny team... aaand it's useless now... and it's friend, too. That being said, it's not mandatory, and the build I've made to pass this challenge used it maybe once or twice. But I always have it in every build, just in case.

The Skipper's Role

In team sports there is always that one guy that stand's out, that fascinates us and excites us. In reality, it's not only because these dudes are so great (as they indeed are) but also because the whole team is usually built around them to emphasize their abilities. I find that this "rule" translates well in Star Traders. And what better man to be the star of the team than your jolly ol'e capt'n?! It might sound like it's an obvious choice because she's the main character, role-playing and all that - but the reason is a more pragmatic one: it's the only crew member you can fully customize. So don't fall into the trap of making her a sideliner: a support character or a primary tank. "Why? There are many cool guides out there that suggest creating a healer captain for these kinds of unlocks", you might ask. It's simple: while they are fun - they won't work as well. At least not on the impossible against the Xeno, I can't say what's on the lower difficulties since I played that way maybe once or twice when I started the game. Correct me in the comments below, please, since I haven't been playing for a while and I'm not aware if there were any changes on this front. Also, the starting officers have a pretty good, standardized set of skills which can help you plan in the long run, unlike several years ago when support chars were an issue.

Less Talkie, More Showing Us the D*rn Buildie!

Alright, alright: I get it! I know I can drift off the topic easily, I'm aware of it... Here it is.

The point of this build is not destroying the aliens in the fastest way possible but the longevity or how the wisemen call it: "do not have to fly off to heal after every fricken battle". For that I recommend two melee combatants, one of them your captain, Medic in the third row and a rifleman with the Unfaltering Ire ready. Or you can switch the last two depending on the health.
The captain and the other frontline officer should be at least Swordsman lvl 5 in order to obtain the Strength of Steel buff, since it raises your parry, debuff resist, morale and heals you. It's the skill I open with against the beasts, even if with full bars. Sword-wise I prefer the Vigeur Dripblade, a lvl 6 blade that you get from the contacts, because of it's high parry stat. Medic should rush learning Battle Medic to get all the good stuff, especially the "Hook" at lvl 8 and I'd add maybe a level of Military Comm. afterwards to get the Tactical Edge and the Stiff Salute. The rifleman might have at least one level in Xeno Hunter, because of the Irid-Laced Resolve, a really neat crew-wide initiative buff that feels good in all the right places. Or possibly pick it up on someone else? As for the weapon of choice - I leave that to you since they are all good. Maybe use SMGs if you are going to get those lovely 2xInit attacks and still want to shoot a buff or something like that once in a while. Why not experiment and see what fits? Weapon locker lvl 5 will do for her if you can't lay your hands on anything better.
Armours are rather straightforward: get what gives you the best melee soak and on everyone. I think it's the 'Meshplate Weave'. It is tempting to put pieces that give '+Initiative' on the 4th member but Xeno have the ways of pulling her out of the safety zone and giving her a gruesome treatment. Let's not mention my blunders again, shall we...
As for the attributes, high initiative is preferable but high health is mandatory. It means taking a guy with somewhat more HP instead of a guy with significantly more init. I make it sound way more dramatic than it is but the general gist of it is that the crewmen with less than 125HP might die. Above that it's fair game for any character.

Step 3: The Actual Doing It a.k.a. The Strategy

Alright, finally done with all that boring talk - time to do... some more boring talk. It's like that with me sometimes...

All of the above is fair and square when it comes to bullying the Xeno - as a matter of fact: simple pirates might actually pose more of a threat (are aliens nerfed?) - and it WILL get you the 'Xeno Slayer' unlock but at what cost: your precious time. Time that could be spent contemplating life, on your loving friends and family, or simply starting a cool new STF run, instead of [/b]grinding the d*ng aliens! [/b] Sorry, I just finished the run this morning... it could get a little tedious. And what about those alien artifacts for the other achievement? That would be insanely hard to do, almost impossible. Luckily, the Trese Brothers gave us the messiah: the Xeno Hunter. Actually, lots and lots of them, as you'll be needing at least 5-6 sailors trained in this class (assuming you also have only one or two officers with this job). You need to have their talents called 'Blooded Lure' and 'Macabre Harvest'. "But dude: how do I get them?" At this point I have to answer with another question: "Do you have the 'Expert Xeno Hunter' achievement unlocked and with it the 'Retired Xeno Hunter' contact? If it's:

a) "I do not."

Do it first. Assemble your crew, pick up a ship with 4 officer spots available from the get go, fire whoever is bad, promote who's good, restart if needed, level them up a bit, get some def on the frontliners and heals on the medic (lvls 3-7 should be enough), don't bother with fancy contacts' weapons, upgrade your weapon locker and most importantly: get every single one of your officers a level in Xeno Hunter and learn the 'Blooded Lure' talent. Now fly to the nearest wild zone, absolutely doesn't matter what type of a planet it is and start grinding. What you want to do is to use Blooded Lure on every possible turn, as it will give you a 1/5 chance do draw a Xeno card. None of that stuff about planet richness and danger will have much impact, just do it and then quit.

b) "As a matter of fact: I do."

Awesome. Now we can get to the good part. Or more grinding - depends on how you look at it.
Let's start by building a captain for the previously mentioned party configuration. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for the fun and actually hate making those "do only this or that" guides - but this is dedicated to the guys who simply just want to get it over with.

- Attributes: Str, Qui, Wis: 30, Fort: 18
- Skills: Blades: 10, Whatever: 5
- Contacts: one that gives you weapons, one the gives you military gear, Ret. Xeno Hunter (also gives you armor), Prince
- Job: Any, suggested Explorer because she travels faster and saves fuel, also very compatible with explor. missions
- Ship: Juror Class

At this point look at the officers and combatants and decide whether to continue or to restart. HP 125+ is your primary goal, high initiative and good traits second. I advise building officers for the mission runs, later retraining them when you get the gear. Sack every single one of them with low HP (or do it later, when they cease to be useful) and also sack two gunners. Priorities are save and landing talents, maybe also rumours. When some of your navigators hit the second talent (jump fuel reducer and tactics save) - fire the remaining gunners. You need at least 4 empty beds before you begin the phase 2. During the phase 1, just concentrate on doing missions and procuring gear. Level 6 armors and weapons are quite good, everything else is a bonus. If you can't obtain a particular lvl 6 or 7 weapon - don't fret, just upgrade the weapon locker. It will do. Do try to get level 6 swords (Vigeur Dripblade), though. When you obtain all the possible gear and have some 20+k on hand, begin the phase 2. Now you need to fly over to your old Hunter buddy and pick up some fresh Hunter buddies. I think around 6 would be the ideal number, since I think 6 Bloodied Lures will get you in a perpetual grinding mode of adding one Xeno card to the pool per exploration turn. At level 6 they gain Macabre Harvest and every single use of that skill counts as one xeno artifact discovery. It has somewhat long cooldown (9w, I think) but you can just spam all of it on a single group of defeated aliens: kill, spam, refresh, repeat. And don't stop grinding for the Xeno Slayer. You should get it relatively fast, I did it all before 214.34 (2391 turns).

A final word of advice: your ship is your Achilles' tendon. Avoid making the other factions too angry so they'll attack you on the spot and also don't undertake spy/patrol/blockade missions if you don't have some save talents ready or at least good chances of escape from ship combat. I've lost 2-3 runs before the final one simply because of this.

Well: if you survived through my writings, you can now survive the Xeno. It was all a part of the mental conditioning for the task at hand, definitely not me typing for an hour what could have been said in mere 10 sentences.

Hope I was of help to someone. Don't fly safely, kick some space donkey and see you around!

[Trese Brothers]

This is great and I hope you post it as a Steam guide!

[Ody]

Thanks! I didn't realise guides and posts are completely different thing here. My mind still lives in the stone ages...

[Trese Brothers]

It just promotes the contnet out of the regular discussion board to a smaller list of focused Guides.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/335620/guides/

Click New Guide, name it and copy and paste this content in :D Good to go, guaranteed more players will find it, read it, reference it.

[Ody]

Thanks, I posted it. :)
You guys are really helpful and nice!

Funny how I posted the guide and I'm the one who got help and learned something new... :D

[Trese Brothers]

Originally posted by Ody:

Thanks, I posted it. :)
You guys are really helpful and nice!

Funny how I posted the guide and I'm the one who got help and learned something new... :D

Well, thank you for writing the content. It's invaluable to new players and Guides are a big help to us, the creators, as it helps more players get deeper into the game and find answers to common challenges.

As the Achievements system was added 8 months after the game was released, we'll forever have low achievement %'s but that's on us :D Thanks for helping with that!!

[Ody]

You're welcome. :)