Merchant ship start

[Vitowns]

Went with merchant ship do i 100% avoid combat? Currently got mining up to 10 through active-mining... But was wondering if i can even turn this ship into a battle machine? Or im doomed for not having the pharris mace?

[Teacup]

you can avoid combat and earn lots of money in time by buying and selling stuff. but you need to do ground combat if you want to lvl up

[Vitowns]

Originally posted by Teacup:

you can avoid combat and earn lots of money in time by buying and selling stuff. but you need to do ground combat if you want to lvl up

Thanks so i can't fight at all on this ship?

[Teacup]

you can do space combat, but i recommend to earn money first, more money you have more money you can make by trade. its like snowball effect. then you will buy better ships etc. mining can be good at start but after you earn some money its not worth your time, buy + sell, its faster.

[msor]

You can combat in any ship. Even in Explorer staring ship(worst combat ship in a game). Just choose your targets carefully. In a starting location you can find up to two miners in a crappy ships with mining lasers as weapon. You can destroy them and level combat xp. Plus you will get parts for crafting better equipment - and this is game changing. Crafted equipment are far more important for combat than ship itself.

Always destroy ships. Even in later game, when you will be able to disable and board them - do not capture. Loot them and after that - destroy them. You can get some skills xp only during destroying ships, not during combat itself.

[Vitowns]

Originally posted by msor:

You can combat in any ship. Even in Explorer staring ship(worst combat ship in a game). Just choose your targets carefully. In a starting location you can find up to two miners in a crappy ships with mining lasers as weapon. You can destroy them and level combat xp. Plus you will get parts for crafting better equipment - and this is game changing. Crafted equipment are far more important for combat than ship itself.

Always destroy ships. Even in later game, when you will be able to disable and board them - do not capture. Loot them and after that - destroy them. You can get some skills xp only during destroying ships, not during combat itself.

Thanks a lot :)

[Miss Incarnadine]

Originally posted by msor:

Always destroy ships. Even in later game, when you will be able to disable and board them - do not capture. Loot them and after that - destroy them. You can get some skills xp only during destroying ships, not during combat itself.

Boarding ships, killing their crew, looting the equipment, repairing the engine/systems/electronics and selling to the scrapper is far more lucrative than destroying the ship. So no, don't "always" destroy ships.

[msor]

Boarding ships, killing their crew, looting the equipment, repairing the engine/systems/electronics and selling to the scrapper is far more lucrative than destroying the ship. So no, don't "always" destroy ships.

Money from selling captured ships are tiny and at this stage of a game - does not matter at all. But xp - does always. You can board, loot- but capturing and selling is just a huge waste of combat xp.

[Oakshield]

Originally posted by msor:

Boarding ships, killing their crew, looting the equipment, repairing the engine/systems/electronics and selling to the scrapper is far more lucrative than destroying the ship. So no, don't "always" destroy ships.

Money from selling captured ships are tiny and at this stage of a game - does not matter at all. But xp - does always. You can board, loot- but capturing and selling is just a huge waste of combat xp.

Just like the Miss, I have to disagree with you.

Even when you can't repair a boarded ship, you're able to get at least 150+K for a ship; although that depends at the type as well.
For a higher level ship you can earn up to 350K; which is a significant amount of money when you're still having a level 1-15 party.
Considering a fight can take 10-30 minutes and boarding will cost 30 minutes maximum; that's quite a hefty sum for an hour of "work".


If you compare it to doing ground missions, the only one getting even close to that are the Aznari ruins, as their junk items range from 1K to 20K. Meaning an inventory / stash with 100+ of these items are able to make a very large amount of money.
And the only missions wielding that amount of items are the longest ones; which you may only get when doing some safe-scumming.

But all the other ground missions are giving you 1K from chests / lockers and with some luck a few more K if you sell the items.
Which is something I advise against, as salvaging items you find when doing ground missions is a better option.
And since the faction tokens are even worthless outside the faction handing them out, I won't even discuss that "currency" here.

As for the XP:

Boarding actually wields more XP, because you have to fight the ship first (XP for each team member assigned to piloting, weapons, scanner [shields!] and targetting. Perhaps even if you have one for repair.)
If these stations are manned by a person doing ground missions, they will get XP for the fights aboard the ship you want to capture as well. So if that's your goal, selling the ship is a bonus. One which can be very useful because those funds are needed in the early game.
And considering the dropped items; you can loot some of the ship's items when boarding it. And it's likely they're the same you will get when you destroy the ship; meaning there's no loss there; but again; you gain finances when selling the ship off.

Thorin :)

[msor]

You can board ships in starting build as warrior only. Other two builds just don't have firepower for that. And if you already switched your ship - you don't need money anymore. At least not 50k-300k.
Ground missions gives plain money rewards as well. About 200k for a long one + reputation + a lot of scavenger material + tokens. Tokens needed for buying epic junk for salvaging, which are hard to get other-ways. Houses Aralion and Cilivon gives legendary ships parts for their tokens - very good boost before having ability to craft your own and nice salvaging materials later. And just by doing that and main campaign(a lot of Azanary ruins, 4M from Coven, e.t.c.) - you will have enough money to switch ship without actual money farming.

Just fighting ships do not get you any XP. If you will fight, board and sell captured ship - you will get zero progression for weapon/target skills. Those two advance only when you destroy ship in a space! You will not get piloting and electronic either, but you can level up these by other ways. So if you will fight, board, loot, leave ship without capturing and then destroy it - you will get loot from a board, loot from destruction and skill progress.