Janitor heads and Stinger quests

[szalmalacko]

I am level 7 now, and I still haven't completed these two quests. Do I get the loot drops only in lower level dungeons? Did I missed some patrols or something?

[Loot Hunter]

I remember that I completed Stinger quest pretty late in the game. Maybe, depending on the random, you can have Janitors on later Derelicts too. Haven't you met any at all?

[szalmalacko]

I met janitor like robots, but they did not drop any heads. But I will be patient then, not that I desperately need the money. Thanks for the answer.

[Snowhound-Dmitri]

You might not like my answer, but I think there is a non-zero chance that you will never collect enough janitor parts or stings to complete those contracts. Since these quests are not ship-specific, they are not bound to any specific enemy group, and hence depend on your luck - whether RNG gets you the corresponding enemies, which furthermore drop enough needed items.
In future, you will have a possibility to return to visited derelicts and have some enemies respawned there, which will probably ease the task of collecting those parts.

[greetingsfromvault13]

Originally posted by Snowhound-Dmitri:

You might not like my answer, but I think there is a non-zero chance that you will never collect enough janitor parts or stings to complete those contracts. Since these quests are not ship-specific, they are not bound to any specific enemy group, and hence depend on your luck - whether RNG gets you the corresponding enemies, which furthermore drop enough needed items.
In future, you will have a possibility to return to visited derelicts and have some enemies respawned there, which will probably ease the task of collecting those parts.

Unfortunately, I'm losing money returning to derelicts I've visited. DSD's economy needs work.

[Drathnar1]

Originally posted by greetingsfromvault13:

Unfortunately, I'm losing money returning to derelicts I've visited. DSD's economy needs work.

Money is tight at the very start of the game, yes, but later on with suitable items and abilities, overhead costs should be minimal.

The 2 main drains on credits are recovering energy and recovering hps.
Energy costs can be reduced very significantly via items with Energy Efficiency bonuses and research upgrades. In combat there are abilities which recover Energy such as the Tinker's Kinetic Generator. It is possible to spend 0 energy per tile by midgame. Use data consoles to recover energy used in battles before returning home.

HP costs per combat largely depend on your setup. Without going into details, there are many setups which work well, by good damage output and multiple hits, by Taunt and tanking, etc. Experiment a bit to find one that works well for you. In any case it is quite possible to only take shield damage in the majority of combats. More levels help substantially, which is why it is generally a sound idea to clear systematically and thoroughly to get more xp and items before moving on to the next derelict.

Other possibly helpful measures include having a Leader with Negotiator to improve contract rewards and selling prices and a Scrapper with Eye for Loot to improve loot hauls.

It is very possible to hit 100k in credits with still at least 3 derelicts to go and 7-8 contracts yet to be turned in.

For a game with only one difficulty setting (Hardcore is essentially just Ironman), I don't think balance is markedly skewed, but as always it is good to have difficulty settings (as already requested by quite a few players) to cater to a wider range of players, to reduce the incidence of players getting stuck and also to provide greater challenge to those who desire it.