Amateur Cosmoteer Here- Tips about ship/weapon composition, resource management, ect?

[Hobocop]

I like this game, but im very bad at it lol

[icuurd12b42]

Have enough cargo to repair moderate damage.

Tag you cargo hold cell with the stuff you ship needs, like steal plates, coil and such
The ratios are
StealPlate:Coils:Hypercoils:TriStealPlates:EnrUraniun:Processors
6:4:2:2:1
That ratio is in cargo cell space, not itemised, as a cell od steal is 20 and a cargo cell's worth of processors is 5.

For each 6 steal plate cell you need 4 Copper Coil cells, and so on. the amount depends on the size if the ship.

Selling stuff you horde/mine to stations is pointless. Personally I tag all my cargo cells so I only mine to replenish my repair and ammo needs

In the trade screen, the middle option is a Cargo Cell's worth which simplified the buying to to ensure all your cargo cell are full. You can also set the limits using the hamburger menu in the resource manager.

It's better to have a bullet factory and sulphur storage than have cargo for bullets
But It's better to have cargo rooms for missile unless you ship is huge

As for weapons the game introduces enemies gradually so it basically teaches you what to do.

However, good to know:
Disruptor guns for small shield, let the guns decide what to shoot on the enemy, group them seperatly
EMP missiles for large ones
Nukes for enemies you cant seem to penetrate the hulls.
Install your missile launches facing forward in career mode builds.
Use the F grouping for ships and the number groupings for weapons. they can be part in multiple groups, useful for guns you want to specify targets rooms for with ctrl+click.

Use the role system to limit what crew can do, for example Have firemen role to only fight fires (10) and mine/gather resource (1), have extinguishers next to their room.
Have battery suplier rooms next to reactors
Dont have occupiers do the suplying at the same priority. Have gunners ocupy at 10 and suply at 5, and reloaders supply at 10 and occupy at 5.

/edit
I almost forgot I made a dynamic spreadsheet for calculating power requirement a long time ago
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18GdqKIhhClvSvCSowcg9erB8ReViwQm7Sz_0RFGsJA8/edit#gid=2047452809

[Stellar Remnant]

Keep a separate repair and rearm ship; don't put that all on your main ship. Speed is life and you don't want unnecessary weight.

let the guns decide what to shoot on the enemy

The auto targeting is awful. Always manually target.

[icuurd12b42]

Originally posted by MiniHerc:

The auto targeting is awful. Always manually target.

That statement was explicitly for disruptors.

[EpochEclipse]

Definitely look at One-Eye's guide. It covers quite a lot. Balancing firepower, durability, and speed can be a real challenge.

The easiest way to play is to have at least two ships:

A tank that just parks a distance directly in front of the enemy and kites them backward. You can do little rotations in place to spread the damage out across the frontal armor, instead of letting the enemy drill straight through one spot. I use my giant factory ship for this. The enemy seems to prefer to chase the most expensive ship. Early game, you want at least two layers of armor and a small shield behind it. Later on, you want to keep adding layers and small shields. Never use a large shield in the front, sides only. (It can rapidly become a giant hole in your armor.)

Your second ship should be fast and maneuverable with high DPS. Its job is to get behind/flank and shoot the vulnerable parts. Early game you can directly target the cockpit or reactor. Mid-game, you probably want to start with the engines. Late game, you probably want to start by targeting the weapons systems that hurt you the most. (Hitting Disruptors first is usually a good bet.) Your flankers don't have to be beasts--I was killing level 18s with some pretty small ships. I used 3 flankers with 75-150 crew each, and I overcrew my ships by a fair amount.

I love ions with prism turrets, they're available relatively early, scale well as you combine them, and you don't have to manage expendable resources. Also, you can get a LOT of firepower out of a very small hole in your armor. Enemies like targeting prisms, so shield the crap out of them, and use armor to limit the angles they can be hit from.

Rail guns are super easy mode, but require some tedious maneuvering and targeting. I refuse to use them for anything but popping stations.

Deck Cannons are extremely powerful, but I dislike designing around their downsides (stun, high ammo usage, slow shells), so I haven't used them in career in my entire 350 hours.

You probably want to have a creative mode save where you can load up the enemy ships and take a look out how they're constructed. Most of them are suboptimal (we're supposed to win, after all), but they're definitely good enough to learn from. They almost always have some obvious weak point that the player is supposed to exploit to begin clawing their way in to the core. (Cosmoteer just is a puzzle game with spaceships and guns.)

Enemy difficulty probably increases by faction in the order Fringe < Monolith < Cabal < Fringe, although that depends on your playstyle and construction.

Strategically, only repair one ship at a time after a battle. Keep Assists with Construction turned OFF on your ships in the best condition. You want them ready to respond to an ambush. There's an emergency recall crew button. Don't be afraid to hit it very early.

[Stellar Remnant]

Originally posted by EpochEclipse:

You can do little rotations in place to spread the damage out across the frontal armor,

Why are you staying close enough to get hit consistently? Kite at 350m and you just have to worry about missiles and rails. I've gone to 10-12 systems with grand admiral difficulty and never needed to repair thanks to shields. Flanker ship always gets ignored so it only needs point defense and a couple shields.

[EpochEclipse]

Originally posted by MiniHerc:

Originally posted by EpochEclipse:

You can do little rotations in place to spread the damage out across the frontal armor,

Why are you staying close enough to get hit consistently? Kite at 350m and you just have to worry about missiles and rails. I've gone to 10-12 systems with grand admiral difficulty and never needed to repair thanks to shields. Flanker ship always gets ignored so it only needs point defense and a couple shields.

Are you saying missiles and rails don't do damage consistently? In any case it's a useful tip in the event that one gets in that situation, especially for a newbie. Anyways, I do follow this advice, because my tank is my missile barge (and factory/miner, and my one railgun).

I don't understand playing anything other than normal difficulty (again, especially for a newbie). You're operating under different physics than the enemy. It changes the entire "armor triangle" of balancing Speed/Mobility/Firepower. It also limits the number of viable weapons and tactics you can employ and encourages playing the meta. I don't feel like railfanning my way through the game. My gameplay goal is to win with inexpensive, low-crew ships on an equal footing. I like efficiency. Plus I'm lazy and don't feel like doing resource transfer because the interface sucks.

[Wilhelm]

Originally posted by MiniHerc:

Originally posted by EpochEclipse:

You can do little rotations in place to spread the damage out across the frontal armor,

Why are you staying close enough to get hit consistently? Kite at 350m and you just have to worry about missiles and rails. I've gone to 10-12 systems with grand admiral difficulty and never needed to repair thanks to shields. Flanker ship always gets ignored so it only needs point defense and a couple shields.

different playstyles and not everybody just playing the meta?

[HuMaNgUtAn]

Originally posted by MiniHerc:

Why are you staying close enough to get hit consistently?

Because running a kite ship as a main is in my opinion dull, micro intensive and constantly having to back away from the enemy comes with its own problems. My favourite play-style right now is to run with just a single close range combat ship and a miner / factory / storage ship that never gets shot at.

You don't need 2 combat ships to flank an enemy, and investing everything into 1 ship can give you overwhelming firepower and speed, enough to take out any ship in the game very quickly by strafe-flanking it and taking only minor armour damage.

For me this is the most fun way to play campaign, and also the most simple / easy way to progress. The only real challenge is learning how to build a powerful combat ship that can strafe-flank anything in the game on its own.

[⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩]

Originally posted by icuurd12b42:

steal plates

I like to steal plates. Most of my gameplan is to boom boom the other ships and then I steal all their plates. :)