Some advice for those looking for it...

[helltenant]

At this stage of the game, with over 100 hours in, here are some things I have learned and habits I have made routine.


1) Projectile or Laser?

Hands down Laser weapons rule this game. No chance of being shot down, Only cons are power reqs and having to burn down shields.

On the whole the lasers tend to be more accurate (as you might expect); I find that a 5 shot projectile weapon tends to hit less than a 5 shot laser, pound for pound, lasers are just more consistent. All 5 lasers will drop in roughly the same area whereas those 5 projectiles might rain down from nose to tail (or beyond). It is my opinion that between pt def, deflection, and sheer dispersion of rounds that overall projectiles just hit less.

Bonus: If you fully adopt lasers you have no ammo constraints and can turn all explosives into fuel at a 1:1 ratio.

Personally, I switch to lasers as fast as possible, if I see a sniper cannon 3 I MIGHT hold on to it to snipe key systems and be confident a round will get past the pt def; but aside from that they are a burden.


2) I'm out of (insert resource here)...

Logistics can be painful in this game but hey, it wasn't meant to be easy. Some tips for not losing your mind (or all your fuel).

-All explosives can be turned into fuel at a 1:1 if need be, simply put all your explosives containers into storage and it all becomes excess, then convert away

-Don't be afraid to sell mats to buy fuel you need to top off (or even better explosives) usually fuel is 2 creds but explosives are 1.... buy the explosives and convert as above!

-Farm like it's the 1800s: whenever you are out of combat (most of your time) you should switch farm modules for whatever randomness you have installed, on bigger ships you should be able to gain and maintain at least a +20 organics ratio (I'm squeezing +50 out of a pumpkin hammer right now and could easily go higher if I wasn't trying to stay so battle ready with shields up). Not only will all this food let you heal your people and make between 100-400 creds almost every time you stop to shop but some of the best projectile weapons use it as ammo instead (never pass up a plasma gatling...)

-Anticipate your resource needs: I'm a bit OCD so I refuse to bypass anything, but I've had to learn that sometimes, just sometimes, you might need to jump right on to the next star to get that fuel you need rather than run out because you got tangled up in the wrong scenario while passing through. Remember, you can always come back...


3) Choose your battles

Rather than just warping to the next star, do a little recon first. From the star map, zoom out as far as you can and pan the map toward the star you want to jump to. In this view, your sensor has a chance of showing you that a fleet is there. If your sensor is high enough stealth to detect them, you should almost never get surprised. If your sensor does pick it up, when you pan over you will see the telltale red or green circle before you ever jump in. You WILL ALWAYS jump to a point on the edge of the orbit of the star that is closest to you. Meaning, wait until the red circle traverses to the far side of the orbit before jumping so you don't get balled up immediately.

If you are worried that your stealth detection is too low and you fear an ambush after warp here are a couple options:

-You can warp even while overloaded and unable to fly conventionally. So go to max readiness to fight then warp, then if the enemy is there you are ready for them.

-If there is a Space Station, warp when it is kind of close to you but not directly next to where you will appear (because the enemy often sits at stations). When you warp in, unless you are extremely unlucky or slow, you just outrun the enemy to the station and dock, while docked you can trade/repair/load your defenses while your enemy patiently awaits your return...


4) So you started a fight did you?

3 enemy ships! Oh No! What to do?

-Evaluate the threat: If you have strong shields, let them buy you some time and target the ship with the most projectile weapons rather than energy weapons. Don't just go for the one you think is strongest or weakest, go for the one strongest AGAINST YOU!!! If you have 2+ pt def to the side the enemy came from you only need to be worried about rail cannons and 3+ shot projectile weapons. If they came up behind you, move your pt defenses to the other end of your ship, the 10 seconds of covering fire you lose will more than pay for itself when they get in place...

Common ex:

Top: Support ship with 2 reactors and 3-4 (proj) weapons not close but not super spread out
Front: Big bad ship to the front with a good mix of weapons and power spread out
Bottom: Transpo ship with 1-2 guns no pt def and one reactor

Me: 4 lasers 2-3 pt def forward at midgame..

Bottom ship, I totally ignore unless the one gun he has is a quad gat or big laser, if laser, I wait til my shields are low to target him, if gat, I am dropping him quick

Method: 1 accurate laser that creates fire if possible or one fire nuke if I don't have a good laser, when he is on fire after his crew jumps to attack, he is dead, you will never need to shoot him again... if he doesn't burn, hammer the reactor til it is destroyed then ignore him

Top ship: Usually a big threat, if he is mostly projectile weapons, if he is energy, I will largely ignore him until my shields are around 30%. Typically this guy has 2 reactors until you reach the squids and spiders then it gets ugly. This ship is my main priority at the very start. I send my other 3 lasers after his two reactors. 1 I hold fire on a sec to see if the other 2 miss. when both his reactors are hit, I leave my weakest laser on him, switching back and forth to keep his reactors down or a fast EMP laser...

At this point, you are about 20 secs into the fight and there are still 3 ships in front of you but 2 are crippled. I continue to manage the two lasers I have holding them down until they are dead or their reactors are beyond repair. If they are repairing too quick, I use the lasers to keep the scariest weapon they have down instead.

For the main ship, you should have at least 2 weapons freed up to start wearing him down, and without the suppression from his support ships your pt def can focus on boarders and his projectiles. For this reason, your best gunners should be on pt def and as good gunners become available put them on your most damaging lasers. I forget the name right now, but the green laser that has high fire chance is one of my favorites, A solid gunner makes it a 5-7sec flamethrower and if you haven't been watching closely, fire is bad mmmkay? Which brings me to my next point...

Prodigy, The FireStarter: If you haven't been focusing at least some effort on starting fires I highly suggest you start. This game lacks some obvious things that would make this even better (extra damage from blowing up an explosives container/catching fuel tanks on fire should spread like, well, wildfire...) but none the less, in the right circumstances fire can kill the enemy ship quicker than you might realize.

-With every tick it takes a little hp from the ship and any module it is touching. If you catch a ship with a small crew on fire 1 of 2 things will happen; 1) They will stop everything to go all Ladder 49 in there, or 2) They will be oblivious to the danger for the rest of their (short) lives. Either way, you win! Just keep aiming your flamethrower at distant corners of the ship until it overwhelms them. If it goes unchecked even for just about 10 secs, it can quickly overtake all the vitals of a ship, in case you hadn't noticed, they need ammo too. Destroy their containers and they will all just sit there and stare at you stupidly until you deliver them to their maker...


4) Redundancy: Be sure to install at least one more reactor than you need to power things. Man every gun if possible in case your bridge goes down and turn off everything not involved in the task at hand.

Keep extra storage containers in your storage in case there is a need to hold way more of something particular. I prefer the multi containers and prioritize anything that doesn't carry explosives except the ESM 2s, I always keep two of those with me and if I need more than 600 explosive storage that ♥♥♥♥ is fuel.... Try to avoid the individual material type containers unless you are on larger ships where more options are available. Smaller ships you need to keep a close eye on what you store because you just won't have room eventually for big individual containers and often they don't hold all that much more than their multi-type counterparts.

5) Most importantly: Think about the next step and plan accordingly

Low on fuel but are close to enough mats to get that weapon slot upgrade? Screw the upgrade, sell off those mats and get fuel instead. You can't upgrade if you are dead in the water... Look at the map and how many jumps you will need to make to get to where you can get fuel again. If you can't see a gas giant or trader in your sensor range you have bigger problems than getting that third cannon installed... You can run from a fight you are losing, but not if you are out of gas...

Take advantage of the economy, if you see a place buying metal at 2 creds each, sell all of it! 90% of stores sell metal at 1 cred. It's pure profit. When the random trader comes up, it is almost always more lucrative to sell the exotic than it is to buy the mats... They are buying it from you at the store price essentially... and they'll throw in extra stuff to boot...

Look at the warp lines often it is more fuel efficient to fly across empty space to another star than it is to warp to it especially if you can spend 100 fuel cutting across a map rather than zigzagging through 3-4 warps. You don't HAVE to follow the warp lines....

That's all for now, though wordy, I hope this helps someone a bit. There are bug exploits that can make all this even a bit easier especially combat-wise but I chose not to cover those.

[helltenant]

A comment on my own post as I just thought of it: Farming should be your go-to rather than cryosleep if nothing else because your crew will be ready faster. But, when choosing WHO will farm, pay attention because the highest garden score isn't necessarily best. The garden robot has a score of 8 and you have an insectoid with a score of 1. Pretty clear-cut who should be cooking right? The insectoid should be, because that bastard eats 10+ food.... When calculating this always add the consumption to the production as if it were a positive number. So a garden bot has an overall score of 8 and the insectoid has 11. Because that is the effect he will have on the overall unless he is in a garden or cryo. Bots will always be better at the start however you should see that eventually your other crew can surpass them, even the rats....

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Something I started doing is right before a battle I will put all Farm modules away, and replace those with combat associated modules like ones that increase Evasion, Power,Shield or more weapons if applicable.

You can remove your Non-combat Scanner, cyrogenics as well and replace when you need to go back into farm mode.

I tend to just run around with the scanner put away a lot and when my organics are maxed I don't bother putting all the farm modules back in.

[helltenant]

Yeah,I've gotten pretty good at preventing ambushes. Even if I warp into an attack when not paying attention and I don't have my combat setup in; I've found you just run away a bit and the second you clear the red bubble they turn back. Equip your stuff then go back loaded for bear. You can almost ride around with 0 weapons installed with little fear with the exception of the occasional SOS trap.

Part of me wants to try a run where I evade every fight except the specific boss fights you can't talk your way out of. Just to see how few fights I can get into and finish the game...

[Shiro]

using two modules sets is extremely useful. Not only ECMs, but also extra reactor (which is completely unnecessary out of combat) and extra 2-3 lasers to hit enemy with. Combat engine (higher fuel consumption but higher evasion bonus) is also appropriate to carry around

but, advice abt where you land after jump is useful. Now that I know it, I can jump in such a way I will end in combat, so I can switch modules to combat ones before jump and not while already jammed (since I can't move in normalspace into enemy range without having enough storages installed)

[ysl y enjoyer]

Are there any particular weapons to be on the lookout for? I mean, any particular laser? Like in FTL; flak 1, burst 2, heavy laser, halbred, all weapons that you definitely want in your setup, anything like that in this game?

[luk3us]

Absolutely lasers are king. :)

[HeathenSW]

Used to think that lasers are king as well. Now I really like those incendiary 3-barrel cannons (syntetics as ammo) and rail gatlings (metal as ammo). 2 of both just drown enemies in bullets and evasion/deflection doesn't help them at all, since there is always enough bullets to turn much of their modules off or burn half their ship >:D
Let your inner Ork out and release the dakka!

On the theme of good lasers - fire beam laser is awesome for burning enemies, DIY EMP laser is decent for, well, EMPing, DIY lasers are decent in general at the start but very fragile, heavy nephryte lasers are good, nephryte-looking-but-not EMP one is good, spiders' multibeam lasers are awesome, insectoid 3 beam laser is good, that laser that have big breen module and has "energy" in the name is also quite good.

[helltenant]

Since you can't really target your search and are at the whim of RNG, here is what I look for in a laser:

Fire and EMP, when you look at the little fire icon it should say high (80) or default (60), it took me way too long to realize that there is a tooltip explanation with the fire and personnel damage...

Multiple beams, if it doesn't have any special quality like fire or emp it better have 3-5 beams

Hull/Module damage: If it has one beam and these numbers are below 3, it better be 4 secs or less reload otherwise dump it as soon as you can upgrade

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

On the theme of good lasers - fire beam laser is awesome for burning enemies, DIY EMP laser is decent for, well, EMPing, DIY lasers are decent in general at the start but very fragile, heavy nephryte lasers are good, nephryte-looking-but-not EMP one is good, spiders' multibeam lasers are awesome, insectoid 3 beam laser is good, that laser that have big breen module and has "energy" in the name is also quite good.

Heathen is dead on here, the green one is one of my favorites it is a 10 sec base reload and high fire damage with EMP, there aren't many like it. I always grab one the second I can. However, it won't win the fight for you alone as fire is its only real damage output so don't fill your ship with them. My current loadout has 8 weapon slots and I'm still only carrying one of those but I would grab 1 more if I could. Basically keep the specialized weapons to a minimum and use them where you need them. Like the tactic I mentioned in my OP about spreading fire around.

Avoid the mining lasers UNLESS you can get a large qty of the 5/6 beams, I did that once for fun and it felt good to see like 40 beams coming out of my ship at nearly the same time... There are much better combos though.

The red intelbank 3 beam (not the one with arms) is a good placeholder til you find something better.

My favs: The insectoid/spideraa shield disruptors, they have 3-5 beams, good fire rate, eat enemy shields for breakfast, there is one that does a 3x6 shield dmg each shot in late game. I got 4 of them once... I currently have 4 of the 3x3s. The blue nephrytes that Heathen mentioned are solid mid game but have only have one beam so do deflect sometimes and waste the shot. But when they connect they do great module damage are highly accurate and sometimes also have EMP (there is a 2 barrel version that I have only seen once, like the Holy Grail). Any laser that can produce 6+ module damage with an accuracy of 18+ is a game-changer. This allows you to not just damage but completely remove reactors from the enemy ship. Once that happens you can shift all fire to other ships while they patiently wait for you to come back and kill them later... I also like, but only if I don't have a monster to put in its place, the little 4 sec 1 beam EMP laser the squids use...

A key note to all weapons, pay close attention to where you place them. If all it does for you is heavy shield damage, put it in the back since accuracy is less important. If you want it to destroy modules, it needs to be closer to the front to ensure accuracy. And for those ships to the flanks use the guns that are on that side of your ship! It seems obvious but you'd be surprised how many times I've screwed it up....

IF YOU CHOOSE PROJECTILE WEAPONS OVER LASERS: Not a problem, I've done it to, but with a noticeably lower success rate. It honestly depends on what loot and store stocks the RNG is presenting me with. The R3000s are nothing to joke about. Also the sniper cannon 3s. But, hands down, the GOAT for me is the Plasma Gatling, good speed and accuracy with an 8 shot burst. One of these days I am mounting 6 of those mofos... My farm makes +48 right now, ammo is not an issue.

But! You must monitor ammo closely, and you would be wise to make use of the hold fire button. Your gunners will reload at differing rates and you need to be delivering your shots in mass to ensure they don't get picked off. If you shoot the R3000 and it fires solo. 1-2 rounds don't get there at all and the third deflects. If it fires at the same time as a plasma gat then all 3 scream to the target....

[Rogue Ambassador]

Thank you for sharing this with the community, fellow rogues :) !

[deathmage390]

when it comes to guns i wish we had a encyclopedia in game for the basic versions of the weapons especially the DIY guns. i bulit the Orangeray emitter once and it worked well but i think one of the other ray emitters might have been better. heck even just seeing what the craft items stats are would be nice.

[helltenant]

Good point, I am often frustrated with the lack of info in the crafting tooltips.