"Mercury Challenge"

[lexgeo]

has anyone beaten it yet?
i am 3 levels away from doing so

[TheWhitestOfFangs]

Anyone tried it other than you?

[lexgeo]

do not know.
i just completed it.
it's not as easy as anyone would think.
must use and stay with the mecury.
hardcore, perma death and collision.
reach lvl 50
i did it with no fleet and no shields/barriers or cloaking.

[Gtat2]

i ll give it today a try :)
@ Lexgeo
what settings-perks for start?

[lexgeo]

any perks just have it set on hardcore, collision on, perma death on. and you must be in a mercury yhe whole time. having a fleet might make it way to easy, not sure about it, i have always played solo.
one perk that will make it easy is indoctrinated so, that one is up to you.
good luck

[Gtat2]

Originally posted by lexgeo:

any perks just have it set on hardcore, collision on, perma death on. and you must be in a mercury yhe whole time. having a fleet might make it way to easy, not sure about it, i have always played solo.
one perk that will make it easy is indoctrinated so, that one is up to you.
good luck

okay,
i ll give it a go.
btw, best perk would be the one that gives you 50% more exp ;)
co.pilot i ll go with Jean

[lexgeo]

yep, have and use that one

[lexgeo]

with indoctrination you only have to worry about rebels and marauders attacking you, thats what would make it a bit to easy

[Princess Twilight Sparkle]

I was doing a run or two like this simply to try and get to lvl 50 on permadeath hardcore. I kept engaging in fights when I should run. Mercury was a fun and fast ship, but the limited size for equipment and cargo turned me off pretty quick (making money is difficult, since you won't be selling much each time you go to station). Way too much time is spent repeating trips. If you want something similar. I'm having a blast doing the same thing in the Magellan 10-10 (weaponless Corvette). I'm very fast, with decent sized cargo hold to boot :). Currently lvl 36. Once I got high 20's it started to get super easy. Nothing can even think about catching up to me. I can scavenge whole sectors right quick.

[lexgeo]

the way to make cash with the mercury is to do the delivery missions, not that you need the cash for this one. with the crafting, you can max out your mercury fairly quickly, for the pink/purple it might take a bit of time to find the artifacts. also for the orange equipment you need to put skill points in the salvage tree and finding orange items takes a bit more time.
i have already completed the magellan one.

[quixotic_tinkerer]

Originally posted by TheWhitestOfFangs:

Anyone tried it other than you?

I have, but I've been busy with work and got distracted testing some other stuff. Lost track of the save.

Won't have much time to play this weekend, but here's take 2

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2816830953

All the speed boosters, then genocidal so I'll have the pmc and syndicate both out to get me. Also now on take 3 after forgetting I had collision damage on. Went through the first gate, miners start shooting and I turn to run. Whacked the gate and boom. 1 min in. :D

[quixotic_tinkerer]

When I did the last restart I had this brilliant idea to get space pilot 60 which would add an extra copilot, letting me use crew. It was about three minutes in when I realized that wasn't going to work, because you have to kill things to gain space pilot points. And getting up to 50 space pilot with attack drones was not going to be viable.

So scrapped that idea. Flipped over from Lone Wolf to White Collar instead. Going for the fleet mining operation this time. Just picked up my first ship and discovered that if you put a mobile ore refinery on a fleet ship and turn it on, the fleet ship will process ore. Which you can add from the edit fleet ships screen. This does require swapping to the ship to set it up the first time, and turn on the refinery. Then add to fleet and you're set.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2817507976
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2817507981

It's kind of cheating, but it's also not automatically winning because the fleet AI is still not the greatest. Plus it's less boring than just run run run, do free missions, run run run and ding level 50.

[Gtat2]

I m in no Luck..gave it a copple times a go...but couldnt reach LvL 50. max was 43....smacked myselfs into an asteriod to avoid been hit by flux wapon...jeeezzz...
but its stil on my todo List ^^

[quixotic_tinkerer]

Be aware that there are random mines scattered around in the new Ship Graveyard sectors. And a Mercury isn't going to survive one of those if you get an unlucky high damage version. I discovered this on my first scavenging speed run attempt when I barely drifted into one and exploded.

Had combat genius for +50 armor, white tritanium armor, green light shield generator.

One of the challenges of a mercury only run is stuffing in enough equipment to make it work, especially early game. At least with the new update you have options to build in a collector beam, and eventually craft one or two enhancements giving 25 power generation each. That goes a long way towards freeing up equipment space.

[lexgeo]

i completed this challenge before these mines were put into the game. sounds like i should give it another try

[Gtat2]

Hey guys,
i m bussi with the challenge...but i ve no Co-pilot seat O.o
my co-pilots is in my ship passenger inventory......lol
so i guess.. i ll play solo :D