Making a fleet?

[son-goku]

So, how exactly do I do this? I tried adding a Feisar shuttle to my fleet and it said that I need Fleet Commander 2. But without a fleet, I can't make FC points in the first place. Or does it only work with a specific ship at the beginning?

[Laious]

You can hire mercenaries to increase your Fleet Commander points, they only require payment. Also you can start with the perk that gives +2 points.
I will be adding more perks and crew skills that increase Fleet Commander points.

[son-goku]

So, in short, in order to make a fleet with my own ships, I have to hire mercenaries first to get my fleet commander points up?

I certainly hope you will rework that in future upgrades, because it a) makes no sense and b) is counterintuitive.

[Zarinthal]

I too had that moment, I was too excited for fleet and forgot how to thing haha
https://youtu.be/FSH2yDWok5U
I thought it made sense, paying mercs a much higher fee to risk going out with an unproven captain, but then after a while, you get to hire regular crew and build ships for yourself. The thing is, for complete logic, there should be such mercs hireable from the station, rather than outlaw types imo if it is a requirement to hire them to prove yourself. I know a lot will change to close logic gaps like that, it is critical with new games to worry less about the logic and more about fine tuning the systems to work together, otherwise you are creating extra steps by coming up with reasons for things to exist when they may not exist for long. So maybe there will be an automatic 1 point of fleet captain, or maybe it will be part of the new game tutorial or side mission to earn that 1 fleet commander point that gets you in the door. Of course, you can always take the starting perk, but outside of that, I am sure that closer to completion the game will no longer say "go hire a criminal to prove we can trust you with legal professionals" or maybe something in the story will justify it being this way or who knows? I like the idea of hiring mercs from stations early game, maybe their ships and equipment are loosely based on what the stations sells, but then the outlaw mercs away from stations have more variety, higher level, but demand more compensation as well because they are willing to be a bit more brutal, and then just program them to be slightly more aggro than station-hired legit mercs, more willing to fight and more likely to end up dead (instant refund of any charges of course)

[Skeptomatik]

Had some minor issue with my supporting frigate: it got stuck in an asteroid field and could not maneuver out itself.

Most anoying was that I was frequently attacked by a squadron of ace (star) enemies that were outnumbering me while i was trying to free my helpless frigate.

[Laious]

Originally posted by son-goku:

So, in short, in order to make a fleet with my own ships, I have to hire mercenaries first to get my fleet commander points up?

I certainly hope you will rework that in future upgrades, because it a) makes no sense and b) is counterintuitive.

I realize it's not ideal, that's why I said I'll be adding other ways to do it.

[Zarinthal]

I want 6 dreadnoughts!! lol I do tho, but I also want to get -1,000,000 rep with Venghi, life goals

[Laious]

hahaha who knows... maybe a certain perk combination will eventually do that in the future :)

[AguilaDeAcero]

Quick question: Can you level up (perks and so on) each individual pilot/mercenary in your fleet? And if they died: Can you revive them?
I love leveling up and taking care of fighter pilots! :D

[TzeroX [AKA]]

Another question that i would like to add to OP

Do your pilots need radar/jumpdrives on their ships?

[Zarinthal]

Originally posted by AKA TzeroX:

Another question that i would like to add to OP

Do your pilots need radar/jumpdrives on their ships?

For now, they do not need either. I just imagine the get a remote feed off the flagship radar, and fly through the rift created by the flagship warp drive to follow, but enemies don't get the live feed and also don't know the destination, so they cannot follow

[TzeroX [AKA]]

Ok cool, thanks alot.

[Wiawyr]

Flew around mining and trading for a while on my first playthrough, up to level 22 right now. I can't find any sectors with a higher level, and the hostile ones below my level are already a huge threat as I didn't pick skills for fighting. Is there no other way to get space pilot or fleet commander levels? I can't even hire most crew, only the lowest quality and below level 5, let alone making a fleet of my own.

[Zarinthal]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Flew around mining and trading for a while on my first playthrough, up to level 22 right now. I can't find any sectors with a higher level, and the hostile ones below my level are already a huge threat as I didn't pick skills for fighting. Is there no other way to get space pilot or fleet commander levels? I can't even hire most crew, only the lowest quality and below level 5, let alone making a fleet of my own.

Crew will level up, though it takes time, they can develop new traits too. A warp drive is the way out of the main system cluster, but you also need quite a few batteries, or a very large one depending on your ship. You do get diminished XP from things that are a lot lower level than you, so it's a good idea to mine and fight in lower level sectors to earn cash without pushing your level much further. I wouldn't worry too much about adding a ship until you have the equipment and crew to put in it, but then again, that's just me, it can be fun to try early too, but there's no insurance program like Elite Dangerous, so losing ships can be painful

[Wiawyr]

Originally posted by Zarinthal:

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Flew around mining and trading for a while on my first playthrough, up to level 22 right now. I can't find any sectors with a higher level, and the hostile ones below my level are already a huge threat as I didn't pick skills for fighting. Is there no other way to get space pilot or fleet commander levels? I can't even hire most crew, only the lowest quality and below level 5, let alone making a fleet of my own.

Crew will level up, though it takes time, they can develop new traits too. A warp drive is the way out of the main system cluster, but you also need quite a few batteries, or a very large one depending on your ship. You do get diminished XP from things that are a lot lower level than you, so it's a good idea to mine and fight in lower level sectors to earn cash without pushing your level much further. I wouldn't worry too much about adding a ship until you have the equipment and crew to put in it, but then again, that's just me, it can be fun to try early too, but there's no insurance program like Elite Dangerous, so losing ships can be painful

I've found three derelict class-2 ships and towed them back to stations, and I've been leveling up the crew in my own ship so I know they can be improved with time. I have ships and crew and a ton of surplus equipment I've been saving because the allure of an access-anywhere equipment stash makes saving all equipment you find useful for some undetermined time in the future. I just can't actually add the ships to my fleet, or even make a fleet, because I apparently overleveled through business and trading.

I'd like to try it, but without nuking my save and starting fresh just for this one thing, and it doesn't seem like that's an option now.

[Zarinthal]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Originally posted by Zarinthal:

Crew will level up, though it takes time, they can develop new traits too. A warp drive is the way out of the main system cluster, but you also need quite a few batteries, or a very large one depending on your ship. You do get diminished XP from things that are a lot lower level than you, so it's a good idea to mine and fight in lower level sectors to earn cash without pushing your level much further. I wouldn't worry too much about adding a ship until you have the equipment and crew to put in it, but then again, that's just me, it can be fun to try early too, but there's no insurance program like Elite Dangerous, so losing ships can be painful

I've found three derelict class-2 ships and towed them back to stations, and I've been leveling up the crew in my own ship so I know they can be improved with time. I have ships and crew and a ton of surplus equipment I've been saving because the allure of an access-anywhere equipment stash makes saving all equipment you find useful for some undetermined time in the future. I just can't actually add the ships to my fleet, or even make a fleet, because I apparently overleveled through business and trading.

I'd like to try it, but without nuking my save and starting fresh just for this one thing, and it doesn't seem like that's an option now.

it can be difficult, it is a game you can play as a single save or multi save. Even when the game was much simpler, I'm pretty sure I played for 10 hours before I started a save that ended up going anywhere. I would focus on the warp drive and main engine speed, warp around to some disconnected sector, running away from tough looking high level hostiles. If you are faster than everyone else, you get to pick your battles, raise space pilot that way. A new chain of systems can really open up the options, you never know what level they will be, but if you get too far from the starting system cluster, you will pretty much only see lvl 49 systems and above, but even at that distance, some less appealing systems will stay in the 20s or 30s sometimes. I know it feels like it should be a nice linear logical game sometimes, but it is a sandbox proc gen, and early access, so I wouldn't get too attached to any save. The dev has been really good about updates not killing saves, but not all the updates are fully retroactive, so maybe just start a new save now and see what happens? It's hard to suggest, I don't know if it would do any good, but a warp drive should allow you to find some nice near-your-level systems. The starting systems tend to be "the center of the universe" to say that if warping off in one direction turns out to not be useful, then go back to the starting system and pick a new direction. Different factions tend to cluster up, so you may just have gone into enemy territory too soon. It is definitely a learning process of a game, not just because it is early access, but because it is a less story driven, not multiplayer, sandbox RPG so figuring out all the little things is part of the experience for now. Hope that helps, I'm on discord a lot too, so is the game dev and a lot of very nice people, swing by and we'll be happy to answer any questions you have along the way as the game develops.