promotions?

[Luke]

Anyone know where the promotions come from?

I got one, but I'm probably 2/3 through and have very high morale and have not gotten any more. I'm wondering if I did something to cause them not to happen or if I wont get them on easy..

I've already played through the game before, and am just compulsively achievement hunting

[Luke]

nevermind, got it.

[.//slayer]

Could you explain how you got the final one under a spoiler tag? Can't figure it out.

Finished the game, but still haven't attained the rank of the Captain.

[Luke]

Originally posted by .//slayer:

Could you explain how you got the final one under a spoiler tag? Can't figure it out.

just keep playing sorry, haha. I don't remember exactly.. but I had hit a bunch of events that seemed like they should have triggered promotions but they never did. so I was getting worried a bit. Then I got one after a while, there are only two promotions that you can get -- I was expecting more which is another reason I was worried, but when the second promotion came they made it clear that was the final one

I will note that I had extremely high morale for the entire run, and made almost all of the optimal choices on planets because I had already played the entire game before. I think promotions are tied to morale, so if yours is low then you might not get it?

[.//slayer]

Thanks! Guess I'm out of luck, then. I never paid much attention to the morale - thought it was just a flavour thing. The base commander mostly mentioned how it was "pretty damn high", though. Maybe there were events that locked me out of it in the end. Either way, I appreciate your reply!

[Luke]

how far along are you? I think it happened for me after I got the Sentinels friendly and they gave me the keys to open the dyson sphere, but before I fully explored the west, visited the hermit, solved the tree-people homeworld, or actually opened and entered the sphere

[.//slayer]

That's the thing - I finished the entire game today and there was still nothing related to that final promotion. Maybe it glitched out or I missed something in my explorations :( I did all the events that you mention under spoiler, too (I guess they're all story-related).

[Flash]

Anyone able to help with this?

I've finished a second playthrough where I specifically tried to get the double promotion by solving every planet anomaly optimally (I think), at a brisk pace, with frequent visits to the homebase, picking Starcom-friendly dialogue options, befriending everyone possible, doing almost everything, with not a single crew death (except for the forced ones), and somehow I still didn't get it.

I just want to know what I'm doing wrong and if it's even working properly. Like, does killing unarmed cargo ships lower morale? Does opting to preserve crew by not exploring a dangerous planet drop it? Does the crew actually want to die in the name of adventure? Does time spent in deep space or just time in general drop it? Is there a hidden penalty for quicksaving/loading? Should I not be befriending or trading with the aliens? Is restocking Kite station's coffee reserves required? Because you can get to the end long before that's needed.

There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it and there's no indication at all other than asking the base commander which only gives you the current tier you're at.

Help me raise my morale

[.//slayer]

I wrote to Kevin about this one, and he said that not every game gives you a chance to obtain the maximum rank. I don't know how low the chance is, but I suppose you were unlucky in both your playthroughs.

[Flash]

Originally posted by .//slayer:

I wrote to Kevin about this one, and he said that not every game gives you a chance to obtain the maximum rank. I don't know how low the chance is, but I suppose you were unlucky in both your playthroughs.

Welp my morale is officially at mutiny level. Thanks for the clarification though :P

Edit: as a solution maybe Kevin could make the difficulty setting multiply the morale gain? That way you would be guaranteed to get the 2nd promotion on Ultimate+ if you make it far enough. Seems like it'd be well deserved for a hardcore captain like that, no?

[Flash]

Sorry for bringing this up again but I thought that potential achievement hunters might appreciate a bit more information on this game mechanic since there's so little to find.

I did some simple tests and it turns out there actually is a hidden penalty for saving the game within a certain timeframe (including autosaves, apparently). There's also a penalty for traversing space (either by distance or by time spent, not sure) and by taking hull/crew damage, which makes more sense. The morale gain for a "correct" anomaly choice is also fairly small in comparison with the penalties above, in some cases. I use quotation marks there because what is considered a correct choice doesn't seem to be entirely consistent; some events with positive gains will give no morale while others will give a fair amount, for example.

So how do you get the 2nd promotion without cheating? I suppose your best bet will be to:

A) Turn off autosave on warp in the options.
B) Upgrade engines/boost to quickly visit beneficial planets and progress the story.
C) Hope you pick the right anomaly options, lol. It might be worth quicksaving to savescum risky planets. 'Might' being the keyword.
D) (Not tested) if you have enough speed then try to avoid using wormholes as they progress the in-game time, and supposedly morale loss, a lot faster than flying manually.
E) Counterintuitively, do not visit your homebase more than strictly necessary for upgrades and story, due to the forced autosave.
F) Do it all with as few saves as possible.
G) Enjoy your fat promotion and retire to the nearest A3 planet forever.

I haven't tested it yet but I think we can assume that befriending the aliens and picking pro-Starcom dialogue options is a good thing for morale as well.

I like this game but this mechanic has been needlessly frustrating, in my opinion. Hope this helps anyhow.

[Jean]

A lot of this does sound pretty icky, particularly the (auto)saves thing.

[ShabDez]

https://www.gog.com/forum/starcom_nexus/stats_and_bars_achievement_how_to_get_with_savegame_editing

[Buzmarck]

Has anyone had any luck with this?

I have nearly completed a second playthrough, but have not received the second promotion. I have followed the above recommendations using minimal saves, picking the right anomaly options and have had high morale for most of the game with the Kite Station commander saying "A little too good, you're making me look bad" when I ask about morale. I have tried the savegame editing above, but still not luck. As much as I like the game I would prefer not to do a third playthrough to get this achievement.

[Versive]

Does anyone have any further ideas regarding how to obtain the second promotion? I have already completed a full play through and also tried the editing suggested on gog without success.

[JarlFrank]

Same problem for me, the save editing didn't give me a promotion either. But I got the first promotion pretty early in the game. Weird.