This is exactly what I’ve done (at least for this play through) - and as such the best fleets in my ship are commanded by level 20 NPC characters (whom, upon leveling up, ONLY get piloted ship/combat skills). I’m in a decent ship with good range and armor so I tend to stay safe and mostly un targeted.
@Scotch_Lufkin That video was helpful! But any chance that you could do another primer on auto combat in which you have more ordinary ships … and in which you have to make some tactical choices beyond Search and Destroy? I’m curious what a more difficult battle would look like controlled at this level. Maybe from an earlier save?
All my saves are pretty far into the game, but I could do a fight with just lower end ships and some frigates and show something off, maybe. The early game was pretty rough for me, though I suspect that’s really the case for everyone, and I lost ships and had to try hard to make tactical retreats with ships and then right-clicking on said ship with a nearby ship to give it cover, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.
Actually, I could start a new game (I should anyway, there isn’t an “end game” or anything in yet - on the road map it’s the only thing not actually implemented yet, so I’m just playing because I love crushing my foes with massive fleets!) and show off some early game combat that way?
ShivaX
431
Don’t feel like you have to control your best ships either. Sometimes you can just fart around in a frigate while the AI handles the bigger ships for you. If you select a weapons group that doesn’t exist (say group 4 on a ship with only 3 weapon groups) all your weapons will be AI controlled so you just can focus on flying around the battlefield.
That’s brilliant. Thanks!
Scotten
435
It’s always interesting to hear the voice(s) of people I “know” from forums…
I need this game but my backlog is too big. Ahhhhh…
Just watched – it was exactly what I was hoping for, thanks again. (Never occurred to me not to include my own ship in combat). I’m going to give this autopilot approach a try.
It is pure 2D space porn.
Kyle700
437
Flying manual is not too hard although easier with the smaller destroyer level ships imo especially after first. I was using a hammerhead with assualt chainguns, dual autocannons, system overrides and reaper missiles and THAT is probably the best player driven ship I’ve used. The trick is getting used to hold shift to strafe around your cursor, because that’s the main way you can control exact distances.
I always fly a ship though, it’s so much fun when you get used to it and I always find I do WAY more damage with my own ship.
The paragon is definitely the strongest ship in the game, though. It’s going to be able to take on most things solo. Good thing you didn’t sell it; they are actually realatively rare and if you sold it to the black market, in a few months pirate fleets would start showing up with paragons. Makes for a good challenge but also can end up smashing your colonies if you are unprepared haha
Kyle700
438
this is honestly what I suggest, a frigate or a destroyer and help take out other frigates. Your ai can usually handle the capitals with tons of guns better than you can, but you can handle missiles and hit and run tactics better than the AI
Kyle700
439
if you haven’t already, I highly suggest getting some mods. Several of the faction mods are as good if not better in quality than the base factions and are really interesting. Diable Avionics, Neutrino, Shadowyards, and the Imperium are the ones I’m using and I feel like its added a ton of replayability and content. The Ships / Weapons pack adds a boss bounty system that allows you to get some interesting ships in increasingly hard bounties. Nexrelin is pretty neat concept, allows a lot more inter faction diplomacy and wars to happen, other factions can be raided by the ai and taken over entirely etc. I didn’t like the amount of random events but it can be changed in the ini.
I’m going to try both of your suggestions. The nice thing about the first one is that it can’t hurt to try – if I still can’t get the hang of that, I can just go back to AI control Thanks.
By the way, this can be changed in settings so that strafing is on by default, and holding shift turns it off. I find that easier.
I could probably find this by Googling, but how can I tell the cargo capability of my fleet? I got a quest to deliver 480 luxuries to another system that told me I had 688 free space, but danged if I can find that info otherwise. I expected to see it in the cargo screen or the buy/sell screen, but I don’t see it.
Press “I” to go to the Crew/Cargo screen and you’ll see a white bar in the lower left above fuel and crew. It’ll say something like “75/150”
Supplies count as cargo.
KevinC
444
Someone please explain a basic interface component in battle that is confusing me. When I start a battle, I deploy my forces. I select a ship and hit the “Transfer command” button for that ship. I’m still looking at the main map when I see the enemy fleet come in, so I want to get to controlling my ship. It has a star by it, which I’m assuming shows that it’s the ship I’m commanding directly.
If I don’t touch the controls, nothing happens like I would expect, since it’s under direct command I have the autopilot turned off. However, I don’t have any UI for the ship on my screen (where you can see the weapon groups, etc) and if I try to move with WASD or anything, it immediately pauses and takes me back to the tactical map instead of moving my ship. This happens sometimes, but not other times, so clearly it’s something I’m not setting correctly. Any help? Right now I’m just having to turn autopilot on so the ship does something.
Sounds like you were viewing the video feed of another ship. If you don’t see UI elements like command points in the upper right, you are in video feed mode and clicking pulls you back out to fleet view. From there just TAB to go back to normal view and control of your command ship.
