879

When an expedition is sent against you tells your why. They are sent to disrupt your operations because of your competing market share in a resource. I’ve been getting some armada sized expeditions, and it’s costing me 400k to avert them currently.

Path interest is due to buildings in a given colony. Each building has a number of points toward interest that you can see on the intel screen where it shows pather cells.

I’m not sure what drives pirate interest.

From this it seems less the number of colonies you have, but how built up individual colonies are.

880

So is size 6 considered big? What’s the largest you’ve gotten a colony to?

881

If I’m not mistaken (not in front of game) I just recently hit six on my three main colonies, but I don’t think population is the primary factor. Productivity is. What drove the biggest raid I had so far was my market share in ship hulls. It was targeted at my orbital works. I had recently added the pristine nanoforge I acquired from the domain mothership I battled. That drove my market share up past 10%, I think it’s 14% now.

882

Yeah, a nanoforge has them attacking where I build ships, and fuel manufacturing with a Synchrotron on it has them attacking that. This piece of the game design appears to be focused on attacking you if your development is impeding their efforts at profiting from what you’re cranking out. Which actually is a rather nice game design I think.

I know at this point I’m really in the end game section of this one and there is no end game. so the question is what else should I do at this point or should I just start a new one and/or move on to something else (I never really figured out Offworld Trading Company, so there’s that waiting for me).

883

Maybe you can try for total market dominance and see if you can destroy a faction by making them totally unprofitable.

884

I made a successful raid on the orbital works at Culann and came away with an Aurora blueprint.

The Persean League became hostile to Tri-Tachyon so I took the opportunity to take a commission with them. This allowed me to finally acquire some capital ships in the form of a pair of Conquests. I moved into Hybrasil, chased away the small fleets surrounding Culann, and once they were out of range moved in to destroy the battlestation orbiting the planet. The newly acquired Conquests plus the plasma cannons of my three Apogees, supported by the various high tech and remnant fighters of my now five Drovers, was enough to defeat the station. With that obstacle out of the way I used almost all of my fuel on a tactical bombing to reduce the ground defenses. Finally the 1000 marines I brought along with me showed a 78% chance of success and I went for it. Thirteen of my finest marines made the ultimate sacrifice.

If I had planned this better I would have raced back home where I have a Valkyrie troop transport in storage that I forgot about until afterwards.

885

Well done, I’ll have to take that idea for a spin myself against whomever the hegemony currently have us at war with, haha.

Let me know what you think of the Aurora, I think they make damn fine assault-support coupled with my Onslaughts, they’re fast, maneuverable and have good CR so they stay in the fight for a good amount of time.

886

Since I’ve broken the defenders I’m now repeatedly raiding Culann. After each raid I take a few days to head to the independent or pirate worlds in the same system to sell off goods and the world is ripe for more raiding by the time I get back.

Paragon blueprint acquired! Production queued.

887

You know I like the Paragon and I’m glad I built one to test it out, but I’m not sure it’s worth the points needed to put it in battle. Be interested to hear what you think of it.

888

Unless you are adding some ships with mods, I think the Paragon is pretty clearly the best ship in the game, even considering it has a 60 point deployment cost. They are blisteringly fast for their size (3-4x as fast as the comparable Hegemony battleship, for example), 4 Large slots that can all be fired forward (firing arcs really can’t be underestimated in this game), the highest ordnance capacity in the game, a built in and free +100% range targeting computer, a 360 shield arc, good flux-shield efficiency, and excellent built in flux dissipation.

But I’m pretty firmly planted in the belief that there isn’t any point to running ships smaller than Battleship sized once you have access to/can afford them and their upkeep. The way that flux capacity works means that smaller ships are simply overwhelmed immediately by larger ships that concentrate fire.

Something like 2 Paragons/3 Astrals properly kitted should be able to defeat anything the vanilla game will throw at you.

Edited to add: You could field 10 low cost frigates instead of a Paragon, but good luck ever getting those 10 frigates into firing range of the Paragon without being volleyed down one at a time long before they enter their own relatively pitiful weapons range. Even if you could, you’d be replacing incidental losses constantly, which is just a chore you don’t need to create for yourself in this game.

889

Hey, not like I don’t like Paragons, I’m using one fairly often in battles. I’m just saying I get a lot of mileage out of 1 or 2 onslaughts (XIV)'s, plus a couple Eagles (XIV)'s or Auoras as wingmen and 1 or 2 astrals trailing behind.

Want to know what stays in a battle longer than any other ship? Yep, an Onslaught. I know from personal experience because I put an Onslaught and a Paragon in battles together all the time.

Edit: oh, and I should add the importance of how long a ship can stay in battle is important at least in my case because i’m such rubbish at battles, haha

890

Yo dude. How many deployment points is that?

891

The onslaughts are 40, the eagles 20, astrals I forget, but want to say probably around 35, have to look next time I go in on a base (been blowing up pirate bases around me for awhile now since they just pop back up).

So, typically I could send in one onslaught, one astral, and a couple eagles (or auora). Not many ships really. So if I’m facing a bunch of battleships with no dmods like you get when you take on renegades from factions, that’s a slog. I basically rotate out over the course of the battle since I’ve got 2-3 onslaughts, 2 asrtrals, like 3 eagles and a couple auroras in my fleet most of the time.

With pirate fleets or their bases, just sending one onslaught, the paragon, an astral and an eagle will take care of pretty much anything.

And I’m not even flying a ship pretty much ever, I spend most of my time in the tactical map just giving orders.

892

What I meant was that you should compare how the Paragon can synergise with the rest of the fleet as well. The superior range and shield of the Paragon can basically decimate almost anything. It’s shields can take a massive amount of punishment. You can pair it with an Eagle and Astra and see how it rips opposition apart. Changing the mount types of the Paragon to pure laser type can be devastating if you are not into piloting it yourself. I think the 20 points over Onslaught is more than justified by it’s extended range, throw in some flux and an Advanced Optics extension mod. It’s hard to beat.

893

Oh yeah, I mean on ship configuration I’m being a complete noob, I go with default configurations so far. I was saving customization for the next campaign. So you’re definitely right about optimization of kitting out the configuration, I’ve not done that.

And that’s actually part of the coolness of the game, not only can you go with different set of ships to accomplish the task at hand (and store the rest) you can also for battles use different sets. Along with of course the mods on them.

There’s a lot of depth to the ship and battle element of this one, a lot.

Reminds me of discussions in Total War, what’s the right way to configure a stack. Well, as it just so happens there’s really no right answer to that.

This game hits a total sweet spot for me, much more so than I would have ever anticipated. And reminds me strangely enough of Rimworld, which I rank in my top set of games I’ve ever played.

Edit: BTW, Astrals are 45, so 5 more than an onslaught to bring into a battle

894

Okay folks, help me get started on the campaign. Here’s where I’m at:

  • played some of the skirmishes
  • played the tutorial and salvaged / retrofitted the Wolf, Hammerhead, tanker, etc.
  • made it to the second sector and mothballed some of my ships at the abandoned station.

Now I’m trying to take delivery jobs and explore nearby systems, but I feel like something is off with my fleet composition.

  • Should I be taking both the Wolf and Hammerhead along as escorts?
  • What’s a good early fleet makeup to scare off or outrun pirates?
  • How should I go about acquiring more ships, either escorts or tankers? Is it worth trying to salvage and use ships with dmods?
  • Are the preset ship loadouts effective or should I be customizing them with scavenged components?

Thanks!

895

I’m not an expert on the others here, but these are my thoughts.

  • Should I be taking both the Wolf and Hammerhead along as escorts? Yes, particularly early on.
  • What’s a good early fleet makeup to scare off or outrun pirates? I focused on not having any ship that was slower than a burn speed of 8. Generally, regardless of the type of ship, that would be enough to escape with judicious use of emergency burns. Keep in mind, the slowest ship in your fleet determines the max speed of your entire fleet.
  • How should I go about acquiring more ships, either escorts or tankers? Is it worth trying to salvage and use ships with dmods? Generally, I have found trying to fix up salvages ships not worthwhile, particularly if they are damaged. You’re better off salvaging their components and saving up for non-damaged ships.
  • Are the preset ship loadouts effective or should I be customizing them with scavenged components? I was usually fine with pre-sets, but enjoy kitting them out myself, particularly when I started accumulating cash and some fine higher end weapons. So, you don’t need to customize them yourself, but it can be fun.
896

For a long period initially I ran a relatively fast and small fleet because my primary focus was exploration missions, and if I ran into anyone my first choice was always to run. There’s really no starting option fleet initially that can take on much you’re likely to run into.

I picked up storage and a couple salvage gantry ships along with tankers and stuck to that for quite awhile just slowly making more money. Pay attention to the choices you make for your captain, they cap at 50 so where you load in points eventually stops leaving areas you didn’t choose permanently unavailable.

I tended to not salvage ships, I broke’em up for supplies that extended my search area.

Your mileage may vary, but I took a commission when the opportunity arose to help defray monthly costs and keep me profitable. It has the downside of sometimes putting you at odds with the other factions because they periodically go to war, but it doesn’t last. The steady income is pretty handy. But it does limit who you can buy ships from down the road because to be on a commission with one necessarily means you’re not on great relations with the rest.

897

Avoidance is a combination of high burn and judicious use of sustained and emergengy burns. I’d keep a minimum fleet burn of 9. The navigation skill that gives +1 burn helps a lot here. Use ship systems like militarized subsystems and/or augmented drive field to increase burn of slower support ships.

Remember that kicking off a sustained burn involved a stop and pause, so if you need to get away from a fleet and they are already close and moving fast do not hesitate to emergency burn and get the hell out of there. If you are already in a sustained burn but you need to change direction fast, toggle sustained burn off and on.

In order to not get jumped, as soon as you see an unknown fleet pause and assess so if you decide you need to avoid. Even if you can’t positively identify the fleet yet, the types of ships in it usually gives away what it is.

If you are operating in a system with a nav bouy, hack it (or take it over) for a +2 or +3 boost to your burn. It can make a huge difference.

Keeping your sensor profile low also isn’t a bad idea but isn’t nearly as important as the ability to run away. The five ships with the largest profiles are what counts. Civilian ships have much larger sensor profiles. Militarized subsystems and/or insulated engine assemblies can mitigate this.

The only time salvaging a ship is worth it is if you have no other means to get that ship, or if your holds are full and temporarily need another freighter to hold the spoils of your activities. Removing a defect from a ship costs more than buying the ship new. So for the basic support ships that are available at most ports just buy what you need.

As a general tip I cannot recommend enough the strategy of hanging around systems with system bounties or ones under pirate attack and finding large ongoing battles to get involved in. You can make a ton of money and make big improvements in faction relations in very little time. It is also great piloting practice to fly around with just your flagship or a small detachment looking for opportunities to pick off ships. If things don’t go well, just go hide behind your allies.

898

I picked up some handy stuff just hanging around battles and salvaging the left overs, haha