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KickStarter Star Traders: Frontiers - space sandbox game by Trese Brothers

LordofSyn

Scholar
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
113
oh yeah! initially i thought so too, but its not the case. With high lvl crew I tend to have long list of boarding options.
That being said, same as with skill checks they wont be available if crucial team member gets low morale or hp.

Whats more having 2 mechanic and 1 engineer really lower that bill after combat... sometimes even removes it
It used to be that way. You had to have a mechanic as one of the boarders. That was changed a while ago and thus the 2X Thrown Wrench strat was born.

Might want to use it before it gets nerfed... Or worse: before Cory trains the AI to do it.
(This is why I tell people to keep really good, but not gamebreaking strats to themselves.) Haha. Trese Bros have been known to change up things in terms of balance first; player tears, second. ;-)

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LordofSyn

Scholar
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
113
heh, lvl1 danger spy card: unexpected ship can drop on you xeno ship. Unexpected indeed
Always beware the 'powerful and unexpected ship' card. Always. If you have a Talent that can swap it or remove it, use it. Always assume they are Xeno.
If no Talents available...walk away and come back in a week or 3.

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LordofSyn

Scholar
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
113
except it wasnt 'powerful'. it was lvl1 danger card, not lvl4 which is powerful one.
Doesn't matter. Unexpected can always be a Xeno. Regardless of card value. That has been like this since Alpha.

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But but that is how my Military Officer (currently in a Guardian Interceptor) patrols in high danger zones/worlds hoping for xeno hive cards/unexpected ship if not reputation bonus for xp and jewgold and its working fine so far (course i started it after captain was lv25 and the zendu arbiter unification/civil unrest era is underway)

The tasty terran xeno artifacts for tasty jewgold quickly adds up (only ONE fucking indie world in more than a dozen quadrants buy that shit...wtf) and sweet xp for boarding action (lv11 engineer talent also gives bonus xp when encountering xeno ships/ lv11 quartermaster talent prevents morale loss). Now that GI is maxed upgrade and has 55%+ armor, 45%+ shields. Evasive Maneuvers and Brace for Impact buffs along with Unrivaled patches/rushed patches takes care of survivability during ship combat. port maintenance/loot armory etc. really ease repair costs and on a good encounter comes out unscathed even with xenos.

Got a second doctor as crew after massively asslicking a prissy contact. Including the Quartermaster/Zealot 2nd offiver with second shadow perk and Doctor/C.Med/M.O. 1st officer with another life saver perk with. with a medical rating of 6 and ship battle/victory healing talents for healing makes that bros on the ship do n't croak too easily because of some really shitty rolls or whatever. doing this above a friendly port with repair/medical is much more profitable than shitty missions from shitty contacts. Damn, asslicking those contacts is so annoying unless going for recruits/equipment etc.

I only use card rerolls/replace talents while patrolling when death among crew/crew damage/ship damage risk cards appear.

Star Trader experts LordofSyn and Pope Amole II
how exactly dice rolls work with respect to ship speed/agility?

I get the 100% of ship requirements and half bonus above 100% upto 200% in case of strong dice works.

but what exactly is the % bonus/penalty for PC engine speed/agility v/s enemy engine speed/agility?

What will be the bonus/penalty for range change/evade/hit when fighting a 24 speed/agility scout cutter?
15 speed/agility GI with top components and 200%+ pilot/nav etc.

how exactly does the enemys 24 agility factor my effective dice pool?
 
Joined
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how exactly does the enemys 24 agility factor my effective dice pool?

It's a mystery. I've asked the authors of the game on the official forums and they've evaded the answer.

You know a 15 agi/speed GI with higher hull and higher number of component slots (resulting in higher armor/shields/crew/officers/dicepools if upgraded correctly) might be superior to a 24 agi/speed scout cutter as a pure baorder dependign on how the percentage bonus works.

Fora 24 scout cutter v/s 15 GI say
(24/15) for cutter gives ratio 1.6 and a bonus of
cutter_bonus = some_mathemagic of 1.6
for cutter to hit say X1
for cutter to dodge say X2

and

(15/24) for GI gives ratio 0.625 and a penalty of
GI_penalty = some_mathemagic of 0.625
for GI to hit say Y1
for GI to dodge say Y2

a scout cutter with max upgraded components and all pools @ 200% boarding/evasion oriented gets around 70 dice for accuracy and 65 dice pools for evasion according to STF planner v0.17

a GI with max upgraded components and all pools @ ~110% boarding/evasion oriented (but with lots more armor shielding void and rad resist and more officers) gets around 80 dice for accuracy and 90 dice pools for evasion according to STF planner v0.17
(For this purpose included 1 additional lv15 officer and more crew to reach the values as compared to scout cutter.)

Depending on values of X1,X2,Y1 and Y2; GI has possibility of being superior especially if you can get GI pools to 200% and diminishing returns are implemented in the calculation of the engine speed/agility bonuses like similar to armor/shields
 

Emily

Arcane
Joined
Mar 21, 2012
Messages
3,068
how exactly does the enemys 24 agility factor my effective dice pool?

It's a mystery. I've asked the authors of the game on the official forums and they've evaded the answer.

You know a 15 agi/speed GI with higher hull and higher number of component slots (resulting in higher armor/shields/crew/officers/dicepools if upgraded correctly) might be superior to a 24 agi/speed scout cutter as a pure baorder dependign on how the percentage bonus works.

Fora 24 scout cutter v/s 15 GI say
(24/15) for cutter gives ratio 1.6 and a bonus of
cutter_bonus = some_mathemagic of 1.6
for cutter to hit say X1
for cutter to dodge say X2

and

(15/24) for GI gives ratio 0.625 and a penalty of
GI_penalty = some_mathemagic of 0.625
for GI to hit say Y1
for GI to dodge say Y2

a scout cutter with max upgraded components and all pools @ 200% boarding/evasion oriented gets around 70 dice for accuracy and 65 dice pools for evasion according to STF planner v0.17

a GI with max upgraded components and all pools @ ~110% boarding/evasion oriented (but with lots more armor shielding void and rad resist and more officers) gets around 80 dice for accuracy and 90 dice pools for evasion according to STF planner v0.17
(For this purpose included 1 additional lv15 officer and more crew to reach the values as compared to scout cutter.)

Depending on values of X1,X2,Y1 and Y2; GI has possibility of being superior especially if you can get GI pools to 200% and diminishing returns are implemented in the calculation of the engine speed/agility bonuses like similar to armor/shields

You are forgeting the command skill(objectivly strongest skill in game) which influences defence. which then gets multiplied althogh we have no real idea what is the formula.

In my experience i found out that the late game is unplayable as i was driving a huge ship with many of my high level officers and we simply could not be hit at all. So it indeed seems that bigger ships are better even at evasion lol.

That said the entire game is piratically broken at numerous point and in need of some heavy rebalancing and might even need entire combat overhaul i did play for over 20 hours and i kinda know the system by now in its defense. So when starting out there is a dose of difficulty.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
Developer
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Messages
2,052
Dude, like, really? You think I can't google that shit? That I didn't? Dude, are you wasted or something?
 
Joined
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Messages
4,499
Location
The border of the imaginary
Got back from work (yes working Saturday as a wage slave grav :( ), fired up steam to get star traders action and apparently there is another update today. Nice.
But from the logs, it looks like more of a :balance: kind of update.


It also mentions somethings about Era. How long exactly is an era? How many eras are there?

I never went beyond the second era (after the Zendu hoe arbitration/unification; the civil unrest thingy). i keep rerolling after getting a better grasp of the mechanics (or Die as I only play on hard).


Speaking of your crew combat guide Pope Amole II ; I think it is very fine tuned for impossible as I make many subpar decisions acc to it and survive fine on Hard as long as early game is cautious and expose to cavity searches from pirates etc.
 

Emily

Arcane
Joined
Mar 21, 2012
Messages
3,068
Got back from work (yes working Saturday as a wage slave grav :( ), fired up steam to get star traders action and apparently there is another update today. Nice.
But from the logs, it looks like more of a :balance: kind of update.


It also mentions somethings about Era. How long exactly is an era? How many eras are there?

I never went beyond the second era (after the Zendu hoe arbitration/unification; the civil unrest thingy). i keep rerolling after getting a better grasp of the mechanics (or Die as I only play on hard).


Speaking of your crew combat guide Pope Amole II ; I think it is very fine tuned for impossible as I make many subpar decisions acc to it and survive fine on Hard as long as early game is cautious and expose to cavity searches from pirates etc.

Eras are the underlining "Big events"
There are currently 4 or 5, the last one being the plague.

They last about 10 years each, and there the devs are planing of there being 10 in total, so 100 years ingame time.

Right now however you run out of content for so long, as you can get the best ship and guns pretty much after 30 ish years.
 

Emily

Arcane
Joined
Mar 21, 2012
Messages
3,068
ive been looking further at surviving ship battles at long ranges.
I realized that i had it wrong. On long ranges enemies fire torpedoes that have void dmg type. xeno fire like 4 of those?
Thing with void and radiaiton dmg is that while it might not look decent in numbers, it got 233% and 200% dmg conversion. THey go mostly towards internal dmg. Armor is not taken into consideration, only shield.

Anyone in here tried boosting them and can say how it fares against xeno? Compartments got low boosts. As far as i can tell there is only single talent, which is lvl11 etech. It adds 50 to resists and I wonder if in the end you are better of using it on 1st turn over escape or armor boosts.

At the same time aftershck from torpedoes give -20 radiation and void resist which make it even worse.
Anyone knows how resistance is actually calculated? I havent seen formulas.
Are you sure about armor? AFAIK armor should first reduce all damage then shield reduces internal damage further.
Or are you referring to their crippling debuffs?

Long range combat is pretty much about using torpedoes and stacking debuffs on enemy via bombardment there isnt much to be said about it.

One particularly broken strategy is to have bounty hunter using blood games talent which makes u able to board enemy ship in the first round and have 2 mechanics which use ability called throw wrench which pretty much disables enemies reactor. be careful using this strategy cause it takes away all challenge from the game. I personally avoid it nowadays.
 

Emily

Arcane
Joined
Mar 21, 2012
Messages
3,068
One particularly broken strategy is to have bounty hunter using blood games talent
its only for mission targets

Are you sure about armor? AFAIK armor should first reduce all damage then shield reduces internal damage further.
Or are you referring to their crippling debuffs?
https://startraders.gamepedia.com/Ship_Damage_Types

Long range combat is pretty much about using torpedoes and stacking debuffs on enemy via bombardment there isnt much to be said about it.
i want to survive by escaping. Dont care about offensive. Defensive talents are better than offensive ones crippling enemy offense.
There is no reason to ever attack a non mission target as you wont get practically nothing other than -reputation and risk death, this is obviously only relevant for brutal or impossible. .
With that talent u can farm 100 k targets very easily and get end game ship in like few missions total lol.
 

LordofSyn

Scholar
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
113
ive been looking further at surviving ship battles at long ranges.
I realized that i had it wrong. On long ranges enemies fire torpedoes that have void dmg type. xeno fire like 4 of those?
Thing with void and radiaiton dmg is that while it might not look decent in numbers, it got 233% and 200% dmg conversion. THey go mostly towards internal dmg. Armor is not taken into consideration, only shield.

Anyone in here tried boosting them and can say how it fares against xeno? Compartments got low boosts. As far as i can tell there is only single talent, which is lvl11 etech. It adds 50 to resists and I wonder if in the end you are better of using it on 1st turn over escape or armor boosts.

At the same time aftershck from torpedoes give -20 radiation and void resist which make it even worse.
Anyone knows how resistance is actually calculated? I havent seen formulas.
Yes. I have built several Xeno hunting vessels. You want to get to max (60) shields as possible. Their weapons all do devastating Void damage and you need to protect the electronics, engines, and the squishy crew from the internal Void and Rad damage. Be prepared to spice often as that helps soak the Morale damage that comes from it. It also helps to have Mass drivers and Pilot/nav modules plus enough cargo space. You will inevitably run into a lot of biomass as about 60% of the loot will most likely be biomass. However, the Xeno Artifacts and additional occasional high tier goods can also be found on them.
Be prepared with at least A5 weapons or better (Can choose to forego the WLA5 in lieu of A6+ Contact appropriated Weapons and Armors for at least a rotating 2+ CC squads.
It pays to send in at least 1 Officer in each squad.
The best XP farm. Focus on soak over evasion (although dodge variants will be much tougher to pull off per difficulty grade), and on DoT if possible, Excellent Cripple at best. You really want to soften them us as best as possible. Have at least one Explorer or Exo scout to train by surface fighting with them before moving to ship combat.
Having a Merchant & Smuggler type talents help unload cargo from ships and caches for best profit. Watch the legality rating and do not carry artifacts until ready to sell to keep your ship's signature down and prevent early attacks as they act like homing beacons aboard and will draw them.

Having a good selection of Contacts with one on a super Zone (Econ, Mil, Starport all 10+) who will give you components, ships and repairs at a crazy discount. Get at least one to work for best quality Gear for Officers for the added Combat boost.

Optimally, you will have those two CC squads to the point where they can nearly one-shot Xeno at 75%-100% health in 2 turns or less.
The quicker and more efficient you are, the better the XP reward for those fighters and the better your Traits will mutate. Take severe losses too much and you may also need a Gestalt or Chaesin Doc Contact to repair Traits as premium service.

You need to rub elbows with some gritty people to pull this off. Sometimes it helps to have a dupe ship ready to go for better cargo runs (this is where you really want the more dodge based variant).

Being a Star Traders Captain is all about how that Captain's career goes and knowing the right people to help you achieve it.

You can chase get to the highest levels and Talents for your crew in this.


Also, I know Eras were mentioned. There are several more on the way that involve some seriously deadly events and new maps to have Eras in. The map system will be moving to V2 maps soon as well as the larger ships and hanger components for small craft/ fighters update soon too.
Some of those new Eras were written and designed alongside the Trese Brothers by Executive Backers during the KS/funding phase. These are some of the most HC players from the STRPG days and they like some serious challenges for the "end" game. (This game is designed to be played on higher difficulties so that each Captain has a definite beginning, middle, end Career by the player's choice and/or some bad luck).
Even the current "End" game ships will not be the last ships added.
This game will not play the same in 6-12 months from now.
Rare trade goods got a major upgrade with recent updates too. They have a whole ladder for RTGs now that gives various benefits as you climb it. Also makes long haul shipping more enticing for those sick TP4, MR6+ sales of RTGs. The further away you get from the purchase quad, the more demand and profit are available.

They are still working on just the promised backer tiers before going to further advanced content.

May the Void be merciful and the profits/XP be plentiful. Shalun guide you.

-Admiral Lordus of Syn
Alta Mesa Imperial Flight Commander




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