I am really struggling with the entire game, but more specifically, I am having a lot of trouble with customizing my new ship. How do I equip it with a well balanced/powerful load out? I Try to have a balance of kinetic and high explosive weapons but I feel like everytime I run a simulation I get destroyed by any ship that seems at all equivalent. I guess what I'm saying is; HELP!!
P.S. Im running SS+ and Nexereline.
Hi Menos87! Welcome to starsector =) I have been playing this game for a while, and the early game has gotten a good bit rougher with the latest patch. The options you pick starting out will make a difference when deciding which path to take.
I like the combat path, so I pick the following choices:
1st Choice - 3. A Bounty Hunter
2nd Choice - 2. Acquired some high-end weaponry
3rd Choice - 1. Easy (more salvage less powerful enemies)
4th Choice - 2. Learned with some thought toward the future (assign your own skills)
This will start you out in a Wolf-Class frigate with a Heavy Blaster (rare energy weapon) in your inventory.
very first thing, assign your skills! Put your aptitude points into the Technology Tree and spend your skill points on Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering.
You are aiming for the following upgrades initially and long term, - Stabilized Shields, Front Shield Emitter, Hardened Shields.
This will give you the ability to outfit your flag ship with decent shields which are much easier to keep up and use to mitigate incoming damage. Also long term when you get into better ships, you will be able to mod the shields to be very good.
Next go to the closest planet or space station and Refit your ship. Remove the Harpoon MRM missiles, replace your Pulse Laser in the front with your Heavy Blaster, on the right side get rid of Blast Doors and put on Stabilized Shields and Unstable Injector, and put two more points into your ships Capacitors. Then click on your Weapon Groups and make sure your Heavy Blaster is on weapon group 1 and your Point Defense Lasers are set to auto-fire on weapon group 2.
Now for fighting you will let your point defense lasers auto-fire at things while you control the Heavy Blaster. Raise your shields and use your ships special skill of short range teleport when needed to avoid enemy fire or chase things down, or to get away to give you time to vent flux when needed. Try not to get surrounded and take enemies out one at a time - which should be doable as your ship will be faster than most enemies due to your upgrades, and you will have decent shields.
Next you want to move to the Magec System. The reason for this is one of your next goals is to get yourself into a better ship, I prefer the Tri-Tachyon ships and weapons (mostly energy in nature) so fighting pirates in their system will help you raise your reputation with them and get access to better ship hulls and weapons. Use the Maxios Jump point in the Magec system and use planet "Maxios, Barren World" as your primary base of operations.
Longer term goals are to get yourself into better ship, The next fighting class hull you should work toward is the Medusa Class Destroyer hull.
I outfit the Medusa with two Heavy Blasters and 1 or 2 of the cheapest missile launchers I can find, "Harpoon MRM single" work fine here.
On the Medusa I put: Hardened Shields, Front Shield Emitter, and Extended Shields. I also use Safety Overrides. The remaining points put into Vents.
This will leave many of the Medusa hardpoints unfilled and empty. This is a Good thing! You will be using those points elsewhere and the heavy blasters are beastly weapons capable of doing a ton of damage provided you can manage the flux levels. Safety Overrides and the other suggestions I made for this ship build will help significantly.
-----------
Medusa Class Destroyer
Hardened Shields, Front Shield Emitter, Extended Shields, Safety Overrides
1 single Harpoon MRM (basically so you have a weapon to select so your ship can auto-fire the weapon group you do not have selected)
2 Heavy Blasters
-----------
This leads to my long term battle strategy - I prefer to let my ships auto-fire at things to get kills and I concentrate on movement and shield management. The reason for this is the computer AI is better at managing your ships weapons through auto-fire than you could ever do yourself. When entering combat, I raise my shields and select my missile weapon as my active weapon, and leave my heavy blasters on auto-fire in the Medusa. The heavy blasters will then proceed to blast whatever you are near to bits while you concentrate on keeping your ship alive and in a good position to fire. The safety overrides and the extra vents turn the Medusa into a beast which will chew through almost anything (within reason) even the biggest Cap ships are vulnerable to this beast once your have leveled up your captain properly.
As you level concentrate on skills which will give you more command points and raising your shield defenses. Next put some points into skills which help with managing your flux dissipation. Then work on your energy weapon skills to raise their range and damage.
My end goal is to get to the Aurora, this ship is my end-game ship, Here is a link to the build I use for it and the strategy I use when fighting with it.
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7914.msg134099#msg134099With that Aurora and a good skill setup I can smash through any fleet in the game with that 1 ship, usually I am around level 50+ once i get to that point, so it does take a while to get there. I keep a couple of the base level Buffalo-class freighters to carry loot and such around with me. They have very small crew compliments and they can carry a decent amount of loot back to sell allowing you to travel around squishing enemies and collecting items and weapons.
The Aurora is very difficult to find however and may require you to capture it from someone who already has one. I spent a huge number of hours hunting around for the ship I wanted, then I spent even more trying to build up the economy of the system where my ship was commonly sold so it would appear, then I gave up and flew around till I found someone who had one, then I saved the game and fought the guy over and over till I was finally able to capture it. Aurora's are incredibly rare!
To do this successfully, you may need to find a fleet which has one in it, then destroy every ship except the one you want to capture. Then run away from the battle. Then save as soon as you get out, then attack the lone aurora over and over (reloading the save repeatedly as needed) until you are able to capture it. The odds are you will need to do this, because they almost never come up for sale anywhere.
Well that's it! Other strategies work well, but this is my strategy. I ally myself with Tri-Tachyon and fight other factions and enemies to level up and gain loot and income. Tri-Tachyon is usually enemies with the Luddic Path, Luddic Church, Hegemony, and of course the Pirates. So don't fret if you lose faction with those other groups, eventually you will be anyway, and you can only ally with one group usually. The independents will love you because you will be smashing pirates, so you should always be able to find a port in most systems.
Also one other thing, The Maxios jump point is VERY USEFUL. I think Magec is one of the best systems in the game because that Maxios jump point will always pop you out right next to the planet. I strongly suggest paying for storage at that planet early on and using it as your base. You will be able to sell your loot there for good prices, and since that jump point is always right next to the planet, you can easily hop into hyperspace and hunt fleets there if you want, then pop back and sell and store whatever you find. This is the Only jump point in the game I have found which is like this. Other jump points tend to wander around their systems, and you will have to do a bit of traveling to get to your chosen port through other jumps.
Good luck! And enjoy the game!
((More Random Advice - When selling loot be sure to keep the following weapons for outfitting ships! - antimatter blasters, srm swarmers, heavy blasters, Burst Point defense lasers, and Heavy Burst Point Defense lasers. These are very useful weapons and I tend to use them on most of my builds.))
Edit note! I changed the build of the Medusa a little based on suggestions from other folks, evidently I had made a minor mistake with the mods and the changes make a big difference in capability! So use the edited one =D