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[Hiruma Kai]

I still kind of like the idea of being able to trade the blueprints we do find duplicates of (or don't really want) for something other than a few credits.

My spacer run basically ended filthy rich, but no capital blueprints.  Being able to say, turn my spare blue prints sitting in storage (including Low Tech, 3x Midline, High Tech, 3x Pirate, 2x Luddic Path, 2x Luddic Church, 3x Hegemony Auxilliary, 2x Heavy Blaster, Burst PD, Plasma Cannon, 3x Claw, 3x Khopesh, 1x Thunder blueprints) I'd gathered combing through half the sector for something other than 340,000 credits might be nice, like say an Odyssey print so I can actually get one to test in the campaign setting.

Like an influence rating with quartermasters that you could then cash out later for prints the faction has.  I mean, giving the Hegemony High Tech prints along with Plasma cannons and Heavy Blasters has to be giving them more options, and thus worth something right?

[Wapno]

I still kind of like the idea of being able to trade the blueprints we do find duplicates of (or don't really want) for something other than a few credits.

My spacer run basically ended filthy rich, but no capital blueprints.  Being able to say, turn my spare blue prints sitting in storage (including Low Tech, 3x Midline, High Tech, 3x Pirate, 2x Luddic Path, 2x Luddic Church, 3x Hegemony Auxilliary, 2x Heavy Blaster, Burst PD, Plasma Cannon, 3x Claw, 3x Khopesh, 1x Thunder blueprints) I'd gathered combing through half the sector for something other than 340,000 credits might be nice, like say an Odyssey print so I can actually get one to test in the campaign setting.

Like an influence rating with quartermasters that you could then cash out later for prints the faction has.  I mean, giving the Hegemony High Tech prints along with Plasma cannons and Heavy Blasters has to be giving them more options, and thus worth something right?

Y'know, it could be actually funny if Hegemony USED those blueprints and eventually you could, for example, find Hegemony patrols using Paragons with Plasma Cannons, should you sell them such BPs.

In any case, an idea of trading a ton of garbage BPs for one super rare one is kinda bothering me. It takes away the magic and joy of finally finding a rare blueprint, and Starsector definitely needs unique treasure to find. Besides, it's not like it's mandatory to get those blueprints - you can still acquire an Odyssey by just capturing one. Sure, it's not an easily accesible source, but the content is not exactly out of your reach and it gives a massive incentive to get that blueprint.

And there's always an easy way - just raid TriTach for BPs.

[Hiruma Kai]

Y'know, it could be actually funny if Hegemony USED those blueprints and eventually you could, for example, find Hegemony patrols using Paragons with Plasma Cannons, should you sell them such BPs.

I thought they did use blueprints you sold them?

In any case, an idea of trading a ton of garbage BPs for one super rare one is kinda bothering me. It takes away the magic and joy of finally finding a rare blueprint, and Starsector definitely needs unique treasure to find. Besides, it's not like it's mandatory to get those blueprints - you can still acquire an Odyssey by just capturing one. Sure, it's not an easily accesible source, but the content is not exactly out of your reach and it gives a massive incentive to get that blueprint.

And there's always an easy way - just raid TriTach for BPs.

I've tried that.  I've yet to get a single blueprint from raiding Culann or Eochu Bres.  I destroyed their starbases and then raided them straight for a month with about 13,000 marines, and got no blueprints (and between 85 and 94% effectiveness), dropping my reputation with them from a starting 15 to -100.

I also haven't seen an Odyssey in a bounty.  I've got a Paragon, 2 Onslaught (XIV), 2 Legion (XIV), Conquest, Astral, Doom in my fleet from salvaging after bounties, but no Odyssey.  And the in-system Tri-tach fleets are in kind of a sad shape at the moment, so no luck in seeing one spawned that way.

That particular game has effectively been won already, but continuing to do exploration and getting just credits for finding research and mining stations because it keeps rolling the same blueprints over and over just feels kind of meh, since after a certain point there's no sense of progression, even though progression is in theory possible.

[Megas]

I've tried that.  I've yet to get a single blueprint from raiding Culann or Eochu Bres.  I destroyed their starbases and then raided them straight for a month with about 13,000 marines, and got no blueprints (and between 85 and 94% effectiveness), dropping my reputation with them from a starting 15 to -100.

I also haven't seen an Odyssey in a bounty.  I've got a Paragon, 2 Onslaught (XIV), 2 Legion (XIV), Conquest, Astral, Doom in my fleet from salvaging after bounties, but no Odyssey.  And the in-system Tri-tach fleets are in kind of a sad shape at the moment, so no luck in seeing one spawned that way.

That particular game has effectively been won already, but continuing to do exploration and getting just credits for finding research and mining stations because it keeps rolling the same blueprints over and over just feels kind of meh, since after a certain point there's no sense of progression, even though progression is in theory possible.

This is just like magic-find runs in Diablo 2: LoD back in the day.

Eochu Bres does not have heavy industry, and will not cough up blueprints.

To raid for blueprints, you want only enough forces to reach the 40% threshold (or a bit higher if you want to raid two or three times in quick succession) so that stability penalty per raid is only -1.  More attack just increases the vendor gains (which you probably do not have capacity for if you tanked up on marines to match 7000 or so defenses) and the stability penalty, but you do not want to kill the colony with massive stability penalty if you only raid them for blueprints.  Also, the results are not static after each raid, so it is possible to save-scum raids until a blueprint drops.

On the other hand, if you want to kill the colony, maybe crank up attack power as high as possible and disrupt spaceport/megaport for a head shot and knock out all stability in one blow for several months.

Not having blueprint hurts, that means if you want to a pristine ship you cannot build, you will pay an exorbitant price for restoration.  Restoring a capital can cost close to a million credits.  That is too much even with gross profits from colonies.  There is no substitute to owning the blueprint and producing as many as you want at discount prices.

[Hiruma Kai]

This is just like magic-find runs in Diablo 2: LoD back in the day.

Eochu Bres does not have heavy industry, and will not cough up blueprints.

To raid for blueprints, you want only enough forces to reach the 40% threshold (or a bit higher if you want to raid two or three times in quick succession) so that stability penalty per raid is only -1.  More attack just increases the vendor gains (which you probably do not have capacity for if you tanked up on marines to match 7000 or so defenses) and the stability penalty, but you do not want to kill the colony with massive stability penalty if you only raid them for blueprints.  Also, the results are not static after each raid, so it is possible to save-scum raids until a blueprint drops.

On the other hand, if you want to kill the colony, maybe crank up attack power as high as possible and disrupt spaceport/megaport for a head shot and knock out all stability in one blow for several months.

Not having blueprint hurts, that means if you want to a pristine ship you cannot build, you will pay an exorbitant price for restoration.  Restoring a capital can cost close to a million credits.  That is too much even with gross profits from colonies.  There is no substitute to owning the blueprint and producing as many as you want at discount prices.

Its an iron man run, so save-scuming isn't an option.  Also, if the game is setup in such a way that the odds and progression are assuming save-scumming, something has gone wrong.

What I don't understand is when raiding, it says you might finding blueprints (assuming there's heavy industry on the planet), but doesn't say the odds are reduced after each raid or with low stability.  So I assume my odds are constant per raid.  You're allowed to raid again the next day with the exact same wording.  When you salvage, you at least get feed back (likely, possible, etc) on the odds of something good being there.  However the raiding interface doesn't make this obvious at all.

Is there supposed to be difference from raiding 30 times in a row versus raiding once a month for 30 months?  And if so, how would one know?

Given I'm sitting on 27 million credits in an iron man game, with 1.1 million income (even with Tri-tach at -100) and flying around with basically an all capital fleet (plus 5 Apogees, a medusa, a tempest, and 2 Prometheus), restoration costs are non-issue at that point in the game, although it does mean my patrol fleets are probably weaker lacking a capital.

Edit:  So this discussion convinced me to go back to Culann and do some more raiding another 30 times.  Apparently stability does not play a factor.  It was sitting at about -60 stability due to recent events, and it will probably never recover with a current penalty of over -120 now, but I did start getting blueprints.  I got an Odyssey and Astral blueprints out of it, along with some other ones.  So I just got unlucky for the 1st month of raiding I guess?  A sample size of 30 wasn't big enough.

[Megas]

If you are playing Ironman and cannot save-scum for blueprints, then do not bother because the odds are poor.  If you want to raid for blueprints (and not spend all day doing it), you need to save-scum in non-Ironman.

While the pictures of vendor trash is shown, below that is another paragraph explaining possibility of looting more if you raid a military base or heavy industry.  (Weapons and hullmods at base, and anything at heavy industry.)

Is there supposed to be difference from raiding 30 times in a row versus raiding once a month for 30 months?  And if so, how would one know?

Their defenses go up a bit (doesn't matter much when your attack is already in the thousands), but the thing that stops it is stacking stability penalties.  (it takes a month or more for stability to recover by 1.)  If you raid too much, they will hit zero stability and probably will decivilize and die.  You do not want that.  (If you did and want a planet kill, you would disrupt the spaceport.)

[Hiruma Kai]

I wonder if Alex intended repeat raids to stack stability penalties to the point of decivlization, if it becomes an alternative method to wiping out factions without taking reputation hits to all factions like bombardment does.

[Megas]

Y'know, it could be actually funny if Hegemony USED those blueprints and eventually you could, for example, find Hegemony patrols using Paragons with Plasma Cannons, should you sell them such BPs.

Even better, sell your excess Pirate and Ludd blueprints to dilute their fleets with weaker ships (in theory, I have not tried it to see if that idea works.)  For similar reasons, I do not want to learn the Pirate and Ludd packs.  Falcon (P) is worth learning, but that is a separate blueprint from the pirate pack.

Of course, part of the complaint of Pathers is their fleets are too big due to their built-in defects.  That idea might backfire.

[Goumindong]

It would be nice if pirates used blueprints sold to them (or sold on the black market maybe eventually getting back to them) though I don’t think the major factions would. They have intentional fleet doctrines and their own blueprints that other factions ships wouldn’t work in.

So I would say that 20% of the time if you sell a BP on the black market it ends up at a pirate base and fleets from that base will produce that ship(provided they can fit all of its slots with at least one appropriate weapon)  And if you sell a BP on the open market to a pirate planet they will do the same with 100% probability.

That would be fun

[Megas]

Pirates actually own a Heavy Industry (that you can raid for blueprints), unlike both Ludd factions.  I wonder if you can upgrade pirates' fleets by selling them blueprints, like say... the midline or high-tech common pack?  Speaking of Ludds, how are they getting their custom Ludd pack ships without Heavy Industry of their own?  Other factions do not produce Ludd ships (unless maybe player sells them a Ludd pack).  At least pirates have a heavy industry to build their pirate pack ships.