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Author Topic: Getting way outgunned  (Read 2328 times)

Morpheus

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Getting way outgunned
« on: September 26, 2019, 02:34:30 PM »

I just want to say how freaking awesome this game is.  The way it's designed and the mechanics are just amazing and i've not seen anything like it since Space rangers 2 and that says a LOT!

However!....

I don't know how late game I am in normal, I'm on cycle 213.  I have 2 little colonies that don't have much industry that I started developing in the last cycle or 2.  I have 2 conquests, an onslaught and like 3 various cruisers.  A couple wolves, the rest are support ships and salvage/survey ships.  I used to get little 150k bounty missions that had some reasonable fleets that I wasn't quite able to take out, so I bought some capital ships to take em out!  ........ But...  ever since I bought these capital ships the attached picture is what I've had to deal with.   I can't beat this fleet!  And all of these vanilla bounties are the same way now too.  I don't know if I just have spread out my investments to colonies too much and don't have enough military, but I don't get any easy 150k bounties anymore, it's this blob of ridiculousness!!  I'm going to sell my ships and retire, I can't compete with this.  I can live off my savings and have bikini clad vr babes tell me how awesome I am and that it's ok if my fleet isn't 'big enough'.  I know, I know..it's how I use it, not the size. but COME ON.  IT'S SO BIG, why am I so outgunned?!

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namad

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2019, 02:53:11 PM »

In your screenshot I can see easier bounties listed, just do those?

You should 100% absolutely be at the point where you can defeat pirate station's with ease. Even if you don't want to fight 2 legion's and 3 onslaughts. Then don't fight that bounty.

Bounties aren't even a main part of the game, you could also start doing more explorations.
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Daynen

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2019, 09:40:19 PM »

There are tactics and fleet compositions that can beat any fleet in the game; the trick is getting a hold of the right ships and weapons and setting things up for such a fight.  Then of course you have to make sure your officers are flying durable enough ships to eat some fire while you bring a nice alpha strike craft and go to work.  It should definitely be noted though that once bounties start sitting around 300k they are no longer a trifling matter and you should go prepared for WAR.

Just experiment with more ship types and weapons and try flying around enemy fleets to divide and flank them; you're bound to find tricks that work for you.
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Sinosauropteryx

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2019, 11:17:41 PM »

I bet your 2 Conquest, 1 Onslaught fleet can take that bounty. Between optimized loadouts, character skills, officers, and fleet tactics your capitals are way stronger than a comparable number of capitals from the enemy. Further, the computer often likes to send out its capitals one by one at the end of a battle, when they can do the least good. If you deploy all 3 of yours and they watch each others' backs, you can melt all his small stuff first and then kill each of his capitals in succession.
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Plantissue

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2019, 05:16:58 AM »

You can always do the easier bounties. There's a 179k bounty listed. if you think your fleet is too big, you can always store some ships in your colony since you have a colony. It is a shame though, the game doing purely personal bounties is no longer viable. There's also the pirate/luddic path bases. They will nearly always be a Tier 1 station at that bounty. Usually they only have 1 or 2 Modules, making them easier. They can often be a lot easier than a similarily costed personal bounty.

Problem with bounty costs is that if your fleet is much smaller or weaker, the bounty is always too hard for the payment, and if your fleet is much larger and better, the bounty is easy, though not always as profitable. After 180k or so, personal pirate bounties seem to disappear, making personal bounties a lot harder, though there may be some Independent dester bounties with mostly cruisers which are easier than the other deserter personal bounties. The amount paid out after 100k or so seems really trivially low for the costs and risks involved. Being able to recover ships is supposed to help, but I find that being able to recover opponent non-pirate cruiser and capital ships to be kind of rare, so you can kind of get in a fleet full of inefficient pirate cruisers and capitals. Though you can get skills that make your own ships almost always recoverable, those ships do lose value as they accumalate d-mods. Since bounties escalate way too fast, it can be difficult to reach a point where the bounty becomes easy. For instance a 385k bounty is for 8 Conquests and 14 other cruisers which seems kind of ridiculous for the risk and upfront cost of fleet and officers involved.

As an example 2 Conquests and 1 Onslaught is already about 75-100k in fuel and supply costs just by themselves. And then if you lose a Capital and recover it to get a D-mod on it, thats probably another 40k of value lost.
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DaLagga

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2019, 08:01:39 AM »

As far as I'm aware, the difficulty of bounties depends on two factors - how long you've been playing and how many bounties you've already completed.  If you take multiple bounties in quick succession then their strength will eventually outpace you no matter what you do.  Their strength does eventually cap out and it's not too hard for any decent endgame fleet to mop the floor with maxed out bounties so this will eventually become a race that you end up winning.  My advice would be what has already been suggested.  Do the easier bounties and especially the ones that have you destroy space stations as those should be trivial for your fleet and still have a good payout.  Either that, or do other things and come back to bounties when you have a stronger fleet. 
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goduranus

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2019, 10:48:53 PM »

I just want to say how freaking awesome this game is.  The way it's designed and the mechanics are just amazing and i've not seen anything like it since Space rangers 2 and that says a LOT!

However!....

I don't know how late game I am in normal, I'm on cycle 213.  I have 2 little colonies that don't have much industry that I started developing in the last cycle or 2.  I have 2 conquests, an onslaught and like 3 various cruisers.  A couple wolves, the rest are support ships and salvage/survey ships.  I used to get little 150k bounty missions that had some reasonable fleets that I wasn't quite able to take out, so I bought some capital ships to take em out!  ........ But...  ever since I bought these capital ships the attached picture is what I've had to deal with.   I can't beat this fleet!  And all of these vanilla bounties are the same way now too.  I don't know if I just have spread out my investments to colonies too much and don't have enough military, but I don't get any easy 150k bounties anymore, it's this blob of ridiculousness!!  I'm going to sell my ships and retire, I can't compete with this.  I can live off my savings and have bikini clad vr babes tell me how awesome I am and that it's ok if my fleet isn't 'big enough'.  I know, I know..it's how I use it, not the size. but COME ON.  IT'S SO BIG, why am I so outgunned?!

Post your save and let me handle it!
Also your are 7 game years into your run, you should be able to handle bounties with a couple of big capitals by then.

;D Bounty Hunting Secret Technique:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sqGlZR8oF8

Bradley_

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2019, 07:22:59 AM »

Post you save game[2]
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ThePollie

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2019, 08:26:09 PM »

The game automatically gives every enemy 500 cruisers and carriers because reasons. It's intensely fun to go from 40k bounties with 4 frigates to 150k bounties with five capital ships in less than half an hour of gameplay. Reminds me why I expect this game to be as dependent on modder support to fix 100% of the issues like any Besthesda game.
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Thaago

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #9 on: September 28, 2019, 08:49:04 PM »

Bounty hunting is currently currently tuned to be a fun experience for people with a pretty high level of system mastery for the game. This can make it intimidating when you haven't yet learned all of the tiny little ins and outs that all add up to huge amounts of power. A max endgame power character can beat the bounty curve pretty well as long as they take a decent (not maxed) set of combat skills to start. A character actually focused on growth will smash the bounty progression to pieces.
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ThePollie

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #10 on: September 28, 2019, 08:56:25 PM »

Which is fantastic, since at end-game the bounties are laughably easy to smash while AFK. Great system. 100% perfect.
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Thaago

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #11 on: September 28, 2019, 09:00:11 PM »

Which is fantastic, since at end-game the bounties are laughably easy to smash while AFK. Great system. 100% perfect.

People don't have trouble with endgame. People have trouble with the scaling progression, which can be quite difficult without a whole lot of tricks/optimizations. Endgame and progression are different things.
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ThePollie

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #12 on: September 28, 2019, 09:06:14 PM »

Yeah. I know. I feel like my sarcasm wasn't quite picked up there.
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Flare

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2019, 04:14:24 AM »

If you have the piloting chops, you could always go with the fabian approach. Deploy your own super loadout ship with whatever chaff you need to keep the opposing fleet from swarming you, and just take out several ships before retreating and doing it again, until the opposing fleet is weak enough for your own fleet to fully deploy and smash them.
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Agile

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Re: Getting way outgunned
« Reply #14 on: September 29, 2019, 09:35:53 AM »

Yeah, I tend to do personal bounties till they get 150K or higher, then wipe out pirate / luddic bases and do system bounties for mad cash, then go back to personal bounties as by then I have enough money to afford a capital or two, several cruisers / carriers, and the support ships to keep them going.
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