Greetings star travelers.
First off let me state that i just recently stumbled about this game and have been mesmerized by it ever since. I love the way you build your fleet up and the space battles are just beautiful.
I have already put considerable of hours played into the game and there are some details i haven't been able to figure out just yet and accumulated a couple of observations about things i don't quite get.
Now i realize this is an alpha version of the game so it might very well be the case that i touch on not yet or partially implemented features or bugs. But maybe some of the aspects are also working as intended and i just did not understand them properly.
So please bear with me, if this sounds critical, as i said before i really enjoy playing this game in general.
Observation about cargo toll
Cargo toll seems to stay the same if i have a small trade fleet full of food (more than 1k), or empty, save the crew, some supply and fuel. It vastly increases with fleet size though.
Question about Bounty fleet scaling (enemy fleet)
I am unsure how exactly the combat strength of a fleet is rated. For Example the fleet bounty went from pretty much always 260k to pretty much always 110k when i switched my 2 mules to an atlas. They never went to battle before and 260k fleets are easy. So do i have to sacrifice a big deal of fuel and cargo capacity due to a rating of my fleet that seems to affect bounty spawns includes freighters?
What is the currently best way to get a high rating for more expensive spawns? I currently use 1 Battleship, 3 Battlecruisers with flight decks and a load of fighters to max my logistics rating. Do i have to go above the Logistics maximum to get harder enemies?
Question about the industry skill tree
I spent skill points into the industry tree but i do not see any benefit for that. There is Outpost Contruction, manufacturing and ressource extraction mentioned in its description, but i dont see how to do it. Also i do not see any trade benefits that are also mentioned in its description. I Tried using the construction rig, but aside from the repair bonus i did not see any possible use for it (like constructing an outpost).
Observation about pirates
In my trading campaign i never got engaged by pirates (level 23 now). Is there a point in bringing escorts or even combat freighters? Since frankly i used less fuel/supply when it was just a couple of Buffalos and Tarsuses in my fleet. Now i also have mules, a condor and some fighter wings, that i never need to use. All my ships have augmented engines and i could outrun any pirates that showed interest in my fleet, but even those were very few and i hardly had to run any time at all.
Observation about prices in trading
Some of the calculations when trading seem to not to turn out right. For instance i had a stack of 1k ore, wanted to sell it at Maxios, where they offered 8 currency for one unit. When i tried to sell it the sum was 700 (300 tariffs) on the normal market and 1k on the black market. I tried it in several other systems just out of curiosity, a stack of ore always sells for 1k, despite what the price tag says, which vastly varies.
Observation about averted food shortages
In my trading campaign i noticed a "food shortage averted" event being stuck in my Intel for several months (despite setting the week or month filter). At the same time very few new trading events happened, is this a possible bug with stuck events sitting on some kind of event slot or is there still something for me to do about this?
Question about pirate career
Any suggestions on how to survive as a pirate? I recently started my third campaign, this time intended as a smuggler/pirate. Since i get heavy standing hits with each smuggling run to the black market and every trade fleet i attack, i cannot even get supplies anywhere but the always under stocked pirate worlds. Even the pirates themselves hate me, though i do not attack them. Has anyone gotten a pirate career off without first trading normal or hunting bounty and stock up first?
That's all for now.
Fly save.
