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Author Topic: What am I doing wrong?  (Read 7977 times)

Leroy

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What am I doing wrong?
« on: November 13, 2016, 02:22:30 PM »

So I got the game and started as trader with the combat freighter but didn't know what to do next as trading here was different than usual. After watching videos on youtube and digging through the wiki to get started, I learned about taxes and black market and such. I looked for trade disruptions on the map but when I got there they were long obsolete most of the time. So I started save/loading and "probing" before actually doing the trade. This resulted in some minor profit and quite some frustration. So I though I'd try my luck with combat. I got  second combat freighter meanwhile and was planning to save up to get a destroyer soon. But even with that super small fleet supply costs started to reduce any profit to nearly zero, not to mention the many save/loading just for the cases where you just got into hyper space only to be bashed by a much stronger fleet. With even more save/load I was able to aquire a broadsword wing and a light carrier. But still the supply costs were so ridiculously high that there was no profit to be made.

Then I found the missions. And WOW! Right with the first mission I made proably more profit than in the entire game before. It was a simple "buy this here and take it to other planet right over there". No hyperspace entering required, patrols everywhere watching for pirates. I think it was like 80k profit in the end. Ok, I thought so I'll get freighters and low supply-cost-wings for protection and do missions trade for a while, maybe there is just a certain threshold for making combat profitable.  After saving up like 250k and already owning 3 fighter wings, I got the fast carrier another 2 wings and a light cruiser followed by spending quite some hours in the simulator to learn how to use and equip this new gear. Already had a good standing with the Sindra Diktat so I flew back there and got a commission to assist against Hegemony (which had become hostile anyway due to my smuggling all the time) and to shoot down some pirates to get an ever bigger fleet.

As there were not much going on, I tried a named bounty for 20k. Well, long story short, the result was like 40k less money on my account. The target was a burn 10 fleet of 5 frigates. It escaped I think 3 times until I finally got the last one to get the reward and just to catch it with my speed 9 fleet was also quite a task. So in the end there were ridiculous supply and some fuel costs to pay.

Ok, the bounty hunting was out of question. Also Sindra finally annouced a new generic bounty and so I thought I'd just go to there hyper space entry and take what I can get. But again, hundreds of supplies melting like butter in the sun. (Fun fact: supplies indeed melt in the sun, it drove me nuts until I finally figured out what was happing!)

Right the first battle I joined was like this:
- 64 additional supplies payed for getting fleet combat ready afterwards again
- 16 marines lost when boarding
Excluding usual fuel and supply costs for just going there these are total costs of about 20k costs - black market costs! Add another 30% for regular.

On the gain side there was about 7400 from bounty including the money from the commission. Also effing 314(!) credits from the boarding which alone costed about 14k for the 16 lost marines. Furthermore a degraded Sunder from boarding and a total loot about maybe another 1000 credits, including the metal and weapons. Well the boarded ship was woth exactly 77 credits without repairs. After repairing it, it was about worth the price that the repairs had costed, on black market. Great.

So after all the most loss came from boarding and the bounty + loot may have been barely enough to just cover all supply and fuel costs when flying perfect and not searching or exploring. Sindera was meanwhile hostile to about everybody else in the galaxy so trade missions are also out of question, I guess I have to go back to an older save, especially as there is no way to get out of comission as it seems and even if just fly arround without transponder until they kick me out. Which by the way is also ridiculous when you get -3 standing from 3 patrols because you had your transponder offline for 10s when coming out of hyperspace! Either way, my relations to the other factions are still ruined. I guess I'll have to go back to an older save to do a lot more trade missions.

So did I miss something? How are you supposed to earn money with these ridiculous supply costs?
« Last Edit: November 13, 2016, 02:27:11 PM by Leroy »
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2016, 03:00:23 PM »

In short combat is not supposed to be profitable, along with "normal" trade. With trade you are supposed to use disruptions and missions to make money. You can make more money on combat though by deploying only what you need (64 supplies is like sending a capital ship and a cruiser out) and avoiding fighters as they are expensive to field and are very weak right now. Also after every three or so bounty fights, the amount you gets increases, as does the difficulty.
May I ask what you fleet is and what you used against the bounty fleet?
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machinech

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #2 on: November 13, 2016, 04:26:55 PM »

My experience has been similar. Now I understand there are a few ways to make a profit. That being said, it's just that, a few ways that are fairly specific for a "sand-box" environment. I know Alex is creating more then balancing at the moment, at least I think that was the approach. I'm still hoping that there will be more freedom of progression then the rather non intuitive avenue's now. Combat being a huge part, but unproductive in a general sense. Trade being mission oriented for success. Trade events often being long over by the time you can reach destination barring farming a few discover-able hot spots, or long term instances.

In regards to the OP, for general play, you may find a few mods to be more to your liking. There are some available which alter aspects to make a little more sense, or allow you to tweak things to reward your chosen play style. I admittedly grow impatient waiting for Alex's next big release as there are a number of big changes in the dev build he's hinted at, but we're yet to lay hands on. Though I will clarify that I am glad Alex takes his time, and I'll happily wrestle with my impatience in light of his great work. 
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Leroy

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #3 on: November 13, 2016, 05:26:29 PM »

Thanks for the input! I read "easiest start is bounty hunter" so I'd not have expected combat to be not profitable at all! I also read fighters are cheap to support, hence I went for this route.

You can make more money on combat though by deploying only what you need (64 supplies is like sending a capital ship and a cruiser out) and avoiding fighters as they are expensive to field and are very weak right now.
I had a light fast cruiser, the fast carrier (Heron), a cheap light carrier, a combat freighter and I think 4 broad sword wings. I'm far from using battleships and they are too slow anyway for my playstyle so far.  But if I understand the supply calculation correctly, fighters are indeed cheep. They use 0.7 when repairing, 0.1 normal and the statistics also say it 1 supply cost recovery, thought i don't know whether per day or in total per deployment. The costs of all my other ships are higher, the combat freighter from start alone is about 4.7 per day when repairing and 0.3 normal - that's 3 fighter wings! So are you sure that fighters are indeed expensive?

As for the increasing bounty, that's also a problem. If I remember correctly, it were 5 frigates in a 20k task. I saw 20k bounties from start, so I guess that's also the force you will get right from start to fight. So good luck with your starting frigate or maybe a second one you might have been able to get. At least I'd be far to new to the game to handle such a superiority. On the other hand you need a burn 10 or better burn 11 fleet, so frigates to catch these guys. So if they get stronger, you need either tons of frigates or slower stronger ships which in turn can no longer easily catch faster guys.

I'm now back to trading attempt and saw it's even more tedious and complicated than I thought before. You need to be careful not to trade with factions that are hostile to each other, need a low sensor profile when doing smuggling which in turn limits you freight capacity. But if you trade larger quantities, you will get a major standing hit even when docked completely dark which also doesn't make much sense, especially when you also get standing impact on faction who are hostile to the one you traded with. So you have to carefully consider wither to trade with illegal stuff or not, like in some case it's perfectly fine to buy on black marked here and sell completely legal there.  There should be filters available to better visualize what is a good opportunity and what not. It also should be visualized what to expect when doing trade with the black market. Having a just a level indicator like "suspicious" is not very helpful. 
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borgrel

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #4 on: November 13, 2016, 06:38:18 PM »

i have never struggled to make money through combat
(that said, i have never made money trading so ....... different talents)

First suggestion: install steiner foundation ... its a mod with a bonusses for characters below lvl 15, including cheaper ships.

I managed my first fights by choosing easy mode (the game gives a BEAUTIFUL wolf with a very forgiving loadout ..... it wont be effective late game but at the start, WHOOSH) swapping myself into the wolf and pilotting that. Corvus always has a bounty at game start (or starting a few days after the game begins) so aim for Barad and start punching pirates.
(I may be wrong about some of the details, its been a while since i played vanilla)

As for a 65supply deploy ....yeah, thats what i use for to fight a 200k+ bounty that has 3+ cruisers in it.


As for the question of expensive fighters:
I normally deploy 3 medusas (for big fights) (or a medusa and a wolf for small fights) thats 36 supplies and u get over 3x 700dps+ for 7.5 minutes. (or 17 supplies for 5minutes) (you might want to look at enforcers ..... they are tooo slow for my liking - in combat: its the same speed on the map - but its more forgiving in combat)
If i wanted to try deploy fighters: first I have to spend 20 supplies to deploy the heron ..... for which i get 0dps (maybe 50dps with pilums but most wont hit) and then 5 supplies per broadsword wing deployed so with 3 wings thats a total of 35 supplies (roughly equivalent to above) which will give u an average dps of (50dps + 3*150 so 500dps total - all in missiles most of which will die to point defense) and for every 3 broadswords that die u'll pay another 5 supplies after battle.
compare that to the 2100dps of the medusas that have shields to absorb a lot of the damage rather than converting damage directly into a supply cost.

hope this helps.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #5 on: November 13, 2016, 06:57:34 PM »

Thanks for the input! I read "easiest start is bounty hunter" so I'd not have expected combat to be not profitable at all! I also read fighters are cheap to support, hence I went for this route.

You can make more money on combat though by deploying only what you need (64 supplies is like sending a capital ship and a cruiser out) and avoiding fighters as they are expensive to field and are very weak right now.
I had a light fast cruiser, the fast carrier (Heron), a cheap light carrier, a combat freighter and I think 4 broad sword wings. I'm far from using battleships and they are too slow anyway for my playstyle so far.  But if I understand the supply calculation correctly, fighters are indeed cheep. They use 0.7 when repairing, 0.1 normal and the statistics also say it 1 supply cost recovery, thought i don't know whether per day or in total per deployment. The costs of all my other ships are higher, the combat freighter from start alone is about 4.7 per day when repairing and 0.3 normal - that's 3 fighter wings! So are you sure that fighters are indeed expensive?

As for the increasing bounty, that's also a problem. If I remember correctly, it were 5 frigates in a 20k task. I saw 20k bounties from start, so I guess that's also the force you will get right from start to fight. So good luck with your starting frigate or maybe a second one you might have been able to get. At least I'd be far to new to the game to handle such a superiority. On the other hand you need a burn 10 or better burn 11 fleet, so frigates to catch these guys. So if they get stronger, you need either tons of frigates or slower stronger ships which in turn can no longer easily catch faster guys.
Yeah, the recovery cost for fighters is PER FIGHTER and you always pay for a full wing at least. So there is 12 supplies at least plus the 20 for the heron carrier and 15 for the falcon. Yet you didn't use any frigates. Why? You should always have some with you. And if you don't have any, try to pick up a Lasher or a Wolf. Oh and avoid D class ships
As for your fight, you WAY over-deployed for that fight. In SS you need to use the appropriate amount of force for fights. So the Falcon with like two lashers would have been good.
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #6 on: November 13, 2016, 07:09:09 PM »

Early in the game, destroyer/frigate elements are king. A well-rigged Enforcer or Sunder can easily earn back its deployment costs against medium-small fleets, when supported by a couple of frigates.

As a big fan of the Falcon/Heron/Broadsword fast-carrier fleet; your flagship + a frigate or two will handle most things you can't run from. But I really recommend you try down-/side-grading to flying a Sunder for a little while, just to see if it doesn't work a little better for you as the player. Falcons are a little easier to leave to the AI.

(And throw a couple Thunder wings in there! Great for capturing points.)
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TJJ

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #7 on: November 13, 2016, 07:55:47 PM »

My advice would be to not drag bad ships around with you.

Avoid fighters like the plague; avoid carriers because without fighters they're a waste of space, and avoid deploying anything in battle that isn't absolutely necessary.

Stick with strong ships; Enforcer, Medusa, Tempest, Wolf, and Buffalo for cargo transport.
Their strength makes them efficient, in that they can deal fleets of far greater deployment costs.
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hunters1

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #8 on: November 13, 2016, 07:59:28 PM »

what i personally do early on is easy skirmishes vs small pirate fleets to gain some levels
afterwards i get a commission to gain money out of these pirates
when i feel confident enough i buy another frigate and aim bigger fleets
once i get lvl 10 i buy a destroyer if i got the cash or another frigate if i dont and start aiming for priced bounties
after that the game becomes w/e u want it to become

tho i will add if ur in a fight that would result in u losing almost everything and u dont have/ have lost the ships u really wana keep its better to just completely die and get a brand new ship with max CR and some supplies

side note try to avoid going under speed of 9 till u get ur destroyer and even then no lower then 8
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Leroy

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #9 on: November 14, 2016, 07:07:32 AM »

Thanks for all the information! So I indeed made quite some mistakes and the calculations regarding fighters/dps/supplies in comparison to frigates/destroyers are quite enlightening. Using ships with teleporter (Wolf, Medusa) also totally makes sense seeing how good the AI is at kiting, evading and sneaking arround to attack from behind.

I didn't buy any frigates because all I saw where weaker or about equal at best to the combat freighter I got at start. So I was thinking why would I buy a ship for combat if it's even worse then my freighter? Now I understand the classification is just by hull size, the wiki even lists Buffalo freighters in the destroyer category and the combat freighter from start is actually a frigate. Also for my defense in the example battel above I was just joining a blob of friendly ships that was fighting an about equal sized blob of hostile ships, so I don't think I was much overkill given my limited skills at least. :)

Well, on the other hand I meanwhile went back to an older save, docked at a station that had a mission to deliver 1000 weapons (which I could buy right at the station and barely afford) that resulted in over 600k profit which not only totally dwarfes everything I got before but it only took like 10minutes work. So given some luck, the balancing in matters of rewards vs. challenge is quite strange at times.
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SafariJohn

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #10 on: November 14, 2016, 07:59:09 AM »

The recovery cost for fighters in the codex is per wing, NOT per fighter.
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Sy

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #11 on: November 14, 2016, 08:57:00 AM »

seems like you got a bunch of tips already, i'll just repeat borgrel's suggestion to install the Steiner Foundation mod, even if you do not want to play with other mods for now. it's specifically designed to help new players and reduce early game difficulty.

just in general, it's worth mentioning that the game really is just in a bad place for newcomers, at the moment. even for experienced players, early game is often more challenging/frustrating than it should be, compared to mid and end game, and there's a lot of complexity that isn't properly explained anywhere to new players (although there are a lot of informative tooltips; do try hovering over all the individual UI elements).
Alex, the lead dev, is aware that this is a problem, and is looking into ways to provide a smoother starting experience. the upcoming exploration features will hopefully help a bit by providing an alternative way to earn money and experience. there will also be a comprehensive turorial eventually, but not before most of the game's other features are in place (since it'd would have to be redone whenever something imporant is changed or added).
« Last Edit: November 14, 2016, 08:58:48 AM by Sy »
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Megas

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #12 on: November 14, 2016, 10:10:38 AM »

The easiest starter ship for combat is Scarab, but that makes Tri-Tachyon hostile, and they are stronger than pirates.  Scarab can punch above its weight, and its Temporal Shell lets it outspeed enemies and dodge bullets.

Wayfarer is a good hauler, and it can fight decently with more skills.  It is not very fast, though.

Centurion is too difficult to fight with.  Specifically, it is too hard to aim three guns at an enemy.  All it can do effectively is soak damage.  In short, Centurion is an overpriced shuttle that can take a beating.

Lasher works best as a close-range Safety Override specialist.  It has difficulty punching above its weight due to slower speed (without Safety Override) and short shot range.

For trading and avoiding combat, buy and use Hounds or Cerberus, give them Unstable Injector and Safety Override, remove weapons if necessary to get enough OP.  They will outrun anything pirates will throw at you.

If you want to stick with missions, either avoid commissions or accept Hegemony commission (Hegemony control much of the map, and is only hostile to Tri-Tachyon).  For some factions, like Tri-Tachyon, profitable missions are rare enough that waiting for them is not worth it, and combat becomes more profitable provided that you can solo fights with one ship, the smaller, the better.  That said, soloing multiple endgame fleets in one extended battle will likely require a skilled battleship.
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heskey30

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #13 on: November 14, 2016, 11:45:38 AM »

Being thrifty is important. Always know when supplies are cheap or expensive, and stock up when they're cheap. Even in combat mode I bring around a couple freighters and use them to haul supplies, loot, or even really good trade good deals. Always having some of the more expensive trade goods in stock lets me jump on opportunities without using too much cargo space. This way I can still keep afloat even if the bounties don't go well. And eventually you will learn how to make consistent money off of bounties with practice and character levels.
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Leroy

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Re: What am I doing wrong?
« Reply #14 on: November 15, 2016, 04:59:22 PM »

I just noticed even if I deplay only the required minium, all other ships in my fleet still loose half of the CR that they would have left if they would have been deployed. Is this a bug? I mean it's quite annyoing and costly if all freighters and expensive ships still cost so much. It's actually insane how expensive that gets!
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