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[Zelnik]

Hey folks. I am restarting this game after a long time away, after a little sandboxing I found I really enjoyed the changes (aside from the omission of autosave...)

Getting started this time, however, is proving to be much more difficult. I want to be a bounty hunter/scavanger of ancient tech, but bounties are always so far away, sometimes impossible to find, and the rewards are really subpar. Selling ships gets you pennies on the credit, and it is growing harder and harder to make basic upkeep.

How do you all get started so you don't drown in lack of credits?

Also, when you get colonies established, do they start generating credits for you?

[Tempest]

Smuggling and selling goods on the black market is ridiculously profitable. Once you figure out the mechanics, that is.

Supposedly the colonies produce a lot of money as well, but that does require a large investment and finding a decent planet. By that time I usually drown in credits from smuggling, so for me that wasn't ever particularly necessary.

[Megas]

The Apogee start is probably the best long-term starter, but the ships are slow in combat.  If you want something that can fight a bit more easily, Hammerhead start may work.  You will grind a bit more if you pick the classic frigate starts.  My recommendation is Apogee because not only it is useful even in endgame, but also it is a decent exploring ship.

Grab commission for more monthly income.  Avoid fights with enemies that are major factions because if you resign later (which you may want to after you get colonies started), reputation will be restored to pre-commission values.  (If you fight your new enemies, your original rep will take a -5 hit after each incident.)  Note, military markets do not have the hardware they used to have in past releases.  The main point of commission is more monthly income to help you get started.

Open Market in 0.9 sells more military ships than before, albeit heavily damaged (aside from reload bug).

Abandoned stations, like the one next to Asharu, is a good stable place to store items for free.

You may loot the abandoned ruins at Maxios in Magec, and find blueprints or special items.

Durzhk may have more random planets, which may be good for colonization.

Named bounties are sub-par in rewards, and their difficulty spikes up too early (scaling is time-based, and calibrated too fast).  On the other hand, pirate bases are rewarding and often easier (usually incomplete tier 1 orbital station) than deserter bounties that pop up late in 206.  Avoid Pather bases because they are nearly endgame strong (big fleets, tier 2 battlestation).

System bounties are more useful.  If your main source of ships early is what you can loot from the enemy, Enforcers and Mules will probably be your workhorses early.

Harbinger with three Typhoon Reapers is the new Hyperion-like cheese ship.  If you find one, take it!

My main income early is exploration missions and pirate base extermination.  It is a good idea to explore to help find a place to place your colony.

Colonies is a late-game or endgame feature.  That said, if you do not want commission, you want to build a colony before your two year Galatia stipend runs out.  To get started comfortably, you want a late-game fleet and at least a million credits.

Stability, accessibility, and hazard rating are very important colony stats.  If you have commission, now is the time to resign.  Having more enemies beyond pirates and pathers will kill accessibility and eat into your profits.

Terran planets with 75% hazard and some resources are ideal, but if you cannot find them, 100% or 125% hazard planets are tolerable.

Industrial Planning is practically a must-have skill.  The choice is who gets the skill.  You, an admin, or alpha core?

After a while, your colony will be attacked by a large pirate fleet.  Later, major factions.  Do not neglect colony defenses.  After you build a colony, colony defense will dominate game play.

Special trick:  If the colony has Decivilized, you may remove it by abandoning the colony then rebuild it!

There is an infinite money trick with Commerce and some special items.

Special, tech cache mission:  There is no penalty for keeping the reward for yourself instead of honoring the deal.

Using Alpha Core as a colony administrator (instead of as an industry accessory) will turn it into a sticky cursed item after it governs long enough.

[Zelnik]

Is a comission with tri tachyon a good start? I love their ships

[Euphytose]

They can sell a Paragon, and a Hyperion. The former is arguably the best vanilla ship in the game, and the latter is incredibly powerful in the player's hands.

[Megas]

Is a comission with tri tachyon a good start? I love their ships

It can work (I did it myself), but you need to avoid Hegemony space.  You will have an easier time finding Harbinger and their other ships with Tri-Tachyon.

If I had to take commission again, I would do it with Hegemony.

They can sell a Paragon, and a Hyperion. The former is arguably the best vanilla ship in the game, and the latter is incredibly powerful in the player's hands.

Paragon costs 60 DP, which is significant.  It is only worth its cost if you use long-range beam loadouts.  Otherwise, Onslaught or Conquest plus Heron or Mora are probably more combat effective or at least faster for the same DP.

Hyperion is not as good as it used to be.  AI is a bit better on the defense.

One ship that has changed for the better in 0.9 is Tempest.

[Zelnik]

What is the best way to get the Conquest?

[Megas]

If you do not find the blueprint to make it yourself, probably loot it from a Diktat or League deserter or expedition (when the latter will try to raid your colony).  Conquest has overtaken Onslaught as the most common capital in 0.9.

[SapphireSage]

You can get Conquests via Sindrian Diktat or Independents. Nice thing about Independents is that you don't need a commission to visit their military markets for more pristine ships, though with factions selling all ships in open market now (though with D-mods) that's not as big a deal.

Assuming what I hear about bounties scaling too fast is true, you'll generally only be able to take care of a few named bounties before what's left over is far too strong. Though pirate bases will only need a cruiser or two and can be very lucrative, there are also in-system bounties which are no doubt more prevalent now that pirates regularly run around in raiding packs.

Don't bother scavenging ships to sell, only scavenge to use. Alex specifically made it so that selling ships was mostly worthless to avoid players having to feel that scavenging ships, using a decent portion of their 30 ship slots, fuel, and making frequent return trips, to make money was no where near the realm of feeling optimal or even viable.

If you want to be a scavenger, you can equip your ships with surveying equipment to lower supply cost of surveys and get data cheaply (5 supplies per ideally, otherwise you lose money) that can be sold for a fair amount. You can also sell spare corrupted nano forges since you'll likely find so many. Same thing with duplicate blueprints, though not on the black market to avoid pirates getting stronger. Most of the really, really valuable stuff you'll want to keep for your own colony, but you'll find some decently valuable commodities out there. You can ignore extremely cheap and cargo intensive items like food and metals though. Or keep enough metals/transplutonics to go around making comm relays to pick up potential survey missions while you're out.

[Megas]

The main problem with named bounties is their progression is too fast.  One moment, you can deal with the five to ten small pirate ships worth 50k to 80k, then later, nearly all bounties are 150k+ deserters with cruisers and many small ships before you obtain a similar fleet yourself.  A bit later, they go to 250k with multiple capitals before you do.  Eventually, they will peak and you will catch up much later (if you can).

Independents require 75 rep to buy capitals, which you probably will not get until late or end game.  Also, since they do not have a heavy industry, their ships probably have (D) mods.

[Zelnik]

So I tried to follow all of your advice... and none of it worked. Apogee's don't have the speed or power to fight (they die pathetically in any combat) and I keep running out of money too quickly. If I do win a combat, weapons are more valuable then ships (this makes no *** sense)

PLEASE someone give me some better advice.

[Tempest]

So I tried to follow all of your advice... and none of it worked. Apogee's don't have the speed or power to fight (they die pathetically in any combat) and I keep running out of money too quickly. If I do win a combat, weapons are more valuable then ships (this makes no *** sense)

PLEASE someone give me some better advice.

Ok, if you want spoilers:

Spoiler

Fly to Asharu in the Corvus system, where you spawn. Near the planet, turn off the sustained burn, and then if there is no Hegemony patrol nearby, transponder as well. You can see their sensor circles, and you can safely turn off the transponder outside of them.

Trading with a transponder off lets you buy things from the black market with no penalty. Buy as many drugs as you can carry.

Now fly to the Yma system, through the Warawara star. Use "go dark" right before you jump. Travel to Qaras in dark mode, or turn it off if there are no sensor circles from pirates or other fleets. Sell drugs in Qaras black market. The trade should give you quite a bit of money and experience, usually enough to level up once or twice.

Buy ships with a bigger cargo hold, and trade some more. If you go with the Navigation skill at start, you can get the level 3 ability to Transverse Jump. That lets you jump directly into planet locations and back into hyperspace, so you can trade a lot faster and more efficiently.

[close]

[Megas]

Apogee is slow, but it is a good fighter.  The most annoying part is cowardly AI.  Wayfarer is crummy, I remove it once I no longer need its capacity.

Combat (aside from pirate base killing) is not exactly the best way to make money early.  It is more useful for gaining XP and more ships.

If you want ships that are faster in a fight, it is either Hammerhead or frigate start.  I doubt they will do much better than Apogee.

If Apogee and Hammerhead starter fleets are not enough, do the tutorial for more ships.

If your combat skills are bad enough that the two fleets at the end of the tutorial are hard, there is not much that can be done, other than sneak and run from everything.  Combat only gets harder from there.

[Wyvern]

If you do the Apogee start, -always- run through the tutorial.  It'll give you weapons that are better than what the Apogee starts with.  If you don't do the tutorial, keep in mind that every resource the tutorial directs you to is still there, and the extra hammerhead and guaranteed gamma core are particularly valuable - the latter should help with having enough starting cash for whatever path you go on.

[Megas]

If you do the Apogee start, -always- run through the tutorial.  It'll give you weapons that are better than what the Apogee starts with.

What better weapons?  The only one I can think of that Apogee can use that can be found there is Heavy Blaster (from the Wolf wreck), and that is not guaranteed.

The extra ships and other stuff are good, though.