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[va gamer]

Recently started playing the game and I'm enjoying the various mechanics. In my playthrough, I've been doing exploration and salvage while avoiding combat (really burning through story points). With so many ships and loadouts, I have been hesitant to jump into the combat side of things (older-guy reflexes are a factor).

After watching FrancisJohn and GrumpyThumper videos on YT, I'm more interested in trying out some combat stuff. Bounty hunter/salvage playthough seems the obvious way to go. So many options leading to analysis paralysis. I'm mostly interested in playing as fleet command / support role, moving / strafing around creating and exploiting openings.

What I'm specifically looking for are possible career progression of ships/skills/captains from early to end game combat. Basically, learning to play a style that can scale up. Something like using xx frigate for early bounties, while keeping an eye out for YY destroyer and Z light carrier to salvage. I'm open to different options: missile boat, phase ships, various carrier loadouts, etc.

Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

[Amoebka]

Do you want to specifically only salvage ships, or is purchasing fine too? Assuming it's the latter, the easy progression is:

• Starting Wolf + Kite for early bounties. (cleaning up Corvus)
• Grabbing a guaranteed Hammerhead in Galatia and cleaning it up too. (Corvus and Galatia always have system bounties and pre-spawned pirate fleets at game start)
• Grabbing a free Venture and meme weapons, praying an alpha core drops for early 450k, if you know where that is and have the necessary ability. (skippable)
• Buying a bunch of Hammerheads/Sunders/Manticores, salvaging pirate Eradicators if any drop in decent condition, buying Omens/Scarabs/Tempests for escort duty. Grabing a Heron or two for carrier duty.
• Buying Eradicators/Champions/Gryphons/Apogees.
• Buying whatever capital your faction sells. Assuming Hegemony comission from day 1, it will be Onslaught XIV.
• If you find a derelict combat capital, always recover with a story point.

Most options are good, really. Simply maintaining a healthy mix of ship sizes is enough for anything up to super late-game. The options I listed are simply the most commonly sold and require the least micromanagement.

[smithney]

With so many ships and loadouts, I have been hesitant to jump into the combat side of things (older-guy reflexes are a factor).

If rusty reflexes are a factor, you can simply build your flagship for backline duty and hit autopilot (press U) once you hit the battlefield like a lot of us does. Anyway for what you described, autopilot is still optional and there are plenty of viable backline builds.

Option #1: Carrier

If you've already started and don't feel like resetting, a good early carrier for new players is the Condor. A very slow low-tech carrier, but you basically can't go wrong with it as long as you pick up enough escorts in your fleet to protect it. Later you can upgrade to Mora if you start getting appetite for the frontline; it's a bulky and versatile battle carrier that will hopefully give you a hint of capital-class combat. Alternatively, if you'll feel like staying in the background, Heron is the way to go.

[close]

Option #2: Long-range

This is a trickier route to go, but better if you really wanna learn to shoot. Unless you started with an Apogee, early on you will want to look for Manticore, which is harder to find than Condor, but not impossible. The point about having enough escorts in your fleet still stands, but it's not as crucial. If you get comfortable quickly and want to get closer, Hammerhead is the best option. An alternative would be a Sunder, but that one's squishy and you might have a hard time finding a large Energy weapon for it. Later on you will probably want to upgrade either to the Apogee, which is all-around useful, or an Atlas Mk. II. Be sure to look up a build for the latter one, since that can be screwed up easily, but with the right build it should feel like a straight upgrade to the Manticore.

[close]

When it comes to skills, I recommend picking up the Transverse Jump from the Tech tree and then invest deep into the QoL stuff from the Industry tree. Both trees also feature a drive-by combat skill in the second tier. Don't bother yourself with the Combat tree until you're comfortable battling and start investing into the Leadership tree when you feel like it.

Hope this helps ^^

[Grievous69]

Hammerheads and Eradicators are probably the most straightforward ships in the game, and both very good and reliable. Your ship system is basically supercharging weapons and both ships have decent speed. Gryphon is a nice alternative if you fancy chucking missiles from afar. And trust me, a human with glacial reflexes still has better decision making when to fire missiles than AI.

Actual progression would look something like this: Hammerhead > Eradicator (Gryphon) > Conquest or Onslaught.

[Euphytose]

If you're piloting a big ship, reflexes are not a factor at all, except for maybe catching reapers with a quick shield. Don't worry about that. In fact, past frigates, you don't need that much reflex.

[SCC]

Don't underestimate system bounties. Pirates found in those use their typical pirate equipment, but the difficulty can spike, if you get jumped by several fleets. While those bounties pay less than personal bounties (from intel or contacts), you don't go outside the core and don't pay for all that fuel.

[Serenitis]

If you're piloting a big ship, reflexes are not a factor at all, except for maybe catching reapers with a quick shield. Don't worry about that. In fact, past frigates, you don't need that much reflex.

Can confirm. I have garbage dexterity, and I find larger ships much easier to deal with.

Don't underestimate system bounties. Pirates found in those use their typical pirate equipment, but the difficulty can spike, if you get jumped by several fleets.

This.
System bounties frequently align with pirate raids, being issued while it is active or just after it ends.
Either way there will usually be a lot of ships loitering around, and it's usually worth avoiding 2 specific places if you're not up for a 'big' fight.

• Any Pirate base/planet
• The fringe/outermost jump point

Both of these can see large groups of lurking pirates that can easily overpower unwary fleets. And around the jump point in particular there's usually lots of trader debris for them to hide in.
A good source of money, supplies and fuel if you can fight that fight though...

[Brainwright]

(older-guy reflexes are a factor).

Phase ships.

Even a pirate shade using its EMP emitter to zap fighters and missiles for a larger ship is ridiculously useful.  Have you ever seen how effective that is with Systems Expertise and Point Defense skills?

Also, you can typically just phase behind things and dump an antimatter blaster into their engines.  Never gets old.

[va gamer]

Thank you all for your ideas.

I understand how to build captains to support my mainline ships, (e.g kinetic or carrier-focused). Are there any one-off captains that I may want to consider for special roles - pursuit ship, point defense, etc?

[Brainwright]

Sounds like you're thinking of an older version, as hired captains don't have carrier specific skills anymore.

Attack focused liuetenants can focus on three areas : missiles, damage, and range as represented by Ballistic Implants, Gunnery Expertise, Target Analysis, Energy Weapon Mastery, and Missile Expertise.

Additionally, there are skills that greatly enhance survivability, like Impact Mitigation, Damage Control, Polarized Armor, and Helmsmanship.

The only really specific skill for any one ship is Field Modulation.  You need that bumped up to elite for phase ships.  There's not much reason not to.

[va gamer]

Sounds like you're thinking of an older version, as hired captains don't have carrier specific skills anymore.

Attack focused liuetenants can focus on three areas : missiles, damage, and range as represented by Ballistic Implants, Gunnery Expertise, Target Analysis, Energy Weapon Mastery, and Missile Expertise.

Additionally, there are skills that greatly enhance survivability, like Impact Mitigation, Damage Control, Polarized Armor, and Helmsmanship.

The only really specific skill for any one ship is Field Modulation.  You need that bumped up to elite for phase ships.  There's not much reason not to.

thank you

[Tadas]

I have played two playthroughs with bounties only, one of them with additional "can't buy military ships /post battle salvage only" rule. I found that early game it's important just to take whatever you can get. Like a hound with 4 D-mods - yes please! Becoming more picky once all 30 ship slots are full. Reinforced bulkheads was great when I didn't have any captains, Support Doctrine was massive power boost and luck plays a role. In my first playthrough I think I killed like 10 capitals before I could salvage first one, in my second one - I have paragon and onslaught after like 10-15 battles.. Oh and I found out that I need to spend skill points on ship recovery very aggressively not to fall behind the curve, but this type of gameplay accelerates the game a lot. If you spend time doing other type of missions you can obviously play a lot more chill and picky.