Yeah I did maybe 3? story missions. Had fun, decided to wait until it really counts to do more. Hopefully that's soon.
Fanatical has a nice bundle sale going on, and one of the games you can pick up super cheap is Interstellar Space: Genesis. Supposedly one of the better MOO2 clones, and you can get it for <$2 if you pick up a 3 game bundle for $5.
IS:G is terrific.
I'm sure it's no Endless Space 2 but so far so good.
I'm sure it's no Endless Space 2 but so far so good.
April 6th release date set!
Nice. Hopefully there's no plan for it to leave Gamepass, so I intend on playing it there. I have fought the urge to jump in until it hit full release so it's nice to have a date.
Star Traders: Frontiers at $9 on Steam is not quite the lowest price it's been, but it's 40% off and of course it has had tons of additional content via free updates. Great game, not to be missed if you have any interest at all in space trading and combat RPGs with ship configuration, politics, aliens, pirates, princesses, spying, exploration... And an over-arching story that periodically shakes things up and puts you to the test.
Really a must-have game for Space Gamers.
Agreed, if you don't own that one, what are you even doing in this thread? Buy it you f*cks, and all that.
Thanks for reminding me to check back in with it. I wonder how it is on the deck.
Playable, but requires use of the on-screen keyboard and screen interactions at times. I probably would not try it.
It is available on iPads though. Not sure about Android but probably? Works great on iPads.
I bought Star Traders: Frontiers on Robear's recommendation and tried to follow the main campaign (following a ship that may have been involved in an explosion being used to incriminate a princess) and got stuck in a mutiny / fuel / no crew sprial where nobody would sell me fuel because my reputation is too bad, and my crew have poor stats and hate me but I'm not sure why. I've paid them and let them go to spice halls whenever I had the opportunity. I'm on the easiest skill level and picked the "Explorer" archetype since the others seemed more combatty.
I'm going to have to start again I think. I think I need some kind of primer. The game does a reasonable job of teaching you how to do stuff but not what to do. The main quest seemed a reasonable place to start, but maybe I missed a level or difficulty indicator and should be levelling up my stats / crew / ship before going onto the next bit. I really like the basic idea of the crew management, levelling up my officers and getting bigger better ships. The character art has lots of personality, and I want to follow the main story.
I'd say I'm not a big fan of the ship-to-ship combat. It seems to be too elaborate to ignore but not in-depth enough to be interesting. I don't feel I have many tactical choices. I think I'd like an auto-resolve.
The Darkest Dungeon-like boarding combat was kinda thin but didn't overstay its welcome. I assume when I level my people up a bit I'll have more tactical options there.
Okay. First off, you are correct, leveling up gives you more skills and in turn more options in combat (ship and melee). It also gives you more saves for events that happen while travelling, in negotiations, and so forth.
As for basics, first, you need money. When you get short, you need to go out and do some trading, and run some missions. At first you'll be offered a set of missions outside of the story that will teach you the basics while giving you relatively large amounts of cash. They will also let you level up your officers and crew.
There is an option to auto-level your crew (but not your officers). Use this until you feel the desire to micro-manage. It will spread out skills and maximize what your crew members offer, so you'll survive more random events, which means morale will stay high and the crew will not mutiny or scamper off during a port stop.
Always, every time, refuel when you stop, and if possible visit the doc and use the Spice Hall. That's essential. Get in the habit of refueling before you warp, and then after you come out of warp. If you warp into unfriendly sectors, take the time to pause and find a friendlier planet to divert too. Fill your tanks and pay your crew salary and fix your ship early and often and you'll avoid issues.
Any time you can grab a relatively expensive A commodity that you can easily resell, do it. You'll learn which are good. The trade info will list two types of planets that desire the good, and two (I think) that don't want it. If you can buy at an A price (very low) and resell at an A price, you've basically done your best trade. And of course, the higher the unit cost, the more you'll make when you sell. You'll learn which types of planets want which goods.
Don't continuously run story missions without upgrading your ship. At some point early on, you'll notice that the main storyline missions start to have time limits in years, not weeks or months. Take advantage of this to run side missions for cash and experience. Also, spying or blockading unfriendly planets for a few weeks can be lucrative, as can taking down pirates. I like to loot them for repairs and then sell them back to their factions for cash, but you can go full pirate and loot them if you want. Don't mess with your own faction or allies, however. Be noble to them. However, if you run low on cash, don't be afraid to browbeat enemy or indie ships into paying you protection money. You'll take a rep hit but it will be cash in your data card.
Lean into the strengths of your officers and the ship type you chose. Don't try to have each officer be a generalist. You want them to complement each other and the ship's build. Try not to have them duplicate skills the crew has (although that may happen over time, which is why you can reset skills further on in the game). And for each officer, try to find complementary skills for their three main jobs. You Doctor will do well as a Combat Medic, so maybe take a Pistol-based job for their third and use them as a healer in boarding parties. That's a good starting strategy, to set up two or three officers with boarding combat skills and use them in boarding parties. Alternatively, give them skills that contribute to ship combat and try to avoid boarding, but that will be problematic when you have to go planetside and fight on the ground.
Check to see what jobs your crew can't do and think about that for your officers. Think about how you want to specialize - ship combat, black market trading, spying, commerce, diplomacy, piracy, military (faction enforcer, basically), assassin, whatever - and make sure your captain and officers skills are complementary to this.
This will take experience but try your best.
The first time you get a good chunk of change, swap out your fuel tank for a bigger one (and remember to lean into the skills that decrease fuel usage in warp). Then, the next time you cash in, swap out a weapon or two for a higher-level one. Remember to also get a higher level Weapons Locker - that gives you a boost in boarding combat. (Although, again, if you don't want to do boarding then work on anti-ship weapons and defenses so the fight does not go there.) Also, consider (eventually) changing up your accommodations to include a guest stateroom and a brig, so as to get the widest opportunities. It's easy to swap them out but it takes time for the shipyard to do it so occasionally that will be inconvenient.
But the big thing is to start the storyline, then before you run off and piss off a nearby faction, who will slowly lock down their planets and attack you, learn to do some lucrative trading while running the easy missions you get from the various Court members and contacts you have. You'll rapidly get past the phase where you are vulnerable to everything, and you'll learn the game systems too, while your experience and skills shoot up to more useful levels.
I have Star Traders both on Steam and Android but haven't played more than 30 min. I sort of remember the start Robear is talking about. I thought the tutorial suggested talking to nobles or something for side missions.
I really should give it another try. Especially before their next game releases later this year
A lot of good stuff there from Robear; I'll have to go back and read it more thoroughly when I have more than a few seconds free!
If you have time to watch youtube, here is a playlist from a pretty good tutorial.
The same guy also has a pretty interesting LP series that he just wrapped up.
One thing that might be totally clear - the first time you talk to the Prince, he has a mission waiting for you. But you can click the Mission button in his mission screen, and pop up a few easy, short, high-paying missions to do before you dive further into the story. Just keep an eye on the story timer on his first mission so you don't miss it.
Damn I've wasted the whole day on Star Traders.
It's fun but so weird. I've been blown up 4 or 5 times, executed once, had a mutiny warning but something else happened. So I've totally lost the game multiple times but it keeps letting me try again because I'm on Normal difficulty. Thanks I guess?
I did watch that video and my ground/boarding crew is setup right. I soldier in back, 1 doctor in 3, and 2 melee up front. I've actually won every combat except one, when I got ambushed a second time during an explore mission and wasn't healed from the first, and it was Xeno. I've kicked their ass other times though.
But on the flip side I have only won ship combat one time out of dozens. It's nuts. I had ship B when I made my captain and got a nice mid tier choice with solid speed/agility still. I upgraded officer quarters so I could have 4 and weapons locker. But not really ship weapons because I don't know which are good. So maybe I need a better guide just about that. I just reread Robear tips which did mention upgrading weapons.
Anyway I feel like I'm building officers and crew well and have lots of saving skills and active skills for space combat and crew combat as appropriate. But I've got a few crew that are small craft pilots and I've yet to be able to afford a hangar. So trying to save for that but maybe I should just upgrade weapons? There's definitely no way to do everything. Maybe I just need more focus.
I might play this thing for months. Or I might quit forever tomorrow. There's definitely a great game in there but do I really want to get deep enough to be good at it? We'll see
It is not something that you have to get incredibly skilled at to have a really fun run.
Executed? Why would let someone hostile board you? Fight or flee. Being boarded is a huge morale hit because your crew will react very badly to you caving in.
Mutinies are a morale problem. Some of your officers may have skills to prevent them. And when you get to a port, always get fuel, then check and pay salary before anything else. That gives a morale boost that will lessen your need for Spice Hall runs. If you do your Spice Hall first, you will be spending extra cash for nothing, potentially.
If you are nearing the end of the combat, you can extend it by self-healing instead of shooting, to get your medic time to do a few more heals. By then the remaining enemy should be hobbled by debuffs and fairly harmless.
Also, at the start, do a quick check for officers, doctors and the enemy captain, as well as who has the highest initiative. Target them first. Taking them reduces their initiative every time they are hit, and takes dangerous skills out of play quickly.
In upgrading, consider the ship you are in. If it's really small and you can get a better ship early on (more mass), then save your money for that after a few common sense upgrades. If you are a standard pirate, on the other hand, upgrade the heck out of your cutter because you'll need more than a million monies to get a better ship. Carriers are also in that price range.
In your starting ship, there will be some Small components that give minor bonuses to skills like Navigation and the like. They can be swapped out for what you really need to cover weaknesses in the way you like to do things. You can add a prison cell so you don't have to swap your guest quarters out every time you do a capture or transport mission, for example. Also, there are a lot of Small components that add fuel capacity and sometimes storage - very, very useful. And as you upgrade your top-line storage areas, that adds fuel capacity as well. Of course, if you are focused more on combat or something else, sub in whatever is useful for you.
Eventually, you'll have enough cash to get more efficient (or more powerful, your call) regular and Hyperwarp engines. That reduces fuel consumption, which in some sectors may be completely unavailable. Pro-tip - if you get below the level needed to make a wormhole jump, blockade a planet and steal the water from your first fight. You'll lose like 5 rep but you'll get a fuel refill. Plus it feels really good to complete a mission against your enemies and take down one of their merchants and steal their stuff on the way out lol.
Ship weapons...
If you are basing your combat around boarding, make sure you have at 2 good 1 or 2 range weapons to keep smacking the bad guys at range one while you are coring them out like a worm in an apple. But if you want to fight the ship instead, try to spread out your optimal weapon ranges so there is always something in best range. Remember it's useless to have two components that are best at the same ranges but can't be powered up simultaneously. And if you don't like fighting, well... Big engines and escape skills.
Remember to upgrade your level I weapons early, they won't cost much and can really help you out. Also, upgrade your Weapons Locker as soon as possible. That gives your boarders a solid advantage.
What's a good weapon? Up to you. Note that weapons have damage types and also secondary effects like the ability to Cripple, which greatly increases damage, do Critical hits beyond the normal, and cause other effects on hit. So try to have different damage types. I favor raising the chances of special damage and hits. You want to make sure you have at least armor-piercing and shield-piercing weapons, as well as Void damage. That will spread out the effects and help bring the other ship down.
But really, the fool-proof way to take down an enemy is to have an ace boarding crew with a few backups in case you are facing... uh, tougher opponents. Or, to have fast engines, good defenses and enough offense to make Capt. Picard blanch at the sight of your ship. Blow them up fast, or close to board. Hanging around in running fights is a very poor second.
How is Spacebourne 2?
I saw a video on it and it looked ambitious and competent if a little rough around the edges. It looks like its doing everything Star Citizen is supposed to do. But its an indie developer so I worry about lightness of content or getting bored with copy pasted content.
Executed? Why would let someone hostile board you? Fight or flee. Being boarded is a huge morale hit because your crew will react very badly to you caving in.
I think I had just been in a story mission to spy and had gotten damaged so I didn't want to fight. A couple times I had spent a whole fight trying to run and been destroyed anyway, so I didn't want to try that again. So this bounty hunter stops me and the usual "let them board and search the ship" was changed to let them board and execute the captain. So I did. I was halfway hoping that would be game over because it was late and I was tired of losing ship battles.
I'm in my starting Paladin Cruiser. Maybe that was the wrong choice. Maybe I should have put captain skills higher. I don't know. Even when I successfully board or fight off boarding I seem to lose space combat. And I was boarding using one of my crew "board from 3 spaces" skill. And then I couldn't figure out how to board again or if that's even possible. The ship starts with 2 4-5 range weapons and 1 2-4 weapon so it seemed like advance to 4 and unload full salvo would be the best straight fight strategy but it's never worked. I can't remember if the one fight I did win was after boarding maybe...
I suppose I have to watch a ship combat tutorial now.
How is Spacebourne 2?
I saw a video on it and it looked ambitious and competent if a little rough around the edges. It looks like its doing everything Star Citizen is supposed to do. But its an indie developer so I worry about lightness of content or getting bored with copy pasted content.
I've tried this but couldn't get very far into it. Reminds me more of x4 then star citizen. It has cool bits but lacks polish. Like the ui, sound, and other bits are subpar.
Combat was okay. On ground and in space. I had a scene where I raided a space base then threw myself into zero g to get to my ship. Then finished in a dogfight. Plus explosions. Was scripted though.
Space combat is very freelancer with the ace combat chase system. Was okay.
Would have played more but got stuck in a pit while walking in a station. And reloading lost me a chunk of time.
I will say this and x4 have won me over with having a first or third person mode outside your ship. It makes the world more alive and your ship looks cooler when you can see the scale of it.
Skills, once used, are off the table for a particular time. But you can have multiples if different crewmen or officers have them.
If you're not running successfully - check the stat comparisons for reasons why - then turning and boarding is your best option. You can defeat a much larger opponent by terrifying the crew and breaking things in their ship, as well as killing crewmembers in combat. Just takes time.
If you are just starting, use a standard build. Don't try to configure your own character.
The first time you talk to the Prince, you get offered some missions to "prove yourself". But the two that are up there are *not* those missions. You have to click the missions button in the screen to get the easy mission offers. That might be where you went wrong. You should not be fighting much until you have leveled a bit and upgraded some weapons and your Weapons Locker. If you can avoid it. Pay the tribute. Just let them go if they are friendly. Try one turn of escape; if you can't do that, then close to boarding range (1). Staying at one range creates a competition of skills, armor, shields and damage output, and often you won't win that. At least in the early game.
Configuring your skills is important. It's important to cover as many bases as possible. when you consider a new skill, see how many folks have it. If it's zero, that is a good possibility, if it fits with what you want to do. If there are 9 crewfolks with it, then don't bother. Try to give your officers skills that crewmen don't have, like, well, Doctor and Medic and the leadership skills. Explorer, Spy, Diplomat, Merchant, that sort of thing. Don't bother with two officers with similar skill sets. (Well, maybe if you want to jack something sky high, like Navigation or Diplomacy or anti-Alien skills). You can always reset them later.
Looks like I've had Star Traders in my Steam Library since 2019 and never played 
I'll have to check it out.
This is Star Traders: Frontiers, not the 4x Empires one that preceded it.
The first time you talk to the Prince, you get offered some missions to "prove yourself". But the two that are up there are *not* those missions. You have to click the missions button in the screen to get the easy mission offers. That might be where you went wrong.
Yeah I tried that. First was a straight delivery.
Second was to source some water harvesters, which weren't on any of the 3 planets I visited yet. So I tried another tech world in system. Nope. Tried another, yep but only 22 of the 44(?) I needed. Ok now what?
I didn't know how to jump out of system yet. Still don't really, just happens when I navigate somewhere. 
But anyway at that point I tried to take a second mission and got a source 45 some kind of fuel, which also wasn't in system. And you can only run 2 missions at once from a contract at that point. So my only option seemed to be to take a story mission. And on that 1st story mission planet there were water harvesters. So I finished up one side mission and one story. But I never saw fuel for that other. Tried to trade a few goods as I ran around and maybe made 5k of profit, nothing compared to mission rewards. And I couldn't really find where my other second or third contact were on the map (ran into them later), so story it was.
And everything has a timer then. Even though some of it is 2 years it goes fast. And there's that overall 12 year timer that starts. So I didn't feel like I could just go off and do my own thing at that point.
If you are just starting, use a standard build. Don't try to configure your own character.
I watched the video above. Technically I just did the bounty hunter start rank wise but with smuggler as my primary for the bonus defense. But I still get destroyed in ship combat. Obviously 10% isn't much but I shouldn't be outclassed so badly from the start on Normal you would think.
I'm not trying to argue or complain. Just generally confused about a lot of things. And I watched an HOUR of how to play before playing yet still I'd be dead 8 times or so if this wasn't Normal difficulty. I think I remember why I bounced off it initially after 5 or 10 minutes a year ago.
Use the black holes to go out-sector. The bar on the left-hand side of your fuel bar indicates what you need for a jump; fuel up as close to the black hole as you can because of course you'll spend fuel on the other side.
For contacts, once you are in space, look on the left side and near the bottom you'll see the Contacts list. Go into it, find the contact, then click "Set Waypoint" or "Navigate". That will set a course to them.
Did you get those fuel/goods missions from the Prince? It sounds like maybe you used another contact.
Try starting with a Pirate build, bigger ship, more skills for combat and such.
And the contract timers? You can blow off the entire story mission if you like. Just start working for a faction and gaining rep. But... You'll miss the big deal early missions that can set you up.
Usually, the first couple of missions from the Prince are "Take this box to Planet Nearby", which won't require jumps, or "Pick up one of our envoys in the next Sector and bring them back". I don't thing the Prince gives out "buy fuel for me"... But I could be wrong.
Keep plugging away at it. It'll make sense.
What jobs have you given your captain?
How is Spacebourne 2?
I saw a video on it and it looked ambitious and competent if a little rough around the edges. It looks like its doing everything Star Citizen is supposed to do. But its an indie developer so I worry about lightness of content or getting bored with copy pasted content.
3 hours in and enjoying it very much. Definitely an enhancement over the original.
Did you get those fuel/goods missions from the Prince? It sounds like maybe you used another contact.
...
Usually, the first couple of missions from the Prince are "Take this box to Planet Nearby", which won't require jumps, or "Pick up one of our envoys in the next Sector and bring them back". I don't thing the Prince gives out "buy fuel for me"... But I could be wrong.
From a quick start guide:
330 – “PROVE YOUR CHARTER” MISSIONS – For the first 18 weeks (210.03-210.21) your Starting Contacts will offer “Prove Your Charter” Missions. These are typically easy Planet Visit Missions in the starting Quadrant. Complete as many of these missions as you can before 210.21! They provide you with a bit of cash, build Faction Rep with your starting Faction, and don’t harm your Rep with the other Factions. I recommend prioritizing these missions in the following fashion:
Data Cube Delivery – HIGH PRIORITY – Quick and easy. Accept as many of as possible.
Passenger Delivery – MED PRIORITY – Buy additional Passenger Cabins as necessary.
Commodity Delivery – LOW PRIORITY – Ignore these missions unless you can easily purchase/haul these goods in one trip (<25 units, available for sale in the Starting Quadrant).
Multi-Quadrant Missions – NO PRIORITY – Jumping quadrants takes too much time; ignore these missions for now.
And then a few sections later...
340 – REASONS TO RESTART THE GAME (!!!) – In the first 2-3 weeks of the game you might encounter two possible reasons to consider restarting the game:
Bad Mission Selection – Sometimes, your Starting Contacts offer exclusively difficult Commodity Delivery and Multi-Quadrant Missions. Poor mission choices in the early game will significantly stunt your rapid progress. I recommend a restart.
So yeah even though I was trying to follow the advice I got screwed with RNG a bit. I then jumped in the story without building myself or skip enough it seems like. Also one of the branching story missions ended up taking me 4 system jumps away which ate up months of time. I probably should have avoided that entirely.
And from that first bit of the guide I quoted it recommends grabbing prove yourself missions from your other starting contact (s) in that first zone. And you can stack missions from them.
Maybe I should start again with contacts higher and ship lower and just work on grinding early credits. It's possible my first game isn't salvageable from where I ended up after a few in game years. But I was hoping to at least get a few unlocks or something. None so far though and I've already missed any of the first 1/2 year things.
Try a pirate build and start over, yeah. I'm just happy I was not too far off in remembering lol.
Your game is salvageable, but likely you'd need to understand the system well enough to recover. Might as well restart.
The scale of travel time is usually weeks to months if you have to leave the system. Each jump might be a week or so, and you get that coming or going. That's why most missions have a year or two to complete (once you're past the initial stage).
I'm thinking you just get screwed...
Once you get up around 100K credits - even less - you can do some "quick hit" upgrades, like swapping a level 1 medium weapon for a level 2 or 3, upgrading your Weapons Locker and some Small weapons, whatever. Those will help you disproportionately. More fuel capacity, and more cargo space too.
You'll get the hang of it.
Okay you guys this is pretty damned neat. Someone mixed Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary and Super Star Trek:
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