Optimizing prove your charter missions
Amazing Reddit thread on ST:F. Basically there's little difference between contacts D or better. You get 3 in the starting system either way, and for time purposes those are the ones you want to max.
There is some discussion about starting maps or factions in there too. Apparently you can start in a 2-planet system and just run back and forth, haha.
But anyway looks like the best thing to do is start in a fast E ship, and grind these missions for 200k or more and then dive into the story.
Haha, Steam.
Today:
Carlbear played Star Traders: Frontiers for the first time.Yesterday:
BigInJapan, Q Stone, added ST:F to their library
I guess this discussion is helping? 
Also that same noobie video has two shorter videos.
They build on the noobie video, but also break it down into some simple tips.
Okay you guys this is pretty damned neat. Someone mixed Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary and Super Star Trek:
Between this and the 90s XCOM mod I've been playing called "The X-COM Files," I haven't played a game made in this century in the last three weeks.
Optimizing prove your charter missions
...looks like the best thing to do is start in a fast E ship, and grind these missions for 200k or more and then dive into the story.
So this is exactly what I did last night with C (4) contacts. The starting recommended sector by faction was ok but there was one planet run that was 30AU, while a few others were only 12 or 9 apart. Still I just stacked prove yourself missions. One planet had 2 contacts on it, so that was nice. And twice out of 4 or 5 trips they gave me missions to the same planet.
So yeah 4 contacts including the story one. Ran all the missions I could through 210.20. once it got to .15 I went ahead and triggered a few extra missions at each stop even though I could only accept 2 for most contacts at a time. But those hung around for a few more weeks and I was able to complete them on my way back through. One contact still gave me a new prove yourself after .20 but maybe it was the story contact who I didn't meet until a week into the game? Something.
Anyway I didn't count missions but things went very well. Captain and officers got to 7 or so. Made 200k, more than he value of my starter crappy ship. Sold some spice and a couple other things in system for decent profit. Was only forced to fight space combat one time that I couldn't get out of before hand. And I had 2 talents boosting escape and successfully escaped on 2nd turn. No damage to ship. Once the quick missions were done I grabbed a couple of those defensive matrix small components and replaced my range 4/5 weapons with those. Might replace more. Figure I'm all in on running until a new ship.
Might need to grab another officer quarter so I can actually field a full group of officers and start building them up for combat. Right now I only have 2 good fighters. But some contacts are already offering level 5 crew/officers, I just need the space.
Looks like the story mission still hasn't started a timer or anything since I never went to throne room to trigger story. So I keep working those other contacts and grinding for a ship or just start story now. Guess I'll give it a go later.
If you are going for crew combat, replace your Weapons Locker with the best you can afford, ASAP. Also make sure you have some good range 1 and 2 weapons, and the boarding skill that lets you board at range 3. Good way to get DPS and morale lowering going a bit earlier than usual.
I hope you are starting to see the game open up!
Yep things were rolling last two nights. Finished up all of these achievements and unlocks.
Expert Contractor
Complete 10 missions in 2 years
Quick Survey
Visit 10 new planets in 1st year
Perfect Contractor
Complete 25 missions without failing
Warrior
Win 20 crew battles in 5 years
I didn't finish a single one on my original Android run from Sunday. Much better idea what I'm doing now.
Still in starter ship that kind of crappy but it's getting the job done. Upgraded weapons locker before I started going after ground battles. I've won probably 10 ship battles all with boarding. Just have 1 close range gun and talents for changing range. I either bail immediately or dive into range 1 and tear them up.
I did die once, yay normal, when I got a Xeno ship from a patrol or spy something above planet. In the area where story mission took me there weren't spores and bam, Xeno in year 2. I spent 3 turns trying to escape and then I was dead.
So I definitely need a better ship at some point. Saved up about 400k already, so on my way. I'm following one of the palace story lines, and trying to dip into other contacts going the same direction. Have pissed off 2 factions that won't even sell me fuel anymore so that's not good. But I've got some new contacts I'm trying to get to. One with another faction that I'm -5 with and I hope to get friendly with before things go south.
Having a lot more fun playing on PC, even though the graphics were good enough for phone. Just a lot better text size, I can tell everything that's going on, and shortcut buttons are nice. Wish there was a way to sync saves and unlocks but oh well. I think I'm staying on Steam. Might even be able to run this on my laptop.
That's great to hear. Welcome to the club, Stele?
BTW, it runs perfectly on iPad. I have played probably 120 hours or more on trips; I'm probably around 40 or so on Steam lol.
Yeah, I'm trying to follow ColorsFade's method also. I think I've got past the point in the game where I've got to in his playthrough, and I'm not sure what to do next. I have more contacts than I know what to do with, and I'm patrolling to raise my rep with everyone. I have 500k in money. I've got military accessories and the better weapons locker. I have some Zealots and Explorers on my ship.
What should I be aiming for? The next ship? (I'm in the same one as him right now). I've upgraded the things on my ship I'm using, but not sure what to do next. I killed my first xeno ship, which was a big moment for me.
I believe that, over time, enemies grow more powerful. So try to climb the ship ladder when it makes sense. Eventually you'll be able to afford a carrier (if you want to) and I believe this is why you can re-spec officers (or just hire specialists).
I can't offer much help here as I tend to lose track of games around the mid-game.
Yeah I'm sitting on 600k and I've followed the story down Zelle path. I think I should go try to pick up the arbiter story from her but it still has like a decade left on the timer. I think a new ship is next on my list.
Wasted a bunch of time I should have been playing reading about ships last night. Seems like the common consensus is to buy your second ship and schedule upgrades in dry dock but then go trade or do missions while components are being installed to not waste in game time. But which ship is a bigger debate. Lot of people seem to like a mid-game 3400/5000 ship and then a huge carrier late game.
And I really like some of the 3400 ships because they have small bridge module that holds captain and officers both. There's a few of those that can apparently hold up in combat until the late game, like the Wolf Vector and Sword Cutter. I think I'd like to stay in a speedy ship and keep boarding. Or maybe try guns and range finally and I've seen some builds that do either with those ships. Also I can get one and get it upgraded with just a million or so. Maybe 1.5m. But a lot less than some of the bigger ships. Of course more cargo room would net more money. After every battle I'm looting ships and selling. So maybe I should look at something bigger...
But that will take longer to get started, upgrade, etc. I'm itching to get in a new ship and expand my officers. Took crappy starter ship on purpose to not stay here. I've already done weapons locker A3 and a couple of defense matrix replaced guns so I can just charge in and board or run the hell away without getting hit. But all my systems are 200% or more so I need upgrades to utilize my crew. And I'd really like one more officer for combat. Might as well do it in a new ship and not waste time sitting in spaceport.
So yeah I think I'm buying a ship tonight or tomorrow. There's some bonuses though, like 10% off skill a crew member has for ships or upgrades. And a royal contact can get you 15% discount at their spaceport. And Alta Mesa starports give -10% upgrade time for all components. So I have one contact from that faction that I might go try to see too. But mostly I'm just itching to upgrade.
How did this game come back up out of nowhere? I got it on iPad years ago, fired it up again last night cuz yall were talking about it, looks like fundamentally the same game it was back then. I just tooled around a bit, got wrecked by pirates, went back to Sudoku.
It's new to me so it's a ton of fun.
Apparently I was only 2 missions from finishing Zelle story which came with an 800k payday. So now I'm sitting flush with 1.3m credits. Definitely buying a ship today. Now to decide if I want that wolf vector or something a little bigger to keep moving cargo.
So, on a different note, if y'all don't mind, I've been streaming Starshatter: The Gathering Storm recently because I'd never gotten very far in it, and I wanted to bang my head against it. If you're unaware, it's really an amazing thing. You start off as a fighter/bomber pilot (you can choose which) and rank up to frigates, destroyers, and eventually full carrier fleet command, planning missions and such.
I recently ranked up from fighters to destroyers for the first time, and my god, it's an entirely new and different game. This is all through four dynamic campaigns, which is another rarity in the genre. I'm just getting more and more blown away by this thing as I play it. Also, if you wanna try it out, it is free, as the source code was released a decade ago.
Polypusher, the game has changed immensely since release. They are at 312 updates and counting. Updates, which include patches but also varying amounts and types of new content, from new game systems to better UI, to more Eras, missions, ships, ship types, ... just about everything has been changed and they continue to add to it. And it's not that hard to learn, and fun learning. 
So I screwed up last night before buying my new Star Traders ship. I had an Alta Mesa system nearby and a faction contact further away. But when I got to them to do missions I realized they didn't sell faction military rank. And you need that to use starport services. The contact I had for that was another 3 jumps away.
I had read that you could transfer your ship from one drydock to another, so my idea was to build in home system then move to Alta Mesa for upgrades. But the time wasted moving probably wouldn't be saved by that 10% so mostly I just wasted real time trying to set it up and failing.
I tried to do a few more missions and head that way. But I couldn't do much good trading at only my original faction I have permits for. Ended up burying some stashes along the way. Mostly just flying the wrong direction and not getting any closer to my ship building taking any faster. Finally completed one of my original prince diplomatic missions and headed back to starting area. Cheaper to build the ship there. And then first upgrade gets that mechanic discount. But not others even though they would queue after another 3 weeks. But it would be too annoying to hang around or go back and forth. Maybe I should have done skill respec on a couple to stack that. But anyway I got an the upgrades I wanted queued up in 40-something weeks, then went off to do more missions. And finished a couple and the timer is down to 18 weeks and I'm like 2 jumps away so it will take me 4 weeks to get home probably. Maybe one more mission and ship is ready.
Good thing too I got jumped by Xeno ship in my wandering last night and ran away but took a couple shots. New ship with more crew and more defense modules should help. Hopefully can hop into it at lunch.
Lesson learned for future runs though. Build rep with more than one faction early. Sheesh. I could have made another million while I was trying to chase down that contact (that I didn't even use) if I could have kept trading high permit goods along the way.
Star Traders new ship is nice. Finally just doing some range 5 combat and blasting them to bits. Using defense % talents and then sprinkling in some offense ones as needed. I don't think I've actually been hit in the first 5 or 6 fights I did.
So finished up a few missions I was on and then finally the 6 year timer from the opening story ended. Back to starting planet and duel has begun. So I was attacked like 4 times just going 1 or 2 systems away. A little tougher fights, one was closing distance to board me I guess so I used my board at range 3 talent a couple times and got them first. So I can still fight boarding battles too.
Next couple years in game should be interesting.
Took down a named bounty hunter with cutscene before battle and story after. Kickass. That's another unlock and new starting ship.
Hard to balance all the starting unlocks. I kind of want to go fire up another captain and try some of the new stuff I've earned, but then I want to see how deep I can take the story on this first one too. Tough to balance. And then how many hours can I really play this?
And I need a way to transfer saves/unlocks to Android. Now that I've unlocked a bunch on Steam there's 0 chance I will play again on Android if I can't do that. What I've googled looks like you might have to root your phone.
It's something I play every year or so for a game on PC. But then, when I take a trip somewhere, or I'm at the doctor's office, whatever... Out comes the iPad and I'm good to go.
That for me is the main platform.
After buying Starpoint Gemini Warlords on the recommendation/deal-spotting of this thread, I've finished my time with it (~25hr) and have a few thoughts.
This game feels exactly like Starpoint Gemini 2 but with a 4X layer bolted on. Granted it's been a few years, but according my memories of SPG2: flying your own ship, doing your own missions, upgrading from gunship to cruiser etc etc to dreadnaught feels exactly the same in SPGW.
The arcade-y space-sim gameplay is fun, if simple. It was fun in SPG2 and it's the same here. Not a lot of variety in practice, even if technically there's loads and loads of possible ships, weapons, etc. Certain weapons are clearly superior. There's never a reason to use a small ship when you could use a bigger one.
The 4X elements don't add much good anyway. Aside from capturing stations yourself (essentially self-made missions) and building your own personal fleet (necessary to win literally any story mission) there's no direct interaction of the 4X empire expansion/base-building/research tree on your gameplay. The resources you need are totally separate, etc. If you have dreams of coordinating multiple fleets: bad news! Your ship cap is so low you'll want to keep those in your personal fleet at all times.
The story is nonsense and relies(?) on SPG lore(?). The SPG universe is completely forgettable, as is the story of this game.
TL;DR is that I got my $4 worth but wouldn't recommend anyone paying more than that.
Checking out the free Endless Sky based on an episode of SGJ about free space games. Pretty nice looking Escape Velocity clone, but not much of a tutorial.
Yeah Endless Sky and Naev are terrific free games if you're looking for an Escape Velocity-like.
Also not sure if you're aware but the EV games are now free:
Gah Star Traders. So writing on arbiter storyline mid game. She sends me to Cadar faction royalty. As it turns out that is who the Highwind faction was in my game. So between all the early story they are like -275 to me right now. This new contact offers me a pardon for like 1.7 million! I have another contact from them in the same zone and he's only asking 1.2 million. So that's better I guess?
That's only about half my stash now. But I was thinking about dropping 2 million on an end game ship and starting to work on upgrading it over the next couple years. But if I want to see this story I gotta pay.
As it turns out one of the unlocks is also tied to a different Cadar story that requires you to have good standing with them to start. And it's the one for FDF contact, which is apparently one of the best to have. So I probably want to try that quest before I ever try a hard mode game. So maybe I will pay for a pardon...
Gonna sleep on it.
Or, you could take a year or two and grind out the rep change patrolling their planets and (if you find the opportunity arises) taking out their enemies during one of the various wars - I think that offers some rep. At least that could cut the pardon significantly. Just make sure you have a skill that lets you evade the Cadar ships while patrolling; it will put you back a step and lengthen the grind if you have to kill one.
I got into some situations with the storyline and decided I did not want to deal with the people I was being pointed towards, so I went back for a payday and got banned. But my rep had been so high that a 50 point loss was no biggie. I buggered off to another major quest line and immediately started building rep with other factions. It's now much easier to get around some sectors, and trade is opening up.
This is longer than I've ever gone without a full ship upgrade, but I'm still at $1.m in the bank and I have a real banger of a starting ship (standard pirate start) that I've upgraded, so I'm good with that.
This game does present you with hard choices over time. It gets its hooks into you. There's much more there than you can find in five playthroughs, much less one. Great stuff.
Yeah patrol seems good to get back from -5 or -10 real quick if you need to land, or use facilities at a local system. I've done that a couple times. But the patrol card game can be time consuming, with weeks passing for each attempt sometimes. And I'm not sure I have enough crew talents to replace cards and make it successful enough to be worth the time that passes. Could probably get more rep just running missions most of the time.
This game does present you with hard choices over time. It gets its hooks into you. There's much more there than you can find in five playthroughs, much less one. Great stuff.
Definitely. Even the opening story has at least 3 branching parts, with the aunt or either kid that cuts you off from the other branches if you move on to step 2 of their story missions. So I'll probably want another captain to try those at some point.
And then the hard unlocks. Make a captain tailored for exploration or combat or whatever. I'll try some quick runs at those at some point too. There's endless fun in this one and so many different parts you can focus.
I'm glad you see it too! Been playing this for years and feel like I've just reached the mid-game...
Lol there's a Star Traders Frontiers thread already.
Sorry y'all I'll go clutter that up with my more in depth discussion now.
Suffice to say this game is awesome and you should play it.
The largest update yet for Distant Worlds 2 is out, called Aurora. See the Distant Worlds thread for a link and bit more description of changes.
Any others trying out Spacebourne 2? or further updates?
What am I? Chopped liver?
Fine. FINE. I get it.
Seriously, the dev is a machine. The latest update revamped the space AI (which I've not yet had a chance to test) and added faction diplomacy.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/164...
Since I just got the point of the game wherein you get your faction, this looks fascinating.
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