Ship combat rework?

[Bobonga]

First off, I'm not talking about the actual combat.

I'm talking about the odd place the random encounters are in. During my playthrough, I rarely get random ship combat encounters. In turn, I never prepare for them, as they are too rare and the preparations can be really expensive. This makes them a nuisance 90% of the time. I just flee since I'm not prepared. However, when I actually try to enter ship combat, it's a nuisance as well, since it can take a long time until I a) even get an encounter and b) get the encounter I want.

This puts ship combat in general in a spot where I basically never participate in it. I usually don't steal the Sidewinder, which means the encounter at Phaedra II is pretty much my first real encounter in a playthrough. I might misremember, but is there even a proper tutorial for ship combat? The only reason I even beat the Phaedra II encounter is that I dimly remembered that missile turrets are really strong. So I just trialed and errored until I won.

This is where the problem comes full circle: I'm not prepared for ship combat because it's too rare and expensive. At the same time, I lack experience and can't judge how good/bad my ship is. I go to Phaedra II and get bodied. I try to prepare, but getting combat experience by doing ship combat is tedious, due to the low encounter rate. So I just throw myself at the Phaedra II encounter until I somehow win.

What I would like to see added is a consistent way to encounter enemy ships. Something like a new explore button in the flight menu, which guarantees an encounter. This would make accessing the ship's combat-specific sex scenes much more convenient as well.

 

[Theron]

I might misremember, but is there even a proper tutorial for ship combat?

There is a forced encounter when traveling to Tarkus for the first time, if you haven't been in one before. It's not a good tutorial, since you're just thrown into it with no instructions, and I'm 90% certain you can just escape. Perhaps they could rework the actual tutorial a bit. You get a ground combat tutorial vs Celice, perhaps a bit with a simulated opponent as part of getting your pilot's license?

There's also a combat before Zheng Shi if you didn't rescue Kiro, recruit Paige, guess the password or look it up on the Wiki. And a (limited) repeatable encounter at Zheng Shi if you stole the Sidewinder and bring it back.

What I would like to see added is a consistent way to encounter enemy ships. Something like a new explore button in the flight menu, which guarantees an encounter. This would make accessing the ship's combat-specific sex scenes much more convenient as well.

Paige has two options: Faster (default) & Safer. I think she could have a 3rd: Look for Trouble. If she knows how to avoid Pirates, she also knows how to run into them. If you don't want to lock it behind recruiting a specific character, maybe a false transponder, so you look like a juicy merchant ship.

I think there are several things going on here.
1. Combat is rare. Although it seems to me like when I want combat, I can't get it and when I don't, it always comes up.
2. Rewards aren't really worth it. Especially now that Ship combat is only worth 1 XP. The Cyberdale is the only source of Entropy Gremlins, but you miss out on sex...
3. Escaping is extremely easy, so long as you do it first thing. Since you lose Light Drive Charge if you take Electric damage to Armor, you may not be able to escape when you're actually losing.
4. If you can always escape, there's no need to upgrade your ship for combat.
5. Combat upgrades compete with Crew space.

Ships & upgrades being expensive is true until Zheng Shi. Custom Bet Blackjack lets you double your money, so you can easily make a billion (or more) Credits and have more than you'll ever need. If you don't want to abuse Blackjack, Mining Robots & Bored Jumpers are very lucrative.

 

[Tony_Redgrave]

I stuck with the starting Casstech rarely ever encountering ship combat (I knew the password for Zheng Shi as well). Usually I just stack a bunch of agility and its enough to get me by any space encounters I might run into, but when I hit that Phaedra II fight, it was like running head first into a brick wall considering how little ship combat I had done up to that point. Ended up loading/reloading a bunch to try out different setups (And removing my advanced quarters) and eventually beat it with Missile turrets + shield vamp/hardened systems.

 

[Bobonga]

There's also a combat before Zheng Shi if you didn't rescue Kiro, recruit Paige, guess the password or look it up on the Wiki.

Since I know the password, I activly avoid the initial Zheng Shi encounter in every playthrough, precisly because I never gear up for ship combat.

And a (limited) repeatable encounter at Zheng Shi if you stole the Sidewinder and bring it back.

I know. That's why I mentioned that I never stole it in the first place. Mainly because I don't want to fight when entering Zheng Shi again. Given the Phaedra II fight, I might start stealing the Sidewinder. Now I have at least a reason to gear up. Also, the Teyaal space doesn't trigger when you return to Zheng Shi in a different ship than the Sidewinder, right?

I think there are several things going on here.
1. Combat is rare. Although it seems to me like when I want combat, I can't get it and when I don't, it always comes up.

Exactly. The one time I tried to access the sex scenes, it took me 30 IRL minutes till I got the Starviper Pilot. The Corona Lord appeared about four times in that time span.

2. Rewards aren't really worth it. Especially now that Ship combat is only worth 1 XP. The Cyberdale is the only source of Entropy Gremlins, but you miss out on sex...

Just in case there is a misunderstanding. When I wrote about getting combat experience, I didn't mean in-game level progression XP. I meant gaining experience as a player with this specific game mechanic. But yes. Rewards are basically nonexistent, but I'm fine with that. Though it makes ship combat even more unnecessary.

3. Escaping is extremely easy, so long as you do it first thing. Since you lose Light Drive Charge if you take Electric damage to Armor, you may not be able to escape when you're actually losing.
4. If you can always escape, there's no need to upgrade your ship for combat.

Agreed

5. Combat upgrades compete with Crew space.

This is also an annoying point. Makes using the unlimited crewspace cheat even more tempting.

Ships & upgrades being expensive is true until Zheng Shi. Custom Bet Blackjack lets you double your money, so you can easily make a billion (or more) Credits and have more than you'll ever need. If you don't want to abuse Blackjack, Mining Robots & Bored Jumpers are very lucrative.

While that is true, I still don't know what ships and gear are worth it. And with the rarity of ship combat, it's a hassle to test. Also, I'm not asking for advice. But I do dislike that I more or less have to consult the forums to understand an in-game mechanic.

As a closing thought: To me, ship combat feels like an optional minigame that is only available randomly and rarely. And now said minigame includes a mandatory story bossfight.

 

[Adda]

Go to the CODEX. Select stats. Select location. You will see your current ship stats. I'm a fan of high Power Generation and High Agility.

I've not seen it anywhere else, but if you go to a vendor and select purchase ship you can get an idea of what the shield strength and weaknesses are for every ship. To the best of my knowledge ship shields are usually resistant to kinetic, modestly weak to thermal and very weak to electrical.

Also, while at ship vendors, look at what weapons are being sold--check out their damage types. Unfortunately, energy usage is not show (use the wiki). In general, turrets take substantially more energy than fixed weapons. I'm not sure which stats the fixed weapon group uses (ship or personal) but I've rarely had trouble so long as my aim, reflexes and ship agility are all high. The fixed machine gun does the most damage for the least amount of energy. However, it does 100% kinetic damage and thus is the most resisted damage type.

I personally ditch the default laser on the C7 right away and replace it with a second machine gun. I've not beat the Cyber Punks or the Starviper doing that but can beat all other battles that the C7 can potentially get into. Swapping out the second machine gun for a missile bay (45 kinetic dmg, 45 heat dmg) makes the battle over P-II much easier. With the sidewinder, I load it up with fixed machine guns and power cores to take out the MS-XI at Zeng Shi if I so wish.

Note that when you load up your weapons, your ship will power said weapon up in the FIFO order. Thus, weapons you want to fire every turn should be on the top of the list. You can turn weapons on or off in battle but it can be really bothersome if you have a energy hog in the top slot as it can prevent you from having the energy to fire your other, potentially better in a give situation, weapons.

Battle strategy is to evade, evade, evade until the enemy has depleted it's energy. High agility and high reflexes will help reduce the damage you take while evading. Battle when the enemy has less than 50 energy--or if you are being really cautious, less than 30 energy. Rinse and repeat.

You can make battels more manageable by adding power cores, thrust and agility modules. Against the Starviper and the Cyber Punks you will need to do something creative, like use shield vampires and capacitors and some such.

The Sidewinder and the Blade are superior ships but I'm not a fan of either. When I want the best ship my money can build I start with the MS-XI available from Falcor (I think that's his name, he's the bird dude on the tarmac) on the ant world.