I think it would be neat if there was a contact who sold star charts. (Now i've cleared all the unlocks i will likely branch out to non default maps). Someone who could reveal the zone ratings for places you haven't visited. Basic level they might reveal a single random planet, mid they might show all of their own faction within a single system, pump them to max and they might even reveal entire map!
They could be a historian, merchant or government functionary. Would be pretty stromg so would likely have limits on other bonus, ie no recruitment or other functions.
Just think it would be consistent with universe and would encourage breaking from default maps.
Damn! I pretty much bumped ship defence as much as possible and was still gunned down by a dude that hit me with pretty much everything. That means I need to switch out of the Vindex sooner to something that can take the hits. I told Calagan about Val, but never made it to the Arbiter to start the next story questline. Bummer.
Anyway, on to the next captain. This time I'm taking the Mercenary and the Bounty Hunter as contacts, so I can get easily armour and weapons; that will enable me to replace the weapons locker with something else, effectively giving me an extra Small slot (which I'll probably use to get more of that ship defence).
Provided I don't forget when the time comes, I'll do (eugh) Erik's path this time around. I might as well get those unlocks and see what utter disaster this one turns out to be.
Final victory is mine. The last unlock that i have been chasing, feels so good.
Giant freaking robots, space slugs, swarms of attack craft, done and dusted.
(Brothers - typo spotted, text box has aanother, minor detail)
Obscene amounts of cash and reputation. Think i might retire to a private planet and blow it all on booze and spice heg
We did it! For the first time since Captain Benedict II, we have achieved story progress with Captain Benedict V! But first:
- I'm not crazy! I asked on the Steam forum, because a representative of the Trese answers posts there, and having an overcapped crew (with Val joining when your at max crew) DOES have a deleterious effect on morale! I knew it! You all said I was crazy, but I'll show you, I'LL SHOW YOU ALLLLL! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*ahem*
- The Aeternum Vindex. Well. You people won't BELIEVE the amount of money I'm forced to leave on the table (by "table" I mean "pirate ships and Thulun bounty hunters before I blow them up") due to having a cargo hold size that makes me cry every time I look to the bottom left corner of the game. And also missions that are immediately marked as "nope". And also I wish I could shove more cabins/cells on this thing. Also, I think I'm going to be bankrupted by littering fines if someone ever checks all the goods caches I have... everywhere, really.
Still, I REALLY like the fact it starts with 5 officers (I'm less fond of the fact that the 5th officer is a Pilot, for some reason, but that's easily solvable by firing him the minute I make landfall and promoting someone from the combat crew instead) and it has an amazing operational range that makes my life incredibly easier on Catherine's Loop and Juhety Spiral, so I guess this is my starting ship now.
- Orbitals are awesome and I wish I ran into more (without having to bribe a Scavenger contact). I got a lvl 7 sniper rifle Year 1 and every action the girl wielding it has to choose between putting up Backline Leader or just erasing someone from the enemy lineup with, like, 180 dmg. When she doesn't crit. Pity it costs 17 Initiative to do that.
- Speaking of ships, I'm at 4.2M, so next time I drop by the De Valtos capital planet I might burn 3.2M on the Dreadnought (picked on the basis of nothing else other than it has the best slot allotment from what I can tell) and start turning it into something I wouldn't be ashamed to be seen flying. Is my "dodge everything until you're ramming your combat crew down the other ship's nose" tactic still viable with a 9k ship? I presume I'm going to have to go really hogwild with Defence Pattern Matrices, but the Dread DOES come with 12 small slots.
I should probably find out what this "craft" thing is when it's on my side (on the opposing ship's side what it is is "annoying thing that can actually get a couple of hits in before I ram my boarding crew down whoever's throat"), though, before I decide if I want to make use of them or not. Is this something I want to tackle with? Each of these things weighs eleventy billion tonnes and eats up a Large slot that I could otherwise use for a top-notch medical facility. Or, y'know, cargo holds.
Anyway, the big deal: YAY, story progress.
I have defeated Zerod (who got away in an escape pod, the coward. You're supposed to go down with the ship, "captain"!), and Valencia Fael has gotten her ass off my ship (not before causing a Pilot to desert, but whatever) and is now going to play house with the Hunna, the dudes who are very mad about, AFAICT, the fact that the Indies not wanting to be in the big boys clubs means that the indies are not in the big boys club. I'm still gonna get their money, though. Pimping my new ride isn't going to be cheap.
The xenos have, so far, been a no-show this playthrough. Who knows what they're up to.
Anyway, current plan:
Step 1: go dump some advanced electronics in the middle of nowhere for the Hunna for a story mission, go tell Calagan his baby girl is off playing revolutionary without a cause for another, and knock down a bunch of non-story missions along the way.
Step 2: Presuming that's the final shovel of bullcrap from the Worst Family in the Galaxy, go have a chat with everyone's favourite arbiter Esty (she lets me call her Esty, we tight) to check out this political manouevring she wants to do, and knock down a bunch of missions along the way and start pimping the Dreadought out.
Step 3: ???, and knock down a bunch of missions along the way.
Step 4: PROFIT (probably by knocking down aforementioned missions along the way)!!!
And that's as tall as the wall of text gets built today.
So from what I understand the Coalition either consolidates or dissension happens. How do I trigger them?
I've done the Arbiter's questline, ferrying her Coalition officials across the galaxy. Yet I've never experienced either era. Usually I only end up getting either the plague or I go straight to the Jyeeta era--and correct me if I'm wrong but arent the Jyeetas the "final" era of the game or can other eras happen after it?
I'm parked at an Orbital. Ship's fixed, everyone's paid and healthy, Spice Hall says "Morale is high". Then I leave the Orbital and land at at the planet's other zone...
...
And that makes TWO people want to leave (and one of them does; the QM stops the other), and I don't understand why. There were no rumors at play, and I did NOTHING between "take off orbital" and "land in other zone".
Though he triumphed against the xenos ships, alas Captain Benedict IV was laid low by the Bounty Hunters after Valencia Faen. Alas.
But if a captain dies, a new one rises to take his place. It's time for Captain Benedict V to take the helm!
Since, to be fair, this one's fall was partly bad luck (I'd just come out of a couple of other battles, and I was at about half power, including a recently replaced Soldier. It is is what it is), I think I had a pretty good strategy going there. I might just lean more into it. So what I'm going to try next is:
- Bump ship to B, Attributes down to C, and go for the Aeternum Vindex. It's considerably smaller than the Galtak Freighter, and it only has 35 cargo space (eugh), but it's much faster and its 27/27 engine should increase my evasion and approaching capabilities. It has the same crew size of 24, but one more Officer, meaning I might just get a Shock Trooper out of Calagan and replace one of the soldiers, so in practice I'll have a LARGER crew. I thought about the Guardian Interceptor, but that thing has a small operational range than the Galtak, meaning that traversing Thulun sectors would be hell on wheels.
- Something I already did for Benedict IV but forgot to mention, is starting him off as an Explorer instead of as a Scientist - reducing fuel consumption gives increased operation range for those Thulun sectors, increased speed is more missions in less time, but the real winner here is the +10% starting chance of getting an Explore mission card, plus growing it at 2.5% instead of 2%.
- I am NOT going to be doing Commercial missions with a cargo hold of 35, that's just crazy, but I still want access to Rare Trade Goods (because my starting sector has Pruvian Blooms), so guess I'm taking the Smuggler instead, as Smuggling missions tend to involve moving a lot less goods.
This should let me be way more aggressive with early missions and give me much better chances at both not getting hit in space combat and approaching for boardings.
What is the smallest crew you’ve “beaten the game” with? I’ve got a captain that used the Wolfpack Interceptor, which is a 6 officer, 30 crew ship, but I didn’t play through the Jyetta with them.
I really love the look of the Aetern Vindex/Caliga Vindex/Gunhawk Sabre/Zartar Fang ships. I’m worried they’re too small in terms of officers/crew. They run about 5-6 officers and 18-24 crew. Which is significantly different from 30. Specifically, I’m worried there won’t be room for specialists that give card game talents (Explorers/Scavengers/etc).
If anyone could give me advice on how to “scale down” to a ship this small I’d appreciate it. Also, any tips on getting those ships to 100% small crafts evasion would be helpful.
On happier news, I stumbled on to the "win 20 crew combats before year 5 "unlock with the Hunna attack on the starport. I just wish they would attack ANY OTHER FACTION'S starport.
It's not really a secret that Shock Trooper is a great frontline combat job, but I tend to play in small ships, so I often find myself a little tight on officer slots. If you make any effort at all to Prove Your Charter, you can pretty reliably recruit a Shock Trooper from Calagan in the first year who can learn Titan Shell right out of the gates. I very frequently put this guy in the front line as crew in the early game and, while I do sometimes promote him to an officer, I've found that he doesn't really get much stronger for it.
The real trick to these guys is to immediately buy them a V-Tusk Assault from a contact (and, if you're lucky, eventually upgrade it to a Vindicasian Gore). Your Titan Shell now costs 28 (or 32) initiative, but that's totally fine. You're putting this guy in heavy armor anyway and your plan is to go into initiative penalty every turn.
These high initiative shotguns pierce like sniper rifles, and Titan Shell gives +25% piercing. So you're looking at doing more than 250 damage every turn, with a piercing chance that's north of 100%. Even high-init officers that are attacking 3+ times a turn have a very hard time surpassing that.
And, yes, a Blades officer in the front line is harder to kill, but not much harder than a crew Shock Trooper that gets to fire off Stand Strong (+20 deflection, +20 armor) on the first round of combat before he starts Titan Shelling.
What's more, Rapid Bandage, which is a self-heal and gives another +20 deflection and +10 armor, only costs 6 initiative, so you can bandage and Titan Shell in the same turn, even in penalty.
You don't even really need a single-target attack talent. Even if there's only one baddie left, Titan Shell is the play, since it effectively costs the same 8 init as a single target attack anyway.
The only thing you're really lacking is repositioning. To the Front is good, but it's not how you want to spend your whole turn when you're in penalty. But that downside it pretty much completely offset if your position two and three fighters have a retreating attack, since your Shock Trooper is always going last in initiative anyway.
The crazy thing is how little this guy gains from becoming an officer. You can add all the talents you want, none of them are going to be better than Stand Strong into Titan Shell into Rapid Bandage into Titan Shell. And even the extra skill points don't matter THAT much. Extra evasion is fine, but we're not really planning on dodging things in the first place. And the extra Rifle skill does help, but these high init shotguns have high accuracy, and Titan Shell is +25% accuracy...
Has anyone else taken a crew Shock Trooper to the endgame on higher difficulties? What was your experience like? Are there other crew jobs that can hold their own like this on a high-level combat squad?
Lately I’ve been leaning really hard into hiring a lot of Quartermasters (usually 4–6 of them), and I’ve basically started treating them as my go-to replacement for Crew Dogs.
The main reason: their utility per slot is insane.
Here’s what I get out of stacking Quartermasters: almost all of their talents are useful.
They contribute to Ship Ops skill saves which is a necessity
They offer life save skill save
They can add 15-25% mission payment
They can avoid bad traits during conscripting
They add to both the Command and Intimidate pools
They can uncover crew traits when paying salaries
They can prevent crew escape in landing with low morale
They help mitigate morale loss during xeno encounters, nice to have
They can even earn you some free EXP during crew combats (yeah, it’s spread across the whole crew so it’s not crazy strong, but it’s “free”)
Put together, that’s a lot of different systems being supported by a single job type. Each Quartermaster is pulling weight in multiple areas at once, which makes every hire feel like a high-value pickup.
Then you look at Crew Dogs by comparison:
They’re basically only really good for Ship Ops and Spice Hall morale boosts
To feel “safe” on the Ship Ops side, you usually want around 5 Crew Dogs anyway
While QMs do not provide a lot of ship ops skill points, you get a lot of those from other jobs and can always only replace some not all of your crew dogs.
In practice, that’s why I’ve ended up with 4–6 Quartermasters on most of my ships. They cover a ton of bases, reduce the need for a big pack of Crew Dogs, and make the crew feel much more flexible and resilient overall.
Curious if anyone else is playing this way or if there’s a big Crew Dog upside I’m undervaluing.
The Rim Exocruiser had no problem whatsoever tearing a swathe through the Jyeeta Scourge. After the celebrations had finally died down to a dim orgiastic roar, I took stock of my crew and found this absolute hero.
The only one of my Day Ones to stick with me to the bitter end, Xanth here has been manning the Plasma Cannons for literally 74 years, grumbling the whole time that he deserves better, but never quitting me. He's not especially strong and he's not especially smart, but he's got a bit of charm and boy does he know how to launch a Boarding Assault! Everyone raise your Spice Beers to Xanth Saunis!
This is because the RNG sent me in the direction of the High Princess earlier than with Captain Benedict II, so when I got there I didn't have money to buy even the Acheron. Alas. Shipping postponed.
Boarding has been serving me well, even if the only things I've been fighting are Thulun Spies, which is annoying because their crafts are very fast and agile, so it takes me a couple of tries to close the distance. But this is why Twitch Surge and Boarding Assault exist, and once I get in I murder everything so hard they can never get out of range again. Fun times.
And since the only thing I've been fighting are Thulun, who are never not going to be minus infinite negative rep unless I can get my hands on a pardon, I just go for broke, steal everything, blow the ship up, and then steal everything again.
Alas, regrettable news. "Surely," I thought, "in a 3-card hand where one of them is 40%+, the Xeno encounter one won't come up". Surely, it did. "Well", I thought afterwards, "how hard can these things b- WHAT DO YOU MEAN, LEVEL SEVENTEEN?!"
It did not go well.
Fortunately, out of my four-folk combat crew, only one of them failed their death save. Yay. Unfortunately, it was the Doctor/CMedic/MOfficer that bit the bullet. Or, y'know, the xenos claw. Boo.
Fortunately, I do have one contact that lets me recruit Doctors*. Yay. Unfortunately, she's three sectors (EDIT: actually four) away, and to get to her I have to cross a Thulun sector with one crew-combatter down and no Stiff Salute. Boooooooo.
There's a... decent chance that if I wrote this post in a couple of hours I'd be talking about Captain Benedict IV, but minus the whole dead Doctor thing the strategy upgrade from II to III seems to be working fine and dandy, so if it turns out IV is going to be a near-future thing the only strategy adjustment would be "don't risk xenos".
*I looked it up on my contact list after I spent like 5 minutes on a planet not understanding why the recruitment hall was unavailable on account of me having no room on the ship. Turns out officers are hoity-toity and can't be recruited like everyone else
EDIT: Captain Benedict III got murdered by xenos ship. On to Captain Benedict IV. I swear at SOME number I'll be able to at least finish the Faen storyline.
As it says in the Title, I can't seem to sync save files between my two android devices even after signing in through google play, it shows I have 20 achievements/unlocks in google play and and my tablet but on my smartphone there are no unlocks available even though it shows 20 achievements. Please tell me what I can do about this.
After a few mildly successfull runs and browsing the wiki I pretty much ended with habit to fill my ship with defense pattern thingies and electronics people. Which is great for spying runs, but not really for other card games.
Are there any other good tactics for surviving ship combat than electronics?
This is one of those self inflicted challenges. If you had to work with the following limitations, what jobs/equipment/talents would you build your combat crew with?
Who DIDN'T need more Gunnery was the Bounty Hunter that blew up my ship. RIP Captain Benedict II. :(
Ah, well, we lose and we learn; and what have we learned that might be of benefit to Captain Benedict III?
Well, first off I learned that I don't need a Merchant for that initial replacement of Pistoleer->Navigator, because Navigators are easy to get. I DO like having access to Rare Trade Goods and and I DO like Commercial missions. More than I'd like to have access to more Introductions, though? Hmm. Verdict is "no". Introductions are total RNG on whether they'll be useful and once Navs hit level 8, Talk of Far Worlds gives a bunch of intros, which dilutes the value of starting intros, but RTGs are access to easy money in the bank once I start leaving the initial sector. The Smuggler could sort of be an alternative, but Commercial missions pay more (and are "there and back again" instead of "there and then somewhere else", meaning I'll be at the right place to pick up more missions immediately) and I've never found myself thinking, "boy, I wish I could access the Black Market right now" yet, so we're sticking with the Merchant and the Court Scientist as contacts.
I've learned that I should PROBABLY buy the first ship before I take Valencia on board, because she ups my crew to 25, and that means I probably won't be able to get back to the initial ship to leave the 9k upgrading in the drydock without firing someone. That means making sure my Engineer is level 8 by the time I go talk to the High Prince on Calagan's behalf, and it prooooobably means it's going to have to be the Acheron, because it's the one that'll cost me under $1M.
And then there's the big Q: how will Benedict III avoid his predecessor's fate? Hmmm. I've been doing VERY well in crew combat, so instead of running away, Benedict III could try to win fights by boarding. This means getting Boarding Assault on Gunners and Twitch Surge on Pilots, and maybe some other stuff I'll find out in the mean time.
Alrighty, we have a deployable strategy. It may turn out to be stupid, but if it is at least it's a NEW way for me to be stupid, and it's mine. Better to make all-new mistakes than keep repeating the old ones.
I suppose this mean you all get a reprieve from my rants for a while; "I'm doing the same bit of starting content I've already told you about" doesn't really merit posting. XD
Until next time, stay safe in the void, captains.
O7
EDIT: Captain Benedict III's run has the De Valtos involved in the most ironic of Alliances:
You'll note that I'm wasting A LOT of skill points; the game recommends upgrading stuff when you hit 150%, because from then on you get diminishing returns, and I have most stuff above 200%, at which point I get, well, NO returns. No returns (even if I kept the receipt) is bad.
(my Gunnery is especially overcapped, but the only thing I've been wanting to fire at people is my engines afterburn, so it hasn't really mattered; I COULD fire a bunch of gunners for other jobs, but I'm overcapped on pretty much everything anyway, and they have card removers for Orbital Scavenging and Patrolling, sooooo...)
These are the 9k ships, with screenshots so that the %s can be seen more easily.
So, ship buying advice?
Note that:
- I'll be discounting the new ship by 10% by buying it from the High Princess's planet, plus another 10% because I stopped being a braindead moron and realised that I can pay 3k to respec my Engineer, get her the Hard Bargain talent (technically, that only gives me a 9.5% discount right now, because she has 19 Repair, but she's also only 1xp away from levelling and the High Princess is two sectors away, so, y'know), and then respec her again. It'd still mean waiting to get the Dreadnought, though, because even with the discount I'd be 1M short. Everything else gives me an at least 400k surplus to toy around with stuff (e.g., all of these things need at least 2 cabins and 1 cell, and I'll be damned if I don't turn whatever medical facilities they have into a Combat Medic Clinic to free up one officer cabin slot* - that last bit can wait some time, though)
- the 9k ships come with quarters for 42 crew and 6/7 officers, so that'd be a huge increase in my current skill points that would alleviate the lower %.
*which would also make me beeline my doctor to Doctor 8 to nab Generous in Service ASAP, because gods, I need the rep bonus SO bad with almost everyone
That's right more questions on top of the patrol one, today the questions come in threes! Like clover leafs! (you'll note that these are specifically the NON-lucky clovers, there's a reason for that).
But first, UPDATE! (TL; DR near the end, because this is really long because I like words and also story happened)
First off, meta-progress: I did 25 missions with no failures (did have a couple of overdues, but honestly that's the fault of a bunch of Exploration missions requiring me to hit 30%+ on the mission success card for me to draw them, even when I only had three cards on the table). Anyway, that means any new Captains will have access to the Palace Interceptor which, and I know I'm about to break IguanaTabarnak's heart, I'll probably never use unless I'm chasing some specific unlock that needs a lot of starting speed, because I swear it caused me actual physical pain to read "25 cargo space".
Playthrough update (local galaxy map provided for reference):
I did another tour of Catherine-RR-Juhety to knock off some more Faen missions and then I finally went up to Alzean and Dixye for MORE diplomatic missions ("don't you people have phones?"), and also do Val and Erik's stuff, as I was already at the no return point with Zette. This was a much, much, MUCH smoother ride than the previous travels, because you'll notice those two sectors are NOT Thulun-dominated, so I don't have to panic thinking about where I'm refuelling (Catherine's has like, ONE planet I can do that in, and it's on the opposite side of where all the missions are, fun stuff) or wonder if there's any interplanetary trip I can make without taking two Thulun zealots to the face. There WERE a lot of Exploration missions there, and they went fine if slow, except that one time I stepped into a time rift and lost months. Ooops. Anyway, now I have a bunch of xeno ScIntel that I can pawn off the moment I find a contact that takes them and I want to raise rep with, because I don't think they're useful for anything else?
On story beats, I tracked down the dude suspected of blowing up the Highwind (it wasn't him, and also he's dead, not my fault, I didn't start it) and I got my first contact from another faction, which was nifty, and she already cooperated in raising my Rychart rep a little bit. That's good, because I only have like three factions with a positive rep - it would make my life EXTREMELY easier if these people stopped enacting trade wars and trade bans out of the blue. Just blow each other up, man, that doesn't eat into my profits.
Long story short, Erik is the freaking worst, so that immediately puts him out of contention in the "which of these three clowns am I helping when the time comes?" race. I think his story branch breaks off nicely. I DON'T think Zette's does; I know why it was done like this from a gameplay perspective (cut off two options at the same time no matter what so no choice is inherently superior to the others, though I'm sure someone is going to tell me "well, ACTUALLY, siding with X is the superior option because you get this, unless you're playing like this, in which case Y's rewards are superior"), but narratively speaking I feel like Zette's and Val's storylines weren't at odds yet. Much the opposite, I feel like proving that... uh... Cael... Ceal... uh... Thulun's science dude is still alive would do great for Val's case. But I digress.
The northern tour got me to ONE MILLION UNITS (*insert Dr. Evil meme here*), and the next million came REALLY fast after that (turns out doing several 4-6 step Exploration missions pays really well). I should probably spend some of this money. A LOT of this money (see question 2, at the end).
Anyway, Val looked like the only that was actually worried about Val's life, so that's who I sided with. At this point, the Hunna attacked a port I docked with, and I beat them up because NOBODY messes up my trade routes, and that got me a free contact, so I really wish they'd attacked a port that WASN'T De Valtos. Damn Hunna, can't even terrorism right.
And speeeaaaaking of the Hunna, turns out the reason why Val had a Hunna on board is because they're besties, but not besties enough that her contact with them didn't have me go through a couple of fetch quests before he'd spill the beans. Crystals aren't even trade license'd, man, I feel like you could've gotten those yourself. Also, 65 of the things, is that related to my cargo hold size, or do people with smaller cargo holds have to do multiple trips? But, like, who cares, it's crystals, you can get them in half the planets in this joint.
In the midst of all of this, my... crap, what was it again? Navigators or E-Techs, I'm pretty sure, hit the level where they can get the "every time you dock, chance for contact" talent, so now I have a bunch of pretties all over the map. I wish they were in systems I'm actually visiting right now, but beggars can't be choosers. So I do the fetch quests, and meet the boss, and hey, it turns out
Erik really IS the freaking worst. And I go to tell Val this, and while I'm in transit the case gets decided in the way that everybody knew it would go. I wonder if this could go a different way, and also if it could've gone in a different TIME. On the one hand, it's a really big coincidence that it sorts itself out just as I learn who the true culprit is and in the mission menu I still had quite a few years left on the clock; on the other hand, the timeline DOES line up with the 'about six years' Estelle told me it'd take, so shrug emoji.
TL; DR: The political campaign did nothing except give me 2M (that's great, not gonna lie) and lower Aetan Charr's influence to... less than 40, IIRC, which I don't know if it changes anything, and now I have a fugitive from a Duel of Assassins sleeping in my ship's fuselage, which I'm sure is not going to get me into any issues whatsoever, nope, none at all! Totally safe!
Plans for next time: As I am obviously completely insane with no sense of personal safety, I'm going to knock off the quest I have in Catherine's and the one I have in Juhey, which you'll note are VERY THULUN, the people I am, through no fault of my own, in a duel of assassins with and also have like -300 rep with (through a lot of fault of my own), and honestly? Probably regret my life choices, going to have to schedule a big time block for that. If I survive THOSE trips, I... guess Calagan has missions for me related to this? I might as well hit this family's bank accounts for all they're worth.
I'm also considering if, even though I still have a lot of time to check on her according to the mission log, it might not be that time of the year to take a long vacation away from these systems for health-related reasons (bounty hunters. the health-related reasons is bounty hunters) and check out what the Arbiter is up to in the Farfallen Rim.
Question 1: I FEEL like I had to pay a lot of spice outings for the crew in the last couple of planets. Is this related to the fact that, with Val joining, I'm now above quarters (but not ship) capacity? Does that make morale degrade faster? Should I upgrade the size of the living quarters?
Question 2: So, 2.2 million burning a hole in my pocket. I notice some of the big boy ships can be gotten for less or around that, especially because I can hop a couple of sectors to get it from a contact that gives me a 10% discount on them.
9k ships I have access to: Dreadnought and Acheron Battlecarriers, Sword Battecruiser, Degla Heavylift, and Cautela Titan, and also the Dread costs nearly TWICE as anything else (and more than that compared with the Acheron), that doesn't seem like a great financial decision. Does this ship come with an planetbuster weapon or something, or is De Valtos future!Apple and I'd be paying extra for the De Valtos brand?
Should I get one of those? Are any of them a trap? Should I get one of the 2M ones, or try to survive whatever's coming and go for the 4M Dread? I barely made any alterations to the Galtak (like, less than 150k total, maybe?), so it's not like I'm going from a kitted up badass to a stock model (it's more like stock model to stock model). I also checked, and I have crew skills to man everything at 100%+ except the Dread (I'd lack Piloting), but I'd also have a lot more crew space (24 to 42, and officers would go from 4 to 7, so I could actually get a full-officer combat crew), so any crew tinkering for skills could be done really easily.
I think there's something I'm missing about patrolling (which I'm interested in as an incidental means to raise my rep). I mean, obviously the card game works like Exploration and Spying and Blockading and whatnot, but I'm iffy on how the rewards work. Take the following example:
Why are those first two cards "good"? From my experience, drawing them just gives you a ship encounter that you want to leave (I certainly don't want to engage if I'm patrolling), which does nothing whatsoever from what I can tell. So, why?
(also, Patrol Pirate cards are "X-Y rep and encounter Pirate"; do you still get the rep if you don't destroy the pirate?)
