This is what greets me when I load up the save. Ah, the good ol' Kestrel. A solid starter ship, with a really nice starting loadout. The Burst Laser II is probably a perfect balance of Slot size, power consumption, weapon charge time, and volley size. The Artemis missile is rather bland, but the starting Kestrel Artemis launcher has a special bonus, and that is to consume 1 power instead of 2. This makes the missile nice to rely on for breaking shields early.
First thing I did was power up weapons, depower the medbay, and put the crew in the appropriate slots. I put someone on weapons (for DPS) and engines (for evade). Shields can be left last, sometimes.
This is my planned jump route to maximise the number of jumps I'll encounter. This is pretty important to maximise the amount of scrap to collect. I'm not ready to board right now, hence I don't really need sensors.
First jump. Fffffuuuuuuuuuuuuu a sun encounter!? This thing is
nasty. A Leto launcher. A Heavy laser. And a a Beam drone. Argh, I'm tempted to simply run. First thing thing I did was move my Weapons guy to shields when weapons were half-charged, to minimise the downtime between their laser burst and the beam drone tearing me open. Maximise survivability.
First volley. It could have been worse, only took 2 damage from beam hitting 1 room and their Leto hitting a side room. That reminded me, I had to evacuate the side rooms so I could also evacuate any rooms that got a fire from the solar flare. On the other hand, I managed to land a hit on shields.
Once that went down, all 3 of my burst shots hit their weapons. Success! I shouldn't take any more damage from them. That went well, now just gotta move shields back to weapons to maximise DPS.
Wow, shields is already repaired up to 2 power pips! They probably have an Engi in their crew. Oh well, best thing to do right now is to shoot shields again and then piloting. If I'm desperate, I can also put a missile into them, but I also want to save my missiles. They've very valuable!
Solar flare just as I took them down. Powered down O2, opened up a few doors to put out sensors, moved pilot to help put out the sensor fire. All my dudes will take damage but hopefully there will be downtime in my next jump. Got $11, 1 missile and 3 fuel out of it.
Oooh, tempting. Fuel is $3. Missiles are $5. I should get a shop fairly soon, and I'll use that opportunity to stock up on missiles.
However, right now I'm more missile constrained than fuel constrained. On yet the other hand, I have only 5 jumps until I hit a shop. Oh well, let's take it, hope it doesn't bite me! Also, since I had some downtime, let's heal up my crew.
Ugh, a nebula boarding event. Okay, the plan is retreat everyone to medbay and evac the ship.
Spotted 3 enemies, oh dear, they're sabotaging the O2. Yep, still want to keep to the plan. I can still repair the O2 as long as my medbay still works. Oh well, gonna alt-tab for a while and wait until my O2 regens.
Ooh, this event. Potential outcomes of the former: losing crew, hull damage, and landing a nice drop. Why not, I always play risky in the early game!
And it paid off! Either sell this or buy a drone control later.
Met a rebel autoscout in a plasma storm.That was a lie. That's not an autoscout! That's an autoassault! Autoscouts don't have shields and are always nice to fight. Autoassaults can be nasty, as they have more room for subsystems. This one has a Leto launcher in slot 1 and a basic laser in slot 2.
I only have 4 power to use. Ouch, how should I do this? 2 into BLII, then what, 1 shield pip or 20% evade? Shield only helps against their basic laser, evade helps against both. How about this, power up shields for now, and when their basic laser goes down, I power down shields and up engines.
First exchange of fire. Didn't go that well, took a hit to piloting, only got 1 hit on their weapons.
Botched next volley, powered down shields to put onto engines, but that happened before piloting was repaired. However, got 2 shots onto their weapons, powering down their guns. Goody, can put power back onto O2. Shot shields, got $11, 2 fuel, 1 drone part.
Found an asteroid field. Of course I want to explore it!
Unfortunately it was a waste and I took 5 damage.
Finally made it to that shop, just ahead of the rebel fleet
. The stuff here is depressing. Drone recovery arm is incredibly useful if you're using drones, but I'm not. Shield booster is useful if you're facing uncoordinated volleys of fire or drones or beams, but I haven't seen that many. You know what? I'm just going to sell the defence drone and buy my next pip of shields. I always aim to get 2 shield pips by the 2nd sector to maximise survivability, but of course, that's not always possible.
Planned jump route. I'm gonna land in the middle of a constellation, and see what goodies await me there. Next, a distress signal, I think they tend to give greater drops.
Ah, a fuel distress event. They tend to give nice drops. Got 19 scrap, not bad! Used to upgrade another power pip.
Argh, next jump was totally empty. Let's see what awaits us... a distress. Oh well, I calculate we have 3 more jumps available before we need to run to the exit beacon.
Find a lost rock ship at the distress beacon. Need to lead them to the next sector, a quest for the next turnplayer! Sometimes you get a nice reward, sometimes you get a rebel/pirate trap. Always interesting, usually worth doing.
A pirate. Pfft, with my 2 shield pips, they can't even hurt me!
Wait, actually, they had a 3rd gun. Oh well, no biggie, I can probably take it down without even using missile. Shoot weapons, shoot shields, easy peasy.
First volley damaged engines slightly, but not too bad. I took out 2 of their guns, not they can't hurt me. Time to shoot shields then piloting.
They want to surrender. Nope, I want scrap, not consumables.
Oooh, interesting drops. Repair arm repairs, but also gives a malus to scrap collection. I say we keep it until we're at full life, then sell it. Because it's more important to collect scrap than it is to be at 100% repair. Notice how I haven't even done a single repair because it's more important to level up shields and evade and pick up the occasional gun from the shops. Indeed, I immediately bought an extra engine level even if I couldn't afford more power.
Another rebel. Simple fight, they have 2 guns and a beam drone. My plan is to temporarily drop power to O2 every time they fire and reroute to engines, and power back O2 while they're charging. Meanwhile, I have the option of using either Artemis or BLII. Hmm, should I DPS them down or minimise resource use? I think the latter, but keep missiles as a fallback.
The O2 trick didn't help evade any shots, and now I took damage from their beam drone. First volley took out their guns, now they can't hurt me. Target their shields now.
How about no. Instead, got $17, 1 missile, 1 drone part.
Final jump this sector, just ahead of the rebel fleet. This guy has a missile and an Ion (and a beam drone). This could be dangerous, I think I will use a missile on shields.
First volley, took some missile damage. Ah, they have an Artemis. Oh well, shields are down, BLII'd down their weapons. Got $9, 1 fuel, 1 drone part.
Got a bit more loot from the outpost.
Your turn, next turnplayer! I recommend the Zoltan controlled rebel sectors are
dangerous. Things to do. Now we have 2 shields, upgrade engines and power to level 5. Upgrade doors to Level 2. I also don't recommend a boarding game because some of you guys might be inexperienced and it takes a decent amount of practice to be good at boarding. But when you know how to board properly, it's incredibly powerful. Maybe I'll show that off someday.
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