Wow. What an absolute run through the gauntlet on this one for me.
Sector 3 - The Rocks
We start with a varied crew and standard weaponry to date. Map looks pretty standard. I don't expect there to be a lot of variation here - it will simply be who plays the best (or gets the luckiest).
Star 1 - Distress call. It's a broken satellite. We have a varied crew, but don't have the crew member or the weaponry to take care of it. I blow it up. (+1 missile, +1 drone, +17 scrap)
Star 2 - Third rock from the Sun. Missiles at the shields, laser at the weapons.
(+1 missile, +1 drone ,+32 scrap, +4 damage)
Star 3 - Slug Cruiser. Fight it! (still in process of putting out 3 different fires on the ship from sun encounter - med bay, helm, doors).
Missile connect with shields - shields destoryed. Hmmm....I may not be getting the award for best playthrough in this round. Oooo, it has a breach too! Fantastic. I'm beginning to think I made a bad choice with this fight.
Manage to take enemy weapons offline, keep pounding on weapons. Surrender: Fuel 4, Missile 1, Scrap 16, denied. They manage to hit once more knocking out oxygen. Finally kill it, 3 fuel, missiles 2, scrap 21. I've been using a tone of missiles....
What a freaking mess. Finish battle with shields offline, oxygen offline, doors offline. Spend a few minutes to get everything up to snuff. Damage taken is 14 at this point...
Quick note that a defensive drone would have nullified damage in nearly everything I've taken so far. But that's neither here nor there. I look forward to seeing how everyone else manages this. Bad luck with bad playing does not lead to a good result as I am showing....
Star 4 - Asteroids. Missile at shields, blaster at the weapons. Hope for the best. Take out their shields, pound with missiles, asteroids finish hi off. We escape with no additional damage. +1 fuel, +2 missiles, +26 scrap
Star 5 - Interesting. Heading to the store would be really close to hitting rebels. I think I have to try it. It may be one of the things that actually saves this round. Let's give it a shot.
Ok, so here we have:
Good news is that I'll be able to fix the ship (for cheap).
So, options:
1) Drone control. I don't have any extras, and no guaranty of what else I'll get it. We will table that for now.
2) Crew teleporter. Definitely something to consider, but with the way I've been pounded, I think I'd be safer just upgrading shields for now.
3) Repair arm/Shield booster/Scrap recovery. None of those really catch my eye right now.
4) Save for ship upgrades (shield mostly).
I think for now, it's repair and move on.
Star 6 - Empty
Star 7 - Actually need the teleporter. Didn't have it. Move on. (too bad....)
Star 8 - Distress call in asteroid field. Search it. 1 fuel, 1 missile, 27 scrap
Star 9 - Drones for scrap. Not for now.
Star 10 - Have to go straight for exit. Not brave enough to go to store first. Slavers. Attack! We have a boarder - rock. Take him at the exit with the rock/manta combo. They surrender, offer a slave. We accept. Welcome Allison the rock to the crew. Very cool. About the best that could have happened.
And that's all she wrote. Not happy with this run at all.
Disclaimer (My navigation changed slightly during the ride)
1) As helpful dogooders (yes even Breckon) my crew felt obliged to respond to a distress call. We went along and somebody was having problems with their defense system. Unfortunately, my crew isn’t one for the ‘subtle’ approach so we blew the whole thing up. The villagers seemed angry so we ignored dogoodery, nicked what we could and fled.
2) Rock scout (2 shields, missile and two lasers). He wants to duel, and to make things extra deadly he wants to duel by a sun. Happily he wasn’t very good at this duelling malarkey, missing all of his shots. Breckon got slightly toasted by a fire, but she’s a tough bug.
3) Mercenary event, I didn’t particularly want to fight his two shields and bigass missile, so I took him up on his offer to delay the rebels for 10 scrap. Should get us a couple of extra jumps.
4) Rock fighters like to hide out in dangerous locales. This one’s in an asteroid field. Two shields and lots of lasers mean I should probably fire a missile right off the bat. Weapons reduced, shields disabled, space rocks flying, profit.
5) Responded to a distress call, a guy was lost and lonely on a small planet. I offered him a home and he accepted. Continuing my streak of casually demoting crew members Rocky Markus got demoted from shields to standing around waiting for a teleporter.
6) I arrive at a store with 60 gold. The hull smasher laser costs 65. I choose to gamble and sell my artemis missile for it. This could definitely come back to bite me in a zone full of 2 shields.
7) Nothing happens.
8) A fellow captain wants to hires someone to take a ship intact. But I can’t do that yet. No teleporter. Wawawa.
9) Rock fighter (2 shields, 2 lasers and a bomb of some description). They’ve stopped living in dangerous locales but I need some luck with the bL2 to win this battle. After about five minutes of my weapons systems being taken offline by the bombs but no damage being exchanged I finally get a hit on his shields. He this me a couple of times before succumbing to my frankly underpowered weaponry. I upgrade my weapons so I can fire both lasers at once, with some power micromanagement.
10) Another distress call, somebody else was wandering around in an asteroid field. They died so we pillaged their corpse
11) Drone parts for cash. Since I don’t have a drone system or intend to get one anytime soon, I sell 12 drone parts for 48 scrap.
12) Exit beacon. Ran into some slaver scum. Despite a single teleporting rockman and a direct hit to the engines from a missile, the ships increased firepower gave him good reason to offer me a slave for a truce. I took the deal and got another rockman.
For the next sector, we’ve got a choice of civilian or MANTIS HOMEWORLDS. I want to go and squash some bugs.
I'm confused as to why the stores visited by Brackard and I were different. I'm pretty sure we went to the same one, I thought they were supposed to be generated, when the map was generated? Otherwise all of our events were the same.
I think I’ll take the distress call. I’ll be painting myself into a corner here, but we are on a mission to help the people here, win hearts and souls for the empi…federation. Yes. …what mission?
A: A defense-system needs fixing. If only we had had an Engi crewmember, he would have been able to lay it to rest. Gonna try to destroy it from afar….
…success, but they are not pleased with my ‘solution’. +1 msl +17 scrap.
B: Hey I can jump here. Get back in the middle of things. Mercenary for hire. He can delay rebel fleet, scout the system, or be destroyed. I think that I’ll just kill him. I could afford the delaying action, but not sure how good that is. Maybe I’ll get time for an extra system, but then I’d need to gain 10 scrap + whatever I get for destroying him…so take the easier way.
2-shield, missile launcher. His laser is useless, will never penetrate my shields. Unless missile hits my shielding bay…I power my missile, and manage to hurt his weapons bay before his missile fires. Then I spend a _lot_ of time killing him. My laser needs to hit all 3 shots to get a damage past shields. If I only had had a second laser, shooting, say, twice…would do three times as much damage. At least I get some weapons, shield & dodge practice in. +3 fuel +32 scrap
C: Asteroid field and a pirate. He has only lasers, but with asteroids picking at my shields I might get hurt. Power missile, and aim at his weapons room.
However my dodge is a lot better than his, I just need the opening missile, then he is crippled. I try to target O2 and medbay, but he dies before I can suffocate his crew. +3 fuel, +1 missile and +31 scrap.
D: Store.
Weapons and crew, no teleporter, sadly. On display: Burst laser 1, hull beam, heavy laser. More shots is always better, so burst laser beats the heavy laser, even though it’s 2 power vs. 1. But the hull beam is pretty good. I got a good shield-dropping gun already, and then the beam will absolutely tear up the enemy. I can’t employ it just yet, even if I sell artemis I’d be 6 credits short of another weapon system upgrade. Burst laser 1 would give me 5-shot volley, which should be enough to hurt enemies’ weapons enough so I can cruise through most fights next 2 sectors. So I go with burst II. Still room for a beam later on, my bursts will quickly kill any shields I come across.
E: Hm, I need to take a ship intact. Sadly, no teleporter. Might not be able to help, but I try. Nope, they scan me and decide I’m not equipped for the mission. Curses.
F: Distress. Search & find a pirate ship. 2 fuel, 1 missile, 27 scrap. Upgrade weapons. (Yeap I hung on to the artemis…might be useful still).
I notice a store within range, however I want to get two more jumps in before entering. Maybe a teleporter for sale?
G: Rock pirate. Take a (bomb) hit to shields, but my salvo totally cripples him. +1 fuel +1 missile +27 scrap.
H: Woohoo. Sell 12 drone parts for 48 scrap. Yes, please.
I: Store.
Buy the scrap recovery arm. I could save up for another 2 shield units, but long-term better this way. Also buy a power bar.
J: Exit.
Decide to fight a slaver. My first volley takes out his missile before launch, rest is cleanup. I accept surrender offer, and get a new Rock as crewman.
I then decide to take two more nodes, and fight a rebel at exit point.
K: Another rock pirate. 2 fuel, 2 missiles, 23 scrap (SCA-gain:2)
L: Heh. Rock salvage operation. “They do not seem to mind that you are still aboard when they scrap your ship”. 3 fuel, 1 missile, 30 scrap (SCA-gain: 4)
I could get another node, but would have to fight twice then. Go to exit instead.
Pretty buff rebel ship:
But pretty sure I can handle it. Will probably take out his burst III laser before he can shoot.
…yeap I did. Good exp for weapon officer, as rebel dodges a few shots. Need to synchronize volleys to even scratch him. I do this by keeping autofire on and my burst 2 targetted on weapons. Then I select burst 1 (cursor turns into crosshairs) and hover over the part I want to attack. When burst II fires I just click and it will fire as well. No need to pause this way, keeps game flowing much better. This is not so easy with beams…still need pause-targetting with them for maximum effect.
Another random thought, I took 1 point of damage this whole sector, and that was from a little scrap-heap with the cheapest possible weapons. Just a simple bomb that fired before I could smash it. High-tech foes would end up with their fancy gadgets under repair before they could fire.
And on that useless note I’m ready to jump to next sector. Mantis or civilian? Well we’ve done zoltan and rock, time to go bug someone…
---
My Realms Beyond has been pimped this way:
Scrap: 80
Hull: 29
Fuel: 25
Missiles: 15
Drone schematics: 2
Number of crew & race: 2 humans, zoltan, mantis and 2 Rocks
Crew skills: Human pilot & engineer fully trained. Weapon zoltan level 1, nearing halfway to fully trained. Shield rock halfway to level 1. Bug got 1 kill. Last rock unused.
Upgrades:
-shields: 4
-engines: 4
-oxygen: 1
-weapons: 4
-medbay: 1
-piloting: 1
-sensors: 1
-doors: 2
Reactor: 12 (13 with Zoltan charge)
Weapons: Burst Laser II, Burst Laser I, Artemis.
Drones: Current N/A
Augmentations: Scrap recovery arm.
Full sympathy for that run. By luck I didn't warp into that sun-node, and I dodged a fair amount of missiles too. A lot of bad luck, first getting hit & then getting hit where it hurt. And no weapons at shop. (I would have taken teleporter, though)
Ooh, nice loot. I'm definitely shelling out for a boarding party this time. Rock + Mantis can be pretty baller. Also, I've swapped the Rock and the Zoltan around. You do not want Zoltan on weapons, because moving them can often depower your guns and you Do Not want that.
Ugh, no nebula to beeline for. I'll play it by ear.
Ah, a haywire defence. Shame I have no Engi crew (my save had one!). Got 1m, 1dp, $17 ($58 to go for teleporter).
Fuuuck, a Sun.
First volley. I took a Leto missile to an empty room. Missile onto shields, lasers onto weapons. It actually depowered their weapons for a second, but then they decided to be jerks and reroute power to missiles . Then, my missile recharged before theirs did. What do I do? Spend another one ($6) just to avoid another missile hit? What if it hits my doors and I can't vent my rooms properly when the flare hits? Hmm. Let's take the risk.
I got confused for a second when 1 fired 3 shots, got no misses, they only took 1 damage, and I their missile disappeared. Turns out a laser hit their missile . Still not enough to depower their launcher, and I still need to deal with the flare.
Flare wasn't too bad, empty room that was immediately vented. Unfortunately, I took a hit to the piloting, meaning I won't be able to escape.
Repaired the piloting. Unfortunately, there was a flare that hit just their ship died, and it killed my medbay, dealing another point of damage. Not good, not good. Managed to fix it though, left the mantis in the piloting as he's shit at repairs. Got $26, 1m, 1dp out of it.
Yeah, really nice. Have fun toiling in the slave mines once the rebels win.
Fuuuck, another sun event? This time I don't even get any loot out of it. Somehow took a damage from the flare even though they hit empty airless rooms
Ooh, an interesting choice. Scout or delay? What I don't want to do is fight, that's a freaking 3-power missile launcher. Let's delay the rebels for a few turns.
Potential routes, depending on my judgement of the rebel's advance. Red is original plan, blue is a one that hits the exit beacon sooner.
Argh, asteroid pirates.
Missile missed, my lasers depowered their heavy laser. Still want to take down their burst laser. Strangely enough, everyone's been rolling poorly on to-hit, they haven't landed anything yet. Got me to gold-star piloting, though!
Next volley, missile weakened shields, and lasers took out weapons. They did manage a hit on me.
Third volley took out shields, they're dead. 1m, 1f, $23.
Ooh, spotted a shop.
Ugh, total junk.
Alas, I'm just not properly equipped for this.
Oh. Oh oh oh, could I finally unlock the crystal ship from this save!?!?!?
Nope, wrong encounter. Got my hopes up
Sold 12 drone parts, got a nice little haul. I'll want it for the shop.
Totally worth it!
My new layout. Ion bomb is one of the nastiest things out there, and will be useful facing things with 3 shield pips and a defence drone.
Yes, slavers. Moar crew. Hmm, shoot them until they cry uncle, or depopulate the ship? I'll be going in blind without L2 sensors. Just gotta be careful of that 3-power missile launcher and their medbay. Let's find out what this fancy new teleporter can do!
Oh, how nice, they send over a crew as an offering.
Fuuuck it hit weapons. That means I can't board until I've disabled their medbay.
I got lucky and both of their next 2 missiles missed. I managed to repair at least 1 power and ion bombed their medbay. My boarders should be able to slaughter these Zoltans.
Their next missile hit my teleporter, trapping my boarders until it could be repaired.
Got a good roll and managed to get a crew out of it. What'll it be? Hope it's another mantis!
Nope, another Zoltan. He'll hang around in the weapons actually. It's not ideal, but least least it'll be manned as my rock/mantis team kick ass.
Hahaha, Mantis homeworlds anybody? Also, we should level the medbay to L2 just in case we can roll the Kazaak encounter.
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. Then, my missile recharged before theirs did. What do I do? Spend another one ($6) just to avoid another missile hit? What if it hits my doors and I can't vent my rooms properly when the flare hits? Hmm. Let's take the risk.
. Still not enough to depower their launcher, and I still need to deal with the flare.
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