Stories and Experiences

[fragger]

Here's a topic for these, to keep them out of - well, all the other topics :)

Allow me to start. I had a new experience today.

I was on a planet and I was running low on Thamium9, the mineral you need for your Pulse engines. So I went into space to mine asteroids for some.

I was happily blasting away with my Phase Beam when two small friendly ships passed by between myself and the asteroid I was firing at. I let them pass, but after I had, when I fired my lasers again the beams went up, out of my upper field of view, and homed in on the friendlies ????

This prompted them to send out a distress call, and the next thing I knew I had a Sentinel ship on my case. So I dove down towards the planet and re-entered, seeking to lose him (I couldn't Pulse, I was too close to the atmosphere). Instead, the Sentinel ship followed me down, all the way. There then ensued a low-level dogfight, just skimming the terrain. Trouble was, because of that low-altitude limit and the automatic terrain avoidance, I couldn't maneuver properly and the Sentinel stayed lower than me so that I couldn't target him. He was certainly targeting me though, I was getting hit all the time.

So I thought bugger this and I climbed, got some decent altitude, then dived back down on him and made him eat photons.

I've had pirates follow me down too. Whenever enemies follow you down (usually if you re-enter without Pulse), they always seem to end up at low-level and don't appear to be able to climb back up. So don't stay down with them, because you can't target them down there. Instead, use their climbing disability against them and get up high. Then you can wing over and safely pepper them from above. Once you get a good distance above them, they don't seem to be able to shoot back at you.

But I don't know why my Phase Beam homed in on the friendly ships in the first place. The ships were indicated by green arrowheads, so I assumed they were friendlies. Maybe they were Sentinels themselves, I don't know. Whatever they were, they were small and red and fighter-like. All the other Sentinel bots I've seen are red too, so perhaps.

[Art Blade]

I saw blue arrowheads for sentinels. Like the drones when they're investigating what you destroyed and then taking a closer look at you, you'll see some blue eye icon or should I say, eye-con(tact) 

I use photon cannons for mining asteroids as they don't use up resources and they likely won't aim up and after passers-by, at least I hope they won't  :-D


I once came close to battle near a space station, I even got a printed message "there is a battle nearby"  ???

[fragger]

I didn't even know that the lasers could home ???? Oh well, live and learn...

[Art Blade]

I remember we had a discussion about combat when you used the term "deflection" often. There I mentioned that a juiced-up mining laser would instantly hit but I indeed should have mentioned that "all you can see" (as in, through your windscreen) will get tracked. :)

[fragger]

No worries, I know now :-D It won't catch me out again.

[Art Blade]

 :-D

I just got zapped by some water plant. Took out quite a bit of my health  ???

[fragger]

Crikey ??? I didn't know there were underwater attack plants...

[Art Blade]

happened on my moon without fauna, so it was either flora or one of those carbon zappers that have that one rolled-up tentacle, those that hide in foliage or hang from ceilings in some of those buildings. However, I couldn't see it when looking back and I didn't dare go looking for it, either. It took out more than half of my health with one whack.

[fragger]

Nasty :-\\ The land ones don't do very much damage, it's more of a jump-scare than anything.

[Art Blade]

yep, so I assume it was one of those plants, actually I think it was something that would fit right into the sea at the shores of Australia :-() -- yellow an teal stripes, lots of meaty tentacles that end in some type of spearhead. They're constantly waving. I might have got a tad too close so it could zap me properly, it really was a nasty attack. I'm quite glad it was planted or it might have given me chase  ???

[Art Blade]

By chance I found a shipwreck that was of the same type as mine, one cargo slot more, but almost all of the upgrades and base elements needed repair. I didn't want it, too much w@&k and a less than sub-optimal cargo grid layout.

But I found a military grade multi-tool when checking the beacon :)
[smg id=9034 type=preview align=center caption="found this tool"]

[fragger]

Ooh, nice find :-X

That underwater creature you found - I've seen one like that. You can scan it for dough. I called the one I saw a Clown Sleeve Anenome, back in the time when I was bothering to name things. These days I only name planets, just to help me remember what each one is like.

[fragger]

Well, I went and did it, started a new career. I saved my old one, just in case I decide to return to it.

Yesss! This time I started in a system with five planets (in my first game there was only the one I started on). Plenty of stuff to do and build up, without having to worry about those stinking pirates making nuisances of themselves. Hopefully. one of these planets will turn out to be a wildlife-free resource haven. I like those ones.

My first planet has a slightly toxic atmosphere unfortunately, not bad but it's there. There are also nine animal species, so far I've only seen two but they're tame. I've fixed the ship and gone to the Space Station, from there I'll check out the other planets. I won't go back to my first one until I get to craft some decent toxicity shielding for my suit. This time I made sure to interact with the Atlas sphere at the wreck site. I somehow missed that the first time.

This should be good. I'll probably be in this system for quite a while. I'm not leaving it until I'm upgraded to the hilt with lots of ship and suit inventory space, significantly boosted Hyperdrive and heavy-duty weapons and shields, so when I do eventually have to throw down with the pirates I can give at least as good as I get.

[Binnatics]

I'm looking forward to your new career and stories mate! Just what I don't get, is why you started over. Did you loose opportunities or did you have bad statistics, or is it just the idea of having a good start, pooring every last bit of juice out of the first planetary system?

[fragger]

Mostly just because there were things I could have done better, Binn. There is a special system of using upgrades for equipment efficiently which none of us here knew about until we were quite a way into the game, where they will boost each other if you arrange them properly. You can rearrange them (each upgrade takes up a slot in your inventory, of which you have two, suit and ship), but if you want to move an upgrade from one slot to another it means dismantling the upgrade and then re-crafting it where you want it, and that can be an expensive exercise. I spent a lot of money on a ship with 30 inventory slots thinking that would be all I'd ever need, but when we found about the upgrade system I realised that 30 slots wasn't going to be enough. Had I know more, I would have saved my money, and kept saving unitl I'd had enough for a ship with a larger number of inventory slots. I didn't feel like doing it all over again in that game.

But mostly, you don't get pirates in your first solar system, so it's a good time to get up and running and build up everything you need without being hassled by bad guys. Some of what you can build up are your ship's weapons and shields via upgrades, so that when you are ready to finally venture to another star you'll be better equipped to deal with the pirates.

There are other reasons why I started over, but these are the main ones. I could write a pretty big post if I were to list all the reasons :)

[fragger]

This time around I'm seeing a totally different range of ship configurations (Korvax), so they appear to change either between games, or between systems.

Yay, I've got a resource haven, right under the station! And no pirates to get in the way! I'm stoked 8) I can actually see the station in the sky when I'm on that side of the planet, so when I want to jump to it I can lift off, point straight at it and go. It takes me straight to the front door, I barely even have to maneuver.

I've realised that I'm still going to need a bigger ship than the one I started with, so the plan is to score about a 24-slotter ASAP, grow my suit inventory, then start saving for the big ship. Resource haven planets always seem to have tons of those suit-slot purchase pods scattered around, so I'm going for them after getting the ship. The prices of ships appear to go up exponentially as the slot capacity increases - the price difference between the original 16-slot ship and a 24-slotter is way lower than the price difference between a 24-slotter and a 32.

I wonder if that trick D_B discovered about dismantling all the upgrades in a Multitool to bring down the price of a new one applies to ships? I'll have to check that out when the time comes (save first, natch :-())

[Dweller_Benthos]

I thought of that Fragger, but haven't tried it yet, but I would imagine if it does bring the price of the ship down, the new ship will not have as many upgrades already installed, so check the price and installed upgrades first, then see what the difference is.

[Art Blade]

before we discussed the dismantling for lower price, I actually did try it (dismantled all I could but ran out of slots for the refund stuff) for a different reason and indeed, all you get is poorly equipped ships around you. If you don't have the blueprints for ALL of the upgrades the new ship is supposed to be equipped with, you're screwed.

Also, new ships usually have a few upgrades that you don't have blueprints for (yet) so I'd even consider to do it the other way round: max out your ship before going for a new one so the array of new ships will likely have tons of better gear on them :-D

[Art Blade]

I found a trade station on my moon, yay! :)
[smg id=9045 type=preview align=center caption="trade station on moon"]

[Art Blade]

I've realised that I'm still going to need a bigger ship than the one I started with, so the plan is to score about a 24-slotter ASAP, grow my suit inventory, then start saving for the big ship.

Like this? Ready to mine off a moon made of gold or something?  :-() It was the first ship I checked on that moon trade station. ???
[smg id=9046 type=preview align=center caption="really expensive stuff"]

[fragger]

Yep, like that :-D I'd like to have room for good upgrade arrangements and still have plenty of space for trade resources.

[Art Blade]

that's a hell of a lot of money you'll have to accrue before that dream of yours comes true :) Or, you go looking for shipwrecks and mend them, then the next, and so on.. usually those wrecks are one slot bigger than your own ship. Although there are exceptions, with either less or more than one slot.

[Binnatics]

Will you know THE size and upgrades from THE wrecked ship before mending?

And What about the blueprints; do they stay with you when you assemble and/or dismantle apps? Or do you use them up while creating its upgrade?
In other words; are they knowledge or malls?

[Art Blade]

you can check out everything about any ship, no matter whether your found it as a wreck or with the owner (always a trader) still sitting in it. Any ship with a pilot in it is automatically a trade opportunity. Any screenshot with the slots and gear of a ship shown is what it looks like when you find one, except the weapons and upgrades are usually broken.

It means that you need to get (mine, trade) a lot of resources to get a ship fully fixed up, some rare resources may not be available to you on the planet you're on, but if those are rare, then they're most likely used for high-end upgrades. In other words, if you only find crap resources, you'll only be able to install crap components.  :-()

You will be able to get any ship ready for flying around in it because the resources needed for that are more or less abundant or at least easy to come by. Well, except once, my very first start of the game I couldn't find one resource for hours so I started a new career. Might have found it far away but by the time getting there (without ship) I would likely have died due to a quite extreme climate.

Which means, it's not a good idea to look for a shipwreck if you're on an extremely toxic, freezing-cold, radiation-polluted and carnivore predator-infested planet (as you need to make that wreck your own ship and at that, the only one which can't even fly yet) Unless you enjoy torture a lot :-()


Blueprints are knowledge. They don't get used up.

Apps (in the game called "companions" which I really don't like) are parts of a ship that are composed of materials, half of which you'll get back if you dismantle them.

If you want to install one, you'll need to "know how" to, as in you need to have acquired the corresponding blueprint first. Then you'll need to acquire the "ingredients" (materials) which are more and more difficult to get the more advanced the upgrade levels of the blueprints/apps are.

So sometimes you'll find a ship with apps you don't have the blueprints for, which is why you should leave them as they are -- at least you can use those apps but if you dismantle them, you won't be able to reconstruct them until you found the corresponding blueprint. And that's a random thing. You can't go and buy blueprints, you happen upon them by pure chance.

[Art Blade]

fragger,

Having arrived in my 30-slot ship, I checked other ships at the station, and I kind of expected that they'd supersede my ship by about 10 slots (actually, they did) because they did when arriving in a 20-something-slot ship. Apparently the size of your ship triggers bigger ships (by around and up to 10 slots bigger) so you keep wanting even bigger ones. :-() I actually now saw the same type that I used to have (that fighter) with already 35 slots.  :)

Which means that you'll have to acquire a 30-slotter in order to even see any 40-slotters. I don't think that you'll come across any of those if your ship is more than 10 slots "behind."