Overview
There are some fantastic basic guides already on here that I learned from even as an intermediate/advanced player, I just thought I’d add some extra tips that I didn’t see in the other guides.
Loot Table Manipulation
May the odds be ever in your favour! Nothing is worse than seeing that juicy +25 reactor module in the enemy ship, but upon destroying the enemy, all you get is their crappy shield battery…
You can change that.
Any module you destroy will not appear as loot, this means if you destroy the stuff you DON’T want, this improves the chances of getting what you DO want.
This should influence your targeting in most engagements, but every now and then it may also be worth it to take drastic action to make sure you get what you want. This can be done by boarding. Boarding allows you to in some cases have your crew destroy every single module except the ones you want before killing the last crew member and triggering the self-destruct.
However usually, you will have to settle for destroying all modules except the one you want AND the bridge, since it can be hard to destroy the bridge without killing the last crewmen, and once the self-destruct countdown starts, your boarders will ignore commands to attack modules.
Example:
This strategy is AMAZING in Sector 9 (minor spoilers ahead) since you face off against Sec. Corp. ships, some of which have only 4 crew (2 on bridge, two v.weak robots on guns) and no point defence! This means there is almost ZERO risk of your crew dying! These ships also have amazing +22 power reactors and amazing engines. As you can see from the screenshot below, using this tactic, I was able to get SIX cold fusion power reactors by the end of this sector!
You can also lose a lot of your crew this way, as ships sometimes explode unexpectedly. So it may be safer to stay on your own ship and snipe modules with your weapons, some are better than others – the huge energy cannon is probably the best – but that rarely drops as loot – unless you board and destroy everything that is…
Loadout swapping
Others have talked about the importance of swapping your loadouts when entering into combat, but specifically you should have at least 5 loadouts by end-game:
1. Crew at rest: your ship should be pretty full of containers, cryo sleep, gardening modules, research modules etc.
2. Battle Stations 1: for flying into combat. All container modules remain in place. Cryo, gardening and research modules should be replaced. (you should preference having shield generators on-line vs other module types, as they need time to charge fully, whereas swapping to ECM modules in battle makes little difference since they will likely be up before the first shots are fired)
3. Battle Stations 2: for warping into combat. Only one container module remains – one which holds some fuel, others should be swapped out for combat modules. This way you can have almost every module devoted to combat, but still warp into new sectors where (depending on your sensor range/stealth detection level) enemies may unbeknownst to you be lurking, and will engage as soon as you emerge.
4. Battle stations 3: for in-combat – you swap a final combat module into the last container slot
5. Battle stations 4: same as above, but with point defense at the rear, in case of an attack from behind.
One key tip that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere is that you can make use of container slots in combat through tech artifacts – some of them offer very good bonuses to accuracy, evasion, and/or hull reinforcement.
Here we see a tigerfish in scenario 1:
And scenario 4:
SOS – not just for emergencies
Although once you get properly accustomed to the game you will seldom if ever run out of fuel, RNG can still catch you out once in a blue moon and you may need to use the SOS beacon to get fuel. In this case, don’t wait until your fuel runs completely dry! Doing so means your engines will no longer contribute to your evasion score, leaving you more vulnerable if you are engaged in combat.
More often, though you will be using the SOS beacon for “farming” – that is where you are very confident in your ship’s abilities and wish to enter into more fights for more loot of all kinds. However, there is usually a risk inherent in this: warp life – they can damage you with no “up-side” – very poor loot, or can even turn your explosives into organics. One way around this is to SOS farm next to a wormhole. This means if you see a jellyfish coming, you can fly quickly through to another sector (it will not follow you). It will remain in the system you left, so make sure you do this in a situation where you don’t ever need to return to that sector (for an exit gate for example).
Also, if a trader arrives offering deals, always take them even if you’re not bothered about the resources as they might cheat you, giving you the option to “attack the cheater!” and get the engagement you wanted.
Note: They always cheat you if you ask for the 100 explosives
I tend to SOS farm at least once per sector, stopping after evading the warp life – it brings in a lot of extra materials.
However, if you’re truly determined to be the best, you can even SOS farm infinitely (literally). You just have to find a station which does repairs and isn’t too close to the sun.
1. Sit on the station so that the “revisit” button is visible. You should be able to fly freely (i.e. still have container modules installed, and none overflowing)
2. Press SOS
3. Profit.
3A – If “space scavengers”, “energy traders”, or “module traders” appear, you can interact with them – buy, sell – they will never attack you
3B – if “hostile fleet”, “unknown fleet”, or “trader” comes, dock with the station and switch to your full battle loadout before exiting and fighting them / initiating fights if they are slaver associates.
3C if warp life comes, fly away until you’re out of their radar range. At this point the warp life will fly to the centre of the system and stay there and you can safely go back to the station and turn on your SOS beacon again.
Note: It may be the case that certain low-level engines are unable to outrun warp-life – I’m not sure, perhaps that’s true of DIY engines, but most engines will have no problems.
As you can see, from the screenshot below, I’ve done this over 100 times in a single sector before. If you do plan on doing this, you will probably need laser weapons because weapons which cost resources may run out faster than they are replenished (especially explosives weapons). It is also do-able with weapons that cost resources though – metals are particularly abundant as loot, so rail cannons are fine. If you take some damage in battles, just repair at the station.
There’s always metal in the slots…
As you probably know you can upgrade internal modules to “core” slots to improve your ship’s HP by 1, or upgrade again to a hybrid slot (losing the HP bonus), and again to a weapons slot.
On rare occasions however, it can be useful to DOWNGRADE slots. Doing so allows you to recoup some of the resources invested in upgrading them. Usually this would be a big waste of resources, but there may be times where you absolutely NEED extra resources fast – for example, you may need 20 metals to open some cryo-pods, but you had auto-repair switched on and you have none left. This would be the perfect time to downgrade a core slot to a regular slot, temporarily decreasing your max hp by 1, but gaining some metals and synthetics. Similarly, you may need extra cash to buy that perfect module – it might be worth downgrading something so you can sell the metal/synthetics and buy your new toy.
Note, you cannot downgrade hybrid slots back to core, it’s a one-way upgrade.
Shield generators vs batteries
Shield generators are usually superior to shield batteries.
Batteries have more starting shield HP, but generators produce an ongoing trickle of shield points. Most battles go on long enough so that generators are the best choice on paper. Even if you’re destroying enemy ships in a single volley, in an engagement with 3 ships, you’ll probably have spent long enough in battle that the shield generators will have outclassed batteries of a similar energy and price-point.
For example:
– Shield generator has 6 shields, and recharges 1 every 5 seconds
– Shield battery has 10 shields
Comparing the above, an engagement will only have to go on 25 seconds for the generators to have out-paced the batteries in effective shield HP. (and that’s assuming the generators aren’t crewed – another advantage they have)
In the screenshot below, my late-game ship generates 1 shield point every .44 seconds. That means for a battle that lasts just 45 seconds, I’ll be generating over 100 shield hit points (on top of the starting shield points).
However: enemies with a lot of EMP weapons may get your shields down too fast for the effective shield points over time of the generators to begin working in your favour, since going down causes them to be EMPed for a while, thus not generating points. Hence in these scenarios, upfront shield power may be preferable.
The long and short of it is that It’s probably best to use a mixture of batteries and generators. But it also depends on your own offensive style/abilities. For example, because in the ship below, I built up amazing alpha strike power (with 17 heavy weapons that ignored shields the enemy ships were disintegrated in mere seconds), fights were over too fast for shield generators to be of any use, and so I used batteries almost exclusively, allowing me to put up a strong initial shield wall with minimum module space so I could eat the enemy’s one and only offensive volley:
Conversely, with this next ship I would often deliberately prolong battles, using my huge energy cannon to snipe enemy modules and improve loot outcomes; trying to avoid destroying enemies too fast. Therefore, I needed a lot of shield regeneration in order to keep shields up indefinitely whilst I picked apart my prey at my leisure. Naturally, this called for more generators than batteries:
Power redundancy
No matter how good your ship is, it will take damage – canons ignore your shields and PDs, and even with high evasion, will hit some of the time, some nukes have too much hp for even 4 commercial PD to take down.
If a lucky hit temporarily takes out a power plant, it can be disastrous if you’re not prepared for it, as it causes your performance to spiral – maybe the first hit was “lucky” but now with -20 power, your ECM modules go offline – maybe the next hit doesn’t need to be lucky. Maybe your weapons go offline so the battle lasts longer and you take more damage.
In short, you should have more power than you need – and spread the power plants out so that it’s less likely that more than one will be hit by the same attack at the same time. This is a good example (but not perfect):
Of course, symmetry is important too… you know, for your inner peace.
The best defence is a good offence – no, really!
As I alluded to in the last section, the longer a battle goes on, the more time you have to get hit with stuff. Therefore you want to maximise your DPM (damage per minute). Obviously some weapons are much better than others, but weapon choice matters less than investing in upgrading to get MORE weapon slots. As you can see from the screenshot below, it is possible to increase DPM to seriously OP levels without sacrificing defense entirely:
(I only needed 2 PD on this ship because every enemy would be destroyed in under 20 seconds, which seems to be before almost all AIs launch their nukes)
Investing in more slots is the only way to get your DPM to hit those crazy high figures like the 518 in the screenshot above- and it creates an “upward cycle” as battles get shorter, you have to spend less on repairs, and have more to invest in even more slots. Be aware however that DPM is just a rough indicator of your damaging potential – it assumes every shot hits – so if you have inaccurate weapons and small targets, your true DPM will be less. Similarly it assumes every missile will get past PDs and every laser or projectile will hit (not deflect). Below is an incredibly potent end-game ship with what seems like mediocre DPM, but it uses accurate laser weapons which never deflect, so what you see is what you get and it’s more than enough to melt even the toughest of ships:
Whilst on the topic of offense serving a defensive function, you can also take steps to take out enemy nukes whilst they’re still in their launch tubes. The best way to do this is probably with nukes of your own (preferably ones with high module damage). Incendiary nukes AREN’T the best choice since it will take a couple of seconds for the flames to begin to damage the enemy nukes, and the enemy will likely launch them before that happens.
Any accurate weapons which penetrate shields can also accomplish this.
One final tip for this section – when aiming with a weapon, there is a square-ish translucent area that represents the space within which your shots will fall. However, on some occasions, your shots will miss by a large margin, falling completely outside of this aiming area. I’m not sure if this is simply a bug, or some hidden mechanic related to the enemy’s evasion score and a background dice roll. However, you can often spot if your weapon is about to miss in this fashion, since it will be pointing significantly askew relative to the target and surrounding weapons targeting a similar area. If you notice this, you can press “stop firing” on the weapon, and lay down the target again, and it should swivel to the correct position and hit within the designated aiming area – preventing you from wasting ammo and damage output.