This game spits you in the face and the nkicks you in the nuts

[Groundtotem]

I am getting more and more frustrated with this game. I have just completed the alien part and the berserker attack when you leave the aliens "space". But now im really stuck at the ambush in X297... I only have heretic in a ship since i lost all the other ships in the alien part... So it looks like im gonna have to reload a earlier save and get more ships and stuff like it..

But what's make me mad about this game is that i goes from "easy" to "insane" just in a blink of an eye.... Sucks that im not given a chance to re-arm since i have already taken out 3-4 HARD packs of aliens and berserkers, i mean one would hope that there would be some point where you could re arm before the ambush, but nope.

[Nanaki]

Getting good equipment is no problem, all you have to do is take some time off from the story mode, farm pirates, loot their stuff, and sell it on the market (this is not even counting the fact you can just go to the hidden caches thread, find some caches, and become an instant millionaire). Every once in awile you should visit a patrol station to offload the pirate escape pods which gives you more cash and a little bit of experiance.

The problem is skill points. The game is really skimpy on them, and this is on normal. I could kill thousands of pirates and still only get about a hundred or two skill points, barely enough for one high-tier skill. It especially sucks since skill points and the skills they provide are the only thing seperating you from the average enemy fighter, since enemy fighters are typically very well equipped.

[Uniq]

Nwo I can tank the normal alienships with no probs after some cachhunting. Got 2x3000 shields on my ship but the problem is those damn missiles that goes past the shields, they eat my ships in a sec and my MS can't handle much more. on the MS I got the smog/fog(The better of the 2) anti missile but it doesnt help much. So how to counter the shieldignoring missiles?

[Groundtotem]

Stoped by a smuggler base in cadi and geared up. I am also going the the alien mission manually so i can stop by stations and load up on good missile's and figthers! So i think i should be fine this time around.

But i guess i will always need to keep a good amount of missile's and fighters with me!

[Nanaki]

Here is what my mothership has....

2x Falconet Major Calibre Guns
4x Rage Turrets (thinking about replacing with particle accellerators... they are only slightly weaker than lasers but they do not have the massive disadvantage of being weak to antilaser system equipped ships, which are freaking everywhere)
1x Tungsten Repair System (This is extremely important, as your mothership cannot repair itself without it)
1x Kali Shield System
1x Smog Antimissile System
1x Emerald Antilaser system

With a Systems MK3 AI piloting my Mothership, the Systems MK3 AI is very important, as it increases hull repair and shield recovery by a whopping 250%... that means it turns my 10 HP/sec Tungsten system into a 25 HP/sec... It also makes your mothership near-immune to the alien missiles as they simply cannot get past your antimissile system

This is my Lion Cruiser, though, my Astarte had all of the same minus the Emerald Antilaser system and minus one Rage turret... and it was able to tank aliens indefinately.

[Groundtotem]

I have a repair system but it's not very good...

Im still in the Mastiff, haven't found a new MS in ages..

Anyways i re did the alien part and this time it was a breeze compared to the last time, loaded up with heavy missiles.

[valky]

Originally Posted by Nanaki

4x Rage Turrets (thinking about replacing with particle accellerators... they are only slightly weaker than lasers but they do not have the massive disadvantage of being weak to antilaser system equipped ships, which are freaking everywhere)

The particle beam counts as laser weap too (Laser weapon proficiency) and according the description of the Diamond (50% ship laser reduction) it also states that it is able to do so.

And I don't think they are weaker, if a part beam hits it is usually very very devastating. Only the ROF is slightly weaker (particle: every 4 second / laz0r: every 3 second both without any modification to change the ROF, if ROF == shoots p/minute)

[Nanaki]

The particle beam counts as laser weap too (Laser weapon proficiency) and according the description of the Diamond (50% ship laser reduction) it also states that it is able to do so.

Well, that just kills whatever excitement I had for the particle beam weapons... Back to Pulse lasers than, I guess.

[ladious]

Help, i am about to give up on the game =( been playing for 16hours now.. just got Mastiff.. getting clear of the Automated Turret towards Elio took me 4hours =X

trying to find Matt Hander now, but every single red ships i encounter blasts me to hell..

I feel that this shouldn't be the case..

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Killer]

Yet again I wonder why are people complaining. The mission to get a new MS is soon after the beginning. If you chose not to get the Astarte and are now complaining about how hard is the game in Mastiff, then why have you chosen not to go for the new MS?

Regarding alien missiles, I have never had a problem. Just buy anitmissile systems for your ships. And for MS get a good repair system (Thungsten), shiled (Kali) + system firmware Mk.3

From my side, I have not used missiles at all. It is usless imho as 90% of them are shot down and there are much more usefull skills to put points to. Just using good cannons and puting points to accuracy have won me all battles on normal (finished the game 4 times now).

Regarding particle wepons, I will try them more in a new game. But I agree with Valky, their advantage is that they make the damage in one shot, while pulse lasers do it in 3 or 4 shots.

As for equipping the last MS, I used antilaser (+80% defense) only for the last mission of Alex campaign (the hardest one in the game) - so it was 2 Kali, 1 Thungsten and 1 antilaser. In all other endings, I replace the antilaser with the antimissile module.