SR 1 - late joiner

[Noctilucus]

UK_John: I've read the same comments on the RTS battles from other people. It's a pity those battles have been made so hard by allowing the AI to produce on such a massive scale, as they would make for a nice change inbetween all the flying.

Good thing that you warn me about the black holes... I've never used them much but so far I've only been up against 1-3 regular opponents which is pretty much a walk in the park as soon as you have a decent ship.

Quite honestly I'm avoiding most text missions as they are often long, difficult and/or trial-and-error. I prefer to spend that time trading or doing Fedex missions that often pay half the amount of the text missions anyway, in a much shorter timeframe and with far less risk. Like you said, especially the risk that your relations with a race can drop like a brick after failing a mission, poses too much risk to be worth it.

I can't complain about any races not liking me due to not killing pirates. While it's true that as a human pilot, my relations with Maloqs and Faeyans were less than stellar in the beginning, they've warmed to me after some Fedex missions (e.g. a successful Fedex from a Gaalian planet to a Maloq planet will improve your relations with the Maloq planet as well) and killing Dominators.
I did hit a tough spot once when picking up some loot right in front of a pirate (leading to 2 pirates ganging up on me and eventually killing me).
Other than that, I didn't engage in any pirate battles so far, though with my current ship I should give it a try to see how a more aggressive playstyle turns out to be.

Indeed, a brilliant and addictive game, providing much more variation and freedom than your typical space trader.

[uk_john]

Your pirate experience may vary, so good luck. As to the Black Holes, in Reboot you can set a time in the Options for the automatic pilot to take over. I have it set at 2 seconds, so if I don;t take control of the ship straight away the AI takes over, and up to 3 Dominator's does quite well, like I do, but at 4 it fails, just like I do, so the AI is just like me - which I find a little scary!

The only pirates I definitely go after are the one's that zip in just as I am about to pick up some minerals or an enine or laser or something - that is so annoying and is like he is just baiting me!

Such is the realism you give to this gameworld as you get immersed, you really do start seeing other races and ship captains as real people! Especially when, in Reboot, you get more conversations between other ships as they fight, etc!

[Noctilucus]

This time I started a game as a Maloq at normal difficulty and I see quite a change: much more pirates attacking me (due to strained racial relations) and I've died more frequently than in the first game.

I only jumped into black holes a few times so I've never been up against 3-4 dominators (though Keller may count for 4 )
Either you're uncannily like the AI, or 4 dominators in the same black hole doesn't leave you enough maneuvering room inbetween encounters?

Now that I'm a Maloq, I suppose I should start taking a more aggressive stance and pre-emptively take out some pirates...

[uk_john]

Originally Posted by Noctilucus

This time I started a game as a Maloq at normal difficulty and I see quite a change: much more pirates attacking me (due to strained racial relations) and I've died more frequently than in the first game.

I only jumped into black holes a few times so I've never been up against 3-4 dominators (though Keller may count for 4 )
Either you're uncannily like the AI, or 4 dominators in the same black hole doesn't leave you enough maneuvering room inbetween encounters?

Now that I'm a Maloq, I suppose I should start taking a more aggressive stance and pre-emptively take out some pirates...

Generally speaking, I only take out pirates if they are 'bad' or 'hostile', certainly,if they have an 'excellent' attitude to me I don't concern myself why (maybe I took out a competitor?) and just leave them alone.

[Noctilucus]

Originally Posted by uk_john

Generally speaking, I only take out pirates if they are 'bad' or 'hostile', certainly,if they have an 'excellent' attitude to me I don't concern myself why (maybe I took out a competitor?) and just leave them alone.

Same here. And so far I'm not even that actively attacking the "bad" ones.
Though it's an interesting question, what determines someone's attitude towards you.
I'm sure race, their occupation (pirate vs other), your relations with planets of that race in the current star system, your armament and cargo, historical fighting against them, ... all play a role.
Not sure whether your ranger ranking and your Dominator, pirate & other kills are taken into account.

[uk_john]

Also, there seems to be 'levels' in this Reboot version. Almost overnight is seems I cannot scan ships because their sheilding is too high, new technology has started appearing en masse at prices of 100,000 plus and generally there seems to have been a 'jump' rather than a smooth curve, meaning I am still trying to raise money for better compnents and hulls, just like i was at the start, but now I have 35,000c and everything is 50,000 plus, just like when I had 1,000cr everything was 3,000cr!

[Noctilucus]

I've seen other people comment on that before though so far I haven't noticed any such radical jumps. Though that's probably because I check out the available equipment whenever I land on a Gaalian planet and I wouldn't really notice if the most expensive hull I can't buy is suddenly 500K instead of 300K.
Like you say, there's constantly items (especially hulls or unique ships) out of price range but that also incentivizes you to play on and make more money.

What's a little annoying though are all those planets that keep selling weak, old material even when everyone is already using the more advanced stuff. I should really remember using the search engine to find better equipment, so far I never thought of doing that.
Right now I've got 250K cash on hand and nothing in particular that I want to buy urgently, though I keep seeing offers for unique ships for 1000K (and only available to those with a high piracy or military rating, which I don't have yet)