Oh nice, I'll have to experiment and see if I can find these blind spots. I'm guessing dropping in from above helps with that. I have heard rumors of the legendary shuttle POI... hoping to find one myself this weekend! I wanna know what loot is has lol
So, I took a step back and examined the glorious task I had set before me. Always commence operations in debug SI mode, with an HV or SV nearby with large amounts of inventory space, and with your drone: Carefully taking about the lowest bits... And then LOOTPLOSION!!!!! Continuing with all the surgical precision of an atomic bomb: and you too can end up with an odd looking thing: Which then yields an inventory that looks like: (and it probably would have been better except I missed bits with RCS's and others...) Slam, I am not sure if this was around when you last played, but I am describing the technique of removing the lower levels and then when SI fails and large parts of a POI break off you can click on those pieces for a return like a multitool(I believe the return percentage is somewhere between the T1 and T2 handheld multitools but do not hold me to that as it has been adjusted several times.) Between this technique, the deconstructer(which is amazing,) and then the hand held and mounted multitools, looting is pretty awesome. Tomorrow: I venture into the galaxy. What awaits me? Probably horrible death.
Walkway to main entrance stairs leading up.. interior of the main hall science off from the main hall bathroom & bedroom on the top deck Vault stairs to the lowest level; still under excavation Exterior from opposite side - wall under construction.
Was going to report to the ole dev's that combat seems a bit too punishing: But then I made some adjustments and things got a touch better: Still doing some testing to confirm. @ravien_ff the infected model in that last image has not been modified by you via Eden has it?
Hey, thanks for the tip! As I was going through this thread earlier, I found a series of screenshots of you (I think) doing that same tactic, and I adopted it for myself. Super useful and makes clearing some POIs nice and quick. Jadefalcon, that BA is GLORIOUS! I wish I could build something that nice. Very jealous! So since my last post, I decided that the character from my first game defintely died, so onto game 2. Chose Medium difficulty, with Mass/Volume constraints active, but no CPU constraints yet (maybe next time!) Didn't fumble as much at the start, and quickly got a small wooden hut set up to store resources. Since it was Akua, it started as more like a wooden platform with boxes on it. Soon, I added a small BA blueprint I had made earlier for some simple facilities. Continued slaving away with my drill HV, clearing deposits and making friends with the Talon so I could mine in their territory with no issues. Eventually built an SV and left the planet to gather resources from the other moons of Crown. I call this little ship, which I built years and years ago, the Pangolin. Surprised, then, I was to find that there are now monsters in game with the same name. Fun! Eventually growing tired of the Pangolins weaknesses (small cargo area, weak thrusters, adds up to poor cargo haulage), I built a new ship that I call the Cargonaut A. It is based somewhat on the Hull A from Star Citizen. I may not be stoked on that game, but their ships are epic, so no shame copying a few of them. With better abilities, I was able to (sorta) quickly clear the other moons of valuable resources. But there was a problem: no warp drive. And no room to put a warp drive. So, instead of modifying it, I decided to take it and make it a big brother, the Cargonaut B. 28k of storage and enough thrusters to take a load of the heaviest materials from any planet (that I've visited so far!) and take it back to base. Equipped with a hull shield and warp drive, this has become my workhorse in gathering supplies for the new CV. The CV in my last game was a Size 1, and I wanted something bigger. So I designed was I thought would be a size 3 or 4 CV. Turned out to be a size 8. I realized I had gone too big when I noticed I need two gravity generators. Oh well! Since the new CV would require 70,000 Titanium and nearly 30,000 Iron, I knew I would be busy for a while. The Cargonaut B could pick up 7000 Titanium ore in one run, so that would be 5 full runs just for that. In my explorations, I came across a settlement and explored it. Found out I couldn't use their toilets without being friendly status. What an issue that could be! Also found this colorful character playing alien solitaire or something. Would be cool if you could sit and play an alien card game with him, even if it is complete nonsense of a game. Built a small space farm to help keep food supplies up, then eventually gathered enough to build the CV. Finally! Plenty of storage, with plenty of space for even more. A central vertical hangar which can store waaay more ships than I need. A nice farm with two 6x6 plots for plenty of food. And I even painted and decorated a few areas of it. Hallway leading to the farm Farm area Captains quarters Hangar Bay One of the reception areas adjacent to the Hangar Bay (Edit: Attempt 2 on the pictures!)
Simple adjustment of using the "addimages" at the base of the text entry area, then you upload the files you want, then click insert individually or insert all. I have not used the "resize" ability yet.... I will try it here: Huh. That is the 500 x 500.
Thanks to Fractalite, I was able to get pictures uploaded correctly on my last post. Woot! Interestingly, the forums file upload seems to upload to an Imgur account. Funny then that my own Imgur account wouldn't work. But I digress. Since then, I haven't done too much exciting. Just been filling out and decorating the new CV, and being very cautious with it. For most of the time, I've kept in near Akua to avoid being hit by enemies, and would use an SV to jump to Sienna to gather resources. The biggest issue had been finding Zascosium and Erestrium. Once I could get a source for those, I could outfit the CV with weapons and a shield. After scouring several planetbound POIs and scraping several ore desposits clean, I decided I wasn't likely to find very much Z or E on the planet at all. Eventually, armed with a T1 shield and some minigun turrets, I brought the SV to Sienna and started scanning the area around the orbit of the planet, hoping to find a magnesium asteroid. Much to my surprise, I found two POIs that were out of range of my SV scanner. One was yellow, which indicated Pirate Clans (with whom I am unfriendly) and a mysterious light blue, which represented a clan I hadn't encountered yet. Preparing for the worst, I brough the CV into a fly-by, hoping to escape quickly if I started taking fire. But it turned out to be a Gas Refinery for the Trade Guild. I generally like Trade Guilds in games, but as a refinery I doubted whether there was anything to buy. I took to CV back to safe space near Akua, and returned to the Gas Refinery with an SV. Went inside and found two traders. One bought things like Chemical Waste and other commodities... but also T2 BA/CV Generators for 50k each. The other trader made my jaw drop. They sold ores of several types, including Zascosium and Erestrium! No way! Scarce no longer! I could only buy 1000ish of each at a time, but that was plenty. The trader also sold ores of pentaxid, titanium, sathium, copper, and promethium. Making several trips, I loaded up with all the rare resources I could afford, eventually running low on credits. Since one of the traders bought T2 BA/CV Generators, I figured this was a lucrative way to keep the credits flowing. Using the resources I bought, I built 8x of the T2 Gens and loaded them onto the Cargonaut B for haulage. I was amazed to realize how HEAVY they were. Far heavier than a full load of any ore I had carried so far. Dropped my forward max speed from 114m/s to 38m/s. The 30ish km from the warp point to the Gas Refinery took ages, but when I arrived and sold the Generators, I made nearly half a million credits. Epic! Having now spent a fair bit of time near Sienna in a slow, vulnerable ship, I decided Sienna must be safe enough for the CV. So I warped it over to Sienna and parked it next to the Gas Refinery. Made a few trips to the Refinery to trade in Generators and load up on rare resources without issue. Seems my scarcity issues are gone for now, so I plan to load up a ton of supplies before I head further afield. Upgraded the CV shield to T2, and been making turrets of every variety to plaster onto the CV for defense. Speaking of, is there a generally accepted 'best defense turret?' I'm kinda happy if not -- I like the variety. I also noticed a bug that seems to appear randomly: sometimes when I undock an SV from the CV: it will go flying at high speed across the docking bay. Is this common? Seen it happen twice so far, I think only after flying the CV for a bit. Since I've gotten so far, I've decided that my current death conditions are when the CV gets destroyed. Up til then, clone chamber all the way, though I will avoid dying as much as possible, of course. Just don't want to restart and do all the build up again so soon. CV Starstrider (Name still temporary) Starstrider Bridge, in need of a makeover (I have learned that YES, crew ARE just expensive deco blocks!) Starstiders central dock ended up much bigger than I had envisioned. Which is good, because I won't have to replace it any time soon. Still no idea how to light it correctly, as the light blocks seem to be very ineffective. Traders Guild <3 gotta get them creds! Starstrider next to the Gas Refinery The one resource I couldn't find a (nearly) unlimited supply of was Magnesium, required for missiles and such. So far I've built two SV mining lasers, attached them to the Cargonaut B, and depleted the only Magensium asteroid I could find so far. So with all that done, the question is: what's next? Need to find even more Magensium, then I think add a few more turrets, then finish exploring this star system. After that, the one thing I haven't done yet -- warp to a new star system. Stoked!
To continue with the combat examination, I thought I would try a Reforged Eden run on the Dark Rogue planet starter Ultra hard etc etc. I used my usual custom difficulty settings and found to my dismay that the start is not really doable right now: I have started on that planet bunches of times and never had that much trouble, it was even border line just to get out of the initial ship... I am all for a challenge but I do not think I can finish. Maybe I am just out of practice or something so I will do another snow dwarf start; ma fav.
Still being a bit short on Turrets and Ammo, and with no steady source of Magnesium, I headed out to fill that gap in my resources. Attached another two Mining Lasers to the Cargonaut B, for a total of four, flew off, and mined a few magnesium asteroids. Returned to the CV, dumped them into the construction box, and headed back out to get some ice. The purpose for the ice was to make Fusion Power Cells, which would help extend my supply of promethium pellets by double. Built a few new turrets, built a bunch of ammo, and decided I was ready for some light combat. Having armed up the CV to an extent, and with the T2 shield, I decided to try attacking some POIs. I figured the easiest would be small Zirax Defense Stations, so I warped over to Omicron and hunted a few down. I set my turrets to target generators and moved into range. The turrets unloaded, and after a minute or two, finally stopped. I EVA'd from the CV and looked for some loot. Some ingots, but nothing exceptional. Hopped in the CV Tool Turret and salvaged most of the remaining blocks. After hitting one or two more Zirax Defense Stations, I noticed that my Reputation with Polaris Megacorp had risen to friendly. Nice! Now I can mine in their territory with impunity. I also noticed that my Rep with the Pirate Clans was back to neutral, which meant I could move through their territory without being attacked, potentially allowing me to do a sneak attack of some sort. Found another low-defense Zirax POI called Resupply Station or something like that. My turrets quickly disabled it and again I set about salvaging everything my Tool Turret could reach. While doing so, I noticed an Alien Container. I debated for a minute whether it would have anything good and decided to EVA out to it to find out. I was glad I did so because inside, I found a set of Epic Heavy Armor. Hell yeah! Now THAT is loot! I headed back to the Traders Guild Gas Refinery and parked up again. Transferred some cargo back and forth, and set my sights on a bigger POI: the Zirax Shipyard in Omicron orbit. The Defense Stations were level 1, and the Shipyard was level 1, so, in the words of Clarkson, how hard could it be? I decided the best tactic to preserve my shield was to make flybys, allowing my turrets to batter the shipyard and hopefully knock out the generators for a quick win. My first pass I took rather slowly, trying to gauge how strong the POI was. As I noticed my shield had dropped to 15%, I turned tail and fled out of fire range, with my shields depleting just as I escaped. I sat for a few minutes, waiting for the shield to recharge, and considered my options. I could continue making passes, aiming for the generators, and hope that I could knock them out quickly. I made a few passes in this manner, quicker this time so my shield would only drop to 60% or so, but it seemed ineffective. I was definitely dealing damage, as evidenced by the constant stream of Reputation updates, but the Shipyard was dealing a lot of damage in return. Having decided that the turrets were the real issue, I changed target priority for my turrets to target the enemies turrets, and after a few passes, I knocked out enough that I could sit in range and bombard the POI until it stopped shooting back. Eventually, it succumbed to the onslaught and the opposing turrets stopped firing. Finally! Cautiously, I entered my Apollo SV and used the rocket turrets to carefully look for the core, and eventually destroy it. With that done, I hopped back in the CV, got to the Tool Turret, and began salvaging everything I could get the laser on. After about ten minutes, I got a bit bored and left the remains to be plundered again later. I used a massive amount of ammo, had my shield knocked out once, and taken one hit to the hull, but I had won! It was only a Level 1 Zirax POI, which indicated that I needed to arm up much better, and develop some new tactics if I had any hope of taking on anything stronger than that. Future plans: having learned the an HV can dock to an SV, I'm going to make a new heavy mining HV, and an armored cargo SV to ferry it about. I never had done so before, because last I played, you could only dock an HV to a CV or a BA. So if you wanted to get your HV to a new planet, you have to take the CV down to the surface to drop it off. You could, potentially, launch it down to the surface from orbit using a grav gen or something, but then how do you pick it up again? Still have to take the CV to the surface. So as you can imagine, having learned that I can ferry the HV about with an SV, I was motivated to make a new one of each for this purpose. Ideally, if I can get it to work, I should be able to pass from HV to SV without having to go outside into potentially harsh environments, and save a bit of time. Both vessels should have a bit of interior walking space and carefully placed ramps and doors to accomplish this. The hangar bay of my CV is only 4 blocks high, so I can't build the combined vessel too tall. Will see what I can come up with!
Put together a proof of concept for the SV-HV duo, and while they look awful, the concept sorta works. I still have to pass through 2-3 blocks of 'outside' between the HV and SV, but it's off the ground and mostly shielded from the sides and top. Sadly, the SV look like a flying brick and the HV looks like lobster brick with Drills instead of claws. But the concept works, and that's all I was going for. In the Survival game, I just went around and farmed a couple ice asteroids to I could continue building up stock of Fusion Cells. I have no idea what to expect when I leave the starter star system, so I've been taking my time before doing so. I can see why some people don't like this start -- there's no incentive to ever leave. You can get everything in the Ellyon system without ever risking too much. Oh well. Just means I can take a bit more time and make sure I'm ready before I leave the kiddie pool. I've found a number of times where Multi-Player would have been very helpful. May have to try the Official Server one of these days. (This, uh, forum isn't super active is it? Did I miss the heyday? Was there ever a heyday?)
Did a bit of interior work on the Starstrider, painting and texturing the bridge area to look a bit less basic. Went for a sci-fi white and blue glowing type of style. I think I might extend this style to the rest of the interior... not sure yet. Also started working on some new SVs with walkable interiors and large amounts of cargo space. I rather like the Mass/Volume limitations, as they kinda force a person to think about how they arrange things, and how much room is dedicated to cargo, etc. Still trying to come to terms with the massive amount of block shapes available (I think I left just a bit before they added them) and the textures and such. Also took a look at the circuit/signal logic, but... it isn't super intuitive so I'll have to spend a few hours bashing at it later. I took the CV and warped to a nearby star system, in Polaris Megacorp territory. I figured it was a good place to head since I am Friendly with them, so no worries about mining in their territories. Noticed something weird, though.. the CV POIs that fly around often seem to get stuck on asteroids or my ship. Also noticed on more than one occassion, I would return to my CV after mining and notice a pile of Drones sitting against the side of my ship. Really weird. I mean I guess it makes sense for hostile ships: they fly towards you, then when they get in range, they (at least I assume) begin maneuvering and shooting. But in this case, they're friendly, so they never enter the second phase and just sorta crash into me and stay there until I move. Also stopped by a few Trading Hubs and decided that just maybe my CV is a bit too big. So far, it's been bigger than every space station POI I've visited. So, uh, yeah, I might be looking into making a smaller CV in the near future. Somewhere between size 2-6. I'm thinking Size 3 or 4 should be in the sweet spot: space for a hangar with a few SVs, plenty of storage space, and enough room left over for RP greeble and quarters and such. Also: weekend coming up! Plenty of Empyrion time incoming!
I've never been overly good at texturing CVs or SVs. There just doesnt seem to be the variety of styles that there are for BAs. Perhaps im wrong but it doesnt suit my play style particularly. A lot of CVs seem a bit too bit for the stations I think. But go large, or go home I say.
I feel that very much. Often I tend to go for the wood paneling textures just because I like the look. But then you step back and it's like... this doesn't look like a spaceship interior AT ALL. This looks like a cabin in the woods. Which is a nice aesthetic, but just feels weird on a CV. So yeah I've been experimenting with deco pieces and various industrial-looking textures (pipes, grates) juxtaposed against flat/shiny surfaces for kind of a Star Trek sorta sleek but functional look. Plus the glow-y deco pieces help add a lot of ambiance. I still need to find a good ratio of the different colors: I think I read that an ideal ratio is 60% main color, 30% secondary color, 10% tertiary/accent color. I don't think I quite nailed that ratio (and I have a distinct lack of accent colors) but it's something to shoot for at least! As for CV vs station size, I think maybe I just haven't found any big stations yet. Or maybe CVs are just supposed to be bigger than stations since they need to carry thrusters, RCS, and all that jazz. It still seems weird coming up to a station that's half the size of my ship, but maybe I'll get used to that in time. One thing I have learned, in order to accommodate this, is how to park the CV so that I have wireless connection while inside the station, so I can trade directly to/from ship storage, rather than using my player inventory or an SV as a proxy. Oh, and using the teleporter instead of EVA'ing over. It's always a bit nerve-wracking lowering the shields so I can use it, but still very convenient.
I think because of that I tend to build or use CVs with a long fuselage that can be maneuvered close to the stations, ideally with landing gear that can fit on a pad and a boarding ramp. I prefer that to EVA. Teleporters require good rep which you dont always have. A docking / airlock module would be a game changer here but im not sure if the game mechanics can accommodate it
Ahah, that's clever. One thing I hadn't accounted for is that wireless range is centered on the wireless connector block. I had assumed it just extended the range around the entire vessel. So it would seem that good wireless connector placement should help there. Do the CV landing gear have any advantages? I assumed it was just for docking to another CV, and I also assumed that docking to an NPC station wouldn't do much, so it would be easier to just sidle up close instead of docking. I always forget about the Teleported rep requirements... luckily it seems that smashing several Zirax Defense Stations really raised my rep with most of the galaxy. Met one or two new factions who were Friendly off the bat due (I assume) entirely to this. However it's probably best to assume that most factions will be Neutral to start with. Definitely agree on the airlock module, but can imagine it would be difficult to implement, as it would require (near?) pixel-perfect block alignment in order to work correctly. Still, would be mighty cool to have an extending crew corridor/airlock thing.
Had a productive weekend. Started off by finally getting around the painting the Starstrider, deciding to go blue and white. Ended up adding a few more turrets for war and defense, as well as a Drill Turret and a Multi Turret for mining and salvaging operations. Then, I decided to go for a more sleek look and replaced every turret with their Retractable versions. In friendly space, I would withdraw the weapons and turrets so I wouldn't accidentally broadside a Trading Station or something and lose all my rep. After filling up my ammo box as full as it would go, I decided it was time to hunt. Based on what I learned of reputation, pretty much everyone hates Pirates, so I went after them specifically. Warping to a star within Pirate Clans territory, I set my sights on a moving POI and went after it. What with my T2 shield and plenty of turrets, we made short work of the Pirate Frieghter. As we salvaged the stricken ship, another appeared. Then another, and another. Before long, I had a stack of disabled and partially salvaged Pirate ships and lots of rep. Strangely, the ships all seemed to follow the same route in space and would often end up running into each other and getting stuck. The AI is not great, it would seem. After a while, the fight culminated in a bigger battle: a Dreadmaw Frigate showed up, which finally gave me a challenge. However, after several minutes of maneuvering and shield recharging, I emerged victorious. Had a close encpunter while picking up some loot boxes (which have to be done by hand for whatever reason) when another Pirate vessel approached and both vessels opened fire. As I was EVA'ing a ways from the ship, this was a bit disconcerting. Luckily I managed to make it back to the EVA hatch and avoid getting smashed by CV weapons. The picture doesn't really do it justice. End result, I became either Friendly or Honored with basically everyone, including the Zirax and Kriel. I think I continued increasing my rep after taking this screenshot, but past this point it didn't matter as much. After that, I kinda went around and explored different systems, earning Explorers Tokens and whatnot. Made a loong journey out to what turned out to be Tesch territory. I assume they are story-line related, as there didn't seem to be much to do with their stations. Continued scouting around and eventually sent my Cargonaut SC down to a planet to mine up some resources. Got a few nice atmospheric shots in the fog. Eventually, becoming somewhat bored, and having decided that I've reached end-game (where content seems to be quite thin indeed... I mean even the Zirax stations have the EXACT SAME stores, same store contents, and same prices as every other factions stores, which is majorly disappointing to say the least) I decided to download Reforged Eden and start a new game on Omicron. I realized just how slow the start is again, especially on a less-friendly planet. Spent a few hours establishing a little camp by the lakeshore where I could generate oxygen and store resources in the survival constructors. However, having looked at the Tech Tree and realized how much more there was, as well as how many more weapons and such there are, I might stick to RE for a while now as my new Survival game. Hopefully this will yield some diversity in trading stations, factions, and POIs in general. Thinking I might design a new, smaller CV for this game, but have a long ways to go before I get to that point.
Very easy to get good rep blasting pirates, but IMO pirates have some of the best opportunities to make cash. selling commodities to them can be very lucrative and they will buy excess weapons from POIs
Do they? Interesting, I might have to try a Pirate playthrough eventually, seems like they might have some fun gameplay. I do think I found the most economically overpowered station, though, which was directly responsible for me reaching end-game so quickly: the Gas Refinery. They sell all the rare ores, and usually have 1000-1500 in stock, even of Zascosium, Erestrum, Sathium, Neodymium, Hydrogen, Promethium, and others. So I could just buy a bunch of resources, turn them into T2 Generators, then sell those for 50k+ each, which allows me to buy more resources, which I can turn into T2 Gens, and the cycle perpetuates itself. I think, in future, I might just avoid the Gas Refinery since it is so economically overpowered. It'd be more balanced if there were, say, only 50-something rare ores for sale, instead of 1000+. Or if the rare ores were worth 10x as much or so, would be a bit more balanced. I also found, early on, that Bertrams buys most of the basic weapons (Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles, etc), so making money there is quite quick as well so long as you have some basic resources to work with. Interstingly, it seems like Trade Goods are basically worthless for making money, as the profit margins are like 100 creds per item at best, and usually more like 10 creds per item profit. Why bother to do that when I can make 50k+ profit off of each T2 Gen? Just need to find a Gas Refinery and you can quickly reach end-game. By the time I got to 10 mil+ credits, I kinda started losing interest in amassing wealth. It's just too easy. So, at least in base game, amassing wealth turned out to be very easy. I'm hoping for a bit more of a challenge in RE. Or a money sink. Or things worth buying past mid-game. Or, at the very least, diversified station stores, and not just QuantumStar, InterWeapon, Bertrams, and ServantCorp again for the 800th time with the exact same stock and prices, regardless if you're in a level 10 Zirax station or a level 1 Free Colonist station.
There are a few that are a bit overpowered. In one system I think I found a alloy synthesis plant and pirate stations with a Caledon fabrication somewhere on a planets surface. Instant multi-millionaire.
