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[Tiruin]

In this case, just take out a new loan for the remaining principle of your existing loan.  The new loan should be at a better rate, as long as your rating has gone up by virtue of your regular payments.  Pay off the original loan, and you've just lowered your daily payments!

I happily realized that the minimal best loan amount is 364 Because that's 1 credit per day. 365 starts off with paying 2 at the start. xD
And this is only for the credit value. Thanks by the way for telling me about the US system--I was wondering why there're episodes in shows I watch of people flaunting their credit cards everywhere (+ moral lesson) o_O

[Paul]

Fun game. I worked my way up with very little trading, primarily combat focused. Started out by kitting out a shuttle with 10 crew with rifles to capture ships and capturing a better ship, then went on up quickly from there. First capture was dangerous, I lucked out on a group of pirates fighting a group of syndicate over in Persian system.

Once you get a jump drive you can do some pretty ridiculous trade runs though. Like a 1 jump run with a profit of 484 per unit one way and 324 the way back.

Ship capturing can be annoying though, with the frequency of new ships jumping in a system.
If it's a hostile system, good luck disabling and boarding anything before 15 more come.
If it's a friendly system, good luck getting to board the ship you disabled before a fleet hops in and fires missiles or sends a fighter to kill your disabled ship.

Also silly to try and get tribute from a world. You fight more enemy forces hopping in from nearby systems than you do the planet's defense force. And if you get lucky and quickly wipe out the defense force, it still doesn't stop their massive fleets of hostile forces from magically appearing around the world if you try to land on the world you just subdued. Even if every other world in the region is also subdued.

[a1s]

I happily realized that the minimal best loan amount is 364 Because that's 1 credit per day.

Spoiler: wrong (click to show/hide)

First of all, the best loan is ~100 credits, with no interest payments (you do have to pay back the principal.) Secondly the loan amount (364 in your case) is based on credit score- higher the score, the higher the cut-off for no interest, so there is no one-size-fits-all number.

[Tiruin]

I happily realized that the minimal best loan amount is 364 Because that's 1 credit per day.

Spoiler: wrong (click to show/hide)

-snip-

First of all, the best loan is ~100 credits, with no interest payments (you do have to pay back the principal.) Secondly the loan amount (364 in your case) is based on credit score- higher the score, the higher the cut-off for no interest, so there is no one-size-fits-all number.

I am educated and thank you a ton! o_o

I've also fiddled with the files and managed to make a tiny 'mod' out of the game. x3 Helps boarding a lot easier if damage to hull is lower compared to shield damage. I've no idea where those death benefits are though, so that's unmodded. Fun with flying a group of troop transports//Shuttles/Heavy Shuttles around and hopping from ship to ship.

[Paul]

I think I built my fleet a bit too much during the free worlds storyline. By the end of it I had 8 Bactrians and a Shield Beetle all equipped with electron beams and a ton of Hai shield regenerators and jump drives. None of my ships even got scratched during any of the big combat heavy missions near the end.

The Bactrians only had 10 cargo space left, but with 8 shield regenerators, 5 electron beams, and enough power to keep everything firing nonstop - they were super ships. Far outperforming any NPC ship configuration. The Bactrian is really overpowered compared to every other ship in the game though, at least when kitted out with the right outfits. Has way more outfit space than anything else out there once you convert the cargo.

[puke]

started my second play through, so I could try out a few things I missed.

Made a point of getting my combat rating up early, so I could dominate the various pirate worlds before plot events happened.. also so I could get the Kestrel before the campaign was over.

Sadly, the Kestrel just does not hold a candle up to a Bacterain or a Shield Beetle.  It is fast (thanks to the 'drag' number, i guess) but it still turns like a pig and just does not have enough space to power and cool all of its weapons.

I ended up kitting it out with mostly Wanderer tech, since it is power and heat efficient.  But that ends up meaning that it is a little under-powered in the shield and gun department, especially compared to my SBs.

I saw this "espionage" mission in the files, and spend a long time trying to get it.  I think the trouble is that it has very specific requirements about the distance you need to be from the various waypoints to qualify for the mission -- as well as requiring a fairly high Syndicate rep.

So I got my Syndicate rep high by farming jump drives from the Korlath, and went looking for the mission.  Finally got it at Castor.

It is nice because it is one of exactly TWO opportunities to use your scanners.  It is lame because it payout is low and it is hard to find, and requires lots of jumps.

I have some ideas about adding other missions that would use scanners, maybe I'll try to mod them in and contribute to the Git repository.

[puke]

okay, the Corporate Espionage missions?  Borked.

I have gotten two of them, so far.  First one, I initially missed the ship but manged to locate it after it left the system and came back.  I didn't get credit for scanning it, though, and it pretty much vanished after that.  I checked my save file to find its location, and as soon as I entered that system I got credit for the scan (did not hit 'S' again).

Second time I got one, I got credit for the scan as soon as the target came within range of my scanners.  Was just waiting in the system for it, and I got the popup window before I even hit 'S'.  makes me wonder if I even needed the scanner installed in the first place?

But the FW missions actually make proper use of scanning, so it must work at some level.  Will have to compare the mission parameters in the data files.

[Darkening Kaos]

Spoiler: So, that's why you were easy to defeat (click to show/hide)

     I added the liquid nitro cooling, ducting and fuel pod - after a mass expansion - but as I recall, he fired his weapons once and then shut down, still does really.

[McTraveller]

So, that's why you were easy to defeat...

I find it immensely amusing that this game has ships flying around space carrying grandfather clocks and applesauce.

[a1s]

I find it immensely amusing that this game has ships flying around space carrying grandfather clocks and applesauce.

Are you also surprised by automobiles carrying applesauce? That stuff is at least as old as the middle ages, possibly Rome. Even in a world when refined sugar is available in every cornerstore,  applesauce is still popular, no reason it wouldn't be in the Space Age*.

(*) I meant the other space age. Although it was quite popular in the 1960-80s.

[Shadowlord]

Just call it the Spice Age~

The Spice must flow

[puke]

he who controls the applesauce, controls the universe?

[puke]

There have been some updates to this, so I thought I'd pick it up again and play through, see how the alien mission lines have changed, and see how things have been re-balanced.

As a trial, I bought one of each cargo ship you can buy, except the Wanderer ones.  Stripped them down, added efficient outfits, and as much cargo expansion as they could take.

Bactrain is still the best cargo hauler with over 900 capacity, and I hadn't even bothered to de-tune it's shields and engine.

Others do have better cost-per-jump ratios due to smaller crew size, so I will concede that.


Did the same for troop ships.  Tried a Star Queen, just because I was desperate for it to be useful, as well as all the heavy transports again.

Bactrain is still the best troop ship with 423, and I could optimize it further.

Tried to make a Flivver as a speedy race machine.  Didn't work, still a useless piece of shit.

Made a Scout as a speedy race machine with lots of fuel and the best engines it can take.  Has awesome range, but turns like a pig compared to (guess which) my combat optimized BACTRAIN, just because old Baccy can have bigger engines on it.

So it is still "one ship does it all".  Shield Beetles MAY be better dedicated combat ships (bit of a personal preference thing), but if you intend to board anything you'll want a Bactrain as your flagship.

So it is still pretty much the Bactrain game.  Yawn.

[QuakeIV]

the bactrain has no brakes

[puke]

the bactrain has no brakes

I usually try to pronounce it as "bacterian" so "bactrain" (choo-choo!) is a tasteful compromise.

I'm not really sure what the intended name or its entomology is.  My brain can't parse it.