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[JimboM12]

This bump is an ode to the humble thumper. Cheap, available everywhere and with fair but kinda low damage output to flux ratio, they somehow occupy the space where AKs do in other games. One by itself is only a danger to the smallest of ships but 3 mounted in a front array are a threat to even big ships.

[EnigmaticHat]

One thumper can kill anything as long as 100% of the armor has been stripped off on that side.  And you're firing at point blank.  I believe in that situation its the highest damage per flux weapon in the game, and also one of the highest dps ones.  Generally if the AI lets that happen its ship has already been crippled beyond any hope of survival.

[AzyWng]

Posting to watch because I purchased this game recently.

My first impressions of it are "Space And Starship: Freelance Fleet".

I mean, open world, combat with a lot of depth to it even if at the end of the day your group is a bunch of heavily-armed twats fighting another bunch of heavily armed twats (I will never not want to use that phrase to describe units), and elements of politics, city building, and trade.

I must admit, though, that the ship refit system has me lost. Speaking of which, my first question:

How do I get more ordinance points, or free up points in order to install mods? Is my only option to remove some already-existing guns/mods?

[Zangi]

I must admit, though, that the ship refit system has me lost. Speaking of which, my first question:

How do I get more ordinance points, or free up points in order to install mods? Is my only option to remove some already-existing guns/mods?

Somewhere in the leader skill tree, there is a skill that gives more ordinance points, but that is about it.

You'll have to remove existing guns/mods to free up ordinance points.  Plus, ships all have limited/preset slots for weaponry.
It'll take some time to identify what each weapon/mod actually does for you and the AI controlling the ship, before you go about customizing them.

[Majestic7]

What Zangi said, plus some hulls have inbuilt mods that can't be removed. I'm not sure if they count towards ordnance points or if they are an additional bonus. Maybe in the future we can build frankenhulls of our own.

[zaimoni]

How do I get more ordinance points, or free up points in order to install mods? Is my only option to remove some already-existing guns/mods?

Yes, best done at port to avoid reductions in combat readiness.

The autofit approach is a good baseline, but you'll want to manually override the weapon groupings for each and every ship more complex than a kite.  Once you start doing manual assignments to a ship, you'll want to uncheck the "strip all" checkbox and do the stripping manually before autofit.

Inbuilt mods don't count against the OP limit; that makes Luddic Path ships particularly useful for Safety Override builds.  Pirate Falcons are also notable.

[AzyWng]

What do you mean by “manual assignments”? Swapping out weapons for other weapons? Beginning to fiddle around with flux vents and capacitors? Most of the weapons I’ve been getting have been the same kinds of weapons already fitted on my ships.

Also, what do you usually like to fit your ships with and why?

And, finally, what do you folks advise for making money? Jobs can sometimes be way too difficult or far away to be feasible, combat is dangerous and expensive (though admittedly that’s more my fault than anything else), and I’m a terrible trader since I don’t bother memorizing prices from system to system. Salvaging sometimes works, but sometimes it doesn’t. What methods do you prefer?

And and, finally finally, do you folks do colonization? If so, what advice do you have for that?

[JimboM12]

And and, finally finally, do you folks do colonization? If so, what advice do you have for that?

i love the colony mechanics and i like having my own pocket of space but my protip: don't feel you need to be in a rush to do this. for one, it's a big investment: 1000 crew, 300 supplies (i cant remember the exact amount), 200 heavy machinery. upgrading the constructions on your new colony are also very pricey, tens of thousands of credits for basic ones and upgrades get more and more expensive as you climb their trees.
while you grind the capital and resources you'll need, you also should invest in all the skills that help colonies, such as industrial planning and planetary operations. get both and max them out. fleet logistics also helps.

number two: build a very strong fleet. you should, at minimum, have a solid cruiser ship as your flagship and a fair fleet of similar ships. as the new kid on the block, factions will raid you as you start taking more market space for your goods and these fleets will not hold back. pirates will also see your fledgling colonies and attempt to raid them, so you'll need to be ready to rock from week one.

number three: take the time and explore as much of the map as you can. don't fall for the first low hazard planet you see, you can find your garden of gaia with some searching. take into account the whole solar system it's in; is there any higher hazard planets with exploitable resources? what about a lesser planet but it has ruins? also is there stable locations for buoy placement? i personally don't like to spread my colonies out too much but some locations are just too valuable to let slide, but i leave those for later. the ai cannot colonize at this stage of the game, so theres no danger.

oh, also, after you get your defenses up enough to defend from raids, go ahead and use open ports. it will supercharge your colony but invites more raids and !fun! things that happen to colonies.

[Kanil]

The problem with colonies is that a decent-ish one pretty much just prints money and ships, and trivializes the entire game.

[JimboM12]

The problem with colonies is that a decent-ish one pretty much just prints money and ships, and trivializes the entire game.

yeah, until faction warfare is fully fleshed out and your personal faction is also a bit fleshed out, its just a way to play around with infinite money and resources. oh, and a recurring reason to explore and raid a space station on occasion. i had fun testing alot of rare ships i can just outright buy but i also use the nexerelin mod so i have the prism freeport to play with. the mod introduces the ability to pay for fleets to raid or invade but i haven't played with this yet.

[zaimoni]

What do you mean by “manual assignments”? Swapping out weapons for other weapons?

Right, anything I had to override autofit to make happen is a manual assignment to weapon slots/flux/capacitor/hullmods; at that point I don't use the strip all option when using autofit on that.

Reinforced bulkheads is extremely convenient.  Usually I have to use manual assignment to make mixed-damage main gun assignments stick (e.g., a hammerhead with one arbalest, one thumper is actually pretty good [the AI target gets confused on whether to have shields up or not]; key is that they're range-matched and distinct damage types (kinetic/explosive, in this case).  Note that I do the noob thing and let the AI pilot my flagship 99% of the time (I don't try to operate the weapons, just occasionally vent when it's safe and do out of combat manuevering).

I also have to use manual assignment to make tactical lasers stick. (A Wolf with a graviton beam and two tactical lasers in the PD side slots can hold off 2-3 frigates until help arrives, or delete one frigate on its own, if you made sure each tactical laser was in its own weapon group with nothing else.)

[AzyWng]

How do I attack fleets that keep hitting the “Emergency Burn”  on me?

“Interdiction Pulse” feels like it takes just long enough to charge that the enemy can boost away as soon as I get close.

I sometimes try to “Go Dark”, but the enemy can still spot my fleet from a fair distance, and I get in trouble with governments for switching off the transponder.

The boost that the “Sustained Burn” provides is nice, but when the enemy boosts away they usually make a very tight turn - one my fleet can’t make.

Usually I just wait for an allied fleet to get in a fight and then jump in.
How do you get in fights?

[Kanil]

You can use Sustained Burn to get close to them during their emergency burn, then emergency burn yourself -- you'll be able to turn comparably, and once theirs expires, you'll be faster.

Alternatively you can just practice Sustained Burning straight into fleets using EB -- I believe the skill that buffs SB still exists, which makes this easier.

Or find something that's evenly enough matched to you that they don't try to run.

[forsaken1111]

There is a skill that makes emergency burn not harm your fleet's combat readiness. Once you get that you can emergency burn after them to your heart's content. The pirates rarely have that so they're harming their whole fleet by burning away and are easier to kill once you catch them

[AzyWng]

So I've noticed more than a few portrait packs for the game when browsing through mods, and I'm wondering - how do I make my own?