Love the game, hate the random

[BKT]

In one of my Rock_B playthrough, by the end of sector 3 (with 1 ship left to fight before I jumped to sector 4), my ship had :

Scraps = 97
---
2 Shields (4 bars) = 50
5 Engines = 85
7 Weapon = 250
2 Sensor = 25
2 Pilot = 20
16 Power = 195
---
Ion MK2 = 80 (sector 1)
LR Scanner = 30 (sector 2)

Total = 832 scraps

This aren't include any repairs (if any) and stuff I that I get for free which I use or haven't yet sold.

[5thHorseman]

Well I never saw mor than 15 scrap being awared for a kill except of course, by boarding in sector 1. I've played several hundred games hence why I say it's impossible. The average I get per fight is around 11 or 12. I've also never played on easy, not even just to see how it was.

3 of my 12 encounters (only 6 fights) that I recounted above got me more than 15 scrap. 2 of those were just the scrap from beating the enemey. If you watch the video you can see that I play on normal.

[Nevill]

Well I never saw mor than 15 scrap being awared for a kill except of course, by boarding in sector 1. I've played several hundred games hence why I say it's impossible. The average I get per fight is around 11 or 12. I've also never played on easy, not even just to see how it was.

5thHorseman is the post above has rewards ranging from 7 to 19. The run I am currently watching has these, too. It's on the video.

Heh, I also never played a single game on easy.

30% chance of evade sometimes play, but often doesn't. Evade also doesn't works against beams which will cut you for 2 or maybe 3 sections early on if you are unliky. Add a couple shots or a missile which you often won't dodge. Average 3 to 4 damage per round, assuming it has no drones or it will go to hell. Now at least you'll take 2 volleys whether you warp or not, so that averages in 6 to 8 damage, let's assume a dodge and average to 7. Now the zoltan shield is down, but can you still get your shot before taking more damage? Assuming you can then 7 damage was nor worth the fight at all. Now this is an average zolton on you, not one with drones and assuming you didn't took hits to the weapons. Again, if you run away because you did, sure you are cutting your losses, understandable, but you still wasted fuel, got damage and got nothing in return.

Ah, but that's not how it goes. See, let's suppose they have 2 weapons that fire faster or at the same time as yours, and you have cloak at lvl2. That probably means they have Leto, Artemis, Laser, Dual Laser, Burst Laser MkI, Heavy Laser or Mini-Beam. These ones you should dodge instead of cloaking at the start (well, you don't dodge Mini-Beam, but let's exclude it for now). You get 90% evade, not too shabby. Let's suppose an average outcome, that is, they missed. Now, you fire once your weapons are charged. If you get your timings right, the laser will fire before you cloak, and only the beam would take from your cloak time. They are down to 1 green shield, and 1 blue shield.

You are still cloaked, and your weapons are still charging. You are going to fire the next volley before they do. Your laser disables their shields, while your beam takes out one of their weapons, and possibly some other system. Now, they only have one weapon, which has 30% chance to miss, and you are going to disable it with your next shot. The get in 1 hit for 1-2 damage. This is not luck, this is math.

Other weapons (especially beam ones), evade chance on both sides, etc complicate things, but not by much, which is how I arrive at 4 average damage total. This is supported by my experience.

[BKT]

... and only the beam would take from your cloak time

It won't.

[Twinge]

A few notes for Neville: 1) Beams don't reduce your cloak time. 2) There are more differences on Easy - You start with 20 more scrap, get ~25% extra scrap from encounters, enemies level up more slowly (you'll see less of everything - shields/weapons/teleporters/etc. - in a given sector on average), and enemies are also a little less likely to target vital systems.


Now, scrap income for Sector 1+2. First of all, you should not be basing this on 10 beacons - your average should be 11.5-12 beacons in a non-nebula sector AFAIK (counting the exit beacon, which is a great beacon unless it's a nebula).

I loaded up a recent playthrough I streamed and here's what I got: 135 scrap + Small Bomb in Sector 1 (11 hops), and 304 scrap + Drone Arm + Fire Bomb in Sector 2 (13 hops). I also got 2 crewmen which found their paychecks in the airlock (as it was a One Man Wolfpack run). That's 439 scrap (or 482 net value if you add in the found item sell value and subtract repairs) from Sector 1 & 2 alone.

Two ships I managed to kill the crew on - one Slug Interceptor, and one Mantis ship where I breached the Oxygen System. The money translated into tier 2 Shields, two Engine upgrades, Doors 2, a Weapon upgrade, and 17 hull repair with ~150 leftover for stores in Sector 3.


I could check other games to compare further, but I would comfortably expect 300 scrap income by the end of Sector 2 in the vast majority of cases.

[Nevill]

Maybe I should annotate the video, pointing out all the mistakes and why they're mistakes. Turn my shoddy early play into a learning tool.

That is actually a great idea. No one does that, and it would bring a second life to the video.
It is very useful to watch someone play the game. It gives you insights that you might never have had otherwise.

Anyway, commenting on the first one.

1:37. The very 1st encounter. To risk one of your crewmembers for 9 scrap is a very daring decision, to put it mildly. Still, it is very early in the game, most people would have restarted if things got hairy.

Then again, who am I to judge? I always take on alien spiders just to try and make a point of there being no poor design choices in the game. Almost always lose, too.

2:12. 2nd encounter. Targeting the shields is no good for this ship. You want to avoid taking damage first and foremost, and for that, you target weapons. You could still hit shield with a beam, if the layout allows, but disabling weapons is a priority.

3:17. In the store I would have sold the Titanium Casing and bought HL2 instead. You do not know when you are going to find another weapon, and you benefit greatly by having another one by sector 3. Crew teleporter would also have been nice, even with 2 crewmembers (disable their weapons, then board in the weapon room, this will prevent them from repairing), but systems are much easier to get in the game than extra weapons.

Buying repairs at this stage is not something I would have considered. You might get repaired randomly by an event, and you need scrap. Also, when you have 30 scrap, it is time to upgrade the cloak - you are going to get hit far less with this setup.

All in all, it was a wasted jump.

4:05. 4th encounter. You took the pilot out of the helm while their weapons were still active, thus putting yourself at risk, even while cloaked (it only gives 60% evade).

If the mantis was indeed going for your weapons, he could not wreck it in the time it would take their laser to fire, neither he could kill your crewmember. You could have tanked it until their weapons were offline.

Alternatively, if you cloaked at the start of combat and targeted their weapons, you would still have been alright, even with the pilot leaving the cockpit.

6:27. 5th encounter. The best bet would be cloaking right at the start and taking out their weapons before they fire. You decided to dodge with cloaking instead, and got hit for 1 damage. While dodging, you could have taken 1 power off oxygen and put it in the engines for an extra 5% evade chance.

6:56. Your ship still has 5% less evade chance than it should have had, because the Medbay is powered instead of engines. 1 extra damage that might (or might not) have been avoided.

The rocket have disabled the lasers because they were in the 2nd slot. This rendered your ship unable to damage theirs. Still, you could have switched weapons after the fact instead of waiting for the station to repair. Also, the pilot could have helped with the repairs, it's not as if he had anything to do while their weapons were disabled.

8:32. You didn't cloak because you were waiting for them to fire first (to dodge), but they had the same weapons as you do, so you fired simultaneously. All of that could have been avoided if you cloaked at the start (see? see? ). Actually, you got lucky here, because they hit your weapons, too, but the augment resisted it. That mistake could have ended the run right there.

9:43. You can fight (and kill) the rebels in the first 2 sectors, but you'd have to do it a bit differently from all the fights shown in the video. It is also not worth it.

10:01. This is a good example where dodging is better than cloaking right away. With a 2nd level cloak you would have got enough cloak left to fire a second volley before theirs.

10:54. Opening doors when you have a breach and O2 at lvl1 will not stabilize the O2 level in a breached room, and will only lead to faster oxygen drain across the whole ship.

11:18. I like the laugh.

11:33. Cloaked a bit too early, but not by much. Also, not upgrading cloak is what leads to situations like these.

12:00. I would have fired lasers out of sync with the beam. I can't for the life of me remember how fast their weapons charge. If not, I would have started the beam from the weapon room to the drone room, not the other way around. Still, all is well that ends well, and only 3 damage taken. Better than most.

12:46. Another good candidate to 'wait, then cloak', which you did.

Well, that took longer than I expected.

[5thHorseman]

Anyway, commenting on the first one.

I see nothing to disagree with here, except I never even should have gone to that store. Having gone to it, I boned up the decision. These days I sell that system casing as soon as I need the scrap. I consider it a down payment on a shield system.

[Elhazzared]

Actually you should. I've done a few tests to know how many jumps I can get before the enemy reaches me (and most of the times I forget to count them cause I'm an idiot) and the average is 10. When you make the 10th jump the enemy marker is over the exit becon which means you wouldn't have had any more time... Ocasionaly you get becons right at very edges which allow you for an 11th jump but that isn't too common to happen. Sometimes you might get a nebula here or there which slows the enemy persuit to half or a third, not really sure by how much, but well it depends on how many nebulas you have, if they have anything in it to attack for sure and if they don't have an ion storm. So that's why I base off 10 jumps on average (and you can do the test yourself in a few runs, just ignore nebulas for the count, they don't always appear and sometimes they have ion storms or just don't have anything worth checking out so just for the single purpose of finding the average ignore them).

As for that game you loaded up... Well that was an incredibly good run. I have them too, but they are not the average run. On average I get around 5 battles and 1 to 2 distress signals leaving 3 to 4 jumps useless or on stores.

[5thHorseman]

As for that game you loaded up... Well that was an incredibly good run. I have them too, but they are not the average run. On average I get around 5 battles and 1 to 2 distress signals leaving 3 to 4 jumps useless or on stores.

I'll assume you are talking to me. In my experience that is the typical good run. There are 2 types of runs with the Stealth B in my experience: Good ones like that and horrible, terrible ones where there was nothing I could do to keep from dying.

For funsies, I notated my second run (which also has a video). Note that I did not choose these runs to put on YouTube. I sat down and played the game. I know they're still anecdotal but they're not cherry-picked.

tl;dr: I ended with 13 fuel, 8 missiles and 2 drones, and 51 scrap. I got 3 great drop weapons. I upgraded my cloak (50) and engines (15) and bought 2 power (40). Minus the starting 10 (and not counting drops) I earned a total of 146 scrap

Encounter 1: Picked a ship that woudl force a jump to a store. Instantly lamented it. As I said before, mistakes get made all the time The ship was chasing another ship, had a beam and was offering 2 missiles, 1 drone and 9 scrap. I acceped it because of the beam.
Encounter 2: Store. I again lament forcing myself to go there.
Encounter 3: Ship on scanner. Auto-Scout, seems to only have 1 weapon, possibly also a bomb. Option to cloak. I attack, and it's a bomb, and a BL2. I cloak when the BL2 fires, dodging all 3 shots (1 aimed at weapons). Then he dies. I get 13 scrap for killing him, and 9 more and a Fire beam from the station.
Encounter 4: Ship on scanner. Auto-scout, missiles and ion. I could download or scrap. I download, fail, and fight. I cloak after both fire, the missile hits my oxygen. Then he dies. 2 fuel, 1 missile, 11 scrap. This was the first damage I took, and worked right in with the 80% dodge.
Encounter 5: I could buy the next level of cloak. I fail to do that and jump to another ship. Auto assault attacking an outpost. I could fight or avoid. He has 2 weapons, a basic and heavy lasers. I cloak through both and glaive his weapons and pilot. Next shot he dies. I get 1 missile, 1 drone, and 7 scrap. The outpost gives me 2 fuel, 1 missile and 17 scrap.
Encounter 6: I buy the cloak and power, and go to a ship. It's an auto scout, forced fight. Heavy ion and heavy laser. I cloak immediately and kill him before he can fire a shot. I get 1 fuel, 1 missile, and 15 scrap.
Encounter 7: Distress ship. They want 3 fuel. I give it and they update my map
Encounter 8: Forced jump to empty beacon. Accept fighting beginner pirates. They have a missile and a basic laser. I cloak and fire, they give up. I get 17 scrap and a Hull Smasher 2. Nice!
Encounter 9: Forced (by situation) jump to a ship. Rebel rigger atacking an outpost with a heavy laser and no offensive drones. I cloak and kill. I get 1 fuel 1 missile and 12 scrap, and the outpost gives me 2 fuel and 14 scrap.
Encounter 10: Forced jump to empty beacon. Pirate attacking a ship. I attack, and it's a zoltan with a missile and a basic laser. I forgot to cloak before they fired, then realized that was the best strategy. Both shots missed. I also tried to use the trick to take out their weapons in the first beam fire and it worked for me this time. The 2nd beam killed them. I got 3 fuel, 1 missil and 13 scrap. The ship gave me 9 scrap and a Hull Laser Mark 2.
Encounter 11: Forced jump to the Rebels at the End. I upgrade my engines 1 for the added dodge both in and out of cloak, and to speed my getaway if needed. They have a Halberd and basic laser and 2 shields. I cloak when they fire the laser, and it hits my medbay. I beam shields to medbay through engines and weapons, which only does 1 damage per room and leaves the halbred up. They slice through weapons and cloak, and then I escape.

I took 5 damage in that final fight, 6 damage overall. I had some luck and some bad luck, like you always do. I again think this was fairly typical though with 3 expensive weapon gives this was assuredly on the plus side of positive. Note, though, that at this point I'm still in the same state you are always at: I've got a level 3 cloak and no shield. Those weapons will sell but I still have to actually sell them before I can do anything.

I believe that any run where you don't die will go a lot like this. I'm even considering playing sector one 10 times in a row and just seeing what happens. Maybe we should all do that? No cheating; if you die it counts toward the 10.

[Elhazzared]

Horrible games and great happens happen, all praise the RNGesus. Still I have a lot of average games, sure some average a little bit towards the better, other towards the worst but on average I get like no drops for the first 2 sectors or maybe one which may or may not be good (or usable depending on energy requirements). Thing is, some ships can deal with average games even those on the slightly poor average and some ships will only work with good games.

Right now what is pissing me off to extremes is how freaking hard it is to get the damned crytal cruiser. Really I have hundreds of games on my back (and granted, the first 50 or so I was a noob and not actively looking out for ships... Or rather I was but I wasn't looking at the wiki) and I just can never get it. I managed to go as far as getting the crytal being alive... But that's about it. I even spent a few days just doing nothing but get to the first becon, look at the map and see if there are possibilities of getting it, if not restart and basicly not even completing runs as soon as I see that I won't be able to obtain it... I just can't seam to get one little bit of luck thrown my way.