There's been a few conditions that have repeated themselves on my few wins on Normal and avoiding shops for the first few sectors was one of them. Shops seem like a total waste of time for most of the game because it can't provide you scrap unless you have something to sell. Avoiding shops for the first 2 sectors has been a winning strategy for me and avoiding shops nearly the entire game has given me a Tarus win.
Obviously, if you need fuel, repairs or your ship left the hanger poorly equipped you should try to arm yourself quickly but holding off until the end of sector 2 or asap in 3 seems to be the way to go.
Likewise, if you have a all human ship distress signals don't seem to be worth the node unless you've unlocked some blue options with an upgraded medbay, upgraded sensors, a crew teleporter or stealth.
Shops and distress signals are a trap?
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966socho
- Posts: 93
- Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2013 9:11 pm
Re: Shops and distress signals are a trap?
It's really not as bad as you describe.
Shops are a guaranteed safe beacon, so they are useful if you have to run from a sun/asteroid field/nasty fight. Preferable to backtracking.
Also, unless you get really lucky, shops are the only way for you to pick up an early Scrap Recovery Arm (and a number of other good augments), which can make your entire run.
Your chances for running into an Ion Bomb and Burst Laser II is the same for every shop, so you're just gypping yourself out of a good chance for awesome firepower by not going to some of them.
Many ships come with augments (Drone Reactor Booster, Mantis Pheromones, Crystal Vengence) that aren't vital, so early shops can help you convert those into scrap.
The Torus is quite a special case in that the Ion Blast II will pair great with the vast majority of ion, laser and beam weapons, so you can probably get away with just weapon drops. Still, you should visit shops for the above reasons. Even the Med-Bot Dispersal is worth 30 scrap if you don't want it.
Besides, shops are much better than running into flavor beacons, of which you are going to run into quite a few, whether you like it or not. Worse, you could be running into boarding events (by Rockmen near a sun!). They are, after all, the few constants in a game filled with randomness.
As for distress calls, I always go for them (in the relevant sectors) because a Crystal crewmember/free weapon is never a bad thing.
Shops are a guaranteed safe beacon, so they are useful if you have to run from a sun/asteroid field/nasty fight. Preferable to backtracking.
Also, unless you get really lucky, shops are the only way for you to pick up an early Scrap Recovery Arm (and a number of other good augments), which can make your entire run.
Your chances for running into an Ion Bomb and Burst Laser II is the same for every shop, so you're just gypping yourself out of a good chance for awesome firepower by not going to some of them.
Many ships come with augments (Drone Reactor Booster, Mantis Pheromones, Crystal Vengence) that aren't vital, so early shops can help you convert those into scrap.
The Torus is quite a special case in that the Ion Blast II will pair great with the vast majority of ion, laser and beam weapons, so you can probably get away with just weapon drops. Still, you should visit shops for the above reasons. Even the Med-Bot Dispersal is worth 30 scrap if you don't want it.
Besides, shops are much better than running into flavor beacons, of which you are going to run into quite a few, whether you like it or not. Worse, you could be running into boarding events (by Rockmen near a sun!). They are, after all, the few constants in a game filled with randomness.
As for distress calls, I always go for them (in the relevant sectors) because a Crystal crewmember/free weapon is never a bad thing.