Adventures in Newbie Land (and a few questions)

[Panpiper]

Let me start by saying just how awesomely impressed I am with the quantity and quality of the content and gameplay in this, going by the numbers, 'alpha' release. This is the best ten bucks I have ever spent! The addition of aliens, fauna, NPCs, etc. is going to make it all the more awesome, and that's not even the end it would seem.

Early goings were painful, learning how systems worked and were put together was not trivial. I spent a lot of time reading Wiki info, forum postings and YouTube videos. The fact that some things have changed significantly since the time those postings were made added confusion, but that is inevitable if people start playing in alpha, things 'have' to change as the game gets tweaked. But I have started to get a handle.

I find my own gameplay strangely at odds with what I see most people doing and talking about in videos and the forum. People seem to be almost entirely focused on building massive and aesthetically pleasing ships. The one time I built something that I thought was big (~100 blocks length), which would still be dwarfed by most of the ships I've seen displayed, it moved like a slugboat and was no fun to fly at all.

Moreover, when playing in sandbox, pirates and pirate stations are one's bane. Exploration for a new player is 'extremely' dangerous. If playing on a server, PvP and griefing are even more of a concern to me (I would MUCH rather play on a PvE only server). So I've figured out how to build a permacloak starter ship, which includes a salvage beam array. The only problem now is being able to tell which stations are pirate stations. I really wish there was some way to know other than turning off your cloak and seeing if they fire at you. Doing that with any sort of early ship is certain death.

Can anyone tell me how much shielding I need to survive a few seconds of a pirate station's fire? I am getting very tired of having to restart a new game over and over.

Is it true you need ten radar jamming blocks in order for it to work?

And to spare me yet another restart, having an AI turret on your cloaked ship is a certain way to instantly void your cloak if it sees a pirate station, right?

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Shields? Lol, just completely avoid jumping in station sectors in the beginning. Because you will need a lot to surivive the current stations.
You only need one radar jammer on your ship. It needs to be activated from your flight bar.
And having an active turret on your ship probably is not a good idea when you want to be stealthy. But normally you wouldn't be putting a turret on a cloaking ship anyway. The extra mass would just mean, well, more mass and thus higher energy consumption.

Some tips to survive* pirate stations in general:
1. Use radar jammer, they make the turrets less accurate.
2. Stay at a distance and use sniper weapons to destroy the turrets. Missile + damage beam works best.
3. Have a weapon on board that is capable of dropping the shields on the station. This will make firing the long range missiles easier. I suggest using missile + beam + ion for best effect on this one.
4. Have more than one turret sniper weapon and shield destroyer weapon on your ship.
5. Once the turrets are destroyed, remove the ion from the shield dropping weapon, and use that weapon to completely destroy the station.

* You'll need a rather large ship to destroy a pirate station when you're on your own. Play safe, and stay out od range of the turrets.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

I love seeing loads of new people coming in every day, just love it. Welcome to the game, hope you're enjoying it so far.

Basically OP, those people making super huge ships are using cheats or are on build servers, that's how they get super long mega ships.

Survival? That might be hard. Like everything on the game it needs polishing. But if you play Dark Souls or I Wanna Be The Guy for stress release go right on ahead, that's all I have to say. Enjoy it mate, there's loads to come.

 

[Panpiper]

Shields? Lol, just completely avoid jumping in station sectors in the beginning. Because you will need a lot to survive the current stations.

Well, I'm only looking to survive long enough to be able to raise my cloak again. The point of my jumping into station sectors is (was?) primarily just to see what it was. I really was not thinking about destroying them.

Are all unidentified station contacts to be considered pirate stations? I thought perhaps some of them might be trading stations (I always need more power). How can one tell the difference without visiting them?

And having an active turret on your ship probably is not a good idea when you want to be stealthy. But normally you wouldn't be putting a turret on a cloaking ship anyway. The extra mass would just mean, well, more mass and thus higher energy consumption.

I was thinking more for anti-missile point defense. A turret like that could be built with as little as five or seven blocks, if it draws from ship power and has no shields or hull blocks.

I don't suppose a ship's shields cover it's turrets, eh?

4. Have more than one turret sniper weapon and shield destroyer weapon on your ship.

I'm not sure I understand the point of this. Is it just to give yourself something to do while waiting for your weapons to recycle?

Is there a limit to how large one should make such sniper weapons, meaning a point at which more damage is wasted blowing up already blown up space? My calculations would seem to indicate that having more than three missile modules linked to three damage beam modules would be overkill. But then, I am still VERY newbish.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Amount of shields? I don't really know. You will need a lot: 100,000 to be safe, and the longer it takes to recharge the cloak, the more shields you should have. The 100,000 will be enough to survive about half a minute, maybe a minute if you're lucky. After a minute you really should be getting out of their though.

You should consider making a permacloak (only a ship core, power reactors, thrusters and a cloaker), and then as small as possible, to scout the stations.

Station spawning isn't very balanced. 90% of the stations are pirate stations. So yes, consider every station hostile until you see that it isn't. You'll have more luck finding trade guild and neutral stations in orbital sectors, so look there for them. But always just jump to a sector next to the station's sector to be safe. Even stations in orbital sectors can be pirate stations.

The multiple weapons are just so you can get more damage spread over time. Missile + beam has a long reload, so it is worth considering multiple systems with less damage.

Shields from the mothership indeed don't cover turrets. Having a point defense turret for missiles isn't a good idea either, as you will possibly uncloak, the station will fire missiles, you cloak, turret fires, and you automatically uncloak. The result of all this will be a very nasty death.

There is no maximum when you go for shields. Eventually you'll know how strong your weapons will be, but to stand a reasonable chance against the station I suggest that you do about 200,000 damage with anti-shield weapons, and 50,000 with anti-turret missiles. The turrets and stations are really tough nowadays.
You also are going to want to not put turrets on your ship or go with team mates if you decide to use the following to counter pirate ships: missile + missile, aka heatseeker. Really easy method of getting rid of pesky ships when you're alone.
If you want turrets, don't use heat seekers, but rather give the turrets some bigger rapid fire cannons and quite a lot of shields (100,000 if you want to be safe, but 50,000 will do).

 

[Panpiper]

Thank you Funnybunny, that definitely helps clear up my thinking.

I am in fact currently running about in a permacloak ship (effective energy generation was one of the first things I figured out). My problem has been not knowing that 90% of stations are pirates, seeing something I want to explore, exiting my ship which apparently causes the ship to lose it's cloak and then being promptly vaporized.

My cloak ship has already two missile/beam weapon systems, one with ion support. My plan had indeed been to spam multiples, but to have them all linked to just two buttons. So while cloaked, hit the ion missiles (so the ions hit first) then a split second after, hit the other missiles, then immediately recloak while they recycle. I had decided this for two reasons, one that was that on an unshielded target, doing more damage than was needed to destroy an advanced armor block was a total waste. The other reason was the thought that my target might have some sort of point defense and be able to shoot down missiles. The counter to point defense is of course saturation, to fire enough missiles that the missiles the point defense can shoot down is immaterial.

With regard to heat seekers, do I have to target ships if using them, or can I just hit the 'kill pirates' button and watch the firewoks?

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Heat seekers: fire and forget. My advice? Have lots of groups in a system. Lots of groups. The more missiles the better. It's simple and effective. If a pirate spawns with heat seekers, just sit by and watch how it destroys its teammates.

The stations might have point defense, but I doubt it. When a station has cannons you will need to fire the missile away from you and the turrets though, and the head as far away from the missile as possible to reduce the cance of it getting shot. The damage that needs to be dealt is about 500 per missile. This should be enough to quickly disable the ships.

You are going to want to do more damage with your missiles though. 400 is not enough, you might as well use cannons then. The reason you should use missiles is that they can lock on with beam or pulse support, but also that they can damage multiple blocks at once due to their blast radius. I suggest that you do about 20,000 damage with your missile if you plan to attack the larger stations too. You are going to want to take rather large chunks out of those stations to cripple their systems. This will make it easier for you to stay alive and fight the station and the ships.

 

[Mr. V]

With regard to heat seekers, do I have to target ships if using them, or can I just hit the 'kill pirates' button and watch the firewoks?

Lol - I usually create a logic linked activation block I can hit to repetitively auto fire the heat seekers on my ships .... I think I'll have to start labeling it the "kill pirates now" button :D

And FunnyBunny's right - heat seekers are great to even the odds when you're out numbered... but they're not so friendly for use around other friendlies.

 

[NoK0mm3nt]

The only problem now is being able to tell which stations are pirate stations. I really wish there was some way to know other than turning off your cloak and seeing if they fire at you

There is, the HUD color codes contacts. Pirate Stations are Red, whereas friendlies (Trade Guild, Abandoned and your own) will be blue, purple or green. Note: If you select/target the station it sets it as a white contact for all types, which is why you might be having difficulty. If in the Navigation (N) -> Filter menu you turn 'Turrets' on, they will all show up as red as well.

 

[Lecic]

One thing- Pirate stations are no longer 90% of stations. That was a bug and was fixed. Of course, if you made your universe before the patch, and it sounds like you did, already generated sectors are still going to have lots of pirates.

As for fighting pirate stations- missile + beam is very effective against the turrets. Switch to a cannon + beam to take down the shields of the station, and then use missile + pulse or cannon + pulse + punch to take out the faction module. Proceed to look the chests around the faction module!

 

[godmars]

Amount of shields? I don't really know. You will need a lot: 100,000 to be safe, and the longer it takes to recharge the cloak, the more shields you should have. The 100,000 will be enough to survive about half a minute, maybe a minute if you're lucky. After a minute you really should be getting out of their though.

If you are packing heat seeker's, you don't need anywhere near that level of shielding against the base games craft/turrets(provided you are not in some 10k block ship or something). I was commiting pirate genocide in a 82 mass fighter with 5k shields spamming missiles like something out of macross and gunning down the survivors with cannons. Now if your fighting stuff that is equipped with lasers in 'aimbot' range..

 

[Panpiper]

Well, I am putting my finishing touches on "Pirate Bane" now. I made the mistake of putting down my faction homebase within sniperfire of a pirate base (oops). So I suddenly found myself with an urgent need to be able to not just hide from pirates (my salvage ship is a permacloak), but to kill them.

The ship I am now skinning ('very' long process that) can go from zero to max velocity (150KPH on my server) in four seconds flat. It is a fighter/bomber 49 blocks long, 51 wide (it's got wings) and 23 blocks tall (it's got a tail), not counting turrets (which are relatively small as turrets go). It's got 100K shields and can regenerate them in 20 seconds. For armament it has a rapid fire cannon, each bullet of which hits for 400 explosive damage. It has 14 sniper missiles doing 1800 damage with 75% ion effect. It has also got no less than 30 heat seekers doing 600 damage each. It has the energy battery/regen needed to fire everything constantly while at max acceleration, without loosing jammer. Oh, and I almost forgot, it has nine rapid beam firing point defense turrets set to anti-missile.

My plan is to do a maximum speed dive attack, focus fire everything on a single turret and fly right past the base and out of it's range. In the time it takes for my sniper missiles to recycle (45 seconds), my shields will fully regenerate while I swing around for the next pass. Rinse and repeat. The only thing I wonder is; is there a pirate base that exists that can do 100K damage to me in a matter of ten seconds? If they can't do that, I 'will' destroy the base.

It's actually even starting to look kinda good, all stealth bombery, wedge angled blackness. My heart is going to be pounding the first attack run. This was a LOT of work, and I'll be putting it all on the line.

 

[Lecic]

Well, I am putting my finishing touches on "Pirate Bane" now. I made the mistake of putting down my faction homebase within sniperfire of a pirate base (oops). So I suddenly found myself with an urgent need to be able to not just hide from pirates (my salvage ship is a permacloak), but to kill them.

The ship I am now skinning ('very' long process that) can go from zero to max velocity (150KPH on my server) in two seconds flat. It is a fighter/bomber just over 50 blocks long, a bit under that wide (it's got wings) and about 30 blocks tall (it's got a tail). It's got 100K shields and can regenerate them in 25 seconds. For armament it has a rapid fire cannon, each bullet of which hits for 400 explosive damage. It has 14 sniper missiles doing 1800 damage with 75% ion effect. It has also got no less than 30 heat seekers doing 600 damage each. It has the energy battery/regen needed to fire everything constantly while at max acceleration, without loosing jammer. Oh, and I almost forgot, it has nine rapid beam firing point defense turrets set to anti-missile.

My plan is to do a maximum speed dive attack, focus fire everything on a single turret and fly right past the base and out of it's range. In the time it takes for my sniper missiles to recycle (45 seconds), my shields will fully regenerate while I swing around for the next pass. Rinse and repeat. The only thing I wonder is; is there a pirate base that exists that can do 100K damage to me in a matter of ten seconds? If they can't do that, I 'will' destroy the base.

It's actually even starting to look kinda good, all stealth bombery, wedge angled blackness. My heart is going to be pounding the first attack run. This was a LOT of work, and I'll be putting it all on the line.

If the station you're fighting has lock on missiles, you're going to want overdrive passive at 100%. You need it to outrun missiles.

 

[Panpiper]

If the station you're fighting has lock on missiles, you're going to want overdrive passive at 100%. You need it to outrun missiles.

I am intending to be doing passing dive attacks at max server speed. Does overdrive allow you to 'exceed' the server maximum? Also, I do have nine point defense constant beam turrets. all nine of which can fire forward, seven which can fire to the rear. Would they not do an adequate job of dealing with missiles?

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I am intending to be doing passing dive attacks at max server speed. Does overdrive allow you to 'exceed' the server maximum? Also, I do have nine point defense constant beam turrets. all nine of which can fire forward, seven which can fire to the rear. Would they not do an adequate job of dealing with missiles?

Only cannon can destroy missiles, so your beam turrets won't do anything. And overdrive allows you to bypass the maximum server speed. 100% passive overdrive gives you a speed boost to twice the server limit. Example: server speed limit is 75, max overdrive speed is 150.

 

[Panpiper]

Only cannon can destroy missiles, so your beam turrets won't do anything. And overdrive allows you to bypass the maximum server speed. 100% passive overdrive gives you a speed boost to twice the server limit. Example: server speed limit is 75, max overdrive speed is 150.

Right, who would have thought that cannons would do such a better job at destroying missiles that beams simply won't do. One again I am guilty of newbie obliviousness. (Is that written anywhere?) Fortunately I've only built two of the turrets so far (built one, blueprinted another). Thank you once again FunnyBunny.

Also, it there any information written anywhere about overdrive? I know nothing about it. and there is nothing useful about it on the Wiki. Clearly I need to do a bit of adding. Fortunately my rear engine cowling is not too complex.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Right, who would have thought that cannons would do such a better job at destroying missiles that beams simply won't do. One again I am guilty of newbie obliviousness. (Is that written anywhere?) Fortunately I've only built two of the turrets so far (built one, blueprinted another). Thank you once again FunnyBunny.

Also, it there any information written anywhere about overdrive? I know nothing about it. and there is nothing useful about it on the Wiki. Clearly I need to do a bit of adding. Fortunately my rear engine cowling is not too complex.

I think you're looking at the wrong wiki. At the top of this page there should be a link named "wiki". It will send you to starmadepedia.net, which is the official wiki. It also has a page about effects: http://starmadepedia.net/wiki/Effects

Calbiri also made a nice graph about everything: http://starmadedock.net/threads/a-simple-graph-for-weapon-linking.3751/

Ps: It's not that the beams won't hit the missiles or are worse at destroying missiles than cannons, but that it is a game mechanic that only cannons can destroy missiles. I suggest you use a cannon slave for the turret by the way, it will make it easier to hit missiles.

 

[Panpiper]

I suggest you use a cannon slave for the turret by the way, it will make it easier to hit missiles.

You mean link a cannon to the cannon to majorly increase it's fire rate, right? I would certainly do that.

For aesthetic reasons I would prefer to keep these point defense guns relatively small (which given armor cladding and the blockiness of the game, is virtually impossible on such a small ship.). I suppose no amount of shielding is ever really enough, but can I get away with just 600-1000 shields on such a point defense turret? Or will they draw so much fire that with that little shielding, I might as well not bother equipping them?

Actually, now that I think of it... The server I am playing on has increased the max speed to 150KPH. It is probable that missile speeds have not changed. Might it be the case that due to the higher max speed of my server, I do not actually need overdrive to out pace missiles, or at least just keep them on my tail till I out distance them? I can hit 150KPH with this ship in just four seconds by the way, though I would do my attack runs at that speed and never let it slow.

 

[Lecic]

You mean link a cannon to the cannon to majorly increase it's fire rate, right? I would certainly do that.

For aesthetic reasons I would prefer to keep these point defense guns relatively small (which given armor cladding and the blockiness of the game, is virtually impossible on such a small ship.). I suppose no amount of shielding is ever really enough, but can I get away with just 600-1000 shields on such a point defense turret? Or will they draw so much fire that with that little shielding, I might as well not bother equipping them?

Actually, now that I think of it... The server I am playing on has increased the max speed to 150KPH. It is probable that missile speeds have not changed. Might it be the case that due to the higher max speed of my server, I do not actually need overdrive to out pace missiles, or at least just keep them on my tail till I out distance them? I can hit 150KPH with this ship in just four seconds by the way, though I would do my attack runs at that speed and never let it slow.

Missile speed scales with top server speed, which is why I was extremely annoyed when my friend set our private server to max speed 1000 for "testing" and missiles were insanely fast.

So, yeah, you'll probably want some passive overdrive.

A tip for PD turrets- don't bother with anything beyond basic (just a few blocks) shielding. They're designed to be disposable. Basic hull is also recommended for them.