Game Start Strategies

[Yetimania]

Hey, everybody! I'm a fairly experienced player, but I'm actually weirdly inexperienced at one thing--the early game.

When I just started a new character on a server today, I realized I had no idea what to do. My early game strategy used to be founded on exploits that are no longer present. (buying mineral coarse/refine recipes and selling them for 2500Lv5 ores, salvaging NPC stations, etc.). This rocketed me to the late game quickly, where I am most comfortable.

Now that those exploits are gone, I don't know what to do. I need help, and suggestions. To be clear, I'm okay with using what some consider to be exploits, because that's the fastest way they'll get fixed--if people use them. (Within reason. I don't use exploits offensively or in ship design; only for amassing resources).
So you get 25k credits and a handful of blocks. What's the most efficient thing to do? Build a mini-harvester and harvest asteroids? Harvest planets? Should I build block-salvage NPC stations and sell the scrap?

 

[ResonKinetic]

git gud

and harvest asteroids

 

[MrFURB]

Here's how I usually start when not with a group:
Shield blocks are expensive, while salvage modules are cheap. What you'll want to do is try to avoid contact with as many players as possible, buy up a salvage computer, a few salvage blocks, and spare ship cores. Then use one of your ship cores to move away from spawn, making sure to avoid faction territory if you can.
If possible, buy a faction block and claim a planet(doesn't cost a million credits)/star system for your personal faction. That star system will grant you a massive x12 bonus to mining, which is what you'll do next. Both planet mining and asteroid mining are good. Asteroid mining will be needed if you plan on having specific colors for your hull/armor. If you're unable to claim territory for yourself look for nearby faction territory that doesn't have a large number of members online and mooch some material from their asteroids.
Once you've finished your first (should be relatively short) mining run you should have enough materials to create a basic factory and begin producing more salvage modules, power modules, and thrusters. Use them to increase the size and speed of your salvager until you can eat up asteroids at a comfortable pace. At this point you should have your own territory claimed via a store-bought or self-made faction module. You don't need to keep this territory forever, but you do need the mining bonus the territory gives.
At that point you should be getting enough capsules to upgrade your factory setup and begin working on shields and weapons for a combat vessel. It needs to be able to take out the turrets on a pirate station. If the shields are too expensive, make a large bulkhead of cheap materials at the front of your combat ship to soak up damage. Stuff like dirt, rock, chabaz, or hull works.
Head to the closest void sector and siege one of the pirate stations to claim it's loot. Don't forget the loot that the turrets drop after overheating. Depending on server settings, that should give you materials to trade/sell for enough parts to get a nice headstart towards working on one of your imported blueprints.

Hope this helps!

 

[Lidren]

While MrFurbs suggestions are pretty standard and in general really effective. You might also consider taking employment with a faction, some might let you use a salvager of theirs and their mining bonus, not to mention their factories, for a cut of your haul. I know mine would

 

[MossyStone48]

I know how the NPC pirates operate. They become my first target. All I need is a shield recharger. As I slowly cobble their blocks to my ship I start getting more daring. After the third or so wing of pirates I take on a station. By that point I might have a functional cloak too. I can still sneak in with a very tiny ship and get right inside the base. Then a sit there whittling down the shields. Protected by own bulkheads. I either go straight for their loot or I start popping turrets off their mounts from inside. If I feel like coming back another day to salvage the base I'll loot n scoot. But if I have some time on my hands I'll salvage the turrets floating free of the station. I collect them all one by one and have the parts for one big gun. I'll sit there in a big space gun and start running down their faction block's HP. Once I'm done with that I'll bring in my most efficient salvager and start pulling it apart until it disappears from the navpanel. :3

So I get the loot drops from the pirate waves, loot from the base and then the parts of the base. I'll never be able to sell them all to npc shops but thats not the point.

I've also been known to take over pirate bases I think are pretty. I salvage all the purple and blue stuff then make myself at home with some fresh turrets. Maybe a bit of earl grey and a tank full of sharks with frikkin lasers. You kow.. 'comforts of home'.

 

[Snk]

Eh. I go to a planet, mine a bit, and join a faction.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Try the new tutorial. It might be a good idea to start a new world for this, but you don't have to.

To start a new world, go to world manager, create a new world, select it and set it as default.
In the settings there is an option to turn the tutorial on. It should be in the second launch window. Turn it on, and start the game. Like I said, you don't need to start a new workd, but it might be easier. Once you're in the game, you'll get a screen that will tell you about the tutorial. Keep pressing next and eventually you'll be sent to a tutorial station.
Just go through any part of the tutorial that you don't find interesting. Eventually you'll get to a crafting tutorial, that's where you're going to want to pay attention.

If you still have questions, try the wiki. I should have explained it properly there.
The wiki: http://starmadepedia.net/wiki/Crafting

Ps: try linking weapons as slave to a salvage computer.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

Giveid ToyotaSupra (blox) 999999
Givecredits ToyotaSupra 99999

Bish bash bosh, whallop, DOSH.

 

[Top 4ce]

Here's how I usually start when not with a group:
Shield blocks are expensive, while salvage modules are cheap. What you'll want to do is try to avoid contact with as many players as possible, buy up a salvage computer, a few salvage blocks, and spare ship cores. Then use one of your ship cores to move away from spawn, making sure to avoid faction territory if you can.
If possible, buy a faction block and claim a planet(doesn't cost a million credits)/star system for your personal faction. That star system will grant you a massive x12 bonus to mining, which is what you'll do next. Both planet mining and asteroid mining are good. Asteroid mining will be needed if you plan on having specific colors for your hull/armor. If you're unable to claim territory for yourself look for nearby faction territory that doesn't have a large number of members online and mooch some material from their asteroids.
Once you've finished your first (should be relatively short) mining run you should have enough materials to create a basic factory and begin producing more salvage modules, power modules, and thrusters. Use them to increase the size and speed of your salvager until you can eat up asteroids at a comfortable pace. At this point you should have your own territory claimed via a store-bought or self-made faction module. You don't need to keep this territory forever, but you do need the mining bonus the territory gives.
At that point you should be getting enough capsules to upgrade your factory setup and begin working on shields and weapons for a combat vessel. It needs to be able to take out the turrets on a pirate station. If the shields are too expensive, make a large bulkhead of cheap materials at the front of your combat ship to soak up damage. Stuff like dirt, rock, chabaz, or hull works.
Head to the closest void sector and siege one of the pirate stations to claim it's loot. Don't forget the loot that the turrets drop after overheating. Depending on server settings, that should give you materials to trade/sell for enough parts to get a nice headstart towards working on one of your imported blueprints.

Hope this helps!

^This. To add to it, a jump drive goes a long way (no pun intended) to getting to a system for your own, getting resources faster, and getting out of trouble.

 

[Stakhanov]

As long as shops still have their ridiculous price differential , all you'll need is a few of them close to each other. Once you've emptied the expensive shops of credits , move on to find more. It may be worthwhile to build a small salvage ship early on , if you can find asteroids near a shop in someone else's system , but remember that trading multiplies funds much faster than mining does.

 

[Winterhome]

As long as shops still have their ridiculous price differential , all you'll need is a few of them close to each other. Once you've emptied the expensive shops of credits , move on to find more. It may be worthwhile to build a small salvage ship early on , if you can find asteroids near a shop in someone else's system , but remember that trading multiplies funds much faster than mining does.

Money is nearly worthless now, mate.

 

[ardiel]

I just start with a stealth salvager. It's still easy to permacloak small ships.

I start out with aprox 30 power blocks, cloaker, a 5 block salvage cannon with a regular canon slaved to it, plus two thrusters.

Later I upgrade this to four thrusters and three 7 block salvage cannons which is enough to bore asteroids or core planets at a decent pace while being able to upgrade power enough to still permacloak (you end up with a long toothpick ship made of power blocks) and then you can float around and do whatever, immune to pirates basically.

 

[metalsynkk]

I remember when those exploits were there (like salvaging stations) but I only sunk in like 10 hours max that time and never returned until now. The exploits are gone and I start off with 25k credits and some basic blocks like I always did. My way of early game till now was this:

This guide will sound noobish but Im just typing stuff as I go lol. I also don't know how much you know about the game since with millions of credits like you had you could just buy everything you wanted instead of manufacturing it.

1. Sell the cannon computer and cannon modules, this makes you a couple dozen k credits. If you want to get a couple 100k early game you don't need a weaponized ship but a miner.
2. With the newly acquired credits, acquire more salvage cannons, power reactors, thrusters, and make a basic salvage ship that burns through blocks quickly.
3. Mine your first 1-2 asteroids, either all of it or just the good parts.
4. Sell everything you get from it, refining will come later.
5. You are now 100k richer depending on how much you mined.
(optional: upgrade your salvage ship and repeat steps 3 to 5)
6. Acquire jump drive computer and some modules for it, install on ship.
7. Acquire refineries, like 10 should do since they are pretty cheap. Also take some extra power reactors/capacitors, a faction block if you want, and some storage blocks.
8. Go to galaxy screen, look for the nearest planet, jump drive to it (claim it if you have bought a faction block).
9. Place faction block, power reactors, refineries, and you have your first base.
10. Mine some more.
11. Place ores/crystals or whatever is refinable (the base asteroids mats as well in most cases) into refineries, afk for 10-15 mins, return, take the capsules.
12. Warp back to shop, sell capsules (max stock is 50k so you won't be able to sell everything you refined) and become 1mil credits richer.

Note about selling capsules: I wouldn't sell the ones from ore/crystals (not sure if they're called crystals, forgot) since they are much harder to come by. The regular ones (like Larimar, Tekt, Cinnabar, etc) will make you rich enough to start off with.

This is how I've been playing till now. If you want to maximize profits from asteroids, take note of which regular capsules the station doesn't have 50k of, and look for asteroids made of that. The more shops you've discovered the more you can make until they are max stocked.

Ar around 2-3mil credits I stopped, wanted to mkae a station (since thats 1mil) but I just built an anti-pirate ship, killed like 3-4 pirate ships, and from selling the loot (not even all of it) I made 20mil. I accidentally restocked a shop to max 50k of everything with a command (I was looking for a command to restock its credits lol) so I couldn't sell alot of the loot.

Hope this helps.

Note: my salvaging ship, or at least the front of it, is 15x15 10-long salvage cannons linked to 2 computers. It's linked alternatively so one half fires while the other recharges. Melts an asteroid in under a minute or even less.

Good luck ^^

 

[PizzaPress]

The regular ones (like Larimar

…?
:p
(Larimars are bugged, unless they just got fixed. You might find one or two per universe.)

 

[metalsynkk]

…?
:p
(Larimars are bugged, unless they just got fixed. You might find one or two per universe.)

Well there were 2 of them at spawn in my SP game (I believe I started with v0.1862 and the next day it was v0.1867) and I came across quite a few afterwards while going around the asteroid sectors.

 

[Pyre]

Note: my salvaging ship, or at least the front of it, is 15x15 10-long salvage cannons linked to 2 computers. It's linked alternatively so one half fires while the other recharges. Melts an asteroid in under a minute or even less.

How do you manage that, does it involve the logic blocks with the controllers? Haven't played much with them, some sort of XOR gate?

 

[metalsynkk]

How do you manage that, does it involve the logic blocks with the controllers? Haven't played much with them, some sort of XOR gate?

I am new to the more intricate aspects of the game and I have no idea how logic works. I will try to visualize how I did it. Lets say salvage computer 1 is "X" and the other is "O". The way the cannons are linked it like this (from the front):

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
OXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
OXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
OXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
etc for my 15x15 front.

Hotkey 1 controls one computer, 2 the other. I just manually fire in sequence as soon as 1 stops firing and goes on reload. It can be done with logic I heard, but this is just my way of making it easy. I also slaved 2 separate pulse computers with respective amounts of modules to the salvaging ones for extra mining speed, but that's optional.

 

[Pyre]

Oh ok, that makes sense I though it automagically did it....wonder if you can do it with XOR well a cave man XOR cause I don't think there are Exclusive gates so you have to do it old school.