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Post by Foohman on Jan 7, 2014 6:48:59 GMT 10
I've found a number of stations that don't seem to have a guardian in the area -- there's no SOS beacon either, rendering these stations as obstacles and objects of wishful thinking. Does this imply a derelict guardian in the area?
-- Cpt. Foohman
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Post by Perez on Jan 7, 2014 9:02:18 GMT 10
I've stumbled over one of these, too, as well as a derelict guardian. However, the guardian was in between a pile of asteroids, and quite far away from any active and unactive stations. It might as well not even have been a guardian, but a normal ship that had run out of oxygen. It was entirely grey. It's parts were all obtainable. Perhaps a guardians parts become obtainable once it runs out of oxygen?
To be honest, whenever I've seen one of these unactive stations, I've ignored them and continued towards the next SOS-signal. But when I happen to find another one, I'll be sure to have a peek around places nearby.
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Post by Foohman on Jan 7, 2014 20:35:52 GMT 10
I've seen two now, and from what I've noticed, they are are singular "zones", e.g, "Perez's Point", but split up into individual sections. The one I saw recently, I believe in a zone you have commented about - a large Golf-tier settlement with about half a dozen factories, had one nearby.
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Post by Perez on Jan 8, 2014 0:10:01 GMT 10
Ah, that makes quite a lot of sense. You're probably right about that, thinking back at previous encounters of these -- they've always been connected to another 'zone' of stations. I think you've found the solution. The grey ships you can find are probably just bonus attachments. The one I saw recently, I believe in a zone you have commented about - a large Golf-tier settlement with about half a dozen factories, had one nearby. Like this, right? thyperez.tumblr.com/image/72338935374
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Post by Foohman on Jan 11, 2014 0:08:36 GMT 10
Very similar, it's bizarre how alike they are, but yours seems far larger. I had to give up because I was a Delta heavy and couldn't take on the Guardians. Completely my fault, this time I'm taking it far slower, keeping one step ahead in each sector. I might revisit 0.5.1 and try building another monolithic ship - the kind that looks awesome and shoots lots of laser. Yees.
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Post by Perez on Jan 11, 2014 6:21:10 GMT 10
They're pretty rare, but they are rather nifty if you're rich. If the settlement contains an refinery with nearby asteroids, you're at least certain to obtain a good chunk of minerals. Sorry about the loss of your Delta-tier tank. I can totally relate. My Juliet-tier rammer went down because of being too impatient. I'm trying a lighter, more tactical and quicker Delta fighter this time around.
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Post by Foohman on Jan 12, 2014 4:15:59 GMT 10
Well currently I'm a Foxtrot-tier pseudo-mining ship - that is to say, I can configure my ship for mining purposes. But as usual I'm keeping in line with heavy shielding, snipe-launchers and thick armour. Needless to say I invest heavily in getting the best engines I can
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Post by Perez on Jan 13, 2014 4:03:46 GMT 10
My previous ship was exactly like that, except with the snipe-launchers. I see you've got quite the long-range tank there. Impressive! I believe it's slower than you'd want it to be, since you're looking for thrusters?
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Post by Foohman on Jan 14, 2014 20:07:42 GMT 10
Well yesterday I obtained nearly a dozen MK.II thrusters which I upgraded to Golf-tier. I'm highly manoeuvrable, but still quite large, which is going to make traversing the Inferno I'm in very tricky. I had no choice, sadly. Good job I have several oxygen tanks...
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Post by Perez on Jan 16, 2014 6:26:42 GMT 10
Ah, bravo on those MK.II thrusters -- they aren't so common, are they? Good luck through the inferno, though. It's a shame you cannot destroy them like normal asteroids. Oxygen tanks are quite rare, are they not? However, if I recall correctly, I think I've found a swarm of alpha-tier ships carrying oxygen tanks. You see, the guardian I've fought had an auxiliary oxygen tank. Therefore, I'm expecting other obtainable tanks nearby.
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Post by Foohman on Jan 17, 2014 20:30:26 GMT 10
I've been extremely lucky with my current play through - I'll post pictures of my current ship today. I've had several swarms of Mk.II Thruster ships and whenever I see a Aux' tank on a ship, I try hard to capture it and if I fail, I leave the ship and return once its repaired itself. Even the bulky ship I had in the Inferno was lucky, and I only suffered minor damage to my sponsons, which stick out as a extra layer of defence and armament. My current design is relatively smaller, and nolonger uses decks, after I got mauled by India-class ships.
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Post by Foohman on Jan 17, 2014 21:44:09 GMT 10
Hopefully the image upload worked. As I said, I got completely mauled by two India-class ships laden with prismatic lasers. The issue lay with my maneuverability - I had more Mk.II Boosters but the a good amount were Golf-tier. I also used three deck plates surrounded in truss-girder combinations, covered in guns and missile launchers, with more shielding than you could shake a stick at. With five extra Aux' tanks, I could head from area to area and blast my way through obstacles so long as I planned my route well. Any competition would be turned to dust with a chrono-geared set of India snipe launchers which gave me the edge over most ships in the Hotel/India sector I was last in. However, as I was liberating a wormhole, I came under attack by two long India ships covered in lasers - They hit one of the side sponsons (as I mentioned, they act as a layer of defence and weaponry and shielded my rear, where a good amount of my engines lay, you can see a lighter version of those sponsons on the picture) and took out the missile launchers while I was still turning. I managed to fight them off, but not before they'd taken a huge chunk of my ship with them, and I had destroyed most of their modules, rendering my ship too battered to fly to any safe zones. I stayed at the wormhole and re-configured my ship to a lighter state, ditching two of the deckplates. I then found myself in a Spelunk sector, where I found an India-tier Upgrade_Mech, which was just dandy, but I still weighed a tonne, so I once again reconfigured to the current design. I'm still liberating stations, but once I've done that, I'll turn it into a spelunk-worthy ship and make use of the India Factories in the area. tl;dr? I made a ship here it is hue
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Post by Perez on Jan 19, 2014 2:19:58 GMT 10
Wow! It's always fun to read things like these. I see you've been in one of those "aw, come on!" scenes and lost quite a lot of valuable items, but the new re-configuration looks awesome. Looks like the 'motor' section of the ship makes it rather maneuverable compared to the size itself. And this one is way defensive, I tell you. Maybe too defensive? But seriously, that is one heck of a ship. Are you staying in the current area to keep upgrading your ship before heading off into another wormhole?
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Post by Perez on Jan 19, 2014 2:43:39 GMT 10
Image: thyperez.tumblr.com/image/73727901434This is how far I've gotten. It's a shame that I died in the previous run. I was juliet-tier even... Oh well. Right now I feel like I'm on my way to enter the part where obtaining delta-tier attachments is a difficult task.
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Post by Foohman on Jan 19, 2014 5:24:09 GMT 10
That picture was taken in a Spelunk sector that only had one wormhole to the final sector, so I've had to start again which sucks but it will give me an opportunity to improve on my usual designs. I agree it is very defensive, but from experience I've found I enjoy having side-mounted lasers or missile launchers to deal with threats that may enter the screen while you're busy dealing with a main threat. The Sprinklers were awesome with some Needlers I encountered the previous sector.
Sorry to hear about your ship, Perez, did you ever take any screenshots of it? And the best way of dealing with Delta from Charlie-tier ships is something well shielded and with Snipe-launchers: exactly your layout, which is fantastic. You should be absolutely fine as long as you stay well out of range, so I suggest increasing your reverse thrust capabilities, allowing you to keep ships at bay whilst you wittle them down with Sniper fire.
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Post by Perez on Jan 19, 2014 10:12:31 GMT 10
Oh, well that's a bummer, en' it? Though, I have to agree on the fact that you get to think over previous builds to improve your ship more efficiently. My current ship -- I managed to successfully obtain delta-tier parts and utilities -- have sprinklers attached to it, that are -- like you said -- useful against attacks from left and right. Still, it's pretty maneuverable. Here's the current ship: thyperez.tumblr.com/image/73767873419Didn't know needlers had a weakness for sprinklers. Handy to know. Would you say it's durable? I was also quite lucky to find that MK. II thruster. Hurray! I'm a little upset about forgetting to take a snapshot. It wasn't all juliet-tier, though. I believe it was more of a miner, really. Here's the last image of it: thyperez.tumblr.com/image/72342713794So I was mining a for iron and silicate so I could buy griders, trusses and thrusters, all in juliet-tier thanks to the india-tier factories. Once purchasing these attachments and configuring my ship into something that still had the option to re-configure itself into a miner, I went for the next concurred settlement. I had no auxiliaries attached, just lasers and thrusters. Not to forget that I had planck- and bubble shields attached, too, of course. Come to think of it, I've actually never found any obtainable oxygen tanks... Anyway, once arriving, I was already under half of my maximum oxygen capacity. I found the guardian, only to find out the juliet-tier enemy was decked with prismatic lasers, completely ruining my entire ship. Both of my 'wings' were cut off, leaving me with my body left. Luckily, I flew into its front side, making it unable to hit me if I kept thrusting. I figured I'd detach most of my parts and re-configure quickly, so I could fire missiles from a single india-tier missile launcher to get to its core. I desperately tried to balance whilst firing missiles at the ship, digging into its core, until it backed off. I remember I had flown towards it again, only to receive one strike of a laser beam directly at my module. I still think it's a very cool death effect Farbs has implemented. Never get tired of it. I shook my head, cursing a word at the ship before seeing it vaporize after my explosion. I guess all things come to an end.
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Post by Foohman on Jan 21, 2014 0:45:20 GMT 10
It's always very dramatic when you lose a ship you spent a lot of time and effort collecting parts for, and then building. Prismatic-laser guardians are probably worse than snipe-launcher guardians, because there are so few angles-of attack, and the Juliet-tier lasers fire pretty quickly too. Kudos on your quick thinking in that battle though, but perhaps next time a swift retreat would be more in order, unless you were really, really low on oxygen. I find mining to be a little tedious at times, moreso at the end sectors when it costs 30k for a repair tool and you're only effectively making about 8k per trip. I think I may try scrapping more often as a form of income this time around.
Your current layout looks extremely durable - there are no weak spots and the shots that hit your modules won't destroy large portions of your ship: I think in both our designs, we try to limit the potential for damage. I like the Blurst shield idea for the main frontal strut - It can't be destroyed very easily and therefore is a good 'stem', so to speak. It's always great getting a Mk. II Booster. It's not too hard to find them in Factories, weirdly.
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Post by Perez on Jan 22, 2014 3:24:49 GMT 10
Yeah, you're right about those prismatic-laser guardians. One clever way to defeat one of those, or actually all kinds of ships, is to put up a clean barrier of blurst shields in front of you. You can make it destroy it's own cannons this way. Hehe, my quick thinking is actually just an immediate reaction. The thing is that retreating wasn't an option due to my lack of oxygen. 5L of oxygen isn't going to help me return when it took over half of my maximum oxygen to get there. I know mining is a boring job, but sometimes there's these things you kind of have to do, even if you don't want to, eh? The nearest SOS signal in the new wormhole I entered lead me to the refinery by the asteroids. Then, the next signal pointed towards the distant settlement. There wasn't really any other choice than (1) stay mining, or (2) attack and hope for the best. Just make sure you catch all the silicates when mining, though. I think us Captain Jameson players always prioritizes defense first, don't you agree? I've been considering throwing away the beta-tier bubble shield, because it's just slightly in the way. But so far I'm keeping it until I can find an upgrade station. I found the blurst shield in a factory. Unfortunately, there was only that one. I've got two echo-tier prismatic-lasers, preventing me from pushing the spike any further out. Turning whilst firing has lead to many spikes being lost on older ships due to this. Therefore I've placed the blurst shield on the back, like it's a tail, in hopes of it being useful in any way. Here, I'll show you an image: thyperez.tumblr.com/image/74073345017It's efficient, but I'm struggling with the bad designs of mine. It's simply just a box filled with utilities and engines, eh? I've been lucky with the MK. II Boosters, just like you were with the oxygen tanks. Stumbled over a few balancers, all having a MK. II or two to offer.
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Post by Foohman on Jan 23, 2014 1:42:31 GMT 10
Ah, with so little oxygen I see the problems you were faced with!
I do prefer defence over offensive capabilities - hence my sponsons, even though they tend to be very heavy in later tiers, I feel far more confident taking on ships knowing my flanks are properly secure and able to damage ships should they rush my side before I can turn. The obvious downside to defensibility is the lack of manoeuvrability, which leads to either hunting down higher-tiers for their engines or upgrading Mk.II boosters at every opportunity. That picture I posted shows a stripped-down version that had lost a layer of plating on the sponsons, and at two girders' worth of width at the front. As a result, I found I was quick enough, but a far cry from the speedy attack-ships I make in earlier tiers.
I've never quite got the hang of Blurst shields, I fancy aesthetics way too much for my own good, and Blurst shields never seem to 'fit' in with my designs. As for your own, you should just hunt around for more structural pieces, but surely your ship is very quick at the moment?
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Post by Perez on Jan 23, 2014 9:26:50 GMT 10
But it makes sense having the heavy kinds of shields, doesn't it? The game would've been too easy if it weren't for the weight and the puzzling construction processes of how you want to build your ship, still maintaining the nice maneuverability you previously had. That's one thing I like about this game.
I do have to agree on the fact that blurst shields are too OCD-influencing, if you get what I mean. They kind of just stick out of the ship, hoping that they will deflect some lasers and torpedoes, and save the day. Actually, blurst shields have been more efficient on guardians than they are on me, which is rather odd.
My ship isn't the quickest, nor the slowest. It's average, really. It's basically a standard layout of bonded parts, ignoring any means of proper design. I'm thinking I want to work myself up to Juliet-tier and gain super-efficient tools, like Chrono Gears and Auxiliary Oxygen Tanks. Then I would start redesigning my ship into something more satisfying to look at.
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