Went back to playing stock game, jsut more fun to start with.

[Tasogie]

I gotta admit the mods look fun, but too complicated when your still learning the game. I dont see point in punishing myself this early in lol... Decided today to try a life of Piracy. SO I am going to start trying to steal Teladi ships.

I saw a a Teladi system that has alot of haulers, so hopefully I can steal a few of em at a time then leg it

[TTD]

Yes,mods are best used when you understand the game and want to modify it to fit more with the way you like to play.

Modding can make it so easy that it gets boring, or it can get so hard as to be almost unplayable.
So be careful when modding.

The two simplest tools for modding your game is Cycrow's Cheat Package and the one in my list for setting your own start scenario.
Carefully used together , they can enrich your game-play .

[Master of the Blade]

Teladi are an interesting race to target for piracy to say the least, since canonically they're the race most tolerant of pirates operating in their sectors. (they don't care about smuggling, and most will turn a blind eye when bribed)
Gameplay wise, they're a decent choice - their police will get angry at you for shooting any other race's ships so pirating other races in their sectors isn't safe. They do own quite a few convenient regions of space though.

[Tasogie]

hehe yer I picked Teladi cos I didnt wanna piss off the Borons, those huge Green battleships look tough as hell to go up against.
As for the mod, totally agree, it was just punishing me too much an removing the fun

[DrBullwinkle]

Well, to be fair, you were playing the XRM mod, which is absurd for a new player.

There are plenty of smaller scripts and mods that will help you long before you are so bored with the game that you feel a need to "rebalance" it. The vanilla balance is superior in many ways, anyway.

So don't be afraid of *all* scripts and mods just because of your experience with XRM (which is designed for players who have spent hundreds of hours on the vanilla game already).

[Tasogie]

ahh ok, I didn't know that. I just got sick of dieing over an overt an over within 30 mins of starting lol

[Thrake]

To avoid dying too much, I would recommand starting as a trader. It might not be very exciting at first, but it provides a good and steady income early in (buying at station with max amount of goods and selling to those with low supplies ensures of great profit). Then, you can start getting a few ships for fighting, and while you begin fighting, giving orders for your transport ship from a distance will allow you to quickly build a small fleet.

Doing it the other way round (fight only) will make it much harder. It can be done though, but it is not good for early playthrough IMO. It is also important to choose missions wisely, that's the key to survival.

As for borons, they are not that dangerous, their ships have some flaws when it comes to fighting. I would be more warry of Argon, Paranid and Yaki ships. Pirates are probably the worst though, they are often dumbed down version of other ships.

[ajax34i]

As far as which race to pick on, the Borons are often a favorite as victims. Their ships are big, but usually poorly armed.

A lot of people make the decision based on how difficult the game will become for them. Which may not be something you could determine right now.

But, basically, pissing off the Argons is a bad idea, as they have 3 associated corporations HQ's that sell rather unique gear. Transporter device, Trade System Extension, and all the really nice OTAS ships.

The other races aren't as critical, as you can find the equipment that's unique to them elsewhere somewhat easily. So it's more an issue of where their sectors are located, and whether you'll lose access to rather large sections of the universe map by making them enemies.

You can also pirate responsibly... build up your reputation with a race then capture one capital or a few smaller ships, then pretend you're sorry and build up your reputation again.

[Tasogie]

hmm, so maybe it is best to piss off the Borons since they seem to be located in my NW corner behind me (Argon). That way I still have access to space around me without having to send a full invasion fleet into every system to get haulers through.

[StarSword]

As far as mods, I only use two, both of them vanilla-safe. Advanced Complex Hub is great since it allows you to dock infinite small ships (anything up to M3+ in size) and two capital ships. This greatly reduces NPC clutter and makes refueling my cruisers a breeze.

The other is Tubeless Complexes, a little tweak that removes the tubes from complexes. It's a lifesaver for your framerate.

Overall I tend to favor mods for small quality-of-life tweaks rather than sweeping changes. Like this color saturation mod for Skyrim that makes the game a hell of a lot prettier.

[hisazul]

Aye there are plenty of mods that don't do anything to balance of any kind. Tubeless mod, show race ranks some other cosmetic or ease of life mods. If you can control yourself most mods won't turn things boring. I play always with cheat pack and yet manage to stay amused for 100s of hours in each run when I pick X back up. Just don't overdo and you will be golden.
If you are new stay away for now from any rebalance mods or heavy tweaks to base mechanics. Or you simply won't learn the game. Once you learned the ins and outs go nuts lol.

[Tasogie]

Does anyone know what it takes to enter the Xenon systems ? I went in with 2 corvettes 7 medium fighters, an I made it out with 1 corvette an that was within 10km of the gate.....

[DrBullwinkle]

Does anyone know what it takes to enter the Xenon systems ?

A Kestrel works great.

Or mostly any ship faster than a Q.

If you intend to do battle, then you will need whatever force is required to defeat the enemy force that you face, obviously.

[Tasogie]

I killed what looked like a Carrier or something equally as big, but it took 40 heavy missiles, and all my ships to do it... After that I left. I am now 10 mil off getting my first Destroyer then I am gonna go back an see if that helps ..

I want to try to clear the gate an then call in a freighter an set up a Argon station so I can resupply it and defend the area

[Master of the Blade]

Bringing AI ships typically ends poorly for your fleet, the AI is equally stupid for you and the enemy, the difference is they have infinite free respawns. Fleet invasions of Xenon sectors should probably wait until you have plenty of disposable income. Good fleet composition would probably be a destroyer or two, a carrier full of fighters (keep the carrier away from heavy fighting at all costs though! They're very squishy!) and maybe some corvettes set to spam out typhoon missiles if you're feeling fancy.

Alternatively, get yourself an M7 frigate like the Shrike or Tiger and abuse the crap out of the strafe drive to never get hit and pick apart everything in the sector. This is practical, but much less fun and far less spectacular.

Actually HOLDING a Xenon sector requires basically limitless income, as they'll constantly come at you and wear down your forces. Note though that the standing forces in different Xenon sectors are very variable, sometimes they're completely empty (often the ones in the far northeast of the universe map) and sometimes there's a deathball staring you down upon entering the system and capitals all over the place (X347 is usually like this.).

[Tasogie]

That is what I am faced with at moment, I enter the system an theres ships everywhere I look. The fighters die really fast to my Cerb's

(LOVE flack cannons)

But whatever Capitals the Xenon have obliterate my Cerbs in record time. I have a Titan I am fitting now, an a Mammoth I am going to fill with Laser Towers. If I can clear a beachhead of sorts I will deploy as many Laser towers as I can carry round the gate.
Sadly though I think your right, as it never seems to actually whittle down their defense...

[hisazul]

That is what I am faced with at moment, I enter the system an theres ships everywhere I look. The fighters die really fast to my Cerb's

(LOVE flack cannons)

But whatever Capitals the Xenon have obliterate my Cerbs in record time. I have a Titan I am fitting now, an a Mammoth I am going to fill with Laser Towers. If I can clear a beachhead of sorts I will deploy as many Laser towers as I can carry round the gate.
Sadly though I think your right, as it never seems to actually whittle down their defense...

What you need is OOS superiority. OOS fighting is a fair bit different then your typical IS fighting. For one all combat is point blank and the team with biggest number of guns will win.
Example... in AP with gigantic hulls Qs are notorious for managing to damage any ship OOS due to their insane firepower and durability. BUT.
If they face lets say 3xTyr. It becomes a guaranteed OOS win with Tyrs not taking any hull damage. Trick is keeping OOS strike combined because like I said all combat is point blank. Good strategy is lets say dropping a... I don't know.. a satellite lets say and giving your 3xTyr defend position command on satellite. Now in practice unless they are hit with multiple capital ships there shouldn't be anything that can get withing 10k radius of that satellite and actually walk away if its hostile to Tyrs.

So it is in fact possible to "secure" Xenon sector OOS. In sector however you are bound to take loses. Friendly fire... lousy AI aim... collisions all that jazz. All the things that are irrelevant in OOS combat.

Just bear in mind a force that can effectively endlessly hold a Xenon sector is not cheap by any means. Deploying a grid of defenders around a station to prevent any damage to the station/complex will require A LOT of ships and you can't use cheap ones...

[Tasogie]

I tried sending 50 medium fighters in... not a single one survived... I watched em drop on assets list so fast I couldn't even keep count lol.
Not to mention I just ran into a Gallion that killed all 3 of my Cerberus ...

[Master of the Blade]

Cerberus is strictly an antifighter frigate, it has lots of flak turrets but can't do a thing to capitals. There aren't really any anticapital frigates, but the closest thing you'll get is probably a Teladi Shrike with Gauss Cannons and Incendiary Bomb Launchers.

M4 medium fighters are on the whole inferior in every way to M3 heavy fighters, though M4+ can offer near-M3 levels of power at low cost (Split Asp is an excellent M4+ at about 1 million credits for the hull). In AP, the OOS calculations were tweaked to allow each turret of a ship to fire in turn, meaning every turret on a capital your fighters engaged would instagib a fighter, then the next one would fire at a different one and so on, resulting in M1s and M2s killing up to 6 fighters per OOS 'tick', one per turret. IS they'd probably fare even worse, as M4s are made of tissue paper.

[Tasogie]

I just ran into a Paru Destroyer, it hit me 3 times with some sort of white cone fire... dead 2 Cerberus dead. So I reloaded an sold them.

It is really hard to find a group of ships that can work well together when your faced with NPC ships that I am sure "cheat" lol. I will build up my spit rep an try their stuff out I think.I will also buy a few strike an fit em as ytou said as escorts