Returning after a long, long absence

[Ezarkal]

you need to contact a small/medium ship dealer at a small/medium shipyard, and ask him to repair your fighter. It can be done by disembarking and finding him on the station, or simply calling him from space. (Repair is in the "modify ship" option) Your fighter will then head to the dock to proceed with repairs.
The thing is, you have to do that for every single fighter. It's one of the most tedious part of the game in my opinion, and one of the reason I chose to stick to capital ships.

[Kantall]

Thanks! I don't know if I've seen a shipyard yet, but my fighter got blown up in the first fight anyway - I don't think it was very good.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Capital crew in XR includes Engineers who can repair hull, and they do it for free. Since Pilot's cannot repair their fighters and fighters have relatively few HPs, it makes sense to sell XR fighters and but capitals.

[RainerPrem]

...
- you might, after long PC (are you using Windows?) up-time, find that the "scan sweeps" on the weapon panels lose their smoothness, start getting jerky (it also seems to adversely affect the smoothness of the smalltalk click-the-squiggle minigame.)

...

Hi,

yes, I noticed that. In the meantime I alt-tab away from the game a lot, because the reload time is too long. (Yes, I admit, I save before each shot on a lockbox...) In my case the lack of smoothness disappears after ten seconds or so. It's most likely Windows swapping out another process in that time.

cu
Rainer

[Kantall]

So as part of the plot I was asked to capture "Taranis" a prison ship. Great, done, then it warped away. Whenever I give it commands now it does nothing, I'm assuming I need to drop off an engineer to repair all the damage we did during boarding before it can move.

Thing is though, this early on is it worth keeping/repairing that capital ship, or should I just sell it? I can get 30M for it which I could use to max out the skunk (Except weapons, I can only find tier 1 weapons anywhere)

[RAVEN.myst]

So as part of the plot I was asked to capture "Taranis" a prison ship. Great, done, then it warped away. Whenever I give it commands now it does nothing, I'm assuming I need to drop off an engineer to repair all the damage we did during boarding before it can move.

Thing is though, this early on is it worth keeping/repairing that capital ship, or should I just sell it? I can get 30M for it which I could use to max out the skunk (Except weapons, I can only find tier 1 weapons anywhere)

Yes, you need to give that ship an engineer (I would recommend a 5-star) to patch it up. Also, that ship now has no jump-fuel, so unless you transfer some fuel to it, it will take a while (about 10 mins?) to execute a jump - however, this is only an issue once, if you set its captain to autorefuel - it will jump to Ascension sector, and there is a HoA-operated filling station there, so it will travel to it and fill up, after which you can use the ship as normal.

Should it stay or should it go? Well, that's up to your own preference, depending on your playstyle and approach. Personally, I always keep it, not because it is a REALLY good fighting ship and because it's a souvenir for me of that point of the campaign. If you decide to keep it, take the time, trouble, and money to give it a good crew - the 5-star engineer that patched it up can stay, and get high-skilled captain and defense officer.

Selling it is, however, also a viable option. If you prefer to do everything yourself (ie. are less prone to delegate your fighting to the Awesome Might of capital ships under your command, preferring to rather hot-dog it in your Skank, I mean Skunk) or if you want a considerable nest-egg to ramp up your other endeavours, then selling it has its obvious advantages. Keep in mind that if you do sell it, and decide later on that you want/need a Taranis, replacing it might be tougher - first off, you'll pay more to buy than you'll get from selling, and also you will have one shipyard (Heart's shipyard in Gemstone Manufacture, Far Out) to buy from, and in the early to mid-game that 'yard is chronically short of scanning arrays and/or PkGens and/or fusion reactors, so even if you order the ship, it could take a lot of time and trouble to get it built.

Both options have their merits (yes, singularly unhelpful, I know - sorry ^^)

Regarding maxing your Skunk: your engines and a Mk3 weapon can be acquired by assembling special items from looted drops (you need to accept the appropriate missions, and not from Plutarch mission agents, if you want to get those any time soon.) The shields can also be similarly maxed out, but the items required for those items are a lot rarer, more specific, harder to find, and you will only have access to some of them much later in the game.

[Kantall]

So as part of the plot I was asked to capture "Taranis" a prison ship. Great, done, then it warped away. Whenever I give it commands now it does nothing, I'm assuming I need to drop off an engineer to repair all the damage we did during boarding before it can move.

Thing is though, this early on is it worth keeping/repairing that capital ship, or should I just sell it? I can get 30M for it which I could use to max out the skunk (Except weapons, I can only find tier 1 weapons anywhere)

Yes, you need to give that ship an engineer (I would recommend a 5-star) to patch it up. Also, that ship now has no jump-fuel, so unless you transfer some fuel to it, it will take a while (about 10 mins?) to execute a jump - however, this is only an issue once, if you set its captain to autorefuel - it will jump to Ascension sector, and there is a HoA-operated filling station there, so it will travel to it and fill up, after which you can use the ship as normal.

Should it stay or should it go? Well, that's up to your own preference, depending on your playstyle and approach. Personally, I always keep it, not because it is a REALLY good fighting ship and because it's a souvenir for me of that point of the campaign. If you decide to keep it, take the time, trouble, and money to give it a good crew - the 5-star engineer that patched it up can stay, and get high-skilled captain and defense officer.

Selling it is, however, also a viable option. If you prefer to do everything yourself (ie. are less prone to delegate your fighting to the Awesome Might of capital ships under your command, preferring to rather hot-dog it in your Skank, I mean Skunk) or if you want a considerable nest-egg to ramp up your other endeavours, then selling it has its obvious advantages. Keep in mind that if you do sell it, and decide later on that you want/need a Taranis, replacing it might be tougher - first off, you'll pay more to buy than you'll get from selling, and also you will have one shipyard (Heart's shipyard in Gemstone Manufacture, Far Out) to buy from, and in the early to mid-game that 'yard is chronically short of scanning arrays and/or PkGens and/or fusion reactors, so even if you order the ship, it could take a lot of time and trouble to get it built.

Both options have their merits (yes, singularly unhelpful, I know - sorry ^^)

Regarding maxing your Skunk: your engines and a Mk3 weapon can be acquired by assembling special items from looted drops (you need to accept the appropriate missions, and not from Plutarch mission agents, if you want to get those any time soon.) The shields can also be similarly maxed out, but the items required for those items are a lot rarer, more specific, harder to find, and you will only have access to some of them much later in the game.

Thankyou, that is actually very helpful. I was previously going to sell it, but after reading that I'm going to keep it.

One thing I don't understand though is how to see AI skills - when I ask to see them, they're all just marked as "?"

[RainerPrem]

Thankyou, that is actually very helpful. I was previously going to sell it, but after reading that I'm going to keep it.

One thing I don't understand though is how to see AI skills - when I ask to see them, they're all just marked as "?"

This I can help with.

Perform a successful smalltalk, and then ask the person to point you to a good engineer. In that case you see the stats before you buy.

Make a successful double smalltalk and you will be pointed to a 5-star-crewmember.

cu
Rainer

[RAVEN.myst]

Thankyou, that is actually very helpful. I was previously going to sell it, but after reading that I'm going to keep it.

One thing I don't understand though is how to see AI skills - when I ask to see them, they're all just marked as "?"

You are most welcome
Something to keep in mind: if you keep the ship, you always still have the option to sell it later, should you change your mind, or have specific need to do so - but once you've sold it, you can't unsell it. So I think that your choice is the wiser one at this point, until you have a better sense of what you want to do, and how. (For me, a guiding principle when I'm on the fence about something: if I absolutely can't decided which option to take, I usually go with the one that commits me the least, leaving the most options available later.)

There's another, more expensive approach to sussing out NPC skills (which becomes highly preferable once you have the money to throw around) - hire the NPC, and if it's not good enough, just fire it and hire the next one. You will almost certainly find that in the later game, smalltalking for each crew member of each ship is too much of a PitA. However, while money's tight, I go with the approach described by RainerPrem. (My stats in my current game, which is about a week old, show something like: 6 crewmembers hired with stats exposed first, about 800 total staff members hired...)

[sd_jasper]

Or just install the "show skills" mod:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =265986059

[Kantall]

Thankyou, that is actually very helpful. I was previously going to sell it, but after reading that I'm going to keep it.

One thing I don't understand though is how to see AI skills - when I ask to see them, they're all just marked as "?"

You are most welcome
Something to keep in mind: if you keep the ship, you always still have the option to sell it later, should you change your mind, or have specific need to do so - but once you've sold it, you can't unsell it. So I think that your choice is the wiser one at this point, until you have a better sense of what you want to do, and how. (For me, a guiding principle when I'm on the fence about something: if I absolutely can't decided which option to take, I usually go with the one that commits me the least, leaving the most options available later.)

There's another, more expensive approach to sussing out NPC skills (which becomes highly preferable once you have the money to throw around) - hire the NPC, and if it's not good enough, just fire it and hire the next one. You will almost certainly find that in the later game, smalltalking for each crew member of each ship is too much of a PitA. However, while money's tight, I go with the approach described by RainerPrem. (My stats in my current game, which is about a week old, show something like: 6 crewmembers hired with stats exposed first, about 800 total staff members hired...)

Very glad I kept it. I boarded a couple of Stromvoks that kept pestering my construction ship and while I'm not going to sell them either, it's shown me if I -do- want to make money through selling ships, I can just do it via boarding more easily attainable ships and selling those. I don't get the impression the Stromvoks are very good going by the encyclopedia articles but hey - I have a couple of larger ships now.

This is going quite well, I'm enjoying the game, which given how I felt on release, and the time I returned after to try (Few months after that) was something I didn't think would ever happen. There are loads I still don't understand, mostly trading/stations, but combat I think I've got down. Except drones...really need to start using drones instead of soloing everything.

[RAVEN.myst]

I don't get the impression the Stromvoks are very good going by the encyclopedia articles but hey - I have a couple of larger ships now.

Don't sell those Stromvoks short, they are deceptively good - much better than they may look "on paper". For starters, they are very quick and quite nimble, so they make a nice personal ship to get around on if (like me) you don't feel like taking the stick all the time and prefer to be chauffeured around in style. Also, in terms of firepower they're OK - good against small groups of fighters, a great help against larger groups of fighters if you personally help out in the Skank, and in groups they even give larger capitals trouble, especially if you are on your toes and order whichever one is taking the most damage to withdraw to recharge shields, then pull it back in, rinse and repeat as needed (akin to "dancing" units in RTS games such as StarCraft.) Also, they make good escorts for your Taranis - their overall shape is similar so they look appropriate, and they add their strengths to the larger ship they escort (and, being faster than the Taranis, they can maintain formation up to a point.) Lastly, and very importantly (and in line with your interest in expanding your use of drones) - Stromvoks (and their freighter counterpart the Styrvok) have an integrated drone bay, which means there's no separate drone bay that can be taken out, thereby wiping out your entire force of drones, which groups of enemy fighters will routinely do to your other ships (fighters tend to target surface elements on capital ships before they go for the kill, in order to neutralise the ship first.)

Happy hunting

[Kantall]

Just ooooone more thing I'm stuck on. As part of the plot I have to build a URV Wharf. I set my construction ship to build it but almost all of the resources haven't been bought up. Only metal plating and energy has been bought, despite me setting the build order hours and hours ago.

I don't really understand trading enough to find them on my own either and I don't understand why they haven't been delivered.

[RAVEN.myst]

Just ooooone more thing I'm stuck on. As part of the plot I have to build a URV Wharf. I set my construction ship to build it but almost all of the resources haven't been bought up. Only metal plating and energy has been bought, despite me setting the build order hours and hours ago.

I don't really understand trading enough to find them on my own either and I don't understand why they haven't been delivered.

The problem here is that automated trade (such as that done by architects) only reaches out to a system-wide range, maximum. There are no suppliers for the stuff you need in DeVries, so you have to personally import the stuff from Albion. This one will have you scratching your head quite vigorously, once you get to a point where you need more reinforced metal plates... But the bio-optic wiring and the fusion reactors are currently no (or rather, 'little') problem. The fusion reactors, however, are in very high demand, so you will need to be on the ball to snag them when they become available, and I recommend scanning the production modules on the two ship-tech fabs that produce them, so you can supply them with any resources they may fall short of (at a profit to you, of course - bonus! )

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Only metal plating and energy has been bought

Just to add to Raven's post, Energy Cells and, to a less extent, Food Rations are sold within DeVries so that is probably where the Energy Cells came from.

When the CV was given to you it I think it contained just enough RMP to build the initial stage of the station (Steel Refinery) and a URV Wharf. If you wish to build other stages too/instead, then you'll need to source additional RMP from outside DeVries in order to complete the campaign's requirements.

[RainerPrem]

Wow. I'm pretty blown away by how smooth the experience has been so far, it seems far more optimised, less buggy and just more polished.

One thing that's taking adjusting is working out the map, as coming from X3 where it was all really neat and easy to work out, I often have in XR no idea where I am or how to get anywhere but I'm sure that will change. I'm also not sure about this "Information on a station" thing for discounts etc. I spent a couple of minutes randomly flying around the station and I was up to 2% info and got bored of that, but it seems optional so that's fine.

...

Hi,

it seems that in the meantime you don't need to scan stations (find all the little (i) marks) any longer for trading. Just dock, get yourself a trade agent, and that's enough (it gives you ~20% and all trade information).

It seems that if you plan to make a living from robbing stations it's different. In that case you need to find the best storage to loot...

And you can find hidden missions if you scan the station.

cu
Rainer

[RainerPrem]

Only metal plating and energy has been bought

Just to add to Raven's post, Energy Cells and, to a less extent, Food Rations are sold within DeVries so that is probably where the Energy Cells came from.

When the CV was given to you it I think it contained just enough RMP to build the initial stage of the station (Steel Refinery) and a URV Wharf. If you wish to build other stages too/instead, then you'll need to source additional RMP from outside DeVries in order to complete the campaign's requirements.

Hi,

my CV contained so many RMPs that I didn't need to buy them at all. And once you have a miner attached to the station, it will produce them.

@kantall: look in the station description for "infrastructure missions".

cu
Rainer

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Hi,

my CV contained so many RMPs that I didn't need to buy them at all. And once you have a miner attached to the station, it will produce them.

Hi there,

The plot station can build Refined Metals, rather than Reinforced Metal Plating.

[Kantall]

Bit of a confusing one.

The shipyard in darned hot air has two cap dealers - fine.

The L one is permanently trying to construct a gas miner for someone and never moves from 0% though, so I can't fit my own gas miner with scoop drones.

[Santi]

That is because the Shipyard lacks the materials to finish the ship, normal in Devries as the economy is quite poor. A solution is to use the trade menu, filter by the name of the shipyard and see what resources is lacking and supply them yourself. If you have access to Omicron Lyrae it can be quite profitable, or if you have Trade agents in Albion.