Ship upgrade philosophy

[Casey]

Hiya.

I have a question about upgrading trading ships. I hope I am okay posting it here as I couldn't see a forum for asking questions, if not then I am sorry but this was something running through my head last night. This is a complete ooRP question but its something I would like some advice about.

I am new to this game and I have started out by trading. I don't have much money as of yet so I am trying to penny pinch a little. Today I bought the Serenity transport upgraded from a mammoth.

The only real threat that traders have are player pirates. The NPCs do no damage to me (or at least all the ones I have ran into) so the only person who could kill me really is a PC pirate.

I have not yet had to fight a pirate, but I am under the assumption that they will have complete glass cannon machines that will probably blow me up in a couple of shots if that. Really my only option is evading the pirate in the first place or paying them off if I'm caught out.
So why would I bother with guns or an armor upgrade?

I don't know how damaging my weapons are yet, how much armor I have or any of the details such as that, but I don't really see how I could ever defeat a pirate in a fair fight or manage to get to a station under normal drive with maybe the 2 or 3 extra hits doubling my armor might give me. I do realise the value of extra armor in a fighter class ship but is it really worth losing the cargo hold for something that you are going to try to be avoiding in the first place?

Pirate encounters are by definition completely one sided so why waste money on weaponry and armor when if they are intent on shooting you down its not going to be worth a damn in the first place?

Or have I got this completely wrong?

Many thanks

Casey

[Sath]

Get a good armour, learn to Turret Steer, mount either Charons or maybe the house turrets and then when facing a pirate, just Turret Steer, evade and shoot him while at the same time moving towards the nearest station. You can, in most of the situations dock before being blasted into oblivion. (unless it is a cruiser, gb)

Or, there is a good alternative of paying the pirate, if the demand is, what you think, fair or harmless to the ratio of profits you are about to make. At the end of the day, it is your opinion and the circumstances that decide, whether you pay and move freely, or not pay, evade and dock at the nearest station.

[t0l]

You've got it completely wrong.

If you don't pack an armor upgrade 8 (that's the standard, anyhow) or above, then a supernova cannon will pop you instantly. If you do, it takes longer to kill you and you have a chance to shoot back, especially if you have Dulzian turrets.

You can also bot up when they do land a SN on your hull, and you can also turret steer and move around to dodge fire.

Using the Light Transport shield will allow you to soak more SNs and bat up your shields more often to survive.

---

[Casey]

Thank you Gentlemen

I'm not trying to be argumentative here but I have only played this game for about 20 hours now. I don't know how to turret steer, I can still barely steer my ship at all. Maybe at some point I should play the vanilla campaign as it is probably more combat focused and I will be able to get a feel for shooting.

I think given time I will be able to look at a player ship and make a judgement of whether or not I feel I can outrun them and dock safely.

The armor upgrade seems only worth it to me if your ships base armor is high as all it appears to do is multiply the hit points. Does it also have a hidden resistance bonus that it doesn't tell you about?

[t0l]

Go to options, bind keys.

Bind "Turn Left, Turn Right, Pitch Up, Pitch Down" to their respective arrow keys.

Press H to enter turret view, hold ctrl and scroll out to desired zoom level. You can now turn and move while shooting. Control impulse as normal and apply guns if needed.

Armor upgrades will give you a boost to base hull, i.e 2.5x modifier for 100,000 hull becomes 250,000, etc, etc. You can survive SNACs if they hit your hull and press G to bot up to restore your health.

---

[Mímir]

You can also type /conn when docked inside a base to get to the Conneticut PVP practice system (and type /return when docked to return).

If there are people there, you can fight them and they can give you advice. People there are usually very friendly.

---

[Casey]

I think the main problem is I have no idea of the numbers yet.

For example. I have read the wiki a little and I've seen weapons that have a dps of over 50k.

Could you give me an idea of the kind of weapons a pirate is likely to use? Because if they can fly at me with 2 or 3 or 4 of those guns, I will have less than a second if I was in a 100k ship or a 250k ship.

[Mímir]

High DPS weapons have slow refire or velocity and so on, there are drawbacks to all types of weaponry.

A pirate is likely to use either:

A) A transport with high DPS slow refire turrets, putting him at a disadvantage warding off fighters and bombers, but able to deliver high damage to an easy target like another transport. A pirate transport of any kind is also likely to be heavily armored.

B) A gunboat. Big and slow, but will crush you if you are within range. Get away from it as fast as you can, by dodging incoming fire and having enough armor to soak up those shots you can't avoid. Solaris seems to be the turret to use on gunboats, and coupled with the autoaim-effect you get from turret steer, it's really hard to avoid these high velocity / high refire weapons. Solaris' drawbacks are range and energy efficiency.

C) A bomber. A bomber has EMP guns that can deshield you fast, and coupled with an Antimatter cannon, it can deliver super high one-shot damage. Too high for you to simply tank, so the trick is to avoid fire altogether. Firing an antimatter cannon will deplete the power core on the bomber, so it will only get 1 maybe 2 shots fired at you before your shield is back up. Some ships are more agile and have better shape, making it easier not to get hit when flown properly. A bomber also cruises and thrusts faster than a transport, so it will have an advantage on that front.

The general idea is that you can't sit and tank, you need to dodge. That's why stats become less important to skill and things like shape and size. If you know how to dodge, more armor will still help you as you obviously can't dodge all incoming fire.

---

[t0l]

50k DPS guns are like BS weapons and cruiser weapons. If confronted by a battleship that's trying to pirate you, just cruise away because they lack cruise disruptors. You can outpace a cruiser with thrusters and dodge cruiser shots.

---

[Thunderer]

There are a few guides here. You can find them on our Wiki and the Discovery RP 24/7 Help and Support section of this forum.
Here is the Wiki guide for surviving piracy encounters. It is a bit outdated, but most things still apply. Like, 90% or more. Probably the only thing that matters and was changed is that small ships (we call them snubs here), like fighters, bombers and freighters now cruise a bit faster than any large ships. Also, small transports have a bit higher thruster speed than the large ones and cruisers (battleships don't have a thruster). Cruisers and battleships are now allowed to pirate. You have no chance to escape cruisers except if you are a pro at evading, and battleships are slow and they don't have a cruise disruptor, so just cruise. You will generally be able to escape other ships if you have a Serenity with 2,5 times more armour (you'll stay alive against a fighter or a freighter until some 30k, a bomber until 20 or 15, a gunboat or a well armed transport until 10, a not so well armed transport until 15, a cruiser until 5).
Mount all Dulzian turrets. They will deter small ships, unlike other transport turrets which often miss small, fast targets. You probably won't win against a larger pirate ship with any turrets, while you can run away or pay if you can't.

---

Bretonian Treaty Database Bretonian Armed Forces Recruitment Center
Bretonian Charter of Interstellar Law Bretonian Secrets Act