Impressions ... and questions

[Cyberneticist]

Hello,

I finally found the time to install Drox Operative after buying it at GoG a while ago.

I started with a Human ship, which is now about lv 30 ... and I'm stuck and don't really know what went wrong. I can still kill most things, but the ship is severely lacking on the defensive side - one hit from ancient Hezog destroyers take out my shield and 50% of my structure (didn't put any points in structure since I was trying to go shields-only), and I don't survive the next hit.

I've put about 80 points into Command by now; my main stat is Tactical, followed by engineering, computers and enough helm to keep the speed at 200. I have 4 crew on the ship.

Shields: 299 / 299
Armor Plating: 0 / 0
Structure: 107 / 107
Energy: 203 / 203

DPS: 240.4
Attack: 405
Defense: 213

Tactical: 62
Helm: 33
Structural: 8
Engineering: 46
Computers: 29
Command: 80

The question is: What exactly am I doing wrong? In earlier games, I put fewer points in command, but then I found that that ships didn't have enoug slots for modules and crew. Should I have focused more on the stats where Humans get bonuses (tactical, computers), or spread out my points? I had not realized that investing in command also grants some points in Tactical. Or should I try to heavily invest in a single stat to get the bonuses granted at 50/... base points?

I really like the game so far. The concept of the AIs playing a game of Master of Orion against each other that I can (but don't have to) influence in various ways for fun and profit is unique. I love the spectacular explosions.

There are a few minor things that could have been done differently:

1. Space is big. Space isn't the Blue Marble, it's the Pale Blue Dot. In Drox Operative, I can't seem to zoom out far enough to get a good feel of the vastness of space - the larger ships fill a significant portion of the screen - while in combat most of the screen is covered in ships.

2. Mines, the pre-placed ones. You can neither mouse over them to find out whether they're a minor annoyance or will scatter the atoms of your ship throughout the galaxy, nor can you get rid of them in any way but triggering them with your ship.

3. Item icons. It's really hard to figure out for most items which item does what without mousing over them. Exception: Consumables. These icons are very easy to recognize; they're meant to get information to the viewer.
Also, adding more area to the colored frames of the icons is a huge improvement from Din's Curse, where I found it hard to tell an items rarity from the narrow colored frame around its icon. In Drox Operative, the color is easier to see since the frame around the icon has a vignette effect.

[Cyberneticist]

Oh ... I just realized that the frame around an icon depends on its slot size (heavy/medium/light), not on item quality, which is indicated by colored dots on the icon.

[joku]

I can't really help you with your ship as, while I love this game, I'm not very good at it. My highest level ship is 32 (I really should start playing this game again). I can say that the Ancient ships are intended to be very difficult.


As to your numbered points:

1. The game doesn't allow you to increase the max zoom through menus, but you can increase it. The method of doing so is discussed here in the second paragraph.

2. While you can't get info about what the mines do, their effects don't change at all. So you can learn what each mine does through experience.

3. Given the sheer number and variety of different items in this game as well as the abstract nature of many of them, I, personally, can forgive not always being able to tell at a glance what each item is. Eventually you learn most of the icons through experience.

[Cyberneticist]

Originally Posted by joku

3. Given the sheer number and variety of different items in this game as well as the abstract nature of many of them, I, personally, can forgive not always being able to tell at a glance what each item is.

Every little bit of information helps.

Anyway ... I've narrowed the initial crew point distribution strategies down to a handful:

1. Put most points into command, mostly neglecting everything else and hope to get some points via crew and crew mods.
Drawback: You'll be able to equip lots of modules, but not the best quality you can find.

2. Focus on a single non-Command stat, trying to get the special bonus at 50 Points as quickly as possible.
Drawback: You'll be lacking module slots, and your ability to mount modules will fall behind in all except one category. Also, if you don't pick engineering as your preferred stat, you'll run out of power for weapons/computers/shields.

3. Focus on your races preferred areas first. This might be the most efficient way to spend crew points, but you'll fall behind in some key areas (mainly engineering, which is the only way to get enough power for all the other modules). And you'll be lacking module slots.

4. Try to raise your abilities so you can equip the things you find, and put the remaining points into Command. I've tried it, and you just don't have enough points (Command will rise very slowly and you'll end up lacking slots).

[Aelois]

Hello.

First, I will apologize, because this large wall of text is daunting, and I am totally prone to making mistakes.

Second, you'll wanna keep any stat boosters that you find and bank them. Those are really lovely for picking up some well needed components.

Third, the story; me and my bro's decided to pick up this game after we saw it go on sale at an absurdly lucky price. That said, playing when we could when we did with the 3 of us (myself included), I'll tell Mr Cyber abit of my story, and see how that compares to your 4 distribution strategies, perhaps you might take something from it ^^

----

Initially I started stacking Command and Tactical, leaning towards more Tactical on a Scavenger. I ended up at lvl 30 or so before I completely gave up- as you mentioned earlier, I found my ship getting completely mauled and bottle-necked. And so, it was a miracle that I discovered Lithosoids increased armor components. It brought up my 500 or so armor to around 2000- course it costed alot of money. However I was still left completely unhappy with this lvl 30 Scavenger, as it relied on killing it's enemy's fast enough before it's 2k armor would vanish, and had to make a trip back to a planet to repair (I didn't stack scavenger pieces for my light slots), and decided to make another ship- a 0 Command Brunt, which now sadly has 5 command at lvl 50~

My 5 Command Brunt now relies solely on it's racial component slot for dps (a missile) with all my light components gearing towards energy regen, and the majority of my points being stacked into Tactical. I had enough to still hit the 200 max speed cap, and was progressing quite smoothly. Don't expect any 'tanking' with this ship though. On many MANY occasions, I had to use the speed boost consumable to keep distance from any Yellow/Purple/Gold/etc colored mob. This was just at lvl 30, and before then, I had a laser that I've since removed, and a missile. I was debating whether or not to add a fighter bay to act as cannon fodder so I could survive longer, only to realize my maximum energy couldn't handle a single fighter bay summon. For awhile, I used "Emergency Thrusters" along with the speed consumable to reach insane speeds, but decided to drop it out for more attack. I believe my Brunt sat at around 600 dps from lvl ~37 or so to ~50.

I was still ill content with my Brunt because it couldn't handle a direct face off of firepower- it was even weaker then my failed Scavenger in defense, and had to rely on consumables to avoid all the missiles and danger hurling towards it.

Whilst playing a sector on my Brunt, I had accidentally unlocked the Paranoia sub race (it has a racial escape pod) and happened to find a certain "Self Destruct I" in my Brunt's inventory...

So yes, I just made a suicide bomber just then, and called it Ackmed (gratz if you know where it came from~)

My Paranoia Ackmed didn't really come to shine until it hit around lvl ~6, where it was finally able to equip it's sole weapon; "Self Destruct I". To be honest I made this ship perfectly for fun, but realized how horribly effective it was against an entire screen of mobs. They just all died the moment I pressed the button as I safely cruised away in my escape pod, although, some of you might know just how risky it is to be in an escape pod and realize the NEXT screen of enemy's coming in. Yikes.

As to whether this is also a bug, I noticed that I could use consumables on my escape pod, and whatever DoT's, or debuff's on my escape pod suffered when it came back to the spawn, transferred to my newly cloned ship.

Back on topic, I ended up trashing Engineering and Computers, since it appeared SD had a 100% hit chance (are all Special Weapons like this?), and put all my points into Tactical till around lvl 20- that was when I needed to respec around half my points of Tactical into Helm to pick up cloaking and better thrusters to ensure that I had very good mobility/turning and more survivability (you can respec at a Cortex planet).

imo, the thrusters were an extra. Once you hit 50 helm and get the pilot bonus, I realized it applied not only to your ship, but also your escape pod. I had a very smooth get away stacking that with a speed consumable.

Best decision I ever made on this guy, getting Helm that is. Before, I would get shot down before being able to blow up, and a good swarm of around 15 mobs would easily kill me. Now I could go up to them with complete freedom and blow everything to smithereens whilsty moving towards the opposite direction, usually towards a home planet. I'd like to note that any elite ships (bounty hunters, and hezog and the like) took multiple trips of self destruction to eliminate- the first priority with playing this ship was sneaking around the system until I found the warp gate, that way I could easily come back and blow up again without the extreme downtime of flying back to some far away system. Now, at around lvl 40 (yes, I actually managed to level a suicide bomber to lvl 40+), I picked up a single fighter bay to add onto my stealth to increase my survivability even more. At this point, killing elites became increasingly difficult as it took more and more trips of self annihilation (4-8 at times). I frequently went to Scavenger planets when available to find better and better SD's. This was also around the time I discovered the Pulsar Generator. For those who never bothered with the weapon, it creates a giant aoe field where the mouse it located, and does quite abit of DoT, as much as a normal laser. I lucked out with discovering Berserker (increases all damage done at the price of a self DoT, movement speed, and one other negavtive), and stacked each type to the point where, along with my stealth, was doing ridiculous damage.

I also need to clarify that I also started putting whatever "leftover" points I had into command- it's around 115 or so at lvl 60. I didn't touch command for a long time, so I guess my Paranoia Ackmed was a 0 command ship for a long while.

Now, Ackmed trashed the Pulsar Generator for another zerker % component of a different type (they don't stack as far as I know), and is happily blowing himself up. It is a very high risk ship. I also don't know anyone who would be willing to play this kind of ship

My bro, whom I will call Bro A, decided to make a drakk carrier. He scrapped his main weapon just to have even more fighter bay's, and stacked Command and Tactical evenly. He lucked out on some really great stat boosters, and was able to equip really high end thrusters, and so he ended up being this giant, massive ship with high mobility and summoned ~12 fighters. Was a sight to behold. Not to mention his stat boosters were enough to have his shields hit around 2k at lvl 30. I won't describe his leveling process so much as he literally went with nothing but fighters the entire time, and leveled very linearly with very lucky stat boosters.

This same Bro A also made a rather interesting Lithosoid- namely in the fact that it permanently had 1-3 Overload stacks (over power capacity or whatever/red). Stacking insane amounts of armor and upgrading them, he towered over my lvl 30 Scavneger with 3k armor at the same level, and later on scrapped his power load heavy components in favor of even more heavy component armor. Exchanging his stat boosters betwen his Drakk and his Lithosoid, he ended up stacking Tactical/Command, with his stat boosters so insanely high in Structure that he could put on his high end armor. I believe he ended up with 1 heavy, and 5 medium armor plates, excluding his racial plate slot. His weaponry consisted of 3 lasers of all different colors, and for his energy gain, he relied on the energy capacitors (Whatever the +energy on being hit/damaged component was).

Jokingly, we called his ship the "rainbow laser", because it would spew out the 3 0.5sec lasers so fast, it looked like a rainbow~

His gameplay with this ship was what my Scavenger never became. That is, charging into an entire screen of mobs so he was constantly being hit, thus, constantly getting energy and spamming 1-3 so fast with such lovely lasers that everything would just die. It was fast enough that a swarm of 20 missiles coming at me in multiplayer would disappear from this colorful carnage. Now he sits at lvl ~65, still rocking a single heavy powerplant (also stat boost equipped) so that he doesn't ever go past 3 Overload. His ship is still insanely slow (100 I recall).

And finally, my last example, Bro B, who went with an AI subrace shield regen build (Human sub-race that is quite easy to unlock once you progress through enough challenge sectors).

Bro B's AI doesn't have a whole lot of command. Only around 50 or below.
His real strength lies in his shields. At 2k shielding and 50 regen a second, we were able to handle some lvl 50 sectors at lvl 35. Course if more than one elite mob was on a screen, we were done ^^"

If I'm not mistaken, AI's also have a racial virus slot. That became his one and only weapon. Due to reducing attack and defense against lvl 50's so much that they couldn't hit us...

I think you can see how we were able to progress systems countless levels ahead of our own

I'll wrap up with saying this-

I think you need to have a notion of what sort of gameplay you want to have. Truthfully, I didn't have much direction with my Scavenger, so it ended horribly, but my Brunt and Paranoia were very enjoyable. My bro wanting make an all out carrier, an all out tank, and my other bro who wanted to stack Engineering/Command.

What kind of gameplay do you want to go through? I find it much harder to just progress on the spot with no thought, and nor am I saying it's impossible. There's probably many players who just went at it.

Just my two cents.

My very LONG two cents.

I hope I was coherent enough for you to understand :P

[Cyberneticist]

More questions

1. Is it possible to directly influence a planets economy, e.g. by donations? Sometimes, the "Protect planet X"-Missions would take 15 minutes to complete because that's how long it takes for the planet to build a ship.

2. Is it just me or is the "Scavenge" ability of Scavenger planets insanely powerful? You can use it to generate more cargo bays, crew enhancement modules, etc.

[Aelois]

1. I don't know anything about this. I guess the best thing would be to test it yourself on a really low level sector and hope the quest pops up. Comparing once without donating anything, the other not, etc. Perhaps asking the dev! Hehe.

2. Yes, it is "insanely powerful". It appears to be based on the sector's level, so I usually go to the highest level sector I can and search for a scav planet. End up with components far past my own level range, and they're a little tricky to equip.