Heliotropes too powerful in the early game

[Lord Trogg]

I've been noticing that I've been getting heliotropes really early, way before I can take on them if I've had insane luck with loot. In my recent game I had a fairly decent setup of a class III shield, omni turbo with collimator, longbolt missiles, 3 powered plates and a heavy titanium plaet and a tritium speed upgrade on my freighter. So I'm flying to an asteroid field and suddenly a bunch of red dots appear on my scanners and then next thing I know, my shield has been destroyed by blinder cannons, my main screen is fizzling and then I blow up .

There is no way I can get protection from these attacks because groups of heliotrope gunships will find me right in the middle of space when I'm far from any friendly stations or ships. They are too fast to be outrun and too powerful to be outfought and I can only use sustain so many times to get so far. I barely managed to survive one strike by sustaining and just barely getting to a nearby nomad which kindly destroyed them, only to get shot down by more heliotropes five minutes later while traveling to a planet .

I'm thinking that they should be changed to only appear later in the game, they are still worthy opponents later on in the game way beyond St. K's, or perhaps their gunships could have their firepower decreased. Or perhaps I'm missing something entirely here and there is a viable way to atleast save yourself from these monsters.

[OddBob]

How early was this? Sometimes you get hard enemies out of depth (like slavers near Rigel) , I think this is an intended and enjoyable part of Transcendence (following it's roguelike roots).

I think they're just right, personally - the gunships are hard on your shields but the blinder can't hurt your armor - the only armor damaging weapon they have is a turbolaser. A PBW, or Shuriken makes short work of them, I think they are resistant to laser though because of the solar armor (but still, a collimated omni turbo? You can defeat Charon with one of those).
The Sunflare cannon IS dangerous, but thankfully it comes on slow destroyers and stationary bases, both easy to avoid (in a reasonably empty freighter you can mostly stay away form the front of the destroyer - get in close and beat on it) - plus the heliotrope fuel loot is more than worth the risk.

[Fossaman]

Yep. I love encountering difficult ships early on. Makes me feel like I'm really fleeing for my life. Rarely will you encounter anything that can simply flyswat you without the chance to fight back, and if you do, it's probably because you haven't encountered that ship type before.

[Lord Trogg]

Yes this was just after Rigel, I suppose I just had bad luck and my armour was laughable in the rear (heavy titanium). I just don't like how the blinder cannons and destroy shields so easily, a class III deflector is usually good till past St. K's if a yoroi 100 can't be found. I'll just be much more cautious in my next game.

slavers near Rigel

As in before or after Rigel? That would be insane if they happened before.

[Fossaman]

I've probably seen them before at least once; play enough games and you can see anything. I know I've seen them in or before charon, though.

[Lord Trogg]

My god it just happened, in the system right after Rigel I came accross a sung camp.

[Ttech]

St. Catherine, I came across two slave camps.

And then I couldn't dock at the Station, beacuse the stupid ships don't move. I waited for a half-hour, I was busy using my latop while I was waiting and still no ships moved. though I did have to keep refulling at the fuel station.

[F50]

bring an enemy fleet in from the outer ring, if a shot hits the station, all other ships will leave dock

[Frits]

No targetting ROM leads to all kinds of problems early on...
First game of 0.98d i was killed by marauding slavers, 4 of them, early game, guess it happens. Still i know i made mistakes. I wasn't really concentrated cos i felt i was well equipped. The 2nd mistake was i didn't break but kept going full speed.
Heliotropes you've got to respect, lord trogg would've survived using a target ROM with the omni-laser but often you won't get one that soon. My guess is he'd been better off using a kinetic weapon like the ak Partisan. Finally, fighting when blinded requires practice!

[Salvagebot 1.0]

I love it. You think you're untouchable with the Solon Shield and a couple of decent weapons then WHAM! you're blinded by a 'Trope, then seconds later a bunch of Vikings jump you.

That's the way it oughtta be.

[Ttech]

[F50]

that should happen in the late game too (dreads do it for a while but then you're immune to them).

[Salvagebot 1.0]

By the late game you're just looking for the one of three things that will beat the Iocrym anyway.

[F50]

and the IM90, and longhuzus, and an Ion reflect crystal if you don't have one and can't order one

[Cardinal]

Heliotropes are pussies. The little guys are fragile and can't hurt your armour, and the big guys and bases have meaty, but slow and avoidable weapons.

A cautious player should not experience any difficulty from them. If the shields go down, use sustain. I don't think they have ever contributed to my demise (unlike, say, nomads...)