Help me spend my cash

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Kyon
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Hi there, first time poster.

I've only played a couple of times yet, and only once before made it to St. K's. Now I'm in a game (1.01, unmodded) that so far went really well, with lots of stations and missions in the early systems, and lots of cash from black market deals. Three systems past St. K's I'm facing some problems though. I destroyed a Luminous base, but seem to be completely unable to penetrate the shields of their drones (or hit them with the MAG, if that's what did it for the base) and have to fight them by running like a little girl to a friendly station, there's a Kobol base in an asteroid field I can't hit from afar with the howitzer and where I get torn to shreds by its entourage if I storm in, and I'm not even trying to fight the Ventari anymore. Which might all be due to my abysmal flying and shooting skills, but I'd like to blame my equipment instead, it's healthier for the soul. So I'd like some help upgrading.

Current setup:
Wolfen with 500 MW reactor
Katana star cannon +Fast
Mark III howitzer
MAG launcher +20%
Plasma Shield Generator +30%
4x Carbide Carapace +EMP-immune
Smuggler's cargo hold
Patch Spider
Longreach I autocannon

Stored in mules:
3x P450 Hexphase armor
1x Dwarg holochroal armor
8 barrels of monopole dust, plenty of other barrels I haven't checked out yet

The (in my estimation) most interesting stuff I see for sale (got 160k cash, plus whatever I get from selling old equipment, and if pressed I could backtrack and hit Ferian mines I left alone):
Mark V howitzer
Rasiermesser launcher
Akan 600
Mark II Omsk deflector
4x Heavy Omsk armor
4x V300 powered armor
4x Advanced cerralloy armor

I've been feeding loot to the Rasiermesser research lab, but nothing came of it yet. I had to order my Targeting ROM from an outpost, and there's one or two more I could still order from. Any suggestions what would help? Apart from flying lessons.
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digdug
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Hi Kyon,
first of all,
welcome to Transcendence Forums! :D

so, you have a very nice end-game setup there. :)
so, what i can see is that you are still using mag launchers, if you have plenty of ammo, ok, keep it, otherwise, you should think about replacing it with a better launcher (i like Nami heavy launchers)

remove the cargo hold, and order a high-speed howitzer loader to increase the firerate of your howitzer :D
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I agree with Digdug, your equipment is actually a very nice set, way better than what I usually try to slide through with at three systems past st K's. If you can, try to get your hands on a fusionfire howitzer to replace your class III, and an Ares launcher easily beats the NAMI heavy, in my opinion. Other than that and what Digdug pointed out, what you've got is more than enough to last you until you get your final equipment.

The Luminous can be tricky, their assembler stations will create drones with shields immune to the damage type you are using to kill them; you need to cycle through different types of damage to defeat swarms of them.

As for the Ventari, they're just plain tough. I normally leave them alone when I play, anyway.
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Curudan wrote: As for the Ventari, they're just plain tough. I normally leave them alone when I play, anyway.
I wish I could leave them alone, but they're soooooooo crunchy and full of goodies......
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Kyon
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Thanks for the replies. Though you do make it sound like I can't blame my equipment. Damn.
digdug wrote:so, what i can see is that you are still using mag launchers, if you have plenty of ammo, ok, keep it, otherwise, you should think about replacing it with a better launcher (i like Nami heavy launchers)
I still have a lot of MAG ammo, and I'm happy with the way clusters can take out whole swarms of small enemies fast, but I'm getting the impression it's just not good enough against single strong opponents, so yeah, I'll upgrade there.
remove the cargo hold, and order a high-speed howitzer loader to increase the firerate of your howitzer :D
I'm reluctant to remove the cargo hold since I got the impression I have to find and sell a huge amount of loot to cover my fuel costs. Going back to a 20t cargo hold would mean more trips, which again require more fuel ...

How exactly does fuel consumption work? The higher the power usage of my equipment, the more fuel is consumed? So keeping the same equipment while upgrading the reactor lowers fuel consumption? Do weapons etc. consume power only when they're being fired, or all the time? Same for other equipment, does the Patch Spider constantly eat 10MW or only when it's actually repairing armor?
Curudan wrote:The Luminous can be tricky, their assembler stations will create drones with shields immune to the damage type you are using to kill them; you need to cycle through different types of damage to defeat swarms of them.

As for the Ventari, they're just plain tough. I normally leave them alone when I play, anyway.
Okay, so I'll definitely need some alternative to the Katana, those drones are getting on my nerves. I've found I can win against Ventari destroyers, but it hardly seems worth it with the cost in lost equipment. And oh, the sheer annoyance.

I tried replacing the Carbide Carapace with other armors (P450 Hexphase, Dwarg Holochroal, Worldship plates) but it tells me they're too heavy for my ship's hull. Some of them are lower level than the Carapace, and I thought the Wolfen could use all armors. What's the problem there?

Also, I've seen mention here of stackable upgrades, and weapons with big boni, but which upgrades do stack? I've wasted a lot of stuff on "the enhancement has no effect" messages.
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Kyon wrote: How exactly does fuel consumption work? The higher the power usage of my equipment, the more fuel is consumed? So keeping the same equipment while upgrading the reactor lowers fuel consumption? Do weapons etc. consume power only when they're being fired, or all the time? Same for other equipment, does the Patch Spider constantly eat 10MW or only when it's actually repairing armor?
Yes to your first three questions; the bar on top of your reactor display shows your current power use, the fuller it is, the more fuel you use, and vice versa.

Weapons consume full power when they are fired, and a small percentage of that when they are idle. Shields consume full power when they are recharging, and a small percentage of that when they are not. Miscellaneous devices, such as the autocannon and speedloader, always draw full power. I don't know about the patch spider.

You can save a lot of fuel and money if you turn off your greedier devices while going back and forth selling equipment.
Kyon wrote:I tried replacing the Carbide Carapace with other armors (P450 Hexphase, Dwarg Holochroal, Worldship plates) but it tells me they're too heavy for my ship's hull. Some of them are lower level than the Carapace, and I thought the Wolfen could use all armors. What's the problem there?
The Wolfen can use up to 10 Kg armor segments, the Sapphire can use 6 Kg, and the freighter 20 Kg.
Kyon wrote:Also, I've seen mention here of stackable upgrades, and weapons with big boni, but which upgrades do stack? I've wasted a lot of stuff on "the enhancement has no effect" messages.
Weapons can be enhanced with +fast and +xx%. +xx% upgrades will stack with each other, and you can get those from the purple weapon enhancers in shops; "ion power capacitor", "tritium injector" etc. All "energyweapons" can also be enhanced +xx% with longzhu spheres.

Shields can be enhanced with ROMs, Mnemonic cubes, and field crystals, again, the only effects that stack are +xx%. Which are gained from a few field crystals, and longzhu spheres, some early ROMs, and at least one mnemonic cubes. I don't know if the effect from the Roms and cubes will stack, though.

None of the armor effects will stack with each other. Most other devices can also be enhanced in a few ways, but none of those effects stack. I'd suggest saving your longzhu spheres for your endgame equipment, regardless.
Kyon wrote:I'm reluctant to remove the cargo hold since I got the impression I have to find and sell a huge amount of loot to cover my fuel costs. Going back to a 20t cargo hold would mean more trips, which again require more fuel ...
It's important to sell the right stuff to the right shops, there are even several cases where you can buy stuff from one station and sell to another to make a tremendous amount of money. Just make sure you sell to Thor's and not those cheapskate Adventurer's Outfitters.

There's a complete station price guide on the wiki, here.
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Well welcome to the forums! This community is quite friendly we have all sorts of ways to get in touch and communicate, if you
want you can always talk on the Transcendence Chat if you want live discussion as well. :)
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Kyon
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I was actually six systems past St. K's, not three. I had only counted the star gates in Elysium.
Curudan wrote:You can save a lot of fuel and money if you turn off your greedier devices while going back and forth selling equipment.
And I only just figured out how to do that. I thought I'd have to actually remove equipment at stations. Maybe I should read the Readme before I start playing ... Anyway, turning off the shield during mostly safe trips really seems to help. All the rest of the equipment is neglectable by comparison.
Weapons can be enhanced with +fast and +xx%. +xx% upgrades will stack with each other, and you can get those from the purple weapon enhancers in shops; "ion power capacitor", "tritium injector" etc. All "energyweapons" can also be enhanced +xx% with longzhu spheres.

Shields can be enhanced with ROMs, Mnemonic cubes, and field crystals, again, the only effects that stack are +xx%. Which are gained from a few field crystals, and longzhu spheres, some early ROMs, and at least one mnemonic cubes. I don't know if the effect from the Roms and cubes will stack, though.

None of the armor effects will stack with each other. Most other devices can also be enhanced in a few ways, but none of those effects stack. I'd suggest saving your longzhu spheres for your endgame equipment, regardless.
So are the +Fast upgrades really worth it? At which point become accumulated +xx% upgrades better, if it's possible to give a general answer.

I just completed the Huari storyline and got the Archcannon, which requires longzhu spheres as ammunition. Guess it's not worth it to use them this way then?
It's important to sell the right stuff to the right shops, there are even several cases where you can buy stuff from one station and sell to another to make a tremendous amount of money. Just make sure you sell to Thor's and not those cheapskate Adventurer's Outfitters.

There's a complete station price guide on the wiki, here.
Yeah, it helped me a lot in the beginning to for example buy at ice farms and sell at corporate enclaves. Though it seemed that all the legal trading is outclassed by dealing with illegal goods and by selling military equipment to the black market, without there being any real risk to it. The Huari even loved me even though in some cases I only helped slaves change owners ...

By now I find I'd really need rin, but so far I've only come across Taikon and Teraton stations, no ringer exchanges, so I'm not getting good prices. And of course I'm not sure which items are ringer valuables. Just the ones for which it says so in the in-game description?
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How could you encounter a luminous station 3 systems after st.k's?
I think you probably mean something like Jiang's or Point Juno.
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Curudan
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Kyon wrote:So are the +Fast upgrades really worth it? At which point become accumulated +xx% upgrades better, if it's possible to give a general answer.

I just completed the Huari storyline and got the Archcannon, which requires longzhu spheres as ammunition. Guess it's not worth it to use them this way then?
I don't know the exact point, but I think it's around 30-50 percent. I mostly just use the +fast enhancement on weapons I don't plan on enhancing otherwise. And yeah, It's not really worth wasting the spheres on the Qianlong in normal play.
Kyon wrote:By now I find I'd really need rin, but so far I've only come across Taikon and Teraton stations, no ringer exchanges, so I'm not getting good prices. And of course I'm not sure which items are ringer valuables. Just the ones for which it says so in the in-game description?
Pretty much. All the ringer valuable items are small gemstones that mention Ringers in the description.

You can make a decent amount of credits off from Teratons by selling them Soul and Alien items. Alien items aren't particularly rare in the credit economy at that level range, and the Teratons will pay the credit value for them. Which is five times their value in rins. Just make sure you identify the alien devices first. Soul items are harder to find, CDM archives, Abassid thanograms, cadavers, and deathcubes.

And if you've got more than one Teraton lying around, it's easy enough to destroy one station and sell everything from it to the other station. They have a "survival of the fittest" worldview, and believe that if you were able to destroy the other station, they deserved it.

The stations themselves aren't very hard to destroy. They have some nasty turrets, but all you need to do is outrange the station and turrets with a howitzer.
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+fast is equivalent to +25% damage if the internal firerate is a multiple of 5. Most weapons are, or are slow enough that the benefit is between 20% and 25%. The Hanzo notably does not benefit at all, nor does the ares lightning turret, and the advanced tritium cannon benefits minimally because of the overheating problem. The omni turbolaser is the other exception, benefitting by about 14%. The turbolaser benefits at exactly 20%. Everything else I think the optimizer is better than +20% but never better than +25%.
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Kyon
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Wolfy wrote:How could you encounter a luminous station 3 systems after st.k's?
I think you probably mean something like Jiang's or Point Juno.
Yeah, like I said, it was actually about six systems past St. K's.
Curudan wrote:Just make sure you identify the alien devices first.
How do I do that? I think I once installed an alien device and its description changed (though I might have imagined that), but usually it still doesn't tell me what it is.
And if you've got more than one Teraton lying around, it's easy enough to destroy one station and sell everything from it to the other station. They have a "survival of the fittest" worldview, and believe that if you were able to destroy the other station, they deserved it.
I got two Teraton stations in the system, and after what happened when I volunteered for an experiment on one of them, I was already strongly considering blasting them out of the sky. My life for science, indeed.
Atarlost wrote:+fast is equivalent to +25% damage if the internal firerate is a multiple of 5. Most weapons are, or are slow enough that the benefit is between 20% and 25%. The Hanzo notably does not benefit at all, nor does the ares lightning turret, and the advanced tritium cannon benefits minimally because of the overheating problem. The omni turbolaser is the other exception, benefitting by about 14%. The turbolaser benefits at exactly 20%. Everything else I think the optimizer is better than +20% but never better than +25%.
Thanks, that makes it clear.

Meanwhile, I've been avoiding the Ventari where I can, but even when fighting say the Rogue Fleet, my patch spiders get damaged, and it doesn't seem like anyone can repair them. Without the patch spiders, if my armor gets too damaged, it can't be repaired. Not good. So what exactly causes the equipment damage, and how do I prevent it? I have only one barrel of dyon dust and wanted to save it for later, not that one alone would help much, I guess. I'm still using the Carbide Carapace +EMP-immune, and am for now considering backtracking and buying up armor patches etc. in case I lose every spider.
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Kyon wrote: Meanwhile, I've been avoiding the Ventari where I can, but even when fighting say the Rogue Fleet, my patch spiders get damaged, and it doesn't seem like anyone can repair them. Without the patch spiders, if my armor gets too damaged, it can't be repaired. Not good. So what exactly causes the equipment damage, and how do I prevent it? I have only one barrel of dyon dust and wanted to save it for later, not that one alone would help much, I guess. I'm still using the Carbide Carapace +EMP-immune, and am for now considering backtracking and buying up armor patches etc. in case I lose every spider.
Patch spiders can be damaged by any weapon that hits your ship because they are external devices. It is recommended to uninstall them while your fighting, otherwise you'll go through them like crazy.
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Kyon wrote: How do I do that? I think I once installed an alien device and its description changed (though I might have imagined that), but usually it still doesn't tell me what it is.
An unidentified alien device will say "a <rand> alien device", an identified alien device will have any other name. The only current way to identify a device is to equip it and use it in some way. Installed alien devices might have to be 'u'sed to be identified. Shields should auto identify.
Kyon
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Hmm, I took out one Teraton station, but it didn't yield a lot of loot. I had been hoping I could gather everything it had for sale. And the turrets being functional again when I swooped in after I thought I had destroyed them all with the Howitzer first was a nasty surprise. I'm guessing that Chrysalis ship I saw in between had something to do with either.

Otherwise, it was a good day. I found a veritable elephant graveyard of Ventari destroyers next to a Rogue Fleet station. And I happened upon a Ranx dreadnought. I took their lives, their women, and their shiny full set of octocarbide armor. Which brings me to my next question, what exactly do the armor +xx% boni against the various damage types mean? I'm guessing +100% means the armor only takes half damage from that type?

Edit: Oh, more questions.

Is there a way to find out which rank I have in the various organizations except reaching a new one and them telling me? Something like the Korolev record for Commonwealth and Black Market? When I get told that there aren't any missions available, is it because my rank is too high or too low? Can it be both?

I've completely ignored the Sisters of Domina throughout the game, never tithed. Am I missing out on anything here, story-wise?
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