New Player with Questions

Ask any question about playing and surviving in the Transcendence universe. Newbies welcome!
JohnBWatson
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Korolov missions(and the Battle Arena) will give you more money as your reputation increases. The early missions give you about enough money to keep yourself refueled, but the later ones will pay very well.

The huge payoff from defending the agricultural station is something of an artifact. In earlier versions, the attack was orders of magnitude tougher, and could not be fended off with starting equipment. The monetary reward was compensation for the fact that taking the mission without preparation made death very likely. Drakes even occasionally showed up alongside the attackers! Nowadays it's no harder than an early Korolov mission, but the reward was unchanged.
Derakon
Militia Lieutenant
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The Korolov missions are primarily worth doing because they give you a Mk. V deflector at the end, which is a very solid shield, especially if you use the Hiro optimizer on it. Taking on the pirate capships that come with the later missions is also an easy source of NAMI missiles, plus if you kill enough of 'em you get to fight the eponymic Kronosaur ship. Though that fight can be kind of dangerous...
Ferdinand
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However, there are games when there is only one Korolov station, and that is the guaranteed one in Charon that gets destroyed by the pirates (unless the player can prevent it). The Korolov missions can also give you a wingman (Volkov) that can be helpful in the early systems because he has fairly powerful weapons (dual X-ray laser). Just don't let him find the remains of his wife, he'll be staying with her if he does.
shanejfilomena
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Korolov Missions & the Battle Arena are also your Entry Pass to get your initial Militia Missions.

without these missions / activities , the Militia will not usually let you in.
Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..
JohnBWatson
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Ferdinand wrote:
Sat Apr 29, 2017 9:22 am
However, there are games when there is only one Korolov station, and that is the guaranteed one in Charon that gets destroyed by the pirates (unless the player can prevent it). The Korolov missions can also give you a wingman (Volkov) that can be helpful in the early systems because he has fairly powerful weapons (dual X-ray laser). Just don't let him find the remains of his wife, he'll be staying with her if he does.
At the point where Helena shows up, Volkov's going to be dead weight. The wingman AI is bad enough when the wingman's overleveled enough not to be in danger of dying. Wingmen that upgrade their equipment are a long awaited feature that George has teased many times.

Anyways, the Battle Arena is your guaranteed entry into the Militia if the RNG isn't being generous with Korolov spawns. You'll need a moderately high rank, but given that every pre - Slicer fight is trivial with the right weapons, which are the same weapons you'll be using for everything else, that's not too bad. You might want the extra cash it gives you regardless, if you're having trouble keeping your ship refueled. The way the Militia works, you can either take at least one Korolov mission successfully, or you can work your way up to a respectable Arena rank.
Derakon
Militia Lieutenant
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Speaking of the Arena, if you hadn't realized already, the game does actually track how good of a show you're putting on. Picking fights that the audience wants to see and keeping the fights "interesting" gets you more pay from future fights. As far as I can tell, keeping fights interesting amounts to a) not having much dead time where nobody's taking damage, b) not ending the fight super-quickly, and c) (maybe) taking nontrivial damage yourself. That third item doesn't seem to be essential, and it's obviously riskier.

Generally I find that if I go in with a SmartCannon, a fixed-fire high-damage weapon (like a turbolaser with collimator), and NAMI launcher, I can breeze through the pre-Slicer fights and get a decent amount of cash in the process.
PM
Fleet Admiral
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Spamming missiles (worth five or more credits each) and finishing fights fast works. If you have a shield up, turn them off before the finishing blow helps too.

Taking armor damage helps, but that may be too risky and you may not want to spend money on repairs. Using ammo may be costly (or not if you looted enough from enemies), but at least it helps kill the enemy faster and boost rep in the process.

There is no penalty for extremely fast kill. Katami may hint at that, but that is not true.

One more tip: Never use jumpdrive or other jump item in that arena. That results in a ban. That said, it is highly unlikely to ever happen, given how late such items are obtainable.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
shanejfilomena
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It's early for me here but I don't recall seeing a mention of Autons : Do not use Auton in the Arena.

back when the the Arena was a narrow opening one of my Battle Autons got in during a fight, it was supposed to stay outside, but it almost never obeyed and would either start trouble or get me in fights I wasn't looking to have.

The Auton & Wingman codes have advanced since then, but I still don't use that custom Auton simply because it got me into trouble more often then I usually get in trouble.
Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..
Ferdinand
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And if you take a wingman in the arena (which is very easy now) they will probably get damaged and never leave the arena because they will try to dock to repair, but the arena does not allow that. So they will keep trying forever to repair their armor in the arena.

Order them to wait outside before you enter.
Plant
Anarchist
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In my first play thorugh I didn't get any Korolov stations till Charon, which was promptly destroyed. If it wasn't for the 5000 credits from the agricultural station, I might had even run out of money for fuel, such is the harship of a new player with a small cargohold.

In my second playthough, I had plenty of money due to a large cargohold and I had 3 Korolov stations before Charon, but they stopped giving me missions after the 9th or 10th mission, as they don't want to risk a "legend". I never gotten any MK V deflector reward; I think the most I have ever gotten was 900 credits.

I was able to recieve Volkov as a wingman afterwards though. He is severely underpowered midway in the Ungoverened Territories. Where and when is he meant to find Helena? He is useful enough till I start meeting enemy ships that need WMD weaponry. Jenna is also severely underpowered, more so than Volkov. When does she leave? Do I have to wait till the new Korolov station at Charon is rebuilt before they give me any new missions?

In the first playthrough, I've done the battle arena missions but none of the korolov. perhaps that's why I couldn't recieve any militia HQ missions, but was able to do commonwealth fortress afterwards. In my second playthrough, I just simply chose the ones with the highest reward. Oddly enough Volkov happily assisted me in the Arena with no repercussions at all.

By the way, in other threads I read about befriending Huari. Is that part of an expansion?
erwgd
Miner
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To get the Class V deflector you need to be promoted to the Master rank without skipping straight to Legend. To avoid getting the Legend rank, I find that it helps if you fail one mission and/or avoid killing Charon frigates yourself.

Helena's location is random, but she's found in an EI500 freighter between St. Katherine's Star and Jiang's Star.
Jenna will be willing to leave once you get far enough. When she starts saying "I don't like being so far from home", she'll leave whenever her armor takes any damage.
The Korolov station at Charon never finishes rebuilding; you can't get any escort missions from it.

Befriending the Huari is part of the base game. If you don't kill any Hurin Destroyers or Huari fortresses, and you've killed many Sung citadels and/or fortresses then the Huari will become friendly.
Plant
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So, in order to recieve the deflector reward, I have to not be as effective. That seems odd. I can't be bothered to search every EI500 wreck for Volkov to leave, and it might even be destroyed. I am pretty sure I have visited every station in the ungoverened territories since I was using system ROM I ordered from corporate trading stations. Jenna constantly says "I don't like being so far from home" everytime I pop in and out of the gates and says "can we go somewhere to repair my armor" whenever damaged. Jenna refuses to leave; Ares Phobos, Ventari Cruisers, Xenophobe defender, Ranx dreadnoughts, nothing fazes her as long as she lives even when damaged. I guess I'll leave them both in a random system rather than "completing" their story.
Ferdinand
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Plant wrote:
Mon May 01, 2017 3:26 pm
So, in order to recieve the deflector reward, I have to not be as effective.
Just don't kill to many pirate frigates, if you kill five of them, the Kronosaurus will be sent after you, killing the Kronosaurus will give you legend status, even if you have never done any Korolov mission. So do the missions if they are available to get the Mk V and Volkov as wingman.
Plant wrote:
Mon May 01, 2017 3:26 pm
I can't be bothered to search every EI500 wreck for Volkov to leave
You don't have to, if she is in the system and you have Volkov with you he will spot her long before you do when you get (relatively) close to her wreck. Usually he will have lost his effectiveness by then, so don't bother to much.
Plant wrote:
Mon May 01, 2017 3:26 pm
I am pretty sure I have visited every station in the ungoverened territories since I was using system ROM I ordered from corporate trading stations.
Those roms get less effective the further you get. So do not rely on them past st. Kats. By then you can get an auton that will find the stations for you, it is reliable, but can fall victim to enemy fire. Better use those trading posts to get something better than roms.
Plant
Anarchist
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I had already revieved Volkov. The Mk V is the mystery. It sounds like I aren't meant to kill pirate frigates, but if I don't, either I die, or the freighters die. As for Volkov, I gave up on keeping him alive halfway through the outer realm. He was with me every step of the way till then, destroying and visiting virtually every station. On the other hand, Jenna finally given up, and decided to go home via warpgate. I had to shoot at her in order to do so. Apparently being damaged by Phobos isn't scary enough. What do you mean by system ROMs getting less effective? I still explore the system afterwards for enemy bases, and as of yet I never had discovered any additional friendly bases.
Derakon
Militia Lieutenant
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Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 2:53 am

Plant wrote:
Mon May 01, 2017 7:40 pm
I had already revieved Volkov. The Mk V is the mystery. It sounds like I aren't meant to kill pirate frigates, but if I don't, either I die, or the freighters die. As for Volkov, I gave up on keeping him alive halfway through the outer realm. He was with me every step of the way till then, destroying and visiting virtually every station. On the other hand, Jenna finally given up, and decided to go home via warpgate. I had to shoot at her in order to do so. Apparently being damaged by Phobos isn't scary enough. What do you mean by system ROMs getting less effective? I still explore the system afterwards for enemy bases, and as of yet I never had discovered any additional friendly bases.
The Charon frigates in Korolov missions mostly aren't all that aggressive, so unless they decide to position themselves close to the freighter's path, you can safely ignore them. They mostly just send their escorts after you.

That said, it's entirely possible to achieve Master rank while killing every frigate you see, if you get reasonably lucky with the freighter types you get to escort.

System ROMs in the start of the game map every station in the system (friendly and enemy), but they gradually start mapping fewer enemy stations as you get further along. Military ROMs will always map every enemy station in the system.
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