Pacifist Run! (1.2+CC)

[Song]

Back in 2010 or 11 or so, I finished the game without doing any damage (except shield-damage) to an enemy ship. I used an EMP gun and mined a lot, and used autons for everything else. A few bugs later, and I was able to finish the game without hurting an enemy ship. Those bugs were later fixed, rendering pacifist runs impossible (unless you modded the game).

However, with corporate command we can now upgrade autons, making them considerably stronger tools. And I'd like to try doing another pacifist run....but this time, I'd like to do it for real. No mining, no EMP, no weapons at all. Just autons, and possibly Domina powers if I absolutely have to use them.

The problem then is, how should I go about this? I'd like some advice from others in the community on tricks I might be able to use to make this incredibly hard task easier. I'd make this a succession/challenge thing, but I'd likely not get any takers, so for now at least it's a solo effort that I'd like some community help and advice with.


Here's what I've got so far:

-No mods. I'll be running with 1.2+CC, assuming the game doesn't auto-update at some point. Save-scumming is A-OK because otherwise this is going to take all year, so when I come to do this I'll be backing up my saves every time I gate.

-I'm using the Constellation Freighter, and I've sold the starting auton bay to get me going.

-My endgame setup is currently planned to use ICX/Longreach to defeat the Q-sphere, a gem of sacrifice to wipe out the ICS' health, and an auton with an Absolution Cannon. That auton needs to be rigged to survive the GoS or be deployed after it's used.

-I plan to use offensive Domina powers once at most: To kill the Aquila class cruisers hunting the CSC Antarctica. If anyone can work out a way to kill them without using Shatter, I'd love to hear it....by default I don't think autons are tough enough, but maybe there's something I could work towards for a setup?


This is going to be hard. Possibly the hardest thing it is possible to do in the game right now without mods. If anyone who's played the game a lot has any specialist advice or tricks that might make this easier, I'd love to hear it.

Updates:
Part 1: Starting Out

Part 2: To Eridani

Part 3: Return of the Auton Bay

Part 4: Good thing I Keep Backups (This part of the playthrough was savescummed out of existence because of a nasty bug cropping up)

[PM]

Frequency for auton bay is veryrare. Most reliable way of getting one for a non-Constellation start is a trading post order.

The bay cannot equip default autons with devices that use 10 MW or more. (Undefined powerUse defaults to 10 MW.) Yes, this means if you remove the particle beam weapon or EMP cannon from the 1M autons, you cannot put their weapons back on them!

[FourFire]

I did some testing early on, and what PM says is true, no shields better than the Cyclotron, no weapons better than the strong rasiermesser laser.
You can however put any armor below 10 tons on them.
Enhanced Rasiermesser Power Armor goes a long way...

You can however install multiple weapons on Autons and they will switch fired weapons sometimes.

[PM]

Lumiere autons have much higher power limits. Sentinel can go up to 60 MW, and the battle auton 100 MW. They can be ordered up to ten per Trading Post order.

[Song]

Lumiere autons have much higher power limits. Sentinel can go up to 60 MW, and the battle auton 100 MW. They can be ordered up to ten per Trading Post order.

So in short, I'm using regular autons for chaff and distraction value + adding DPS to station kills, and using Lumiere drones to actually kill things in the lategame. I can probably manage that, assuming things work out well with the RNG.

[Song]

Part 1: Starting Out

I began in Tau Ceti with the Constellation Freighter, a small amount of money, and a terrible setup. I sold my starting gear (Auton bay and Moskva 11), and bought a few extra autons. I killed all the stations in the sector, did a bunch of missions, and made Journeyman in the Korolov Corporation. Not a bad start. There is a Tinker here, which proves useful later in the run...I commit the enhanced solar armor recipe to my missions log, since that kind of armor is damned handy. Trading here netted me enough credits for a proper auton swarm, a propulsion upgrade, plus a mule I can't really get rid of. I'll use it for carrying loose stuff around until it gets killed (a bug in 1.2 makes mules think they can attack things, so they don't hold back when you order a swarm to attack). The first chimera mission netted me an intact seeker-cannon that appears to have a colony of gnomes trapped inside. When/if I get my auton bay back, I'll probably fit it to an auton if I can. It's not a *brilliant* gun, but it's low power and tracks targets nicely, making it worth a shot. To reduce friendly-fire damage to my ship, I swap out my armor for plasteel plates, and fit a Solon.

The second system is rather boring, but I manage a few station kills and some more looting. A couple of autosentinels (which die later on, because they suck) I find some palladium here in a smashed outlaw mine.....and collect it, because that's needed for the solar armor. I find a Nova 100 in this sector. I annoy the hell out of the black market in this system.

The third system is a big one, with lots of enemy stations, a few friendlies....including a Korolov. I trade some medicine around, kill a few stations and found some whatsit glass. I've now got enough materials for 5 segments of enhanced solar armor from the tinkers back in Tau Ceti, so I go through some more Korolov missions quickly so I can haul some scrap and stuff back with me. My autons make short work of missions, and take out enough frigates to bring in the Kronosaurus.....which is promptly EMP'd by my lone 1M/i and swarmed. The Mule looks sternly at the distressed frigate, wishing it had guns. A few minutes later, and I've killed the pride of the charon fleet without firing a gun, and without being hit. I find a cargo hold expansion in this system, which I decide to use. Smuggling isn't really an option given I had to blow up a molotok earlier (and lack an ID anyway) and from experience, my autons are very rarely going to avoid annoying BM stations (curse you unshielded defenders!).

As I head to go back to Tau Ceti for my new armor, I run into another frigate. Volkov demonstrates the targeting and flying ability of a blind man tied to an anvil, flying in circles around the (again, EMP'd) frigate firing a single shot per orbit, which misses wildly every time. The autons do the trick though.

Back in Tau Ceti, I drop by the Tinkers and make those solar armor segments, swapping my armor out and selling the spare segment. I replace my shield with a monopole, and fit the Nova-100 and cargo expansion I found earlier.

I save the game for a backup here, and note my statistics:

Code: Select all

THE_SHRIKE

Adventure	Domina & Oracus I: The Stars of the Pilgrim
Corporate privateer rank	Freelancer
Game	Registered
Genome	Human female
Korolov rank	Legend
Money (credits)	21,905
Score	16,353
Ship class	Constellation-class freighter
Time played	1 hour and 18 minutes
Version	1.2

ACHIEVEMENTS & REGRETS

Discovered the Tau Ceti anomaly	
Joined by Volkov	

COMBAT

Enemy ships destroyed	276
Enemy stations destroyed	33
Friendly ships destroyed	4

COMMERCE

Profit on arms	26,775
Profit on goods and materials	13,739
Profit on luxury goods	594

CONDUCTS

Honored permadeath	
Never destroyed friendly stations	
Never invoked powers of Domina	

ENEMY SHIPS DESTROYED

pirate ship Kronosaurus	1
Charon frigate	4
Earthzone-class chimera	2
200A defender auton	1
Viking-class gunship	29
Hornet-class chimera	11
Corsair II-class gunship	10
Hammerhead II-class gunship	2
Borer II-class gunship	3
Himal interceptor	8
Hornet-class battlepod	35
Borer-class gunship	14
Earthzone-class armed shuttle	5
Hammerhead-class gunship	10
Corsair-class gunship	108
Zulu-class gunship	7
TA3-class sentinel	8
Centauri raider	18

ENEMY STATIONS DESTROYED

outlaw palladium mine	1
Abbasid outpost	1
Anarchist gathering	2
Anarchist settlement	1
Himal refuge	4
outlaw camp	1
outlaw titanium mine	9
Anarchist habitat	4
Centauri warlord camp	3
Charon Pirates cache	6
Charon Pirates outpost	1

EXPLORATION

Systems visited	3
Never reached Rigel Aurelius	
Never reached St. Katharine's Star	
Never reached Jiang's Star	
Never reached Point Juno	
Never reached Heretic	
Never reached the Galactic Core	

EXTENSIONS

Corporate Command	

FRIENDLY SHIPS DESTROYED

Molotok bounty hunter	1
AutoSentinel®	2
Ronin/A-class gunship	1

ITEMS INSTALLED

NAMI auton bay	
Nova-100 reactor	
plasteel armor	
solar armor	
monopole deflector screen	
Moskva 11 light turret	
Solon shield generator	
tritium propulsion upgrade	
cargo hold expansion	
heavy titanium armor	
Cyclotron S10 deflector	

MISSIONS & ACTIVITIES

Corporate privateer missions	3
Korolov escort missions	9
Mining colony missions	1
Money earned on missions	9,800

To be continued in the next thrilling possibly somewhat interesting episode of...this thread!

[PM]

Suggestion: Try to get the Qianlong Archcannon. Uses only 10 MW, and you can charge it yourself before you feed it to your Luminere auton.

[durbanator]

you can buy the lumiere autons in the trading post? wow i didnt know that! this would make things a bit interesting .

[PM]

And you can order up to ten Luminere autons per trading post, instead of only one of the standard types. Of course, it requires a lot of cash, but I am sure Shrike will find a way.

[Song]

Suggestion: Try to get the Qianlong Archcannon. Uses only 10 MW, and you can charge it yourself before you feed it to your Luminere auton.

Nice idea! I'm not as optimistic about cash grinding....the mid-late game has more expenses and fewer opportunities than the early-game. But I can do my best. I have an idea worked out to try to deal with Ferians.....which would certainly help.

I'm not sure how I'd kill a dragon with autons though.....from memory, they're immune to EMP which makes them a lot harder. They're also highly resistant to lasers, so stock autons aren't so useful. I can't use gems of contrition because those freeze autons as well. I could chuck an ion disruptor on a luminiere auton to knock out devices, but that's an 80MW weapon....it's pushing things a bit. The earth slaver swarm would be tricky as well. As for the wind slavers.....I could probably swap out my autons to use kinetic and blast weapons to deal with them.


I'm planning to continue the run today.....I'll be taking my ship through to Rigel, then heading back towards Eridani to grind for equipment and cash....then I'll stop in Rigel and decide whether to go for the Corporate Command or the D&O set of systems between Rigel and St. K's. I'll have to do both eventually, but which one I do first may end up being important.


Edit: Another idea for the lategame, once I've got the auton bay back...I'm thinking I should use a train of Mules in the previous system to hold several sets of equipment for my combat autons, so I can have several setups, spare gear, and the like...without the mules joining in the combat and getting blown up. Thoughts?

[Atarlost]

You can get the option with an unescorted dragon slaver and device disrupt spam it if you can get battle autons. It's just a matter of looking through the XML, same as Teraton use.

I'd see if you can fit a PK-25 or Moskva 33 on a CH auton. That'll let you station bust for a while, just manually target the turrets first once outlaw miners start spawning with them. Pirates and Marauders just take a Solon. Sung and Dwarg are harder with good guns on the station and cyberdecks. See if you can get an auton to stand off with a flenser against sung and if it works backtrack once you have howitzer armed Lumiere autons to bust up the dwarg fortresses.

[PM]

Dragon Slaver is easy - let the numerous Hurin destroyers kill it. Dragon Slaver is set to seek and destroy you. Sit inside a building, and while the Dragon Slaver tries to figure out how to kill you, the Hurin will do your dirty work.

If you need to freeze enemies, use scramble cubes while your autons are off the screen. After you scramble, bring in your autons.

[Song]

Part 2: To Eridani (And then some more stuff)

Moving back through the systems I'd been through before, I clean up on outlaw mines I didn't touch earlier, and notice I made some mistakes in my first write-up. Nothing important: i just mixed systems around a little by accident. I manage to stock up on a few illegal items from the smashed stations, and empty out a medical station. With my solar armor, fuel isn't an issue, but I'm looting it anyway for later (and for ice farms, if I find any). Meeting up with Anton, I send him on ahead and pop through to Rigel.

In Rigel, I get my hands on a black market ID, save the game, and backup the copy. If things go horrendously wrong, I'll revert to it. Now then...I'm going to see about some profit. Taking on a curator's vault damages a few autons...I'll need to fix them some time.

Heading into Lacaille, I find an agricultural colony. After selling them some almost certainly fake antiques, I offer to help them against the local pirates. Turns out autons are quite good at this sort of work. Stray shots nearly kill the station, but it's a 5000cr windfall all the same.

Cairn brings multiple useful stations: a mine full of ceralox, an ice farm and a medical station. I sell a bunch of stuff at a hotel. I also follow an outlaw convoy to a base way off in the outer system, gaining a bunch of drugs and some nice ores for my troubles.

Groombridge has a metropolis. When I come to sell all my illegals, that will be very useful indeed.

Eridani goes smoothly. Arco vaugn is not very good against an auton swarm. I'll edit the rest of this update later once I've rested my arm a bit.

I then buy up all the drugs I can find in the areas I've been to so far. Because I've aggro'd a BM, this is a bit lower than it could be.

For the extra cash, I wrangle my autons (and volkov) into the arena and proceed to kick ass, pacifist style. I lose my 1M/i to Volkov's......enthusiastic....style of aiming. This is a major blow, but it's not the end of the world....I should be able to replace it if I get lucky, and I've got enough firepower to get by on the rest of the time. And the arena did go VERY well.

I save the game for a backup, and note my score:

Code: Select all

THE_SHRIKE

Adventure	Domina & Oracus I: The Stars of the Pilgrim
Black Market rank	Smuggler
Corporate privateer rank	Freelancer
Game	Registered
Genome	Human female
Korolov rank	Legend
Money (credits)	43,581
Score	34,975
Ship class	Constellation-class freighter
Time played	2 hours and 38 minutes
Version	1.2

ACHIEVEMENTS & REGRETS

Became Legendary Hero of the Arena	
Discovered the Tau Ceti anomaly	
Joined by Volkov	
Liberated Raisu station	
Rescued Mr. Katami from the Black Market	

COMBAT

Enemy ships destroyed	534
Enemy stations destroyed	82
Friendly ships destroyed	7

COMMERCE

Profit on arms	34,085
Profit on goods and materials	25,472
Profit on luxury goods	7,817

CONDUCTS

Honored permadeath	
Never destroyed friendly stations	
Never invoked powers of Domina	

ENEMY SHIPS DESTROYED

The Slicer	1
Manticore-class heavy gunship	2
pirate ship Kronosaurus	1
Charon frigate	4
Wolfen-class gunship	3
Ronin/C-class gunship	1
EI200-class freighter	1
Earthzone-class chimera	2
heavy IAV	3
Arco Vaughn	1
EI500-class freighter	1
200A defender auton	1
Likho-class heavy gunship	2
Urak sentinel	4
Oromo-class gunship	2
T31-class armed transport	4
Viking-class gunship	39
Centauri heavy raider	1
EI100-class freighter	3
Hornet-class chimera	11
Corsair II-class gunship	11
Hammerhead II-class gunship	3
Ronin/A-class gunship	7
Borer II-class gunship	9
Zulu II-class gunship	8
Himal interceptor	20
medium IAV	1
Hornet-class battlepod	63
Borer-class gunship	31
Earthzone-class armed shuttle	12
Hammerhead-class gunship	18
Corsair-class gunship	127
light IAV	4
Zulu-class gunship	26
Sirin 3A-class gunship	6
TA3-class sentinel	17
Centauri raider	84

ENEMY STATIONS DESTROYED

Arco Vaughn's container habitat	1
Curators vault	1
outlaw haven	1
outlaw palladium mine	3
Abbasid outpost	2
Anarchist gathering	14
Anarchist settlement	1
Centauri warlord stronghold	2
Charon Pirates outpost	2
Himal refuge	6
outlaw base	3
outlaw camp	2
outlaw titanium mine	19
Urak outpost	1
Anarchist habitat	4
Centauri warlord camp	11
Charon Pirates cache	7
Curators outpost	2

EXPLORATION

Systems visited	9
Never reached St. Katharine's Star	
Never reached Jiang's Star	
Never reached Point Juno	
Never reached Heretic	
Never reached the Galactic Core	

EXTENSIONS

Corporate Command	

FRIENDLY SHIPS DESTROYED

Molotok bounty hunter	2
1M/i battle auton	1
AutoSentinel®	3
Ronin/A-class gunship	1

ITEMS INSTALLED

NAMI auton bay	
Nova-100 reactor	
plasteel armor	
smuggler's cargo hold	
solar armor	
monopole deflector screen	
Moskva 11 light turret	
Solon shield generator	
tritium propulsion upgrade	
cargo hold expansion	
heavy titanium armor	
Cyclotron S10 deflector	

MISSIONS & ACTIVITIES

Agricultural colonies defended	1
Commonwealth habitat missions	2
Corporate privateer missions	3
Korolov escort missions	9
Mining colony missions	2
Money earned on missions	15,900

To be continued....

[Song]

Can I just say that the gaps in the arena wall are far too small for the Constellation to fit through comfortably....and getting the autons out was a wonderful experience as well. Next update will be a while....should I head through CC, or try scavenging the D&O systems to try and replace that 1M/i?

[Atarlost]

It'd be easier with the auton bay.

I think that needs to not be sellable for so much and the connie needs starting equipment that doesn't require selling it.