Idiot's guide to Space Rangers 2

[Jim Kata]

Actually the possibility of getting trapped was one of the coolest things, I thought.

You had to plan carefully, sometimes.

I remember a few times going through wormholes into dominator areas and having to fight dominators just to pick up their fuel tanks in order to be able to go on. Good stuff!

Keeping an artifact that generates fuel around for emergencies can be a big help.

There is nothing like zipping through a dominator held system when you have a crappy ship....

 

[Veracity]

The fact the game makes no real effort to prevent you from screwing yourself is probably its greatest strength, imo, and the most obviously retro aspect of it. I find the sometimes too-obvious scaling according to the player's resources irritating, though - it's not unbearable, but I would've been happier if the environment gave a more consistently convincing impression of developing on its own regardless of what the player gets up to.

 

[Jim Kata]

The fact the game makes no real effort to prevent you from screwing yourself is probably its greatest strength, imo, and the most obviously retro aspect of it. I find the sometimes too-obvious scaling according to the player's resources irritating, though - it's not unbearable, but I would've been happier if the environment gave a more consistently convincing impression of developing on its own regardless of what the player gets up to.

As I said before, there is no equipment scaling

As soon as tech becomes available lots of the new ships will have it...

 

[Slylandro]

It's been a while since I played the game, so I might be wrong, but IIRC, things aren't 'scaled' per se in the usual sense. New ships that are being spawned (to balance the ships that are lost in combat) will have new equipment of that era, but the other ships will continue to have the same equipment (until they upgrade or buy better stuff) regardless of how much progress the player makes. Of course the older ships will usually end up being at a disadvantage and die out.

 

[sqeecoo]

Let me share some tips:

"Fighting" dominators is the most lucrative occupation in the game. How do you do it? Well, wait for a liberation or defense of a system, zip in, and scavenge all the stuff *while* the battle rages. You can then hand the stuff over at a science base, for the full or sometimes even double the cost.
Any repair bill can easily be taken care of in the local military base (remember to repair through the dialogue, not the ship screen).
It's also quite cheap to order a military operation if there is no battle going on.
You will soon have enough money to buy good weapons, but your priority is a fast engine and an armored hull. I prefer buying a top-notch engine and sticking the common "cent" micromodule in it, which makes it cheaper to repair.
You could start out by doing some missions though, to earn some starting cash, but you never need to fight. The only real danger is dominators conqering the galaxy, so it's usefull to sponsor a few military bases in the beginning.
About 13 years into the game, I am practically invincible (and this is on hard)- I have 47% shields, speed 750 (and no dominator has more than 600), hull armor 9, and a droid that repairs 50 points a turn. I practically can't die until my droid overworks itself.

EDIT: This is something I don't like about the game: while it has this great economy and faction system, there is no real reason to trade or indulge in piracy or to piss anyone off. Just do conservative missions until you have decent equipment (good gripper, droid, armor, great engine, 50+space) and then scavenge dominator equipment, or even fight them if you get your hands on some decent weapons.

 

[Norfleet]

EDIT: This is something I don't like about the game: while it has this great economy and faction system, there is no real reason to trade or indulge in piracy or to piss anyone off. Just do conservative missions until you have decent equipment (good gripper, droid, armor, great engine, 50+space) and then scavenge dominator equipment, or even fight them if you get your hands on some decent weapons.

Trading can be quite lucrative if you acquire a large empty hull and the right cargo at the right time. More often it's a way to make a side profit on a trip you were going to take anyway. Scavenging dominator equipment is fine and good, but if you want top-notch gear, the best way to acquire it is to mine it from military wrecks, as Dominator gear is always substandard and all the money in the world won't let you buy stuff when it's not for sale. Mining military wrecks is the way you get the best hardware. They'll mostly forgive you when you put the hardware to better use. Also, dumping your sold wreckage for sale at a base is immensely profitable, especially since more ships will constantly attack you and you can just keep dumping the salvage off as you slag them.

 

[sqeecoo]

Yes but does it not get so that you can't go anywhere without being attacked? And you need good stuff to start doing that, military ships are not all that weak. Also, you need a high trading skill to make a good profit. And if you use the search, you can find (in my experience) better equipment than anyone else has.

Anyone try playing on impossible though? It's really hard, no missions seem to be available - for a year now I haven't gotten a single mission. I might go the trader route after all.

 

[Jim Kata]

Yes but does it not get so that you can't go anywhere without being attacked? And you need good stuff to start doing that, military ships are not all that weak. Also, you need a high trading skill to make a good profit. And if you use the search, you can find (in my experience) better equipment than anyone else has.

Anyone try playing on impossible though? It's really hard, no missions seem to be available - for a year now I haven't gotten a single mission. I might go the trader route after all.

I always play it on a modified version of impossible. Some of the settings were annoying on impossible.

 

[sqeecoo]

I always play it on a modified version of impossible. Some of the settings were annoying on impossible.

Which ones?

 

[Jim Kata]

I always play it on a modified version of impossible. Some of the settings were annoying on impossible.

Which ones?

There is some setting where your equipment decays ridiculously fast I think, a few like that.

 

[Norfleet]

Yes but does it not get so that you can't go anywhere without being attacked?

No, but does it matter? Come to me, my pretty little chunks of loot and XP!

And you need good stuff to start doing that, military ships are not all that weak. Also, you need a high trading skill to make a good profit. And if you use the search, you can find (in my experience) better equipment than anyone else has.

The truth is, trading skill doesn't matter much. Yes, you get a better profit margin, but ultimately the fact that you an endless stream of loot to pawn off makes up for any shortfalls. Not to mention the XP to buy a trading skill in the first place.

Ultimately, *TIME* is what influences everything. What you do "early" has basically no effect, because your level and ship have zero influence on, say, a text-quest mission. Early on, all you're doing is killing time until all the tech unlocks. The wages are pitiful, and the equipment even more so. By later on in the game, a single easy text mission pays you millions, and that's all you need to go and start killin'. Time basically controls everything. Don't worry about making a profit early on or anything, none of that matters. What difference does it make if you close a wonderful 15K profit run in the first year, when you could just leave a weight on your spacebar, and really begin your run 20 years later for an instant several-mil mission that will let you buy a decent hull and some gear right off the bat...stuff that wasn't available at *ANY* price early on?

And if you use the search, you can find (in my experience) better equipment than anyone else has.

Disagree. Every single item on my final ships are stolen. The hull is the only thing I've actually bought, and it was a real BITCH to find. Items not bought sit on the dock forever, clogging up slots, unless you either BUY them just to clear worldspace, or wait forever for them to decay. But blowing the snot out of the seemingly endless Gaalian fleet? Ready source of profit and high quality loots. Not to mention the benefit of being able to choose who's going to be the manufacturer of your item. If you want a specific race making your engines, go shoot up their ships for engines.

 

[sqeecoo]

Good points, Nor. I'll try that in my next game. What difficulty are you playing however? I am just finishing a hard game, and I am under the impression that if I hadn't contributed do the defence from dominators (building bases mainly) the Coalition would have been overcome. On impossible it might have been even more likely.

 

[Jim Kata]

Trouncing the gaalians does not sound like a great idea. They are the biggest thing keeping the dominators back.

The dominator equipment is not inferior. Actually, on harder difficulty levels it is much, much better than the standard stuff you can get. Sometimes a system will be full of really old dominator ships, but their top of the line ships are usually more advanced until near the end of the game. The only failing is has is that you can't (I think) upgrade the dominator stuff after one of the patches.

 

[sqeecoo]

Trouncing the gaalians does not sound like a great idea. They are the biggest thing keeping the dominators back.

The dominator equipment is not inferior. Actually, on harder difficulty levels it is much, much better than the standard stuff you can get. Sometimes a system will be full of really old dominator ships, but their top of the line ships are usually more advanced until near the end of the game. The only failing is has is that you can't (I think) upgrade the dominator stuff after one of the patches.

This is true. Killing battleships makes the system vulnerable to invasion, and dominators drop nice stuff, especially if you use alarm on their ships to get it. But no, you can't upgrade it in the version I have, that's a pity. But you sometimes get upgraded items, though.

But I might try playing a pirate next, just for the fun of it. But I don't know how we will manage to hold back the dominators, heh.

 

[darkpark]

I just started playing a few days ago and I'm having a blast but I have a few questions. Do missions only come from the government and do they every involve something other than killing Joe Mama on some other system?
I don't want to piss anyone off early in the game. At the moment, I'm low on cash and trying to make ends meat to buy a better engine and hull.

I started out as a human merchant and bought 3 frag cannons (sold the industry laser to make room). Having the 3 frag cannons has helped in deterring the privates from bugging me.

When viewing the information center, is there any value in some of the news bits (other than the trade opportunities)?

 

[made]

This thread made me curious. I expected some crappy looking indy game, but it actually looks very professional. Downloading 1gb of demo data atm.

 

[Jim Kata]

I just started playing a few days ago and I'm having a blast but I have a few questions. Do missions only come from the government and do they every involve something other than killing Joe Mama on some other system?
I don't want to piss anyone off early in the game. At the moment, I'm low on cash and trying to make ends meat to buy a better engine and hull.

I started out as a human merchant and bought 3 frag cannons (sold the industry laser to make room). Having the 3 frag cannons has helped in deterring the privates from bugging me.

When viewing the information center, is there any value in some of the news bits (other than the trade opportunities)?

it can be nice to know when they plan to liberate systems.

All of the missions come from the governments, but there are many types.

Be careful, because the pelengs especially like to have you attack people where it sounds legitimate but is basically an assassination.

 

[darkpark]

This thread made me curious. I expected some crappy looking indy game, but it actually looks very professional. Downloading 1gb of demo data atm.

If you like it than you can buy the downloadable version from 'http://www.trygames.com/'. It's only $20 and for an additional $7 they'll ship you a back up disc. I wasn't able to find the game at any local shop.

 

[sqeecoo]

Darkpark, here's some tips: frag cannons are great, but you have to get close and take damage, so bring a droid, and make sure you are faster than the target. Frags are good for missions and pirates, but not so much for dominators: against them you'll want to have a longer range weapon, so that there are as few of them in range at once as possible.

I generally skip bounty hunting missions, especially peleng ones, but doing a single one if it comes up won't hurt your reputation much. I found that killing pirates is actually worse for my reputation, especially amongst pelengs and maloqs.

In the beginning of the game, I thing the engine is the most important thing to get (a close second would be upgrading your hull at a scientific base (not a new hull, but upgrading the one you have)). I suggest using the search funcion to search for an advanced hul, using the manual to get its name. I suggest buying a brancwhatever or flow-type engine. Then upgrade it, and if it's small and costly to repair stick a "cent" module in it (these are quite common). You'll be very fast, to the point that you can do most missions in the "give me something more difficult" mode, and outrun any enemies.

If you piss someone off, and even if you don't, it's a good idea to build some bases (at buisness centers). This helps fend off dominators and makes everyone like you.

Also, if you intend to do missions, pump your charisma or take charisma stimulants.

 

[darkpark]

So what is a good way to start making some starting capital (enough to purchase a decent engine and hull)?
So far, I've been picking up some loose mineral ore and once I managed to snag a few nodes at a system that was recently liberated from dominators. I wanted to grab some more stuff, but the good stuff was too being (my gripper wasn't good enough and not enough cargo space). Plus the battleships were shooting up everything that wasn't nailed down.

 

[made]

Well, I did like the demo. It had a nice oldschool feel to it. Too bad it was awfully short, barely let me play past the tutorial. Bleh.

 

[sqeecoo]

So what is a good way to start making some starting capital (enough to purchase a decent engine and hull)?
So far, I've been picking up some loose mineral ore and once I managed to snag a few nodes at a system that was recently liberated from dominators. I wanted to grab some more stuff, but the good stuff was too being (my gripper wasn't good enough and not enough cargo space). Plus the battleships were shooting up everything that wasn't nailed down.

New hulls take a while, but even after the tutorial you should have a few grand, and an engine shouldn't be much more than that. If you don't have the cash, try grabbing minerals and doing easy missions, or trading. Once you get the engine you can do all non-combat missions with ease.

The way to get dominator stuff is to grab it in the middle of the battle, while all the other ships are shooting at each-other. A smaller actuator gripper is fine for quite a long time, if you upgrade it. The most lucrative dominator stuff are the small modules, that can be sold at scientific bases for 2x the cost (if you give them to the proper department).

As I am nearing the endgame, I was wondering: what do you guys think the best weapon setup is?

Also, is there any point in having a scanner? I never had one.

 

[darkpark]

With a scanner you could see what a ship is carrying (cargo and weapons), if your scanner is more powerful than their shield. Of course, if you're wreckless than you won't need one.

 

[Jim Kata]

UMHOs used to be the best, but since the patch makes them a pain to repair then the explody things you shoot are good, both types. The do not radiate destruction, but if you do things right you can kinda circle around a big group and cause them to bunch up nicely.

 

[darkpark]

Say, once you a module is applied to an item (ie: engine, shield, weapon, etc...) can it be removed?

question about science bases and dominator stuff: I have been dumping off dominator stuff at the local science base and after selling the stuff I notice that the research rate increases (otherwise it's %20). Once I leave and come back in a month or so, the research rate drops back to 20.
I also noticed that the price you get for the dominator equipment is the same regardless which dept you sell it to.