COM Missions

[Fenix]

This seems to be the place to ask this sort of question, if not I apologize. I have been reading the forums and have come across a few bits and pieces of information about COM missions but a few things seem sort of vague to me.

First off I've heard that the difficulty of these missions is scaled to your ship capabilities. What exactly does that mean? Or more specifically, what part of your ship is that scaled to? Ship Hull or Ship Power? If it was scaled to your Ship Power then I would think it would be relatively safe to start doing these missions right after you finish the SEA tutorial but I haven't bothered just yet as I didn't want to risk getting blown up so I'm unsure about that.

Secondly I was wondering about perhaps some basic things I would want installed before doing some of these missions. I would prefer to use shields over armor however the early shields seem a bit weak so I'm trying to upgrade those and probably use a mix of both as my defense, and weapons wise I have the viper and laser cannon from the tutorial. I know personal are important in battle and I read somewhere that Marines (although expensive to constantly replace) pretty much never miss and are good to have so I was thinking of using 2 MAU modules. All of that only leaves me with a few slots for my engines and cargo bays. I've heard that besides completing the actual mission that you can get various things from these missions like POW's that you would want to take back to Sol and sell, however given the limited space on my ships because of all the combat modules I wouldn't know how much I could fit. I assume that more things will be left behind as your ship power/hulls get upgraded higher and higher.

So I guess my last question really is whether it would be better for me to upgrade my ship hull to get more space for modules, or just to research and upgrade the modules I have to save space for cargo and what not. Obviously there is a balance to this sort of thing and I think that I, and other people, could use some kind of starting point to figure out what kind of balance would be best for those of us just starting these things. Thanks in advance for any advice.

[SirEmi]

The COMbat missions will scale according to your ship power rating. For some missions there is a minimum power rating you will need, and the NPC you will talk to will tell you if you need a higher power rating ship, he will also tell you around what power. He will not accept you as fit for the mission and will tell you so, if your power is too low. Sometimes you can also get a power rating you will face from him, depending on mission again. A relatively good start is a ship with around 25000 power rating, but you can do missions with a lower power too.

The is no harm in checking a mission out, and you can always abandon the mission, for a fee or just on Earth for no fee.

Now for setup, there are different strategies you can go with. Some prefer boarding / marines ships, these seem to work very well but you need a good shield or armor to make sure you keep casualties to a minimum. Marines boarding assault can not be dodged, so that's certainly a bonus. You capture a lot of POW's with this setup.

You can also focus on weapons, but then you need to take into account dodged attacks, and maybe have some speed too, to be able to attack first. With all weapons setup, you won't capture any POW's.

High tech modules versus big ships. On lower power ratings, you can sometimes get away with using low tech modules and be able to do combat missions, with a big ship like a titan that has lots of module space. The downside is that you're very slow in battle, and your ship will dodge less attacks, but if tank is good you should be fine until you can get some rewards and upgrade. Once you get upgraded modules, you can start to customize / optimize your ships to get an edge.

Cargo bay you will need for the 'Pirate's nest' mission, as a lot of the reward comes from looting the pirate station... 'Pirate Hijacker' on the other hand does not require any cargo bay space, as the reward is all solars...

So different missions may require different ships / setups. Obviously having specialized ships for specific missions is the best way to go 

[JamJulLison]

On what to use. Shields or Armor. Go with shields.   Shields regenerate after battle. Armor doesn't.  Armor will just eat into your profits.

[Fenix]

I see, thank you very much for all of the information SirEmi, that makes things much clearer to me. I didn't even know there were different kinds of missions within the COM missions. I guess I will start working towards that 25k power for my combat ship, I don't know if I will get there with the setup I have in mind but I'll get it close. I guess cargo space isn't super important either since as you said not all missions will reward me with loot unless I'm boarding ships and getting POW's, so I won't worry about that too much.

JamJul, I knew that shields regenerated and that was the reason I wanted to go with shields, however I have noticed that 1. Some weapons are very effective against shields. 2. The early shields that I can produce do not provide all that much protection. I don't want to use like 5 slots on shields or anything like that so I think I will go with a mix and hope that the shields eat up enough damage so that I don't have to repair the armor all the time.

I guess it would be a good idea to start doing some research on combat drives as well to make a good boarding ship at some point in the future. Thank you both for the information and ideas, it should go a long way towards getting me started on COM missions soon. xD

[JamJulLison]

For your first COM ship you should get a titan class. Your going to need a bunch of modules for this ship. Since this is your first your weapons and shields don't need to be the best. However I recommend researching advanced shield and forget armor.  Honestly it is a waste of time even researching it.  The cheap armors take a lot of research levels to become good.  Which means really long build times.  The expensive armors are just too costly.  Especially once you add in repair times.  I only use a few as backups and those are mostly for decoration.  For shield gens you will need 30-40 advance shield gens. Higher MKs are better of course but for starting out you should be able to make fine with MK 1s.  Weapon wise I try to fill up the first 3-4 rows with weapons. For your first COM ship you should be fine with MK 1 lasers. You are also going to want at least 5-6 marines.  MK 1 is fine for now. Though eventually you will want to get your tech levels higher on that.  Cargo Space is also kinda important.  With the pirate nest missions you will find your cargo spaces filling up pretty fast. Add in captured marines from pretty much every ship you face in COM missions and your cargo hold will be filled up so fast you will say wtf.  lol.  Your also going to want a living quarters. 1 should do you on that.  If you want to see some of my ship layouts let me know.  We all have a different idea of what exactly works best. But one thing we all seem to agree on is that shields are a lot better then armor.  Yes lasers are more effective against shields then armor. But your enemies in COM missions are going to have a mix of things anyways. While I usually like using a mix of weapons, I find shields still better then armor.  If I relied on armor then after pretty much every battle I would have to be repairing my armor which would mean dipping into my profits to repair it. A well designed COM ship, even weaker ones, can survive a barrage of enemy NPC ships and not take any damage while taking out npc ships and stations.

[Dadds]

@Fenix: when the com missions start to grow a little in power, even early on, you will find you will end up with multiple ship combats vs yourself. usually every 200-250k of power base you will find an extra ship join in to combat. If you dont have enough weapons to overcome multiple ships, your mission will fail and have to restart another combat counter. The trick is either have lots of low class guns that can get multiple combats resolved (remember most weapons only get 1 shot per combat before they are depleted). This is where marines come into play. 2-3 of those installed allow you to attack every time on every ship, since they can span multiple battles. They are also handy modules to have as replacement troops for weapon mounts if you loose a battle and personnel. The other use for a marine module is a storage for all those POW's. If you talk to a pow, you can get the option to hire them as marine or civilian for half the normal cost (cutting down on the cost of manning these modules) For weaponry, research Viper and push it up a few marks early. The mats to build them are very cheap to buy, easily found as a resource if you are bent on supplying your own materials via mining, and the 500 troops help double as a personnel assault on a vessel if all else fails.
Welcome to the game and congrats on your SEA graduation

Dadds, Founder [IMG]
(call me if you get in a fix or need more info)

[JamJulLison]

Dadds is correct. Marines are very useful. But you don't want to rely solely on them.  I recently saw one guys who's COM ship was high in power but had crumy shields and no actual weapons. Just a bunch of marines.  In the end Marines will save your butt. But you need regular weapons to do as much damage as you can to help reduce the pounding your ship will take when facing multiple npcs.

[Fenix]

I see, well I hadn't really planned on getting my ship anywhere close to 250k power (at least not for two or three more weeks) so idk if that applies to me just yet but I suppose that is good to know. I definitely planned on using Marines but I also planned on mixing in weapons as well so that was sort of what I was thinking anyway.

There is no way I'll be getting a titan class for a very very long time though so that's just not happening it is waaaaaay too expensive. I'm also not even close to Advanced shields yet, which is why I said I didn't really feel like I could trust just using shields and why I'm probably going to make some armor just to be on the safe side.

[JamJulLison]

I see, well I hadn't really planned on getting my ship anywhere close to 250k power (at least not for two or three more weeks) so idk if that applies to me just yet but I suppose that is good to know. I definitely planned on using Marines but I also planned on mixing in weapons as well so that was sort of what I was thinking anyway.

There is no way I'll be getting a titan class for a very very long time though so that's just not happening it is waaaaaay too expensive. I'm also not even close to Advanced shields yet, which is why I said I didn't really feel like I could trust just using shields and why I'm probably going to make some armor just to be on the safe side.

Where your at right now in the game you shouldn't be thinking of running COMs then. For right now keep running passengers to planets/moons inside Sol until you can afford to upgrade to a titan class. I know it is tedious. But running COMs is out if you have to rely on armor. The cost of armor repairs just dips into profit too much. Not to mention the time spent going back to Earth to repairs is time that could be better spent doing COMs or running passengers.

Also since you got 2 ships, turn one of them into a science ship. This will help you a lot when it comes to research early on.

[Fenix]

With all due respect, SirEmi seemed to think that 25k power was good to start. Him being the creator of the game and all I would think that is fairly accurate. I certainly understand what you are saying however perhaps you have been really really strong for too long to think like a noob as I do. I'm not looking to take on swarms of pirates or anything like that, from what SirEmi said I shouldn't get any missions that are WAY over my head anyway so I don't seem any harm in getting my feet wet with some of the easier COM Missions. I do thank you for your advise though JamJul, I probably won't be making it my main source of income soon as you said repairing armor isn't very efficient and I don't want to rely on it.

[SirEmi]

I'm hoping to get at least some more interesting stuff to do when you graduate from the Space Exploration Academy...
Shouldn't have to do transport missions if you don't want to... Pirate Hijacker missions should be ok, even Pirate's Nest.

Will see more exploration missions with some easy combat or salvage missions, that should be nice and interesting...

But yeah the aim is to involve the new captains in exploration / combat or trade from early on

[Fenix]

Salvage Missions sound like something that would be more interesting to do. I don't know if you already have something in mind with those, I would hate to start throwing my own idea at you if you did, but hey if you don't have anything planned for it already I wouldn't mind giving you my idea xD

In any case it's good to know more variety will be coming in the future because those transport missions definitely get old after a couple of days lol

[SirEmi]

Ok, I'll go ahead and give an example of what I have in mind...

http://forum.astro-galaxy.com/index.php/topic,8557.0.html

[Fenix]

Certainly not what I had in mind but it looks pretty interesting and possibly quite fun, carry on good sir =)

[JamJulLison]

With all due respect, SirEmi seemed to think that 25k power was good to start. Him being the creator of the game and all I would think that is fairly accurate. I certainly understand what you are saying however perhaps you have been really really strong for too long to think like a noob as I do. I'm not looking to take on swarms of pirates or anything like that, from what SirEmi said I shouldn't get any missions that are WAY over my head anyway so I don't seem any harm in getting my feet wet with some of the easier COM Missions. I do thank you for your advise though JamJul, I probably won't be making it my main source of income soon as you said repairing armor isn't very efficient and I don't want to rely on it.

No disrespect to SirEmi but he only made the game and maybe tested a few things.  He doesn't actually play the game actively. Nor does he know what it is like for a new player.  I on the other hand do since I used to be one myself. Lots of people in Sol corp who are smaller try to start COMs early and find themselves losing out on profit because of constantly having to repair armor.  Trust me. Make your first ship a science ship. Get your science points up. Get advanced shields.  Also be sure to max out combat tactics and at the very least get your weapon level to lasers.  If you start COMs when you aren't properly prepared it will end up biting you in the butt.  You can do whatever you want.  I am just giving you my opinion. SirEmi is really the last person you should be taking advice from anyways.  If you need advice ask one of the bigger players.  Dadds might actually be a good one to ask if your into mining. Him and his alliance had a rocky start to begin with due to some issues breaking out between us and them.  He knows many good ways for a newer player to grow quickly  Aysle is another person who might be able to help with advice. Especially when it comes to combat stuff.   I know the beginning of the game is very tedious. Especially since it takes a while before you can really do COMs and SOS missions. Well you can do SOS now but unless you can get out to the 3rd or 4th ring it is pretty much not worth it. Not to mention it requires a good amount of cargo space.    BTW another person you could talk to is Admiral Raphael. Though I wouldn't trust him on ship designs. I have seen his.  Not the greatest. Though it is because of them he shot to the top rankings so quick and is able to do SOS missions. He is a known pirate though so unless your aggressive like him, might not want to ask him. But still he did shoot up faster then any of us expected.