The SIR Rougher Guide To The Galaxy
The following guide is designed to provide an alternative to the FSP Rough Guide to the Galaxy for new star ships joining the play-by-mail game To Boldly Go. The advice presented to you below is based around the experiences of members of Surveillance, Information and Reconnaissance (SIR) and other captains friendly to the author. While the format of this page is somewhat of a parody of the FSP document, no disrespect is intended. SIR and the FSP are on friendly terms.
SIR is a peaceful alliance to the extent that we do not prey on Human controlled ships without cause. We do not see any reason to extend this to alien species. While many SIR members survive on adventures and trading, there is no restriction on making alien enemies by any means.
A few things can make conflict less stressful - maybe even enjoyable. Learn your enemies. Aliens never hunt. Players have reputations that are known to veterans. Small ships with "SIR," or "FSP" in their flags rarely attack without provocation but frequently have large allies nearby. Make sure you know which players and which aliens are likely to attack. Always enter combat orders every time you meet a ship. Whether you fight back or flee, don't let the the server decide the fate of your ship without instructions. Know the ranges of your weapons. Be able to calculate the range at which you are likely to open fire. Be sure to consider the affects of favoring weapons, favoring shields, favoring cloaks, etc. are likely to have on combat.
Combat is primarily for defense. Don't try attacking everything that moves. Nearly one third of the players in TBG belong to a major alliance. SIR, FSP and other alliances all have the ability to hunt and destroy anyone who attacks even the weakest member of their alliances. The one hundred independent ships in the game are quite capable of publishing your misdeeds in the Subspace Times. Player enemies do not gain you any weaponry favor. If you manage to alienate enough of them, 128 stars are not enough to hide you.
A significant minority of ships, however, do attempt piracy. In order to be able to defend yourself (and profit from avenging the wrongs done to your allies), you need working weapons as well as cloaks, sensors, shields and impulse drives. You will also want experience using them. In TBG, that is the reason that aliens exist. Aliens are the single richest sources of modules and combat experience. It is wise to avoid unnecessary conflict with human players. We have complex alliances and devious plans. Aliens are laser fodder.
We all have aggressive tendencies. Channel them appropriately and you will be prepared to deal with those unwise enough to attack you.
Before you sink your $500 into some potentially lucrative item, however, make sure you know where you are going to take it. A cargo adds to the mass of your small ship and increases the cost of a jump. Take this into account when you calculate your warp costs. You need to be sure that you will have enough energy to reach your destination and that you are still going to clear a profit after the sale.
If the high cost of warp travel is going to eat all your profit then you have two ways to reduce your warp cost. You can take smaller jumps or you can increase your warp percentage. You can increase your warp percentage by dumping unnecessary modules or by obtaining a new warp. A mediocre warp with a reliability of 95% will average 40 turns before breaking five times. That gives you 40 turns to get an effective skill of ten to execute a maintenance order before the reliability falls below 90%. That's better than your demo. Many newbies fail to take this option because they don't realize that they can repair modules even if they don't have the skill to maintain them.
Chocolate isn't a bad way to begin, but it is not necessarily a good way either. Your best markets for chocolate also happen to be the home worlds of hostile and chaotic aliens (see Combat). You can scrap chocolate and sell it to factories for $25 on the same turn if you happen to find both in the same system (like Vega), but you could also do as well harvesting ore or skimming coronaspheres. Don't skim coronas with demo modules, unless you have a good idea of how you are going to replace the ones that you need.
Our suggestion? Trade early and trade often, but most of all trade smart. You need friends to get started in this game. Read the SST to get a feel for the players in the game and contact those that play the same kind of game that you want to play. If trading figures big into your plans, then write to those that sound like traders, etc. If you want to know where to get a good price, you have to join an alliance. There is no getting around that. If you can settle for just knowing where the goods are bought and sold, all you need to do is find the right person and ask nicely.
Pods never take damage in combat. Aliens also frequently carry trade goods. Reread the rules on combat. Target the pod that you want as well as all the alien's weapons. Demand the pod. The alien is too stupid to give it to you without a fight, but demanding the pod makes it the first item on your targeting list. Reread the rules on combat. Make sure that you choose the best range for you to outgun your alien opponent and that your impulse, cloak and sensor percentages are high enough for you to be able to meet the enemy at the range that you want in the terrain you are in. Double check your orders and make it so. As long as your retreat threshold is high enough to survive the alien counter attack, the pod and its contents are yours. As an added bonus some of he weapons may be usable. Immediately sell those that you cannot use.
Weapons and shields can be the hardest modules to obtain through combat. They can also be the easiest. The reason for this is that the more modules you take in a battle, the more damage is done in the process. The module damage gets progressively worse as you progress through the modules in the order in which they are typically listed in a ship's description - engineering, science, medical, then shields and weaponry from short range to long. The good news is that a ship starts to flee as soon as it looses all its weapons regardless of its retreat threshold. Therefore, if you target only weapons then you don't take extra modules that result in the weapons being more damaged than they need to be. When attacking aliens for weapons, it is important to do so at the most distant range at which you can effectively do so. The quicker they can flee, the less repair you need to do on the weapons that you want.
While a warp may seem to be a high priority, following the suggestions above will inevitably drop a decent warp into your lap. It never fails that some poor ant or beetle can't get away quick enough and you end up shooting off more modules than you would like. Of these, a warp drive is as likely as any other module and the warp is more likely to be in good condition. If you are not so lucky, make your own luck. Target a warp drive (or whatever other mod you need) using the technique which I recommended for shooting pods. If you are willing to take the extra step and do the math, you may be able to reduce the damage your ship takes by demanding one of the alien's weapons as your first target and making sure that the target list is short enough for you to get the modules that you want.
I have slightly exaggerated the passiveness of aliens in this section in order to make one point. Attacking aliens is part of the game. If you meet a large alien at its homeworld then hide. If you have no effective weapons for combat with an alien that you meet then hide. Other than that, protect your weapons, set your retreat threshold high and blast away. Most aliens flee quickly.
Two other methods of obtaining modules deserve mention. Buying them at shops and trading with other players. Combined, these two methods are almost as fast as shooting aliens. I went from two modules to twelve in fifteen turns by bringing medium tech modules to trade with larger ships for their basic and mediocre cast-offs. Larger ships are frequently willing to give away low tech modules, but shows of fairness and intelligence (such as offering to trade instead of simply leaching) open their generosity even wider.
Your investment in officer training and crew hiring is going to depend largely on your strategy. Three of the possible starting strategies include trading, hunting and adventuring.
An adventuring strategy is going to require the most investment in crew and skills and the least investment in modules. As an adventuring vessel, you probably should retain most of your demo modules until you have at least had the opportunity to repair them once. Small jumps and lots of time in uninhabited space require the least of your young ship. As long as systems are working reasonably well, you can use them opportunistically to trade, mine asteroids or shoot a few critters. It might pay, however, to dump many of these modules the second time that they break. Every unused or broken module that you carry reduces the warp and sensor percentages that are useful for adventuring. Even though an emphasis on adventuring requires more crew than other strategies, don't fool yourself into thinking that you absolutely need lifesupport. Those redshirts exist solely to die on your orders. Don't worry too much about their health until you start needing extra skill levels quick and cheap.
To execute an effective trading strategy, lighten your load quickly. If you have trading charts, then you may dump all your modules overboard except your warp and your pod. Don't be sentimental about it. If your goal is to get from one place to another as quick and cheap as possible then you need to travel light. You can rely on your small size to protect you from ships large enough to have effective weapons. Your one goal is to save enough money to replace your warp and pod with permanent modules and still have enough money left over for another cargo. Once you have achieved that, then you have about 40 turns to attain the engineering skill necessary to maintain the warp drive you have purchased. Crew and officer schooling do not figure prominently into the trading strategy until that point. Even then, it is mostly your engineering skill with which you would be concerned.
I have already said much about hunting aliens. As a strategy decision, it involves more equipment than the other options. Since you won't be investing in cargo, however, you are free to spend more money on training, modules and hiring crew. The most damaged loot from a successful alien encounter is always the weaponry, so be sure to give your gunnery officer the best training and crew that you can. The word on the star lanes is that a basic fighter is the best module purchase for the beginning alien hunter. Anything else that you need, you can get from the enemy. Sensors (and to a lesser extent, cloaks) are important assets in the battle, so your science offer should get some nice things too, when you have the luxury. Impulse engines are often overrated. At best, they can close one range per round. At worst, well... Let's just say that the best alien hunters in the game keep their impulse percentages lower than the average rookie and are able to score more loot because of it. Don't forget that anything you can't use within a few turns only dilutes your sensor and cloak percentages. If your officers are too busy to bring a new acquisition online immediately then sell it.
There may be other strategic options for beginners. Few players are likely to limit their options drastically on their first turn as to exercise a "pure" form of any of these strategies, but I have seen two ships do so and attain rapid success. The very best captains that I have seen avoided committing their resources until one of these options presented itself opportunistically. The most common newbie error that I have seen is trying to balance all the options and consequently running out of resources to do any one thing well.
Ants and beetles have the smallest ships of low tech aliens. That being said, the ant homeworld is Hamal and the beetle homeworld is Draconis.
Having alien enemies earns you weaponry favor every turn - one point every turn up to your skill level. Weaponry favor can improve all modules, bless weapons and give you access to better recruits. With your demo modules, you have the potential for two free skill levels in weaponry. Now you know how to use them.
Jeremy tells us in the rules which aliens possibly will attack and which ones probably will attack. Read them. Also, pay attention to your enemy list. Don't forget to use the hide in space option if it is possible that an alien might attack you. It costs all your officer actions that turn, but it saves you from cleaning up the broken pieces of your ship.
The FSP Rough Guide warns that releasing Dybuk is a good way to make player enemies. Let me take that one or two steps further. Dybuk rewards those that release him with popcorn. Dybuk's release and sales of popcorn are published in the SST. If you release Dybuk, you will be discovered. There are at least two ships in SIR (and many other ships galaxy wide) that will hunt you down and force you to reset when you are discovered.
Adventures, combat, jumps and a few other actions provide special favor not limited by your effective skill level that turn. If you cure a plague at a homeworld, access a starnet terminal or make an alien enemy, you accumulate one point of favor every turn up to your effective officer skill in the relevant area. You also accumulate a random amount of favor for having powerful engines or hoards of cash. If you keep your number of plagues cured close to your medical skill, terminal accesses close to your science skill, and your number of alien enemies close to your weaponry skill then you will maximize the favor you receive each turn. Engineering favor is difficult to maximize since the formula isn't published, but since there is a random factor involved, it makes sense to maximize your engineering skill in order to capitalize on that element.
If you have already decided to join SIR then click here.
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