Space Pirates and Zombies

[Kasey Chang]

RE: Leech emitter has very low range. I'd get that "deployable turret" version, drop it somewhere, and fly near it so it can shoot at your enemies and you lure others into range. I've seen some folks use it against me, and it's annoying when your ship basically stops responding to controls and just drift out of range of that turret.

[Isgrimnur]

I need to go curb-stomp the outer rim and find all the places selling techs that I need. I hate going into a system, finding techs for sale, and then realizing I need two more of them.

[Peacedog]

It isn't a range problem; I know I'm hitting.

[Paingod]

I haven't had any problems being messed up by Leech yet. I've starting hitting foes that have it and they pretty effectively shut me down. I don't have the tech yet, so I can't say how well it works for me. I typically added it as a single beam in a multi-beam spread, just to tickle energy reserves that little extra.

When I fired up the game this time, I did the 150 planets (because, well, the grind for more is insane).

My starting planet was Level 1, which lead to Level 5, which branched off into 8/10/12... and then 12 jumped to 24/22. In order to keep moving forward towards my first objective area, I need to pass from 24 to 26 to 36. Going from 12 to 24 caused me to get the Steam Achievement "Sniper" for taking down a gate 10+ levels higher than me.

These are crazy level jumps and the AI is, of course, abusing me for it. I spread my initial levels out so all of my tech is level 3, with focus in Launchers (6) and Hull (5). I'll keep putting points into weapons, shields, engines, and reactors until those are capped. Tech level 6 is currently my cap for everything. I chose Launchers first simply because a lot of ships use them in some way - and at the time my best ship was the medium missile boat.

My current favorite ship is the Bounty Hunter Raven - 2x Beams, 2x Beam Boosters, 2x Reactor Boosters, 1x Cloaked Fighter Drones. It's relatively agile and has good potential for stripping shields so my Turtles can tear apart enemies. The fighters keep hostile shields from recharging and do constant low damage against unprotected foes. The reactors are essential when the fighters need to be replaced and the fight hasn't ended yet.

I recall my first play through somewhat, and remember it feeling like more of a smooth progression in difficulty - not jagged jarring jumps that require me to fight tooth and nail to advance.

[NickAragua]

My current favorite ship is the Bounty Hunter Raven - 2x Beams, 2x Beam Boosters, 2x Reactor Boosters, 1x Cloaked Fighter Drones. It's relatively agile and has good potential for stripping shields so my Turtles can tear apart enemies. The fighters keep hostile shields from recharging and do constant low damage against unprotected foes. The reactors are essential when the fighters need to be replaced and the fight hasn't ended yet.

Yeah, I remember using the Raven all the way to the end game once I got it. Even once you get to battlecruisers and the similar bounty hunter ship, it still works pretty well in a support role. Too bad the friendly ship AI insists on flying it out into the line of fire where it catches all the shots that were previously going to plink off your big ship's shields.

[Paingod]

The AI irks me at times. I can slog in my Carrier and sit on top of the Raven, but the Raven's all "Dude, you're blocking their shots. I need to give them a clear line of fire..." and insists on sliding out and getting hammered. I have since swapped it out for the Hydra, which tuns into a large Fighter if you give it the Thruster engine.

The game plays differently than it did my first go-around. I don't know what they changed, but it feels like a harder game than before. I'm quite okay with that. I've had to run back to a Mining colony several times now just to afford to keep loosing ships. During my first game, I think I did that two or three times.

I have all of the ships now except the Mammoth. I have to admit that the Huge Bounty Hunter ships are quite underwhelming, where the Large and smaller are great. I'm just a blueprint away from the Mammoth, but don't think I'll ever fire it up. The Brute, when I got it, was a serious force to be reckoned with. It was a solid performer until I opened up the Huge ships.

I'm going heavy on Cannons this round and just unlocked Mass Drivers. I think they're pretty slick and am amused that they actually bounce off of shields.

Around fighting the Zombies and their Critters. They really are your number one problem out there, and are greatly lessened in effectiveness if you use Point Defense and Zapper Drones. A ship (the Raven) with a compliment of Zappers can kill them before they can penetrate the hull of a ship. Putting one Point Defense on every ship also adds to the Critter kill zone. Other drones ignore the Critters, but Zappers don't. If you really want to see some Critter kills, run a Sunspot with 3x Zapper bays and a Raven with Zappers.

Energy management seems to work best with ships that can maintain a constant stream of fire without diminishing reserves. By using most of the missile slots on a Carrier for Reactor boosters, I can get the three Huge cannons to fire non-stop - and converting one of the Huge utility slots into a cannon booster just makes it nastier. The Carrier has become my #1 ship this play-through. Right now it's using 2x medium gravity missiles, 6x medium reactor boosters, 1x huge cannon booster, 1x Cloaked Zapper Drones, 3x huge particle cannon, 1x huge tractor beam. The fire range on it is so far that I can kill a Tier III station outside it's normal fire range. Takes a while, but it's safe.

[Paingod]

It isn't a range problem; I know I'm hitting.

I toyed around with this some tonight and would certainly say it's working, but the AI might be using a lot of Reactor Mods (or get a bonus to it).

While it only takes a couple large beams from an enemy to drain one of my ships, I need to throw down like 6x medium beams to drain an enemy quickly. I tried out a set of turret ships - The Mammoth, Brute, Hydra, and Turtle. The Mammoth, Hydra, and Brute all had their side mounts swapped to Leech Emitters and I could run into a Hammerhead and sit in front of it after a couple seconds and it couldn't fire more than a dribble of damage at me.

I had equipped every other weapon slot with Fusion Beams, and the Leech Emitters supplied me with power to continually run the Fusion beams when I was locked onto a larger target. Smaller ones tended to just pop in half a second, but an opposing Huge would last a couple seconds and I wouldn't see my energy dwindle in that time. I have to admit that the Leech/Fusion ships in tandem are possibly the most destructive thing I've seen in the game. A fleet of them simply decimates anything in the way.

One interesting thing that did happen, though, was that while using this group not a single enemy dropped Data for me. Zero. I had been getting it all along, but I was also using the Particle Gun (machine gun) on every ship. It's got fair damage and does equally well against hulls and shields. So while using the Leech/Fusion brigade I got nothing except the mission rewards. While using a Particle brigade I got a full allotment of Data from kills.

Footnote, I'm level 134 right now and just got into the "end game" mode with three systems cleared and am on "Normal" difficulty. I admit I didn't even notice the difficulty slider until reading about something during this playthrough, so I'll probably try jacking it up a notch or two for my next run-through.

Re: Killing Critters ... Beams and Particle Cannons (machine guns) do a fair-ish job of cleaning hulls. Using auto-turrets will sometimes mean your turrets will try and sweep your own hull or that of any nearby ships... which will likely piss them off. Hunter SRMs seem to be able to barely hit critters, or maybe hit them randomly. Zapper drones will certainly kill them. Point Defense is excellent against them. I equip every ship with at least 1 Point Defense, and larger ships with 2. This seems to be enough to keep any random Critters at bay, but won't stop a huge swarm. That takes the hull sweep with a machine gun or beams.

[Daehawk]

The last time I played this was well over a year ago. has it changed much? Have new weapons and ships been added? Or is it considered a done game and there is nothing new.?

[Paingod]

I believe they've stopped adding to it. I recall reading a thread somewhere stating that they were moving on to other projects - but the loading screen still says more material is under way. I don't think they'll add anymore.

If you've played against the Bounty Hunters, then you've played the most current version, really. I had played and the hunters were introduced when I was near the end of the game, so I didn't really get to experience them as I went. They certainly make the game more challenging as you level up, but don't really pose a serious threat by the end of the game since you'll have their ships and probably be higher tech level.

[ColdSteel]

Amazon digital downloads is having an end of February sale right now so I just picked this up for just a little over 2 bucks on a whim this evening. I'd almost bought it several times before now because I really like this kind of game but the list of features and game description always put me off every time for some reason and I just never pulled the trigger. I installed and just played through the tutorial and I must admit that although I really didn't expect much at all going in, I've been quite pleasantly surprised so far. It seems pretty slick and the tutorial was a lot of fun. I now plan to play this a bunch over the weekend and see how well it holds up.

Apparently they're now working on a sequel so I'll now have to keep an eye out for that when it comes out.

[Kasey Chang]

It's pretty slick, and it has a bit of depth, as you need to whack new ship types to capture enough blueprints to build your own, but when the Zeds show up they take your ships and you're pretty f***ed unless you have proper defenses. There's a lot of depth, but a lot of it doesn't seem to matter that much. For example, the different "crew" members gives you bonuses, but most of the bonuses are not really that noticeable. Are you really going to notice your ship's construction time is 25% faster, when it's already measured in seconds, for example?

[Daehawk]

I dont recall bounty hunters when I played. I had all the big cool ships but got bogged down with zombies when trying to do anything in their space. this is with the best weps and ships. They'd just take my ships over and that would be that. I got bored at that point and quit.

[ColdSteel]

I dont recall bounty hunters when I played.

The update that added the bounty hunters expansion and a bunch of new ships came out last March 19. From what you said before, it sounds like you had stopped playing it by then. Apparantly the bounty hunter ships you can get are supposed to be really good designs.

I've played up to level 20 or so now and have unlocked a bunch of ships including a couple of large ones. I'm using the Grinder large ship right now with a couple of Hunters for wingmen. I tried the Mule for a while but the hull is weaker and I like that huge mount point that the Grinder has. I've maxed out beams at level 6 (until I can upgrade my mothership further) and am close to that on shields and armor and am working on reactor too.

I've gotten the warning about the bounty hunter systems but I haven't run into one yet. When I do I'm going to give the arena a whirl and see if I can earn some of their cool tech. I've visited about 8 systems now but there has been very little available to buy in them.

I do wish you could store more than 2500 Rez and 150 Goons. I'm always at max and it seems like a waste. I hope mothership upgrades will increase those caps at some point? I'm having a lot of fun with this. It's addictive and I played way, way too late last night. Tired this morning.

[ColdSteel]

Up to level 34 now, I got my mothership upgraded and got my first taste of battle with a huge ship in doing so. I just got suicide cannon tech so I'll have to try the Paingod strategy to get blueprints. Still using the Grinder as my main ship with a beam boost on the huge mount point and torpedo. It packs a punch.

The mothership upgrade did greatly increase the rez and goon storage limit so that's good.

I've visited a few bounty hunter systems and stopped by to pay the small bounties on me and to try my hand in their arena. I have to admit that the arena is a disappointment to me. You aren't allowed to pick your ship or to use any of your techs so there's really no strategy, it's just a twitch-fest. I played and won a few to earn some respect but it's boring, really.

I think next I'm going to backtrack and run around all the lower level systems and see how much tech I can buy. I have a few glaring holes I'd like to fill before I try the next main plot mission.

Still really enjoying it so far.

[Daehawk]

Wow we lost a LOT of posts in this thread. I must have done all my posting in the last month.

Anyways Im up to lvl 69 but having trouble. I just broke into the core systems and have been to about 6 systems in it. But every time I clear a system I have to go spend time getting crew and rez back. It takes all my 10000 rez and 500 crew to secure a system and buy or take all the blueprints the new place has. I only have 1 huge ship and it's the carrier...which is nice as it carried 270 or so crew and 1700 rez. But it's not the greatest fighter and my 2nd best ships is another little carrier. The third ship I have I usually dont bother bringing because it dies every 10 seconds..not kidding. It costs me so much rez and crew to keep it afloat.

So anyways the going is slow..enter new system/ buy or take blueprints/ go mine rez and shanghai crew/ repeat.

[Paingod]

I don't think I tackled the core systems until I had every blueprint I could get my grubby little hands on.

Point defense is great for shooting down straggling zombies, and if you've got three ships with a couple each they can cluster for greater effectiveness. I found the rapid-fire cannon (I forget the name, but it's a high-end gun, like a gattling gun in speed) worked well against zombie ships, and an earlier playthrough with strictly beams was a bumpy ride but beams can clean a ship pretty quickly when passed over it as well, just use sweeping motions and wiggle the aiming around a bit to hit them all.

I think there have been a couple updates since that I haven't touched yet, so it may be harder than I recall by now.

[Daehawk]

I've gotten every blueprint from all non core systems. I use beams but am now switching to cannons as they kick ass fast. I have triple turrets and point defense. Im putting all research into drones. I am at lvl 7 on them and need one more for the bomber drones. I have great engines and I use the best cloaking or near best. I cloak all ships. not sure if thats the best way to go or not really.

[Daehawk]

I have 2 starbases in a lvl 53 system that are tough nuts to crack. In fact I cant do it at all and Im around lvl 70 . They both have point defense and are LOADED with beam weapons. Even my huge capital ship can only stand there for a few seconds. I can fire canons outside their beam range but their ships get me and by the time my canon shot gets there it's barely got any energy left. My beam ships cant get close because their beams reach further so thats suicide. ive tried many times. Ive decided to pass them by and lvl up more and do story missions for now and come back later.

[Daehawk]

I consider the ships sizes in SPAZ to be SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE, and HUGE.

Im in a spot of the game I was in before where I get bogged down. Im using a HUGE ship but my wingmen hangers are stuck with MEDIUM and SMALL. The SMALL one is totally useless. Its a waste to build it because it dies within 3 seconds everytime I launch one. It eats into my resources and crew. The MEDIUM isn't much better. Its like a spare target to get the heat off me for a few seconds. But a few seconds is it. Its a little helpful as I use it as a small carrier ship. But its not much help. Basically my HUGE ship does all the work. Sometimes I just take it and not the wingmen at all. I wish I could upgrade my hangers so they would be useful to me.

So thats why Im nogged down yet again in the same area of the story. I have to go it alone and its too much to handle alone not to mention i can do so little before having to retreat and go back to low end system to refill my resources and my crew....over and over and over. thats the way it goes...do a fight then go to low systems to restock it all then go fight then restock.

Its just not fun at this point of the game. I quit here last time and this time Ive not played in a month. I am about to try and get the game going again but its difficult with the ships like this. And I have almost all the ships...not all but close. So not much i can do. I've gotten all the tech Im able to get without moving deep into zombie systems. And those are the ones that tend to eat my crew up and force me to keep restocking.

I wish my hangers were all the same size or just one below my nest. So I should have 2 LARGE hangers to go with my HUGE one.

[Hipolito]

After a year and a half of on-and-off playing, I finally finished this game. What a game, what a work of art for a two-person team.

It's so beautiful, from the debris-strewn starscapes to the twinkling spaceships and spinning starbases. The sound effects are good, too. The background chatter could have used more variety, but it was so well done and unobstrusive that it never annoyed me. The misanthropic humor is pervasive throughout the game, from the main characters' dialogue to the way slavery is tacitly endorsed by everyone.

There is plenty of intriguing ships, weapons, and upgrades to try, though brute-force lasering was how I usually settled things. The beams-cannons-missiles damage system makes you carefully weigh your strengths and weaknesses, while the rez-goons-data economy keeps you hunting for ways to exploit and score. I would have liked more missions and factions, though.

The difficulty of the game is quite well balanced until the very end. I got stuck many times, but getting unstuck often required just a different fleet or loadout. And when I needed a break, I could look for other things to do like collect components or free up warp gates.

Still, the game is undeniably a grind. With there being only two factions and not much in the way of plot and missions, there is a lot of looking for other things to do. The game got too repetitive, so I'd play it intensely for a few weeks and then stop for a few months before playing again.

What bothers me most is how the game ended. In Chapter 4, I did the minimum I had to do to proceed to the finale. I then went ahead just to peek at what the finale would be like, expecting to be creamed right away. Fifteen minutes later, I'd won the game without breaking a sweat. That was really disappointing. I was playing on Normal difficulty with a tech level of 113, so I don't think I was overleveled. In fact, the unique side missions were still very tough for me. Even the story, which I found fairly interesting, ended flatly.

It feels good to have experienced and finally completed this game. It's not on par with Star Control 2, but the designers made a game that's inspired by SC2 while being unique in itself. I'm interested in how SPAZ 2 turns out.

[Isgrimnur]

Well, I finally managed to grind my way into a point where I could progress the story without losing my ass every time I tried a zombie sector. Once I started getting access to huge ships, it made a difference. Being able to missile boat with the Carrier helped me take down some starbases due to a range mismatch in my favor. Then getting the Hammerhead has made shorter work of them and the other huge platforms.

I'm still not to Chapter 4 yet, but I've knocked down a few more story missions.