Gaming: Between the Stars

 A tip guide in case you want to get in on this as well. 

Me? I don't mind all the text based reading for the main missions and side missions or the dice rolls. Its a deal breaker for some. As for captain and crew! Some things I wish I knew from the start.

The Prologue has a story that drew me in but in all the excitement I didn't realize some things. ONE! Whatever you put in the stash from the prologue will show up in the main game! I did this on a lark and the items transferred over after I made my captain. Don't know if this is a bug or feature just yet. 

FOR YOUR CAPTAIN: After the prologue is done, you can get randomly generated starting traits. Keep rolling til you get what you like! 

For survival, in the opening hours after the prologue:

You have the red shirt specialists. Basically they are the damage dealers. Weapons and Chance to find better loot!

The blues are medical and shields/investigation.

Greens are engineers and improve ships hull and whatnot. Along with scrapping and crafting.

My current setup: 3 tech, 3 med, 2 red.

Captains get trait buffs or de-buffs from missions or side quests. The bonuses don't show up within the Upgrades though cause you can loose or gain them through many events. But right now my capt has 4 Char, 6 Aptitude,  (For combat situations, it comes up the most in dice checks btw. At least from what I can see so far.) 4 Leadership and 1 Luck. 

Ive seen luck come up with the crew dice games.

At 3 rank: You get 2 dice on a roll. (THESE DONT STACK! IE if you roll a 5 and 3, you wont get an 8!) It gives you more chances to get the threshold NUMBER target.

At 6: It looks like 3 dice for the captain. And so on.

I've done some Main Missions, they are on 5/6 chapters done so far. *Its still in Early Access and for a small team of 3-5 people? They are doing wonderful work. The Ship Combat reminds me of Star Trek Online's setup. The away missions are in Text format with nice artwork. The writing helps set the scene and there's some good homages to pulpy sci fi in this thing. 

Crew skills will overlap, so if you have a BLUE that has 8 medicine and the other two have 2 or 3 that means your ship medbay will have a 13 skill combined level. 

So far I have each member specialize in something, its why I am taking it super slow with the main story. Trying to figure out more tips and tricks. Plus the medal/commendations slots next to the capt pic and the crew pictures aren't active yet. SO I imagine that will give buffs later.

And what I mean by spec: Have one focus on Hull/Systems!

Have a red spec into Projectiles: That's the conventional "Normal" ammo type for ships!

Have the 2nd Red spec into Energy!

There are also Mercs:

Based on the Captain's level progression. As of now, the only way to get them out of your inventory slot and retired, well...you have to blow them up or they have to get ko'd in combat. IE: the merc I hired from my level 4 captain timeslot is now too weak since my capt is 7 atm. When they die, they will drop the equipment they have. So you can recover it. 

Or...fly away from the station, unequip them and blow them up yourself. Sadly they dont have a way to "sell" them back to the station or get them out of their contract just yet.

Beam damage is Energy. Projectile is Normal. They have missile bonuses as well. I imagine higher level mercs will have better green stats. Dont take anyone who has a red stat in the -10 range or more. Not cost effective and they end up being very specialized. Like the one above.

Only reason I took this 2nd guy was to balance out the first one who had really bad Projectile. So in a way, you have to try to find mercs that complement each other.

   

Just look how majestic we are. I have a feeling I am gonna out level these level 5 guys too. Will probably wait a while to see what end game type mercs look like. 

Rose and Zoey are Crew I got from side missions. The others in reserve? I mostly got from rescuing them from slaver side events. (In case someone bites the bullet on an away mission, they will level even if not on the ship "bridge" with you.)

The Arcade: You can see how away team mission combat goes without really loosing anyone. The first 10 levels have special scripted stuff. After that? Its on repeat. With randomized enemies. At level 13 now for the simulation. I havent seen other crew skills besides Med, Investigation, Shield Buff, Hull Buff, Item/Resource Bonus, Projectile, Energy, Scrap or Craft. 

The biggest Capt Skill checks so far or most numerous? Aptitude. Had 2-3 charisma checks so far. No leadership just yet but other players say it becomes more important later. I've pretty much out-leveled most of the regular area but the random pirate encounters will level to your captain.

Some side events repeat so you can get a chance to earn GREEN trait buffs for the captain. GRAY are neutral ones and Red is Negative.  

I haven't done much crafting because I find the drops more useful. Oh and MERCS can be KILLED by friendly fire. Its how I found out how to clear my inventory space as well. The STATION cant repair mercs hull damage. You have to use repair kits. That will cover your ship as well.

BRIGHT blue orbs in wreaks or asteroids have materials you can use to upgrade weapons and blue *Support Acc for your ship. 

• Not sure what max level is yet.
• I know there's at least 10+ ship layouts in the game based on achievements. They are adding more from what the community says. The wiki is pretty far behind.
• EDWARD Password for Side Quest: 8341460 (Found on Steam Forums, its a later side quest.)
  
• Keep warping between old and new systems. Events will repopulate!  

 

I find its good to have balance with shield and hull damage. I have my mercs mostly keyed in on hull damage. Starting ship I'd recommend? 

The one with burst mode:Infinite Astral. But be advised, when the skill activates, it will fire rapidly at the enemy but overheat your weapons when its done.

• Check every Station you dock at. Check every planet you land on. There's usually special events on all of them. Esp depending on how much you advance main or side stories. 
• Will probably check out crafting later. But for now more interested in exploring and seeing how the dice rolls pop up.

Found a Partial List! 

Yeah, they have lots more ships now! Nice!