NewtSoup wrote: ↑Fri, 29. Jul 22, 04:14
Sadly I just lost my first ship.
A manorina in Cardinal's Redress. I had two of them. I saved both and repaired the damaged ship but then two more waves of Kha'ak came in quick succession and I was unable to save a ship. The other is safely hiding.
So now it's Plutus Sentinel time.
Just to check - I don't need Marines on an M Class Mining Vessel do I? I'm not even sure it needs service crew to be fair. The game wants to give it 4 service 4 marines with the "high spec" loadout. I will reduce that to the 4 service for the time being. It's a shame they can't have drones.
Is it worth having fighters to protect them?
Khaak are a problem you just have to deal with when mining. Ideally you switch to L miners for mining (those can pretty much ignore khaak),
have them deliver to a mining station right next to the mining grounds (because they're
slow) and use M miners to deliver the minerals from there.
But that's not exactly an option until you get some credits.
It's easier to patrol your mining grounds than to protect each individual miner (takes less ships too), and they don't need protection on the way there and back anyway.
Khaak beams are pretty deadly to S ships though so you'll either have to get a bunch of them (to kill them before they kill your guys) or wait until you can afford something bigger like a Nemesis or Katana.
Once you get some you can just chain together a few "attack enemies in range" commands with the repeat order default behavior to keep the area clear of khaak while your miners work.
As for marines their only purpose is boarding operations. Which the AI doesn't initiate, so you only need them on ships you plan to use for boarding yourself.
Service crew on the other hand helps repair damage and makes the ship work better. On miners it also increases mining speed, so you should always get a full crew.