Getting there
The game has several unlocks beyond the initial missions you can select. All the extras are non-plot, so you don't have to deal with that.
Here is the post with a file you can use to modify the registry (or you can read it and modify the reg entry yourself). Reg Edit
If, however, you don't want to use this cheat to unlock the Kha'ak start, try this on:
This is how I managed to accidentally unlock the KI start.
As the new game screen says for difficult for Kha'ak: Are You NUTS!
This is highly accurate, and depending on where the game decides to spawn you (it’s not usually in the same place) you can find yourself dead very quickly.
Why?
- 1) All Races have you max hated (lowest rank with 0%)
2) Some of the spawn locations are in Core systems, which have big ships to chase you
3) Your initial 5 helpers (Scouts) aren't that helpful except as distractions
ATTENTION: If you have LV’s Race Response Fleets installed, TURN IT OFF IMMEDIATELY! This will cause continuous attacks of defenders if you shoot at ANY race ship in their sectors. So shut it down in the AL menu, or uninstall it, until you get established.
The best initial spawn in locations are in Border areas. Not as many goofs trying to shoot at you. Oh, the occasional Customs or Police will definitely take you to task if their in range, but not usually Military.
First thing you want to do is MOVE! Choose a direction: Up or Down. Whichever will get you away from all the hostile traffic you just spawned in the middle of. Quickly order your Scouts to follow you, or they’ll get wasted rather quickly.
Next, quickly open up the sector map, and select one of your Scouts. Order it to go far away from the ecliptic as possible (100km or more). Then, order the others to follow that first Scout (rename it to make it easier to identify). This will get them out of the way.
You may find it necessary to have to turn around and fight the random ships that decided to attack you right off. If you’re not in a Core system, this can mean Police/Customs from M5 to M3 class, and possible Military M6 patrols. Anything up to a M3 is fairly easy to get rid of. But, if it’s a M6 patrol, remember one thing: Strafe drive is your friend! Jink around as you shoot and you’ll be able to clear your tail of these unwanted stalkers.
First thing this activity will alert you to, is you only have 2 of the 3 25MJ shields the Fighter is capable of. As long as you’re alert to this, you will survive fairly well
Now, once you get your rear out of the main traffic area of the system (you’re spawned near center) you can decide how to proceed. If you have any scouts left, keep them far enough away from the system traffic, as they are more a hindrance than help. Strip them of equipment if you want, in case your next bit of activity gets them shot.
I am not a Pirate!
One thing to do is set your FOF (Friend or Foe) setting for Pirates to Friend. They’re the only race whose stations you can dock at in the beginning.
There are very few systems you might get to that have Pirate Base's, which you can use to save. This is NEEDED if you’re going to try playing a Kha'ak seriously. They also allow you to store allot of fighters or a few freighters, (More on this later) and allow easy cargo transfer between ships.
Don't attack any pirates in any sector with a Pirate base. They may have spawned from that station, and if you attack them, the base will go hostile. This will cause you to lose docking permissions, get shot at by laser towers and if you have ships docked there, will cause you to have extra problems with that.
Now, finding Pirate bases to be your home till you can get your race rank up. Depending on what race you want to get your rank up with, and depending on whether you can GET there, will decide what base you should use. I'll list the Races, Systems to earn the rep, and the nearest bases:
- • Split - Ghinn's Escape or Thuruk's Beard - Company Pride
• Boron - Atreus' Clouds or Hila's Joy - Ghinn's Escape
• Paranid - Priest's Pity - Pirest's 'Pity
• Argon - Elena's Fortune - Atreus' Clouds or Priest Pity
Most often you won't be spawned in a system with a Pirate Base or even in a border area. You'll have to learn to travel there without getting shot. And believe me, in Core sectors, there is a LOT of people wanting to shoot you.
Fire Power
A word about weapon configuration: Initially you'll be set to group 1, all guns. I suggest (as it works for me) to set guns 1 and 2 to group 2, and gun 3 to group 3. Guns 1 and 2 are the lower guns, and 3 is the top.
Firing all guns at once doesn't always hit the target with all 3, and uses huge amounts of power. With this grouping setup, you can switch how much grunt you want to fire at your target quickly.
Prior to the Bala Gi patch, the Fighter had the biggest M3 laser capacitor in the game. But even with 10,000 energy, you can quickly run out of power if you keep the trigger down.
The best method I’ve found is to reduce the number of Kyons you fire, or fire in bursts, like the real Kha’ak do. This means, that even if the beams don’t hit the target, they’ll try to do a swipe that may make contact when you release the trigger. It also means you can fire longer when you need to.
All Locked up and nowhere to run
A tactic I use when dealing with transport of fighters, is to use 1 Kyon, and try to Lock the beam on the ship. This requires watching the target brackets during a burst, and if they wiggle during the burst, I know I’ve locked on. Else wise, I release the trigger, wait a moment, and then fire again.
This allows me to conserve energy, until I’m sure of hitting the target, and then hold the trigger down once I have. This comes in handy in other ways, as shown in Captured Audience.
KYON Diplomacy
If you want to be able to repair, upgrade your ship, (there is a way to get tunings for your ship, but that in a bit) sell items you collect, or buy new stuff, you have to make Nice with at least one race.
There are 4 races this can be done with: Boron, Split, Argon and Paranid.
In order to make a race like you enough to dock anywhere, you have to do things (i.e. KILL) to achieve this. For the 4 races, this means killing things they don’t like:
- Pirates
Yaki
Xenon
Kha’ak
This leaves Race ships. To get rep with a race, you must shoot their political enemy. The key is this:
Boron <-> Split
Argon <-> Paranid
i.e.: To get Paranid to like you, find a system (border) that Argon ships come into allot. Let’s use Priests Pity. Park at the North gate, and watch the sector map for any Argon ship that comes in (or tries to go out) of that gate. When they do, lock, load and hose them down. When the ship blows, you'll get a bit of Paranid Race Rep for doing so.
Try not to shoot any ships of the race you’re trying to get friendly with. On occasion, this becomes unavoidable.
If you have any race Police/Customs/Military ships come after you, let them start shooting first. I find that in most cases, this doesn’t hit your rep as badly as you starting the fight, even if you destroy their ships. But if you start shooting first, and they hadn’t been interested in you (this happens occasionally) your rep hit will be much bigger.
You may have wondered why I ignored the Teladi. Simple: Taladi only hate Xenon and Kha’ak! Sure, you can get credits (if you had a police license) for killing Pirates, but no other race but Xenon and Kha’ak will give you race rep for killing them in Taladi space.
I don’t recommend killing Kha’ak though. Their on your side, and will ignore you if you leave them alone. This can make watching a Kha’ak Invasion (With Carriers and Destroyers) very fun.
The trouble is, you actually NEED to get on the Teladi's good side since so many of their sectors block access to other parts of the galaxy. This can be alleviated once you get friendly enough with another race (and get the credits) to buy a station and plop it near a Teladi border system. It's not as fast as KILLING things, but it works.
Captured Audience
While you’re trying to improve relations with a race, you're likely to have bailers. This is where you have the opportunity of capping more ships for your fleet. These captures come in handy later, once you are able to dock with a race’s stations.
In general, I usually only try to capture freighter ships (TS, TP). But you can capture M5-M3 ships as well. Doing so isn’t as hard as in other ships, but can be frustrating to the impatient.
Problem is, early on nobody (except Pirate Bases) like you enough to let you dock any ships.
Be warned, you will get a LOT of freighter bailers. This takes a bit of shuffling to deal with. If you have a Pirate base nearby, you can send them there, use one as storage for allot of the junk you'll get, and send the rest out system (75km or more) to wait for you to get better relations.
Purposely attempting to capture ships is a bit of work. But because of the Fighters weapons, seems to happen more often than in any other ship type.
My tactic for getting bailers, use to use 1 Kyon (as noted in All Locked up and nowhere to run). This gives me fine control over the damage I’m doing, and seems to ramp up the Let me out of this bucket attitude of the target pilot.
The trick, is once you lock the beam on the ship, is to not stop firing. Once the shields are down, be ready to release the trigger, because things can happen fast.
Your first clue of a bailer will be the start of a com message. This means a cease fire until you find out what the silly bugger wants. Sometimes, it’s only to tell you their dropping freight. But being after a capture, I hit them with the beam again.
I have had them bail quickly upon resuming of the fire. So you have to watch for it, as you sometimes don’t get a message from them before they do. If the target switches from red to blue, STOP SHOOTING!
Who invited the Cops?
The thing about shooting ships of any race but one the sector race doesn’t like, is their Customs and Border Patrol ships get annoyed. They have this nasty habit of showing up when you don’t want them. This also creates a problem of claiming your prize, without getting you suit shot to bits.
Luckily, it doesn’t usually take much to get rid of the leeches, unless they sent a M6 Military Patrol to deal with the detriment to shipping. And even then, a skilled pilot can clean house. Then, all it takes is a space walk to claim your new ship (with a bit of scuff on the hull though).
The bounty of battle
Now, about getting upgrades before getting good race relations. Sometimes, with a bailer, you’ll get a ship with cargo still on board. Or, a ship you're shooting will drop something. Sometimes you can sell this loot at a local Pirate base (Spaceweed, Spacefuel, or some item on their trade list). Pick up and sell these items for credits (you start with 0), then use them to upgrade your speed, rudder and cargo (usually in that order for what cash you got).
Any extra stuff the PB won't buy can be sold later once you get docking permission at a race base.
Important item: If a ship that has bailed has any 25MJ shields left on it, GET ONE. Your initial setup only has 2 of the 3 your ship can pack. SO UPGRADE when you find one.
Got a Band-Aid?
Try not to get into big fights. Any damage will slow you down and make you an even BIGGER target than you are. And early on, not being able to dock at shipyards (always in core systems) means you can't fix any hurt you've taken. So be careful which fights you pick.
This is especially true until you pick up an extra 25MJ shield. 50MJ is not as much as you may think. Sure you can deal with M5’s and M4’s, but anything bigger will put a serious dent in you shields in a big hurry.
Note: See the Addendum for a Script that can help here.
XTreme’ists
And for you XTreme players, you're not XTreme till you get that rank playing a Kha'ak. The XTreme start isn't that tough. Trust me.
For whom the bell tolls
As you can see, playing as a Kha'ak is meant to be XTREMELY difficult, but can be done. (And I don't mean with cheats LV )
I need a squeegee for my canopy
For those who like to go to war, good news: YOUR ALREADY AT WAR WITH EVERYBODY! All you have to do is choose how you wish to proceed.
Wipe out the entire Galaxy. Make friends with all the Races, and show how XTreme you really are. Get the biggest ship collection in the Universe. It’s your pie. How you slice it is up to you.
Conclusion
So, if you choose to play as a Kha'ak, you now have a general idea how to get started.
You will most likely have to start many times till your spawned in an area that you can survive long enough to put this information into action, but you CAN survive with patience and practice.
Addendum
Don't try to manually dock the fighter at any station which docks fighters internally, unless you dismount the Kyons. Let the autopilot do it for you, or you'll just smash against the docking ports outer edges.
Yaki Stations
This script is a Kha’ak Invaders friend.
Because Yaki have the Player as neutral, (rep = 0) they would allow the Player to dock at their stations. However, even in Bala Gi, they have none that can be docked at. That is where this script comes in.
It generates, in Senators Badlands, 2 stations:
- • Yaki Equipment Dock
• Yaki Shipyard
The Shipyard, however, is the big plus. Here, you can buy most of the Yaki fighters, and a TL. You can also repair your damaged ships. You can even, once your rep with the Yaki is high enough (from trading with the stations), buy certain factories.
Goner Traders
For the Kha’ak wanting to advance to the coveted XTreme rank, you’re out of luck.
To me, XTreme means not only top fight and trade rank, but top rank with ALL races. This means:
- o Argon
o Boron
o Paranid
o Split
o Teladi
o Yaki (it is possible)
o Goner
That’s where this Mod comes in.
Operating as a false patch, it introduces into the Universe about 70 Goner Rangers as Free Traders. That’s right, just like all those other Race ships you see, that are buying and selling stuff.
Using this Mod, you can slowly gain rep with the Goners. All it takes is to build a station, set its FOF for all races but Goner to Foe, and watch them come trade with you.
The Rep earned is not as much as Race ships, but it still adds up. Once it get’s high enough, you’ll be able to dock at the Goner Temple in CBSW, and the various Goner stations in Elysium of Light. From there, you can buy and sell products that’ll increase your rep with them as well.
But it is with this mod, that you’ll get your start toward Goner XTreme rank.