Ozias

[Sovereign01]

In addition to what has been mentioned (mining, retrieving damaged TS from hostile sectors), I found the Ozias to be the best ship for moving/adding to a complex because of it's speed. Cargo space doesn't seem to matter but speed makes a huge difference in how long the complex is down.

The Elephant is faster and is the TL I use for station-building missions. The Pirate and Yaki TLs are faster still but more difficult to get hold of.

I just got the Ryu from the explorers guild. I can finally build a TL. Yay!! Just gotta wait..... 7 hours.... is this Cobra done yet? Geez......

I bought myself a Mobile Pirate Station. Uglier than the Shrike, it's the best-shielded TL in the game and the fastest. The Yaki supposedly have their own version that's faster but I've never seen one, this will replace my Elephant for station build missions.

[Hwitvlf]

I tried using different TLs for specialized purposes, but finally simplified down to a single Ozias for its versatility. It doesn't have much idle time because it's great for TS/TP deliver/retrieve missions as well as 'deliver ware' missions which want more volume than a single TS can handle.

[Sovereign01]

I tried using different TLs for specialized purposes, but finally simplified down to a single Ozias for its versatility. It doesn't have much idle time because it's great for TS/TP deliver/retrieve missions as well as 'deliver ware' missions which want more volume than a single TS can handle.

Those missions always have insane requirements in equally ridiculous timeframes. Have you tried using the NMMC Owl? It's slow but it has the highest capacity of all TS.

[Hwitvlf]

Yeah, gotta love those "I must have 4,000,000 Silicon Wafers within 3 minutes" missions ha ha. I have 4 Owls permanently assigned to the Ozias to boost it's storage, and I use one of them to deliver the goods to the station. I load the Ozias and fly to within transporter range of the station then just use the transporter to refill the Owl after each delivery. Also, since the Owls are 'miner' variants, they're ready for mobile mining if I'm not using the Ozias for anything else. Cool setup!

[Sovereign01]

Mining IS the superior shielding gives the Owl the edge, OOS the Mistral and Geochen with their superior speed are better for mining. My mining operation is currently idle while I wait for the Nividium asteroids to respawn. There's a couple of low-yield ones in the void sectors but they're difficult to reach, although I could deploy one of my beacons. The others are located in Xenon and Khaak sectors.

[Hwitvlf]

Good point about the Owl's shields. Hadn't thought of that.

The others are located in Xenon and Khaak sectors.

Has anyone tried assembling those asteroids into a Nividium mine complex some 200Km from sector center and placing a jump beacon nearby. I think the Xenon/Khaak stay near the center so maybe they wouldn't bother a distant complex?

[Sovereign01]

Good point about the Owl's shields. Hadn't thought of that.

The others are located in Xenon and Khaak sectors.

Has anyone tried assembling those asteroids into a Nividium mine complex some 200Km from sector center and placing a jump beacon nearby. I think the Xenon/Khaak stay near the center so maybe they wouldn't bother a distant complex?

In the case of the ones in Xenon sectors there's a single Nividium roid in each one (have to scan them to confirm), yield is probably not enough to build a complex around. In case of the Khaak sector, that's going to mean towing the mines one at a time. I'll see how good my M7M is at clearing out the sector first, M7Ms always struggle against M6s though.

[Jimmy C]

M7Ms always struggle against M6s though.

What do you mean "struggle"? My only problem with M7M vs M6 is not killing them with too many missiles when prepping for a boarding. Otherwise, they died to 32 to 48 Flails.

[Sovereign01]

M7Ms always struggle against M6s though.

What do you mean "struggle"? My only problem with M7M vs M6 is not killing them with too many missiles when prepping for a boarding. Otherwise, they died to 32 to 48 Flails.

I remember from TC and AP that M6s were well enough shielded that it took a lot of Flails to kill them and they were fast and agile enough to shoot down several Hammers at once, and they were tough enough that one Hammer wasn't enough it would take many.

In FL however, I've noticed when flying an M7M it will automatically launch an appropriate number of Hammers at a capital ship (just needs to be targeted) and if not enough get through it will fire a few more to finish the job. I just fought the Khaak with an Aquilo, it's quite capable of handling Corvettes. I just had to clear out enough of the sector so that I could scan the asteroids with my Arrow, there's a lot of high-yield roids in that sector off of Maelstrom. There's also a Khaak station in that sector, those guys are just going to respawn so there's no setting up there without serious firepower.

[BrigandPhantos77]

Mining IS the superior shielding gives the Owl the edge, OOS the Mistral and Geochen with their superior speed are better for mining. My mining operation is currently idle while I wait for the Nividium asteroids to respawn. There's a couple of low-yield ones in the void sectors but they're difficult to reach, although I could deploy one of my beacons. The others are located in Xenon and Khaak sectors.

I'm not confident in my boarding ability to get jump beacons. And the Single Use are well outta my range as I have not had rep high enough with TerraCorp. When I grabbed the Aran, I had to reload a couple times as the marines decided when they were done, to abandon ship and I could not retrieve them. The TP I used for boarding, instead of picking up marines, decided to fly towards the gate and ignore the marines. Eventually I will use either the Kraken or Cobra I have now to practice boarding with pods, I only ever tried it in AP against M6's in Pirate Space. Still not confident in not losing the marines in the process.

[Sovereign01]

Mining IS the superior shielding gives the Owl the edge, OOS the Mistral and Geochen with their superior speed are better for mining. My mining operation is currently idle while I wait for the Nividium asteroids to respawn. There's a couple of low-yield ones in the void sectors but they're difficult to reach, although I could deploy one of my beacons. The others are located in Xenon and Khaak sectors.

I'm not confident in my boarding ability to get jump beacons. And the Single Use are well outta my range as I have not had rep high enough with TerraCorp. When I grabbed the Aran, I had to reload a couple times as the marines decided when they were done, to abandon ship and I could not retrieve them. The TP I used for boarding, instead of picking up marines, decided to fly towards the gate and ignore the marines. Eventually I will use either the Kraken or Cobra I have now to practice boarding with pods, I only ever tried it in AP against M6's in Pirate Space. Still not confident in not losing the marines in the process.

I'm told that the required rep to buy them is pretty near the top, the Terracop HQ can only stock a maximum of 4. As long as you have the cargo bay hacker and the transporter device you're better off stealing them. The other Terracorp thing that's well worth getting is the JD installation kit.

This thread details how you can get up to 5 jump beacons when setting up complexes by capping as opposed to boarding. All you need is a suitably-equipped Mako/Scorpion as long as you avoid their 'Sentinel' variants (not fast enough).

The Acionyx, Carrack and Brigantine can also use boarding pods.

[BrigandPhantos77]

Mining IS the superior shielding gives the Owl the edge, OOS the Mistral and Geochen with their superior speed are better for mining. My mining operation is currently idle while I wait for the Nividium asteroids to respawn. There's a couple of low-yield ones in the void sectors but they're difficult to reach, although I could deploy one of my beacons. The others are located in Xenon and Khaak sectors.

I'm not confident in my boarding ability to get jump beacons. And the Single Use are well outta my range as I have not had rep high enough with TerraCorp. When I grabbed the Aran, I had to reload a couple times as the marines decided when they were done, to abandon ship and I could not retrieve them. The TP I used for boarding, instead of picking up marines, decided to fly towards the gate and ignore the marines. Eventually I will use either the Kraken or Cobra I have now to practice boarding with pods, I only ever tried it in AP against M6's in Pirate Space. Still not confident in not losing the marines in the process.

I'm told that the required rep to buy them is pretty near the top, the Terracop HQ can only stock a maximum of 4. As long as you have the cargo bay hacker and the transporter device you're better off stealing them. The other Terracorp thing that's well worth getting is the JD installation kit.

This thread details how you can get up to 5 jump beacons when setting up complexes by capping as opposed to boarding. All you need is a suitably-equipped Mako/Scorpion as long as you avoid their 'Sentinel' variants (not fast enough).

The Acionyx, Carrack and Brigantine can also use boarding pods.

I have yet to successfully steal from a station using the Hacker. Tried several times with paranid equipment dock stations. Always caught on the first try.

[Sovereign01]

I'm not confident in my boarding ability to get jump beacons. And the Single Use are well outta my range as I have not had rep high enough with TerraCorp. When I grabbed the Aran, I had to reload a couple times as the marines decided when they were done, to abandon ship and I could not retrieve them. The TP I used for boarding, instead of picking up marines, decided to fly towards the gate and ignore the marines. Eventually I will use either the Kraken or Cobra I have now to practice boarding with pods, I only ever tried it in AP against M6's in Pirate Space. Still not confident in not losing the marines in the process.

I'm told that the required rep to buy them is pretty near the top, the Terracop HQ can only stock a maximum of 4. As long as you have the cargo bay hacker and the transporter device you're better off stealing them. The other Terracorp thing that's well worth getting is the JD installation kit.

This thread details how you can get up to 5 jump beacons when setting up complexes by capping as opposed to boarding. All you need is a suitably-equipped Mako/Scorpion as long as you avoid their 'Sentinel' variants (not fast enough).

The Acionyx, Carrack and Brigantine can also use boarding pods.

I have yet to successfully steal from a station using the Hacker. Tried several times with paranid equipment dock stations. Always caught on the first try.

There's a bunch of hidden factors at play with cargo hacking such as the value of the item, how many you're trying to steal vs the total, as well as the RNG. I managed to work out the best way using PSGs at a Paranid equipment dock by initially buying a couple of PSGs from the dock a couple of sectors away and selling to this dock so there were 4, before using the hacker to repeatedly swipe 3 of them and sell them back to the dock and just reloading whenever the station turned red. I got the 100M credit achievement that way!

[BrigandPhantos77]

I'm told that the required rep to buy them is pretty near the top, the Terracop HQ can only stock a maximum of 4. As long as you have the cargo bay hacker and the transporter device you're better off stealing them. The other Terracorp thing that's well worth getting is the JD installation kit.

This thread details how you can get up to 5 jump beacons when setting up complexes by capping as opposed to boarding. All you need is a suitably-equipped Mako/Scorpion as long as you avoid their 'Sentinel' variants (not fast enough).

The Acionyx, Carrack and Brigantine can also use boarding pods.

I have yet to successfully steal from a station using the Hacker. Tried several times with paranid equipment dock stations. Always caught on the first try.

There's a bunch of hidden factors at play with cargo hacking such as the value of the item, how many you're trying to steal vs the total, as well as the RNG. I managed to work out the best way using PSGs at a Paranid equipment dock by initially buying a couple of PSGs from the dock a couple of sectors away and selling to this dock so there were 4, before using the hacker to repeatedly swipe 3 of them and sell them back to the dock and just reloading whenever the station turned red. I got the 100M credit achievement that way!

I only tried with 1 item. I think it was a tractor beam. And the station turned red every single attempt. I was testing it. I don't have any problems with stealing from transport ships, just stations. I went 5 for 5 caught attempts and gave up in Third Redemption.

[Jimmy C]

Try EBCs instead. Buy, get or steal 16 EBCs and sell them to a Teladi dock. Then steal 10 (the max batch size for EBCs) and resell them. Rinse and repeat. This was straightforward for me. The key is to leave the last 6 as padding to improve your odds.

[BrigandPhantos77]

A more niche idea that I've made extreme use out of, assuming you:

Spoiler

Show

Don't want to trigger Xenon or Khaak spawns by building your first or more TOA

Something I've done in my game is use an Ozias to transport several TS ships to an unclaimed sector that I've test-visited a few times, in my case it's Shining Currents Beta. I have no hostile NPC spawns there without an active TOA connection so nothing has hassled my hidden factory complexes (plural, I've isolated weapons plants based on race) and unloaded the TS fleet there to haul energy from a powerplant station to the rest.

Funny thought to me. I had a Pirate Carrack visit me in Dark Waters Beta once. The only thing it did was visit my equipment dock and purchased energy cells to jump to another pirate sector. It had to cross 4 boron sectors to get to me. Its not something I was expecting. But it's also not the only Cap to visit one of my equipment docks. And it's the reason most days I choose to play nice with the pirates.

Ozias now that I think about it is great at hiding contraband that you want to move between stations. Dock your TS at it, jump the TL and have it move next to the station you want to deliver to, have the TS leave the Ozias and dock where you need. Great for moving things like Disruptor Rifles, all the now suddenly illegal "small arms", and of course slaves "ahem" prisoner's with jobs.

@JimmyC - I tried with Terracorp HQ to get single-use jump beacons. Tried for 1 of the 4 available. Caught every time. I've since given up.

[Sovereign01]

A more niche idea that I've made extreme use out of, assuming you:

Spoiler

Show

Don't want to trigger Xenon or Khaak spawns by building your first or more TOA

Something I've done in my game is use an Ozias to transport several TS ships to an unclaimed sector that I've test-visited a few times, in my case it's Shining Currents Beta. I have no hostile NPC spawns there without an active TOA connection so nothing has hassled my hidden factory complexes (plural, I've isolated weapons plants based on race) and unloaded the TS fleet there to haul energy from a powerplant station to the rest.

Funny thought to me. I had a Pirate Carrack visit me in Dark Waters Beta once. The only thing it did was visit my equipment dock and purchased energy cells to jump to another pirate sector. It had to cross 4 boron sectors to get to me. Its not something I was expecting. But it's also not the only Cap to visit one of my equipment docks. And it's the reason most days I choose to play nice with the pirates.

Ozias now that I think about it is great at hiding contraband that you want to move between stations. Dock your TS at it, jump the TL and have it move next to the station you want to deliver to, have the TS leave the Ozias and dock where you need. Great for moving things like Disruptor Rifles, all the now suddenly illegal "small arms", and of course slaves "ahem" prisoner's with jobs.

@JimmyC - I tried with Terracorp HQ to get single-use jump beacons. Tried for 1 of the 4 available. Caught every time. I've since given up.

You're better off obtaining the normal jump beacons via the Hephaistos complex builder

[BrigandPhantos77]

I definitely need to get everything I can from the pirates before ruining my rep boarding their ships. I'm going to have to board at least one Brigantine I think.

Stealing apparently just takes multiple cycles of gathering influence and using it. I managed to steal the IBL plans while in Red 3. Now, I have no more need to maintain good relations with them.

How? When I try to steal plans, I can do it fine with race shipyards, but I can't select any of the pirate ones, specifically not The Marauder where I obviously want to steal stuff ...

If you don't have enough points to cover the cost, the game will not display the station to allow it to even be selected. A negative aggression timer is enough in many cases to push the required point beyond what you can collect. You have to wait it out or improve your rep. When you open the diplomacy menu, look at the modifier. If it's a high negative number, that's the problem.

[BrigandPhantos77]

You're better off obtaining the normal jump beacons via the Hephaistos complex builder

Lol, moral dilemma. Its sad, I feel bad for taking the capitals from the pirates. But I guess I could do that.
My last run I was able to grab the Brigantine, Galleon, an Argon Mammoth (loved that one), and another Mobile Pirate Base. I was willing to get the Mammoth via Explorers Guild. But I'll take the pirates one.

Oh and the cargo bay hacker sometimes doesn't feel too terrible, but of course scooping up 1600 units of Nividium from a hauler that got popped by Xenon in Duke's Citadel felt nice. I even did a service to the paranid by cleaning out those dirty Cylon...ahem Xenon.

So with those you have to trigger bail, claim the ship, and eject the beacon before the ship self destructs?

[Sovereign01]

You're better off obtaining the normal jump beacons via the Hephaistos complex builder

Lol, moral dilemma. Its sad, I feel bad for taking the capitals from the pirates. But I guess I could do that.
My last run I was able to grab the Brigantine, Galleon, an Argon Mammoth (loved that one), and another Mobile Pirate Base. I was willing to get the Mammoth via Explorers Guild. But I'll take the pirates one.

Oh and the cargo bay hacker sometimes doesn't feel too terrible, but of course scooping up 1600 units of Nividium from a hauler that got popped by Xenon in Duke's Citadel felt nice. I even did a service to the paranid by cleaning out those dirty Cylon...ahem Xenon.

So with those you have to trigger bail, claim the ship, and eject the beacon before the ship self destructs?

I actually found myself on "second mate" rank with the Pirates so I was able to buy all their ships by sticking to only taking transport missions from Teladi and Split to get agents to enable me to buy access to their IBL and PBG factories, so I've got everything I want from them.

That's what it boils down to. The best ships for the job are the vanilla Scorpion or non-vanilla Mako due to their speed and weaponry, you need to be really close because it's a very short window and the override software has a very short range.