Posted October 05, 2013
This is a game guide that was included in the game newsletter during the beta. There have been requests for those guides, so I post them here from time to time:
It might still be a little rough on the edges (grammar, etc.), but I hope you like it. English is not my native language.
Contents:
1. Starting conditions
2. Skilling
3. Fighter / Shuttle class gameplay
4. Corvette class gameplay
5. Destroyer / Transport ship class gameplay
6. Cruiser / freighter ship class gameplay
7. Winning the war
8. Other things to do and winning the game
9. Factory management
This guide could include spoilers.
**** Game guide (Part 1): Your career as a trader (SPOILER!)
Your career as a trader:
1. Starting conditions:
Depending on whether you start off as a fleet trader or a free (independent) trader, you will either start with a corvette or with a Orion transport shuttle. Coalition fleet traders start off with a Merchantment corvette, which due to it´s large cargo size is a great advantage. Like with the other professions the gameplay can roughly be divided in phases compared to the different ship classes you fly.
2. Skilling:
It´s difficult to advise you on skilling as a trader, because what skills you need largely depends on your personal style of playing. Choosing cargo manager early on might immediately increase the profit you make on each trip. On the other hand some of the defensive skills might give you an extra chance of survival. What´s a must of course is the skill “factory owner” as this is THE end-game content skill for a trader and a major new feature in Smugglers 5.
3. Fighter / Shuttle class gameplay:
If you don´t start with a corvette, this is the first phase of the game. Without jump engines you are limited to your starting system until you can afford to buy a corvette, which is the smallest ship with jump engines. What you can do though is to try to find the captain of a larger ship to hitchhike you to a different system. Try to contact some ships near a jumppoint and don´t give up. It´s not necessarily recommended though as your starting system is relatively safe and it cannot happen that you find yourself stranded because your faction has just lost the control to the system to another faction.
As a trader your profession is buying goods cheap, transport them to a different planet and sell them for a profit. In order to do this you should carefully watch the news and the price tables. As long as you cannot leave the first star system, the trade news will be relatively useless to you though. If you are a member of the fleet, you can also accept transport missions. They can be profitable, but you have to choose the mission carefully and maybe trade some other goods in between while waiting for the goods stock to be refreshed.
As soon as you have come to some cash, you can invest it in some better equipment for your ship. Especially faster engines, safer ECM and larger cargo bays can be a good idea. At this point in the game you should not buy too much equipment though, as your primary objective is to get a corvette and leave the first star system.
4. Corvette class gameplay:
As soon as you have jump engines to leave the first star system at will, the gameplay complexity is raised to a new level. Now you have to take in consideration the prices in the whole galaxy. Notice that in Smugglers 5 the effect of trade news have been increased a lot making it a big mistake to ignore them. Also you should notice that front lines not only makes up a dangerous place for trading, they also cut the trading lines connecting the different systems resulting in dramatic price differences. The most profit possibly can be made by trading in systems currently place of an invasion or great battle. It´s also the most riskiest place to be, especially if you have a large more or less well armed freighter.
As a fleet trader and with a corvette class ship you should think about accepting supply and analysis missions. If you plan to trade on your own and travel a lot, an analysis mission can be simply snatched up and will fulfil itself while your adventuring.
Good contacts to the bureaucracy can be important, so you should not leave any star system without at least once paying a visit to the local governor and having a chat. It also helps to talk a lot to other friendly captains. Don´t forget to explore the planets you visit as sometimes you can get a very rewarding mission or other help.
5. Destroyer / Transport ship class gameplay:
As soon as you can you should upgrade to the Ferendar transporter. It´s a large vessel with a good amount of cargo space that tremendously increases your profits – especially if you didn´t had the luck of starting with the Coalition and having the Merchantment corvette.
Flying a Ferendar is the time where you built the backbone of your wealth. Still the even bigger Galaxy class freighter is waiting for you around the corner and you should upgrade as soon as you can.
Beside that the gameplay is similar to the corvette gameplay.
6. Cruiser / freighter ship class gameplay:
The Galaxy class freighter is the biggest trader ship in the game (except the treasure fleet ships, which theoretically you could capture and fly). As soon as you are able to get your hand on a galaxy class ship, you should think about investing in equipment. Again you can spend your money for faster engines, safer ECM and larger cargo bays. As you are going to keep this ship for a long time, it can also be worthwhile to buy any of the other equipment upgrades available.
If you haven´t yet you will sooner or later get the promotion to captain and gain access to the “factory owner” skill. As soon as that´s the case you have a valuable new option at your hand. You can automate different actions required to keep your company running, but at the cost of profit. Most likely you will have a couple of companies that you will manage yourself and a larger pack of ones that you will have fully automated.
This is also the time, where you should think about…
5. Winning the war:
At some point in your career you will have to decide if and how you want to influence the war going on. As a trader you can help your faction to win the war by either:
• Buying war bonds (which should be considered a donation and not an investment)
• Fulfilling transport missions in a system where an invasion goes on
• Bribing a governor to commit treason and join your faction
As you can see most of those options require a lot of money to have any impact. But that´s the idea of a business man that gets out his wallet where a more aggressive type of man goes for his gun – isn´t it?
6. Other things to do and winning the game:
Well, like with the other professions you have to ask yourself: What´s your objective in this game? Smugglers 5 is an open-ended sandbox like game and there is really nobody else except you telling you how to win the game.
What you possibly shouldn´t miss out – because it´s fun and you get a higher score – is getting married and having children. You have to have a good relationship to the governors anyway, so marrying comes as a nice side-effect.
7. Factory management:
In general it is adviseable to try to upgrade the company to the production of more valuable goods. However if there are huge price fluctuations (e.g. your production site is the target of an enemy invasion), then you can still make huge profits with less valuable goods. For example a level 2 factory fully automated can make as less as 5,000 credits in 90 days or up to 60,000 credits during an invasion with inflated prices. Still you always make a much bigger profit if you manage everything yourself and resist on letting it run fully automated. In the above example the profit with manual management would range from 16,000 credits in 90 days up to 200,000 credits during an invasion.
The higher the level of the factory, the less you can put the company on auto mode and hope for the best. This is mainly due to the fact that it´s extremely expensive to automate the purchase of resources galaxy-wide as it multiplies the weekly costs of the company by 4. By a rule of thumb the resources available in the same system are not sufficient to support companies of level 4 and above. Be careful to put them in full auto mode and forget about them for a while. You could wake up by a news broadcast informing you of a bankruptcy and making you liable for it. You can lose a lot of money in this business (or make a fortune).
In Smugglers 5 you can even set up a production cycle by e.g. owning one mine producing super ore and one factory producing robotics (of which a smaller par of the production is required to keep the mine running).
Possibly the best solution is to have a couple of production cycles you manage yourself and a couple of smaller fully automated companies, which you just visit to collect the cash.
With the money you earn you can help your faction by buying war bonds or bribing governors. Alternatively you could start stacking resources in asteroid storages (or in your factories) and use them to fulfil battle transport missions in a shorter time.
It might still be a little rough on the edges (grammar, etc.), but I hope you like it. English is not my native language.
Contents:
1. Starting conditions
2. Skilling
3. Fighter / Shuttle class gameplay
4. Corvette class gameplay
5. Destroyer / Transport ship class gameplay
6. Cruiser / freighter ship class gameplay
7. Winning the war
8. Other things to do and winning the game
9. Factory management
This guide could include spoilers.
**** Game guide (Part 1): Your career as a trader (SPOILER!)
Your career as a trader:
1. Starting conditions:
Depending on whether you start off as a fleet trader or a free (independent) trader, you will either start with a corvette or with a Orion transport shuttle. Coalition fleet traders start off with a Merchantment corvette, which due to it´s large cargo size is a great advantage. Like with the other professions the gameplay can roughly be divided in phases compared to the different ship classes you fly.
2. Skilling:
It´s difficult to advise you on skilling as a trader, because what skills you need largely depends on your personal style of playing. Choosing cargo manager early on might immediately increase the profit you make on each trip. On the other hand some of the defensive skills might give you an extra chance of survival. What´s a must of course is the skill “factory owner” as this is THE end-game content skill for a trader and a major new feature in Smugglers 5.
3. Fighter / Shuttle class gameplay:
If you don´t start with a corvette, this is the first phase of the game. Without jump engines you are limited to your starting system until you can afford to buy a corvette, which is the smallest ship with jump engines. What you can do though is to try to find the captain of a larger ship to hitchhike you to a different system. Try to contact some ships near a jumppoint and don´t give up. It´s not necessarily recommended though as your starting system is relatively safe and it cannot happen that you find yourself stranded because your faction has just lost the control to the system to another faction.
As a trader your profession is buying goods cheap, transport them to a different planet and sell them for a profit. In order to do this you should carefully watch the news and the price tables. As long as you cannot leave the first star system, the trade news will be relatively useless to you though. If you are a member of the fleet, you can also accept transport missions. They can be profitable, but you have to choose the mission carefully and maybe trade some other goods in between while waiting for the goods stock to be refreshed.
As soon as you have come to some cash, you can invest it in some better equipment for your ship. Especially faster engines, safer ECM and larger cargo bays can be a good idea. At this point in the game you should not buy too much equipment though, as your primary objective is to get a corvette and leave the first star system.
4. Corvette class gameplay:
As soon as you have jump engines to leave the first star system at will, the gameplay complexity is raised to a new level. Now you have to take in consideration the prices in the whole galaxy. Notice that in Smugglers 5 the effect of trade news have been increased a lot making it a big mistake to ignore them. Also you should notice that front lines not only makes up a dangerous place for trading, they also cut the trading lines connecting the different systems resulting in dramatic price differences. The most profit possibly can be made by trading in systems currently place of an invasion or great battle. It´s also the most riskiest place to be, especially if you have a large more or less well armed freighter.
As a fleet trader and with a corvette class ship you should think about accepting supply and analysis missions. If you plan to trade on your own and travel a lot, an analysis mission can be simply snatched up and will fulfil itself while your adventuring.
Good contacts to the bureaucracy can be important, so you should not leave any star system without at least once paying a visit to the local governor and having a chat. It also helps to talk a lot to other friendly captains. Don´t forget to explore the planets you visit as sometimes you can get a very rewarding mission or other help.
5. Destroyer / Transport ship class gameplay:
As soon as you can you should upgrade to the Ferendar transporter. It´s a large vessel with a good amount of cargo space that tremendously increases your profits – especially if you didn´t had the luck of starting with the Coalition and having the Merchantment corvette.
Flying a Ferendar is the time where you built the backbone of your wealth. Still the even bigger Galaxy class freighter is waiting for you around the corner and you should upgrade as soon as you can.
Beside that the gameplay is similar to the corvette gameplay.
6. Cruiser / freighter ship class gameplay:
The Galaxy class freighter is the biggest trader ship in the game (except the treasure fleet ships, which theoretically you could capture and fly). As soon as you are able to get your hand on a galaxy class ship, you should think about investing in equipment. Again you can spend your money for faster engines, safer ECM and larger cargo bays. As you are going to keep this ship for a long time, it can also be worthwhile to buy any of the other equipment upgrades available.
If you haven´t yet you will sooner or later get the promotion to captain and gain access to the “factory owner” skill. As soon as that´s the case you have a valuable new option at your hand. You can automate different actions required to keep your company running, but at the cost of profit. Most likely you will have a couple of companies that you will manage yourself and a larger pack of ones that you will have fully automated.
This is also the time, where you should think about…
5. Winning the war:
At some point in your career you will have to decide if and how you want to influence the war going on. As a trader you can help your faction to win the war by either:
• Buying war bonds (which should be considered a donation and not an investment)
• Fulfilling transport missions in a system where an invasion goes on
• Bribing a governor to commit treason and join your faction
As you can see most of those options require a lot of money to have any impact. But that´s the idea of a business man that gets out his wallet where a more aggressive type of man goes for his gun – isn´t it?
6. Other things to do and winning the game:
Well, like with the other professions you have to ask yourself: What´s your objective in this game? Smugglers 5 is an open-ended sandbox like game and there is really nobody else except you telling you how to win the game.
What you possibly shouldn´t miss out – because it´s fun and you get a higher score – is getting married and having children. You have to have a good relationship to the governors anyway, so marrying comes as a nice side-effect.
7. Factory management:
In general it is adviseable to try to upgrade the company to the production of more valuable goods. However if there are huge price fluctuations (e.g. your production site is the target of an enemy invasion), then you can still make huge profits with less valuable goods. For example a level 2 factory fully automated can make as less as 5,000 credits in 90 days or up to 60,000 credits during an invasion with inflated prices. Still you always make a much bigger profit if you manage everything yourself and resist on letting it run fully automated. In the above example the profit with manual management would range from 16,000 credits in 90 days up to 200,000 credits during an invasion.
The higher the level of the factory, the less you can put the company on auto mode and hope for the best. This is mainly due to the fact that it´s extremely expensive to automate the purchase of resources galaxy-wide as it multiplies the weekly costs of the company by 4. By a rule of thumb the resources available in the same system are not sufficient to support companies of level 4 and above. Be careful to put them in full auto mode and forget about them for a while. You could wake up by a news broadcast informing you of a bankruptcy and making you liable for it. You can lose a lot of money in this business (or make a fortune).
In Smugglers 5 you can even set up a production cycle by e.g. owning one mine producing super ore and one factory producing robotics (of which a smaller par of the production is required to keep the mine running).
Possibly the best solution is to have a couple of production cycles you manage yourself and a couple of smaller fully automated companies, which you just visit to collect the cash.
With the money you earn you can help your faction by buying war bonds or bribing governors. Alternatively you could start stacking resources in asteroid storages (or in your factories) and use them to fulfil battle transport missions in a shorter time.
