To alpha and beyond: Hades' Star

Zombie Gunship Survival has shown that I have room for one F2P grind fest in my life, so I’ve downloaded HS too.

Ok, I think I’ve got the broad hang of things, and raided red stars enough that I have a moon filled with the artefact backlog. Is there any point in researching all of them (blue crystals and orbs) or should I just trash a couple for cash and hydrogen?

I’ve built a second battleship by accident - hey ho - and resisted the urge to shoot up someone else’s transport at a red star. Is there any way to repair a damaged ship, or are they basically disposable?

How much of the shipment-hauling busywork do you do? Is there any way to automate this? The little hydrogen miner guys are perfect, just getting on with the job without fuss.

I’ll try to join the corp as well when people are around. So far so pretty anyway.

I research everything. You get much more resources from finishing the research than scrapping them, just takes time.

You can’t actually shoot other players ships, HS is entirely cooperative, even when running stars with players not in your corporation. Move any damaged ships to a planet you’ve colonized and it’ll repair over time.

So far I haven’t found a way to automate shipments, but maybe someone who’s progressed further could comment if I’m wrong. The hydrogen miners can queue up more asteroids to automatically harvest as you level them up though.

Stately Star should end up in the top 100 corps soon, I think we’re only a hundred or so influence points away now. I’ll drop a message in the general chat so you can click on me and request to join.

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Welcome aboard!

I’ve personally never trashed the artifacts- you never know what blueprints you’ll find, and the credit and hydrogen rewards are better when you research them. Depends how large your backlog is, though. Careful storing them on a planet / moon - I discovered that it keeps everything in that system from producing shipments, not just the planet they’re actually on.

No way to PVP, so that other ship was safe! Dock a damaged ship at a planet and it will slowly repair.

At some point the transports will have shipment computers, which will allow them to automatically pick up shipments, but it’s not automated per se.

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Yeah, if you’re storing artifacts, store them on a planet with no orbiting moons / planets, as it’ll keep that entire set from generating new shipments.

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@halfvoid, @js619 Excellent, thanks guys. :slight_smile:

Picked up your message, @halfvoid, and asked to join the corp.

Oh, shame about the no-fighting thing. I was being all careful about protecting my transports when there was another player around, and I thought I was able to target another transport with my battleship. So the battleship is only for shooting the local Cerberus contingent? Fair enough.

Damn, all my planets have at least a moon. I’ll go and pick the least productive. Ooh, new sector notification! Yes, it’s only been 3 days so this is still exciting… :wink:

EDIT: ok so it was a rubbish sector with a bunch of asteroids and a Cerberus thing that destroyed my battleship because I sent in the one without the guns upgrade and running away is apparently quite tricky. Hello to everyone in Stately Star corp land :hugging:

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Boom

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I think we are up to 98th last I checked.

@SpiceTheCat I don’t know if shipments can be entirely automated in future, but there is an early upgrade called shipments computer which will make your transports pick up any cargo on the way to planets/moons on your course and even give a bonus. So semi-automated with that.

Yeah, it really does make it faster, especially when you can plan the routes. I can empty my planets in half the time it used to take manually

Oops, meant to make MorfPT a senior member, being as he’s holding the number 1 spot, but hit it twice accidentally. Not sure how to drop him a level? Or if we care?

I guess we are just going to have to get him to become Stately Play reader… :slight_smile:

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I’ll treat that with “what’s done is done.” I wouldn’t want to insult him with a demotion, and he is helpful in the red star missions.

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Once you can upgrade to a level 2 red star scanner and get some upgrades on your transports and battleships, it can be useful to salvage the lvl 1 artifacts. A lvl 2+ artifact produces more credits when researched and still provides blueprints for the earlier unlocked modules.

As you start to level up your ships and upgrade modules, these sectors wit lots of asteroids become quite useful as your fuel consumption goes up.

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Congratulations folks, we are currently sitting within the top 70 in the corporate leaderboard.

Unfortunately, you probably noticed the number of join requests we started getting by being one of the highest ranked corporations with available slots. So I have changed the rules from “Request to join” to “closed.” This brings up a question I want to open up to the community here: how do we want to proceed with the Stately Star corp?

Do we open it up only to forum members on request? Do we implement specific requirements for new members outside the forum? If so, what should those be?

For those already in the forum who may want to join, please give us a heads up here. That way we can make sure you get in. The great news is we are much easier to find now.

Agreed - forum members get first shot… as for others, do we require a minimum level / influence? I’m not really sure how to evaluate criteria other than that - hard to tell who’s a decent human being and all.

However, I’d say anyone who posts drivel in the global chat is automatically disqualified.

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I think we definately have a ‘peak time’ as a group, so maybe favour people who apply during peak time, as they are more likely to be online when everyone else is

If we do find 8 decent literate human beings to join, that’ll be a pretty quick boost up the rankings too.

Looking forward to unwrapping the presents from my inaugural RS3 outing. 47 influence, woohoo.

Given finite funds, is it better to find and colonise new systems or just spend the cash upgrading the current systems?

I think it’s a trade off and hard to judge finitely. Upgrading planets gives increased credit and hydro storage, and increases the values of the shipments. Bear in mind that different planets do different things, explained by the magnifying glass. Some produce hydro, some credits, etc. On the downside, it’ll still be limited in the overall number of shipments.

Colonizing a new planet gives all of that as well, but at increased initial cost for the colonization and upgrading. Also keep in mind the hydro cost used to transport back and forth to that new planet. However, it will give you another planet making shipments and will eventually provide for the additional storage and all.

Just for illustration, take a look at my system - I’m relatively advanced thanks to a week of vacation and some free time, and I have yet to colonize the sixth planet. It’s on my list but I think I’d rather have some tech first. Hydro is definitely the limiting factor at this point.

tl;dr - you have to weigh the benefits of upgrading a planet and the limited benefits versus colonizing and the hydro drain that goes with transporting to and from and it’s long term benefits. I’d say if you’re still left wanting for hydro at some points, and you’re at five planets, stay there.

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It’s got some interesting choices coming out of the woodwork, this game. When I asked the question, I’d just stumped up the 2.5k for a second local scanner and 10k to scan the 7th sector, and that came up empty (=asteroids + Cerb), and wondered if that was better spent elsewhere. I’ve since scanned and found a planet, that will be my 5th once I work out how to deal with a clump of 3 Sentinals.

The new weapon modules coming out of the RS3 goodie bags are not obvious choices either. There’s some nice design thought gone into this game. Better than ZG:S anyway, which is why I’ve paid up for the starter pack for HS. Giving money to a F2P game, whatever next?

I know! Other than the first ZG back in the early days of my iPad 2, I’ve never even downloaded a f2p… and now this one is sucking my battery dry twice a day. Go figure.

Agreed with the above, and just wondering why I actually like this game so far even though it has almost all of the hated free-to-play mechanics.

  1. It rewards cooperation and communication, without punishing me for not doing well at those.
  2. Also rewards solo play.
  3. Fun that Apex started a corp for us all!
  4. It’s casual, you can continue to advance with a few minutes a few times a day, but can also get sucked in for an hour, whatever mood and whims and constraints you/we are operating under.
  5. There is a gradual uncovering of new mysteries about how the game works and how upgrades work. You can analyze them and try to optimize them, or just play around with them, whatever you are feeling.
  6. It’s almost never stressful, unless you send your ships into harm’s way and your internet connection blinks out :slight_smile:
  7. It somehow still feels very space exploratory, even though space is a 2d flatland and you have to spend a linear amount of fuel to travel farther.

Overall it’s a game I consistently like so far, and don’t feel like I have to love, and I will probably get bored of eventually once I understand all the mechanics, but that will take a while and there is no sense of having to rush to get there.

I guess they have just done a great balancing act of game design as other people have observed, and made my jaded ass realize that it’s possible for a ftp game to be worthwhile. So, I did buy the starter pack of ship building and crystals as a tip of the cap to the developers.

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