[SC] Sorting Out My Goliath

Okay, after my last thread I had in regards to my Citadel, I've decided to scrap the ship for now and use my Diminisher until I'm in a position to use the Citadel, or perhaps even stay with the Goliath

If anybody has any general suggestions in terms of bettering myself, steps to do so and other suggestions that may help out, such as what I should spend my Uridium on that would be great. From threads I've read in the past I've heard buying a drone formation and upgrading them to level 16 before anything else is something I should consider... what kind of formation should I be going for?

 

I have recently started new account, so I will give you some advises from my past experience:

• LF-4 are too much important! Try to get as much LF-4 as you can. People say that LF-4 day is not worth it for collecting booty boxes, as it gives a lot of LF-3 instead of LF-4. Because of that reason, I have never collected booty boxes on that day. There is a mission that gives LF-4 as reward, try to finish it fast. First Epsilon gate 99% of the time gives LF-4. Personally, I have been doing Epsilon gates for LF-4, not Kappa gates.
• Drone formations: if you will be doing a lot of gates, Moth is a must. After that, Hearth is overall good for flying around, and Drill too. Have never used Drill, but that formation is really good for killing NPC when not in gates. The damage boost combined with Diminsher - insane damage.
• Upgrades: never upgrade LF-3. First upgrade drones, then rocket launcher. After that, you can upgrade either BO-2 or LF-4. Always upgrade on "Upgrade hour" - happening every second week on Friday, at about 19h server time (don't take this for granted, may sometimes change, so be online that time so you don't miss it)
  
• Apis / Zeus: if you don't have these drones, start buying keys when on discount and open golden booty boxes on Pirate Booty day. You will get some LF-4 too while trying to build these drones.
  
• In terms of ship configurations, I would go:
  • Damage config: best lasers on drones, then on ship. Shields on ship only;
  • Tank config: best shields on drones, speed generators on ship. If you need, you can replace some speed generators with shields, so you are tankier.
• Skill tree: Get Shield Mechanics as soon as possible (max it out, 5/5). After that, work for Bounty Hunter II.

If I am not mistaken, I covered the most important things. Maybe I have missed something, so feel free to ask anytime (sorry if I covered something that you already knew you should do).

Fly safe,
eT3RnitY

 

Thanks for the feedback, I've got one or two questions though

In terms of building the Epsilon gate up, how should I go about that? I'm unsure whether investing in a P.E.T. and using auto looter and camping out in 5-3 would be wise, or should I go about it another way? I've heard mixed opinions about P.E.T.'s. Aside from that, in terms of upgrading stuff and general preparation, what should I go for first and foremost? Would getting my drone formation first and then upgrading my drones be a good idea, or should I do it the other way around?

 

Hm, 5-3.. It depends, honestly. On my server, it is really hard to be in 5-3 if you are not in good clan with too much allies. 5-3 is not what it used to be.. It is more like an ultimate battlefield for quests nowadays.
I would suggest boxing, as you will get free ammo, galaxy gate spins and too much uridium, that you can invest in something else. I know it may be boring, but it pays off.

Talking about PET and boxing bio - boxing bio is expensive, honestly. You need a lot of uridium to build it, so it is not worth it (according to me). If you are going to collect boxes, buy 5 level 3 Radar protocols, and rest goes with level 3 Salvage protocols. I have been boxing like this for a long time, and your PET acts like you are flying second ship, while collecting more because of the Salvage protocols.
I will repeat this last one again: building boxing skill tree is expensive, and requires quite some time to do it properly.

Talking about drone upgrades or drone formation - get some drone formations first, so you can do gates faster, or hunt NPC on maps faster. After that, you can continue with drone upgrades. For me, I find the Moth as the most useful formation for PvE (gates) and PvP, so I always buy Moth first, no matter what.

Hope this info will help you out a bit in making your decisions. Of course, what I have written above is what I think it is best to be done, but that doesn't mean you have to agree with me. For example, if you don't feel like you need drone formations, feel free to go with drone upgrades. You will have increased damage and more shield, which is also very useful.

 

In terms of upgrades, you mentioned before about the Upgrade Hour... do you reckon I should wait it out for the deals, or should I just go ahead and start upgrading my drones? Also, cheers for the formation suggestions. I've been alternating between Moth and Heart, the latter for cruising whilst I use Moth for PvE

 

On that note, I'm most likely going to postpone buying a P.E.T. until I've got somewhere with my own ship. I don't think it would be wise of me trying to setup a P.E.T. whilst I'm trying to set myself up, but thanks again for that advice and I'll keep it in mind for when I decide to make a purchase

 

What deals you talk about? Rebate or something?
By the way, you should definitely wait for upgrade hour. Just go on the calendar on the forum, check when was the last update hour, calculate two weeks after that on Friday - next upgrade hour.

Anytime. Also, keep an eye on the Drill formation for PvE outside gates.

Don't buy the PET. Craft it for free, keep that 50.000 uri for something else.

 

I meant the upgrade happy hour, not deals. Apologies. But thanks again for the feedback, I'll be sure to check it out and see how it goes. In terms of upgrading my skill tree, what would you recommend? A lot of people typically aim for those fancy lasers (Bounty Hunter II?)

 

No worries, all cool. Try to always wait for the upgrade hours, because you will save lots of uri. One more advise I forgot to write above: when doing upgrade on drones, upgrade all drones to level 2, then all to level 3 and so on. Don't upgrade one drone at a time to level 16, then continuing on another. If you upgrade all of them at the same time, step by step, you will benefit more in terms of damage/shield boosts.

I have wrote about this on my first post:

Update:
I will share with you the best path (according to me) for reaching Bounty Hunter II.

First, you must get Shield Engineering (5/5 points, I can't stress well enough the word 'must'):




and then, you do the following:

(the numbers next to the skills indicate how much points you should allocate to each skill)

I will also tell you that the skill tree point allocation from above is not the shortest way to reaching Bounty Hunter II. There is a shorter/faster way to reaching fat lasers, but I will not recommend it to anyone. Why? Because you loose precious defensive boosts just to get more damage on PvP, which is not good (have tried this, and didn't found satisfying to have less defense).

PS.
@DeusExMachina - please check the updated post!