[darklajid]

Small hints, since you're struggling:

- Make sure to man your stations, try to keep these operators alive and in the same place

- Playstyle depends on the ship type you're using, but you need to have something to penetrate shields soon. Ion weapons might help if you have enough/fire fast enough. Rockets/explosives are easier early on, but later defense drones will be very annoying

- If you're really having trouble: My wife disturbed me during one game and the battle was boring (enemy couldn't penetrate my shields). I went doing whatever she asked for and returned to a decently trained shields engineer :)

- Intrigued by the above: If you can do the same in an asteroid field... ;-p

Last but not least: I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the game. Dieing is part of the genre and difficulty might certainly vary, but that's the fun of it. It's mostly about these "Really? THAT encounter when I'm out of missiles?" or the "Whoa, too much hopping around. I sure could use some fuel" moments, right before you're back to square one. For me beating the game isn't the goal and when I beat it, the game failed. :)

[anonymous]

I have done all of that, except tried different ships. I only played with the starting ship, on hard difficulty, because I wanted to finish the main game before trying the extra modes.

Yes, I have maxed out dodge and shields. I have actually grinded enemies until I had every crew member maxed out on every possible stat. It doesn't help one bit, because you can still get hit 10 or even 20 times in a row, even though you have a 20% evade chance, and 20 hits from anything is pretty much enough to sink you.

It is honestly the most frustrating game I have ever played.

Also, I'm not struggling, I just gave up on it for good. I haven't played it in a year, if not more.

I bought into the hype and bought the game and it turned out to be ... that. I just want to give my perspective so other people don't get it and then feel misled.

[king_jester]

> I have done all of that, except tried different ships. I only played with the starting ship, on hard difficulty, because I wanted to finish the main game before trying the extra modes.

You are playing on hard mode without any experience in handling game strategies and events, this is why you are losing. Try it on the easy mode and get a feel for some different strategies and ships. This game is not difficult, with some experience you can beat most runs in the game with any ship on the hard difficult.

[marvin]

You must be doing something wrong. I beat the game every single time on easy. The only ship I've had trouble with is the Mantis cruiser. I also beat it 50% of the time on Normal (the hardest possible option).

[lewispollard]

> I only played with the starting ship, on hard difficulty

And you're wondering why the game is hard?

[PeterisP]

If you're getting hit 10-20 times in a row then it means that the enemy is getting the time to take 10-20 shots at you... which seems far too much; the battle should be over much sooner almost always - you can't afford attrition battles since any damage costs you funds that are required for upgrades.

But starting with hard difficulty probably was the mistake - unlike other games, it's not something you do before trying other things, it's something to do after you've tried other things and found out a strong strategy that works for you.

[KVFinn]

>I have done all of that, except tried different ships. I only played with the starting ship, on hard difficulty, because I wanted to finish the main game before trying the extra modes.

You should 100% try the other ships, it's the fastest way to learn. The different ships teach you different things. Some ships start with no shields, or no weapon, etc, and show you different approaches which you will bring into any ship.

[xentronium]

> - Intrigued by the above: If you can do the same in an asteroid field... ;-p

If there is also an enemy shooting at you, you will gain experience for shields and engines when asteroids hit/miss. Otherwise, no.

[James_Duval]

You used to be able to do this, though.