Sharing my experience with early crew combat on Hard

First off, I'm no expert. But I am able to make a ship and crew capable of taking on all the Faen storyline combats as well as early Xeno ships. This is on the Hard difficulty level. I just thought I'd share my own way in case it proves helpful to you. this is not the best way. Simply A way.

Build:

  • Any captain type will do. I go A attributes, B skills, C contacts, D ship, E experience.
  • Captain for this will be non-combatant, but if you want a combat captain, go for it. It's just not required. I like Commander multi-classing into Smuggler and Merchant.
  • Skills I go for 8 command, 7 Tatics
  • Contacts, pick what you want. I like to make sure I have at least one Black Market access, lots of introductions, access to whatever jobs I want that run, and the 4th contact should be someone who can pardon. The 4th contact is out of system and (for me) is always a different starting faction. Getting an "easy" pardon for at least one other faction is great
  • Ship: Reach Vindex. You're going to kill enemy ships through boarding so you want the high speed and agility. Any fast ship will do, I like the Reach.

First, since I'm going permadeath I have no issue with doing a little save-scumming at the start to get a minimum combat crew. What am I looking for when I do this? I need 4 capable combatants out of the starting crew. Everyone else doesn't matter. They can be replaced. Combat crew can as well, but I find it easier to start with a good squad. If you prefer to hire down the road, you do you. I get frustrated investing time in the game only to have the RNG take forever to get me a serviceable hire.

I look for the following 4 positions

  1. Combat Medic. Usually the starting Doctor Officer. If the Pistoleer or someone else could serve that's fine. They need to be chucking out lots of "Cleansing Purge". So they need high initiative. Reasonable accuracy from any source is desirable as well. They won't be your main damage dealer but they should be capable of hitting something.
  2. 2 Front people. Either a shotgunner, a swords person, or pistoleer. If the starting Quartermaster has good stats I'll give them Pistoleer or Soldier or Swordsman and another combat stat (frequently military officer, bounty hunter, or Zealot; but it can be others). Shock Troopers are amazing up front, particularly as an officer but regular crew is fine.
  3. The Back line. Either a bounty hunter, soldier, or sniper.

For crew stats, don't forget that Rifles are a STR related weapon and Sniper rifles are the Quickness based long gun. It took me forever to figure that out. In addition, the secondary blade is quickness based allowing you to go with a quickness based swordsman if you add something like bodyguard.

Otherwise, for stats I need 20+ in the primary accuracy stat and the ability to get 20+ initiative. The higher the better. "Brute" is a disqualifying trait regardless of stats. Otherwise "okay" can be good enough as I will look to hire improvements as I go.

Early, do the story missions staying out of combat initially. The 27/27 engine plus "Fast Getaway" and if needed "Sharp Steering" are usually plenty to escape. But I do plenty of bribing as well. Just as regular crew is getting access to their 5th level talents is when your combat team can start getting more serious (they may have done a couple of early fights, but not willingly).

Ideally you switch your ship to a "Wolfpack Interceptor" which is the most amazing ship hardly anyone seems to talk about. It's a cheap Wolf Vector with the most important aspects being able to run the Small Bridge and 6/30 crew. I buy it, sell the Reach, and use the money to immediately install an A6 weapons locker. Other improvements are nice but optional. I prefer switching to the traveler engine but keeping the chaser is fine.

Combat begins with "Expert Maneuver" or latter on "Vigilant Scanners". I attempt to close with the other ship every single turn. I keep the missiles to fire on the way in but often don't have anything for range 1 or 2. I'll Twitch surge to get into range for "Boarding Assault" then keep "Boarding Assaulting" until normal Boardings do fine.

A couple of things to note here. Some guides imply that boarding talents require the crewmember to be part of the assault. That is only true for "Boarding Assault". Once the ships are at range 1, any crew can use their boarding talent. Also, I've seen at least one guide pan the usefulness of morale, repair and healing Talents in ship combat. At least one of each are amazing to have as eventually the enemy ship's guns go silent but you're still working away at boarding every turn (10+ rounds of ship combat are not unheard of). Those latter rounds are a great time to start healing up the damage you took on the way in. It saves a lot of time and money in port later.

Crew combat itself is just a few basic principles:

  1. Have talents to adjust your own crew positions. The enemy moving your crew to ineffective positions can be crippling. Plan ahead by taking Talents that move your crew around and have a benefit to go with it (either great buffs or an attack).
  2. Have talents to move enemies around. Some enemy groups are more susceptible than others, but it's great to be backing enemy swordsman out of range forcing them to spend their turn moving instead of attacking.
  3. Healing is fantastic. Preferably multiple characters should be able to heal. The Combat Medic is great. But having 1 or 2 other characters able to self-heal can be critical. The swordsman gets a self-heal as does the Shock Trooper.
  4. Removing debuffs is critical. The combat medic can do it, but its important that every combat character is able to do so, at least on themselves.
  5. Focus fire on single enemies. This should be obvious but its worth saying.
  6. Your sniper doesn't need amazing initiative. They need accuracy, but not initiative. If I have a sniper (versus a rifle based back row) I put them into stealth mode first turn then proceed to shoot the best 1.5x or 2x attack talents I have. This will put you in penalty. It doesn't matter. The sniper will delete 1 enemy every single turn. If the rest of the crew has to muck about healing and not contributing much offense, it almost doesn't matter. The combat WILL be over in 4 turns. Of course, the front 3 do much more than that. Many combats are over in the first round. I even get the occasion crew victory without the other side firing a shot (but usually against the non-combatants late in the ship combat).

That's it really. This will take down Xeno ships and crews. The earliest Xeno ship victory I remember was with a level 11 captain. It wasn't even challenging. The "Skip Off the Void" talent is nice for pacifist groups but not required (at least on hard).