Cult Citizen

[icycalm]

So after 15-20 hours, I think I have a decent grasp of how the game works to set out some kind of strategy.

This is not an easy game. In terms of money, we've barely made progress, and we often LOSE progress. I'll analyze all this in my upcoming review, but the point is... we need to start making some kind of progress, because new content will be coming every 3-4 months, and at the rate we're going we'll never get through even a fraction of it.

We've been learning a LOT, and that IS progress. But I'd also like some money and some vehicles and stuff and a bunch of completed missions, so let's try to make that happen.

Due to all the alpha bugs and glitches, it turns out that it might be easier to make progress in smaller groups than larger ones. Otherwise you just spend a lot of time waiting for a bunch of people to sync up with you, half of whom end up glitching out, or just dying before the mission has even begun. That said, you can't even use the larger vehicles without a large crew, so of course we need to play in a big group too.

Bottom line is that from now on we'll be playing pretty much 24/7 as there's just way too much content in the game to get anywhere with it in 5-6 hour blocks once per week, as we've been trying to do up to now. So from now on we'll have THREE basic modes of play.


1) SOLO

You can, and should, play solo throughout the week whenever you feel like it because there are many specific and cool tasks that are best handled solo. For example, shopping for gear. ysignal bought a cool suit, but it took him time to find it, and it makes little sense to hold back a 6-man party on a Saturday just to buy some threads. I am not saying shopping isn't fun in a big group. Everything is more fun in a group! But given a choice between spending our Saturday when we have a big group to go shopping, or to run some big missions, the choice is crystal-clear. So use your solo time to look for gear, scout for ships, stock your various locations in the various planets with whatever you think you may need such as perishables and supplies, or just tour areas and read up on lore, etc. Above all, try to ensure your character is READY for the duo and trio and bigger missions we'll be undertaking during the week and especially the weekends, so that when the day comes, you aren't holding up the rest of the team with your shopping or your eating and drinking or whatever. Get that stuff sorted!

And of course you can run missions too, but try to look for the smaller, low-hanging fruit. Don't ruin the bigger missions by attempting them on your own. Rather try to clear out as many of the smaller missions that you can. This is the time to be completist and try to do everything that doesn't seem very inspiring. Play FedEx man and just take your time and enjoy the sights, all the while scoping out all the cool shops etc.


2) DUOS, TRIOS, ETC.

As soon as you know you want to be playing missions throughout the week, ping everyone with the @Star Citizens role to see if you can get a partner or two. Unless you plan to do solo stuff, I mean. But if you feel like running missions midweek, ping people to see if anyone can join. I am sure there are missions that can be handled solo, but it's always more fun with at least one more person, and it's also safer.

Ping people as early as possible. If on Monday you know you want to play on Wednesday, ping them immediately so more people have time to make the time and fit it in their schedules. If you're lucky, you may even get a big group together midweek and try some more elaborate, tougher missions.


3) LARGE GROUPS

For 4-man missions and above, we'll probably have to wait for the weekends, and primarily Saturdays. By the time the day arrives, we should all try to be fully kitted-out, and ideally know in advance which mission(s) we will be tackling, so that we know what gear to bring, how many people there will be and therefore also how many and which ships we can bring etc. Planning for missions is WAY more complex than I had thought. Do you park the ship outside and everyone goes in? But then any player can fly by and blow your ship up while you're running the mission. Do you have fighters flying patrol? But then what if you encounter players in the actual mission? Does a pilot drop the players down and then retreats to safety, perhaps in orbit, and comes get them later? But wouldn't that pilot then get bored? Stuff can get real complex, and we're only playing beginner missions! Solid planning is essential if we ever hope to do well on the more complex missions.


The above are just guidelines that make sense to me. When you're in the actual game, do whatever the hell you want. If you want to spend all Saturday kart racing, go for it, and post some pics for everyone to see!

Any more ideas and discussion on these guidelines and beyond, drop them below.

[icycalm]

Haven't bumped the Strategy & Tactics thread ever since I made it, so here's an update, plus I also stickied the thread so it'll be easier to find, since we'll be using it extensively from now on.

So I'll start this off with some strategies for using single or dual Corsairs, now that I've bought one, to add to ysignal's existing one.

Corsair + Ursa + Pisces is the ultimate bunker setup. Easy infiltration, and easy exfiltration with as many bodies as you can pile into the Ursa, plus the Corsair has ample storage for their gear. This is much more effective than our previous setup of Cutlass Black + Cyclone MT + Pisces, since the Cyclone can't carry shit.

But there are other advantages. Above all, this makes for a great bounty setup too, especially if you get a third or fourth person in there to man all the turrets. So it scales up much better than the Cutlass, and you can keep switching back and forth between bunkers and bounties all day.

Moreover, when both ysignal and I are online (which happens often), it's much easier to field 2 Corsairs rather than 2 of anything else in that category or above. You can fully crew 2 Corsairs with the crew of 1 Hammerhead, for example, and then you can spread those Corsairs to cover more Stanton hotspots, with e.g. one of them going for Ghost Hollow and the other for Kareah. We hop on separate channels and conduct our separate operations, but when one team is in trouble, the other can rush to the rescue, all the while the commanders keep in touch via direct communications (discussed recently elsewhere [ > ]).

Lots of other things you can do with 2 medium-size ships that you can't with 1 large one, like for example sending one to ferry loot or cargo back to HQ, or to bring a newbie from somewhere, etc. And they can always combine forces to take on a tougher mission.

If nothing else, we'll get more variety than using the Hammerhead every time we have more than 4 players. Don't get me wrong, I adore the Hammerhead, but variety is the spice (melange) of (sandbox) life.

As a solo setup, I suspect Valkyrie + Ursa will be a better choice than Corsair + Ursa because it is more compact, and I plan to grab a Valkyrie as soon as I can afford it. I also encourage others to grab one, as we've never used one as a group, and it's apparently the best dropship in the game (the Prowler is the biggest dropship, but it has serious bugs, plus it can't carry a vehicle). But either way, solo setups aren't very useful in our org when people often jump into your channel before you've even had time to finish a single solo mission. We'll definitely get more mileage out of mid-size vehicles than smaller ones. Just think of how many miles we've put in our Hammerheads over the last couple of weeks, and that's the biggest warship in the game.

[icycalm]

So first read my two recent posts in the Anvil F8 Lightning thread.

Obviously we need to field as many F8Cs as we can when we need air or space superiority. Keep in mind that that's not the same as blowing up big ships. That's just commanding the air above a region, or a certain region of space. That's also not taking out ground-based AA. Those two objectives require completely different approaches. All I am talking about in this post is clearing out enemy fighters. If your objective is more complex, you'll need a more complex vehicle composition to what I am describing in this post.

So for air and space superiority, we bring out as many F8Cs as we can before we consider bringing out ANY other fighter, including the Scorpius. Two F8Cs is better than a Scorpius, or even than two solo Scorpiuses. Once you have fielded as many F8Cs as you can, then you put the rest of the pilots, if you still have any, into as many Scorpiuses as you can. And that's your max air & space superiority fleet.

For those players who haven't bought their own F8C, just jump into Adjudicator's CULTCLONE-2, after first stacking its local storage with the appropriate flight suit gear from your rank's Pilot Spec. That clone really should have stacks and stacks of flight suits for all ranks at all times.

Then, once the clone is taken, see if ysignal or Adjudicator are in the game, in which case ask them to lend you an F8C. They each have 2 in their main accounts, so they can always lend one.

Once all these ships are taken, that's when you start looking for a Scorpius or Scorpius Antares to fly or co-pilot.

Regarding F8C paints, and I am assuming here that special paints can be removed like normal paints, Inquisitors and Master Chiefs should use the base white paint with a red accent, while Captains should use the gold paints that only ysignal and Adjudicator have. So even if recoil is in the game, he should not fly his own F8C if he's playing a Captain, but Adjudicator's. If I am in the game, I am flying a gold one too.



Once someone hits $15k and gets the Executive Edition F8C, that's the one I am flying, while Commanders and Captains fly the gold, and Master Chiefs and Inquisitors the white.



Of course we won't have available all players, ships and paints at all times, not to mention objectives tend to be much more complex than simply "air & space superiority", so just do the best you can at any given time with the resources you have available and situation you are facing. But you need to know the basics to deal with the complex, and the basics of air and space superiority right now in the verse are what I just analyzed.

Feel free to discuss in this thread, but don't spend too much time discussing in the field, especially when under pressure. That's the time for action and quick thinking.


P.S. I know that the F8C isn't in most ranks' Pilot Spec, but I can't prescribe a $260 ship to ranks that haven't even spent $10 on an Avenger Titan upgrade. If it becomes available to buy in game at some point, we should be able to buy it for everyone, and then I'll amend the specs. Remember that the specs are written with dozens of players in mind, not our current small org size. For now view the vehicle specs as merely aspirational and just use what you need to to get the job done. It is the uniforms and personal loadouts that you should stick to above all. Those are ironclad even in our current small org state.

[icycalm]

The Difference Between Good and Great Military Planning
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dLxJtM4BS84

[icycalm]

Now that I've finally set up my new laptop I am about to start playing a lot more, so I want to put into practice something I've been talking about for a while. I want a more structured and streamlined method of assigning tactical ranks in-session.

First of all: For those who don't want tactical responsibilities, feel free to ignore this post. Just log in as Inquisitor at all times, and follow the CO's orders, and you will never have to think about any of this.

For everyone else: The first person to log into the game and start a session can gear up as either Inquisitor or Master Chief. You CANNOT gear up as Captain. Play an Inquisitor if you don't want responsibilities, and a Master Chief if you do.

The second person to log in HAS to log in as Inquisitor UNLESS the first person decided to also log as Inquisitor. In the latter case, you can choose to play as Master Chief and command that one player.

Ditto for the third player: he MUST play an Inquisitor unless neither of the two earlier players geared up as Master Chief.

Ditto for the fourth player.

Now we come to the fifth player. By this point we likely have 3 Inquisitors and 1 Master Chief in the game—i.e. a full fireteam—unless none of them wanted to play a Master Chief, which is unlikely. Either way, a Master Chief can only command up to 3 Inquisitors, so we don't want a fourth one. We don't want a second Master Chief either, because which of the two will command? So the fifth player HAS to be a Captain, unless he doesn't want to deal with the hassle of command, in which case he can play an Inquisitor and then the Master Chief in the game will just have to command an extra Inquisitor until someone comes in who wants to play a Captain. (Another possibility is that the existing Master Chief can rank up to Captain if he wants to.)

Sixth player: Must play Inquisitor now under the direct command of the Captain (as his bodyguard basically), unless there are no officers, in which case he can play an officer if he wants, and at this point it must be a Captain.

Assuming by now that we have at least one Captain and Master Chief in the game, further players should all be Inquisitors unless the Captain feels he needs a second Master Chief. If so, he can tell the new player or an existing player to switch to Master Chief gear, or players are also welcome to ask him if he wants a second Master Chief. Generally speaking the rank-up should be given by order of log-in priority (which is why when you log in you should report it in the appropriate Discord channel), but the Captain can also ignore that order and just assign the rank to whoever he wants.

When an officer logs out, someone else can take his rank by order of log-in unless the player number drops so low that that rank is no longer needed. Remember, a Master Chief can only command up to 3 Inquisitors, and beyond that we need a Captain. There's no practical limit to how many Inquisitors and Master Chiefs a Captain can command, so we'll never need more than one Captain. Maybe if we get to 50+ players simultaneously online we'll need a second Captain (and at that point I'll introduce a higher tactical rank to command everyone).

Random players we picked up in the game or outside of it that aren't CULT members can ONLY play Inquisitors. Tell them to sub if they want to play Master Chiefs or higher and direct them to the Cult Spec and Subscribe pages.

What about the strategic ranks?

By their very nature, these ranks aren't supposed to take part in operations. They're supposed to sit in their offices and give strategic commands. Since that is boring however, and this is a game not reality, we'll allow these ranks to take part in ops whenever the op is taking place in their jurisdiction, and they can wear their cool colored gear and bring along their cool colored vehicles. Check the Cult Commissions thread for up-to-date jurisdictions, and ask related questions there. The op must take place ENTIRELY within the jurisdiction for the relevant Commander or Supreme Commander to show up there. Are there borderline cases in this? E.g. when the op ALMOST takes place entirely in a jurisdiction, but then someone must be sent to sell some stuff outside of it? Yes, there are borderline cases, and you can use your judgement to figure them out. As for why the strategists suddenly decided to show up, in Cult Lore we say that the Commander or Supreme Commander decided to show up and personally take control of the OP because he wanted to get out of the office and stretch his legs or something.

If a strategic rank is present, it means we don't need a Captain in the session because the strategist has the exact same powers as the Captain at that point. If there is already a Captain, he must switch to Inquisitor the moment the strategist arrives, or to Master Chief if the Com/SupCom says he wants a second Master Chief. Basically being able to ignore the log-in order for rank-ups is one of the perks of the strategic ranks, so that the strategist shows up with his cool and expensive armor and gear and takes over any op taking place in his jurisdiction at will. And yes, it's a damn cool perk, and it's available to everyone willing to spend a few bucks more on the game: talk to me if you're interested, plenty of free planets in the game already to grab, and a new system is coming in this year as well.


P.S. Try to use your rank's vehicles: I made those lists for a reason. Don't bring your damned Polaris if you're geared up as Inquisitor. Rather reward yourself with your bigger vehicles as a result of doing such a good job commanding and streaming a session that more and more people join in so that you get to rank up to Captain and unlock for yourself your bigger vehicles. THAT SAID, if you're playing an event or find yourself in a tough and interesting situation and you JUST NEED a Polaris or whatever even though you only have 2 people on, go ahead and bring out your Polaris. Just don't make a habit out of it and don't do it for no reason.

P.P.S. What about the specialized specs like Ranger, Medic and so on? Never bring those out unless you have the CO's permission, or unless you are playing solo in which case you can do whatever you want because you're basically your own CO.


Any questions about any of this, ask them here, or suggestions and so on.