the Incomplete Guide to Piracy IV

[Historical Archives]

so how come you're such a great pirate?
historically speaking, the most famous successful pirates tended to be those who survived and managed to avoid being hung. a famous pirate hanging off the end of a rope is not a successful pirate - there is a difference. avoiding getting hung is best achieved by not being a pirate all the time and Core Exiles is no exception here. the "privateer" attacking "enemy" shipping under letters of mark and the spanish "Costa Garda", who were basically pirates by any other name, were officially sanctioned pirates. they were prone to changing sides and attacking friendly shipping but were often seen as a necessary evil or even heroes like Sir Francis Drake. it is possible to be a privateer in Core Exiles and my tutorial below will show you how to become a famous and successful pirate. it doesn't involve dangling off the end of a rope, in fact the worst that can happen is you get endless rude comments made about you in irc#chat but at least, you get to be famous.

how to be a famous and successful pirate (without being hung)

level 1 to 10: the easy bit
complete the starter missions, Jonas Hawke and Gunny. Start Winston Harper and Temperance. attack only what you need to attack, avoid combat. begin surveying and extracting early on. acquire mining drones and put them down but don't bother with refining their output just let it pile up.

level 11 to 20
finish Temperance. buy basic cargo expander and do long distance hauls for Ashar. keep the extractors down. leave the mining drones mining. network and acquire hermes drones for level 15. leave the ore for later.
essential store buys: bio engine mk5 and a mk4/mk5 fuel tank

level 20 to 25
at level 23 buy a Trader (hauler class) - beg, borrow (but don't steal) the funds from guilds, other (rich) players, anybody. if you can't - hold back and continue running the extractors, haul for Ashar and at 25 buy a Wanderer. upgrade all your extractors at level 25 to commercial extractors. upgrade your mining drones. finish Winston Harper,
essential store buys: premium account for the extra fuel - burn it, you need to build up credits.

level 25 to 34
start hauling for Wesbec. start mining but haul out to Verec-per as much as you can. finish Cedric Marshall, Trudy Dalmar, Carole Carmine, buy gators and do what you can of Darina Toomes. keep extracting and don't give the stuff away - make as much money as you possibly can. at level 34 throw any remaining IP into refining and refine all that lovely ore you have had piling up in the refinery.
essential kit: Midas Device Type 1, leave it fitted and running overnight after you log out.

level 35 - all change here!
buy a Betty! Bettys rock, they are super multi-role ships, you can do an Archon but hold off to level 35 and go for a Betty. use an IP reset now.
you will have unlocked several implants already - change to or buy level 2 implants, re-fit them now before you add skills. skill up as follows.
150 scan - you should kit out with asteroid scanners 1,2,3 in all 3 system slots, and a babylon 3 pod.
80 in drones, you should upgrade to Hestia mining drones, at level 36 buy combat drones mk4. it is going to start getting fun soon.
you now need to aim for a cargo hold of 400. your Betty starts off with 310. if you have lots of spare IP - beg or buy a Tesla mk1 reactor, you should have an cargo expander like the Quantum Eon Expander QE3 already by now. if skill points are tight - a Satan-5 Cargo Enhancer R3 is perfect and you won't need to skill up anymore for the next device upgrade at level 38.
upgrade all your extractors to a selection of industrial extractors.
if you have left over skill points, 140 energy to run a Zenith Phaser ZP1 is good. buy or beg a couple of Hull Nano Plating Rev 5 and a couple of Messiah Turret Type 4's, throw out a combat drone at the start of every fight and you have a fighting Betty which will take down small fighters every time and fights more efficently than the Marauder with the extra armour and hull. Bettys 0wn.

but no fighting yet. Joyce Bonner in Verec-per might be talking, with your uber sized cargo hold, finish Arty, most of Mac1623, 8 of Anton Mitchell's, Hopodoplus & Tessa Arno, extract what you can, GBM for what you can't.

essential store buys: Minos Transporter Type 2 - trust me on this one, zapping the contents of your cargo hold to safety without having to move, dock, and faff about will shake your game.

level 36
now you can start combat. start gently, and do as much as you can of Tomar Stubbs (but stop before you get hull breached) and Lt.Stevens (no more than 5 missions). with the combat drone packing it and the messiah turrets going off - even a small basic pulse laser is going to work out against quite a lot. the first few Santos Castillo missions might be doable.
BUT
only hit your mission targets and NOTHING else.

when you've finished having fun, goto Verec-per, deck out the asteroid scanners and mine until you get stupidly bored. don't bother collecting ore, use the minos (you did buy one right?) to empty out. if you get lucky you will hit a red crystal, if you are very lucky hold on to 3 of them and sell the rest. crystals, ROLF's and debris will pop up everywhere. hoard all of them, sell none. you need 31 grey crystals too, keep mining.

put up a GBM for 260 historical artifacts, complete Charles Smythe and hoard 80 away. start Eustace Saltser when you can. offer to sell attractive family members for the 55 hyper o2, then start extracting to finish. keep mining.

level 38
skill up device to 200 fit a Passenger ECO - Module EM3 and start running passengers to build your Union standing. ideally, run round Verec-per a few times and keep checking out Candice Littlefield and complete her as soon as you can - you will need to grovel for the 50 military datacubes, don't be proud. back in Sphere and GBM Edward Smythe's cultural artifacts and do Divine Enlightenment if you are bored and want a giggle. keep mining.

by level 39
by now you should have spare IP - start crafting, do the Jacob Brite crafting missions, follow that with Rene Serrano - with all that mining you should have the 5 grey crystals you need. Angelina Vega is a bigger leap but if you have spare skill points blow them in. you've got that red crystal by now? Marshal Decker and get your very own Intergalactic telemetry beacon. dump your rolf's, crystals and salvage at Delores Malone, she'll love you for it. keep mining.

level 40
now let's have some naughty fun but wait a minute. first check. your Ashar and Wesbec standing are both over 1,000,000 each yes? at least? at this point you are going to leave them behind forever. if a new NPC enters the game who needs Ashar / Wesbec standing, are you "future-proofed" for it? a million points of standing are *probably* going to be enough to see you onwards (but don't blame me if some future introduced NPC needs more than this okay?) if you've neglected this - you need to deal with this now.