As you can see, I tend to stick to the nebulous beacons since they slow down the pursuit of the rebel fleet (thought not as much if this weren't a nebulous sector), this is nice since it allows me to visit more beacons at the expense of not having sensors. By doing this I am able to visit most of the beacons on my way out although I am in the "warning" zone for a good portion of my trip. By the time I've left I've visited 14 unique beacons.
This time an automated scout got away and doubled the fleet pursuit for 1 jump, luckily I only had to fight the rebel fleet at the exit. I managed to jump to 12 unique beacons before exiting.
Sometimes, if the exit is closer to the middle of the map, I will go as far to the right as I can and then fight through the rebel fleet to get back to the exit, I only do this if my ship is well equipped and my hull isn't heavily damaged. I will usually try to get to the exit beacon just before the rebels do, unfortunately, it can be hard to estimate exactly how fast they will progress and will often end up fighting my way out at the exit.
A few things to consider when in nebula space:
- When jumping to nebula locations be mindful of ion storms, these storms are very dangerous early on when your ships reactor can barely keep your critical systems on-line. However, the enemy ship will have the same loss of reactor power, so at least it's a fair fight. Often times when you jump to these locations it will give you the option to avoid a fight, it might be a good idea.
- Boarding a ship with unknown crew members can be dangerous, it is usually worthwhile to have a slug crew member on board. Otherwise you could be sending your boarding party to their deaths, their horrible mantis induced deaths.
A few more things to consider:
- Long range scanners are great for navigating beacon maps.
- If you meet a mercenary early on, pay him to scout the sector, and try to hit as many 'ship detected' beacons as you can. If you're over halfway done the sector pay him to delay the rebels, and see if you can squeeze a few more beacons into your path. If you're pretty much at the exit, just fight him, it is the only honourable thing to do after all.
- To assist in planning your jumps make sure that 'Show beacon paths on hover' is enabled in the options, this will help you avoid getting cornered by the rebel fleet.
In closing I leave you with the following choice:
I attacked the Slug ship, they give me the heebie jeebies.
For more information on graph theory and paths, type 'graph theory' into Google. For more info about problem complexity classes such as NP and P type in 'problem complexity', for all other inquiries please press zero.
I attacked the Slug ship, they give me the heebie jeebies.
For more information on graph theory and paths, type 'graph theory' into Google. For more info about problem complexity classes such as NP and P type in 'problem complexity', for all other inquiries please press zero.
1 - As opposed to shortest, remember we want to stay in the sector as long as we can
2 - A simple path is one that only visits a vertex once, which we want
3 - As opposed to a cycle, a path means the start and end points are different
4 - NP-hard is a class of problem that is very hard to solve in a timely manner. However, there are those of us who believe that P=NP which means that NP problems aren't really all that hard. It's kind of like believing there is a God.
