Seawolf509 wrote:Michael Everett wrote:Anything not from a weekly mission is stackable to the Nth degree.
Loot from a weekly mission, however, is only partially stackable in that you can use the items from the different mission levels in the same department, but you cannot use duplicate items, so if you have a Quantum Thruster I, you can add a Quantum Thruster II and a Quantum Thruster III but you cannot have a second Quantum Thruster I.
Hope this helps.
Thank you but I guess I don't get it. If items like the armor for missiles are cumulative I can understand that. But how would additional auto loaders be of more help?
Also how do power cores factor in? How determine if better to have 2 of a item or 1 of an item and a power core.
thanks for your help in advance.
Power components are the most important things in the game. Every department needs them, they have a fairly low drop rate, and are not available at most outposts. Each department requires a certain amount of power to increase to the next level. At each level, it does more of what it does than the previous level.
For example, each level increase in weapons, you fire an additional missile, so at level two you fire three missiles per battery, level four is five missiles, up to level 10, when you are firing 11 missiles per battery for a total of 33 missiles from a full broadside. For lasers, CMs and ECM, for each level you increase, you target an additional incoming missile. The higher your bridge level, the faster your roll ability recharges. Engineering level determines how fast you put out fires after a battle.
You should always try to have each department leveled to the highest it will go in your ship. When you launch the game, it opens up on your ship overview window. Below the name of each department is a series of boxes, some white, some dark with white outlines. This represents what level that department is at verse the max level available in your current ship. As you progress through the story line, you will be given new ships with higher max levels. If you go into any department, on the left of the department screen is a smallish tab; if you tap that tab, it opens a system details sheet, it tells you what level you are at, how much power you have and how much is required to get to the next level, and what that department does at that level.
You ask why you would stack items. The flippent answer is "more is better." A better answer takes a bit of typing.
First, later in the game, you have to stack power components. A level ten system requires 207,000 units of power, and the best components only provide 140,000 units. It requires two very rare power components or one legendary and one rare to bring it to level ten.
Second, some times it is better to replace one component with another. For example, you mentioned missile armor. Since it is only effective against lasers, it is most useful early in the game when the enemy defenses are mostly lasers. Later in the game it is usually better to replace it with something else, like a damage enhancer. A fully upgraded damage enhancer is 1.5 times damage. If you install two, they stack by multiplying, i.e., if you have two it is 1.5*1.5 or 2.25 and a third brings you to 3.375 times your base damage. You don't get quite a many missiles through, but the ones that do do a lot more damage. (Note: through experiment, one player has descoverd that there is a cap on damage somewhere around 5x or 5.25x.)
Likewise with cool down components; if you have more cooldowns in each of your defenses, you can be ready to intercept the next wave. As you progress is the game, you will find that the enemy ships start firing their salvoes closer and closer together, and you will not be able to intercept the second wave with only a singe cool down component, no mater how high leveled it is. Contrariwise, extra auto loaders in weapons will let you get a second salvo of missiles in while the enemy's defenses are still recharging. Disrupters also stack, so if you have two in a system, you can bring the enemy's systems off line faster. These are all things that you should experiment with to figure out what setup is best for you.
Third, you need to stack later in the game. There are more component pads in some departments then there are components for that system. For my ECM system, I have 4 cool down components, 2 disrupter/power components from a live event, 1 repair acclelerater, one system health component, and I still have a empty pad that I am farming for an extra repair component for.
I hope this helps.