Everspace 2: Advanced 20 tips and tricks

This is my experience, as an old gamer that played A LOT of everspace 2 since early access, and started the game anew more than 30 times (restarted at each update, to make sure the bugs weren't inherited from older version. We had to help the devs, after all)
1- explorer challenges are NOT necessary. Do them if you are a completionist. The rewards revolve around extra xp, but that means you'll level up faster, and that will bite you in the backside, because you need time to upgrade your gear and stay combative. The major danger of the game is level scaling without you, the player, being ready for it.
My advice is, do them casually. If you get the chance to complete one, do it.
2- Forget the signal decoders. Sell them for good money. All the loot they give, you can get in random encounters and during missions. Signal decoder challenges don't give any loot or xp, until you kill the final boss. At low levels, you will be seriously over-matched.
Instead, do random encounters. They pop up when you fly in supra-light.
3- Don't sell everything. Sell only commodities, dismantle the rest. You need an armor module to be able to start dismantling stuff. Get one asap. Buy it if it doesn't drop as loot. Dismantle EVERYTHING. You need those resources to craft stuff, specially lots of grey missiles and mines to even the combat odds. Also, to craft rockets for killing the bigger ships.
4- Yes, upgrade your ship whenever possible. Higher tier ships have better stats overall, and they don't affect the level-scaling. Only the player level does.
5- Again, dismantle everything that can be dismantled. Sell the rest. BUT keep some of the consumables, specially the peacemakers, the cloaks, and the shields. Thank me later.
6- You can test different perks, but soon you will know that a handful of them are much better than others. Won't spoil by telling which ones. ;)
7- Fill your team perks when you have the resources. It's all benefits. Tractor beam is a priority, so you can pull multiple loot at once.
8- There are two weapons for mining: The flak (mines one ore patch with one shot), and the laser (takes longer to mine). Ignore that disintegrator laser. It has a charge-up time, and pushes your ship back, thus ruining your fun while mining. A laser with a mining catalyst (you can slap one, if you craft it) has a higher chance to get rare resources, but a flak with the mining catalyst is as good at mining quantity, and does it faster (you have a smaller chance to get rare resources, though)
9- Filtering the system map is the best way to check where to go to get the specific resource that you need. So yes, learn to do it. Also, learn to sort your inventory.
10- Nothing to add here. Starforged is always better.
11- Don't spread the attributes. You can adjust the points at any time. Do it according to the ship you use. If you fly a gunship, focus on damage and structure. If you fly a stinger, focus on utility and expertise. Each ship has its advantages. Capitalize on them.
12- Try ALL the ships, so you can find your sweet spot. Changing ships won't cost you money. The price is always adjusted to the ship you have. So you can always change ships and try anew.
13+14- Again, you should focus on the ship you have. Ignoring resistance+structure is foolish if you fly a gunship. That ship is a BEAST at tanking. Capitalize on its strong points. A Bomber, will work great with extra points in structure. Its HP will jump through the roof.
15- Hook is one device among many others. You will have a limited number of devices you can use. Not all ships work better with the hook. A striker needs no hook. It's a master of boost speed. It has much more advantage on using offensive devices like the virus, the corrosion, and the emp blast.
High tier ships can have 4 devices. At that time, you can spare one slot for the hook, and have fun with it.
16- Flak is indeed, one of the best weapons in the game. Be careful though, if you use it in close quarters, you burn your own face.
If you want to capitalize on the free missile (if your missile has that perk), the beam laser is the one that checks criticals faster, and has a higher chance to launch a free missile. Not the gauss. Gauss is ok, but bad precision and slow ramp up.
If you have bad aim, try a thermo gun instead. Thermo+flak. Never gets wrong.
If you want the best missile perks, look for these: chance for a critical to fire a free missile+ last 3 missiles do +100% damage+30% damage for each second the missile flies. Fire all missiles until you have the last 3, and you get a super free missile launcher.
17- You don't need to use those devices to restock, repair. Each kill will repair part of your armor. Take advantage of that. It's better to craft new missiles and dismantle the old when they are low on numbers. Unless you have a really good missile/mine. But then again, until you reach level 30, all weapons and gear become obsolete at level-up, so, don't get attached. Dismantle and craft, are the magic words.
18- yes, track what you need. Those Resources will be highlighted on the merchants list.
19- Don't waste resources on catalysts, unless you really know you need them. As I said before, under level 30, everything becomes obsolete when you level-up. And you can't remove catalysts after you slap them. So don't. Conserve your resources until level 30. And again, dismantle everything.
20- Sentinel is the WORST ship in Everspace 2. Change to another ship ASAP. Vindicator is a drone operator. Some people love to play with it, others don't. It's a taste. Try each different ship, and see what you like best. I'll leave here a little list for help:
Sentinel - meh
Interceptor - heavy damage dealer. Boss killer.
Striker - King of speed. Mob killer.
Scout - Long range stealth assassin.
Stinger - The Joker, Lord of devices.
Vanguard - Tiny shield tank. Solves most tough challenges thanks to its slow motion ultimate power.
Gunship - heavy resistances, heavy damage, and a turret. Get one with coil turret, and see the mob melt.
Bomber - secondaries work with energy bar, so you don't get out of missiles and mines. It's ultimate power is a big mofo bomb that obliterates everything, including yourself, if you are too close.
Vindicator - Drone operator/ manager. So you can play with less heat on yourself.

Bonus- difficulty. Adjust difficulty in-game if needed. You can always change it, and the game will adjust accordingly. You don't need to stick to hard or easy. No one will punish you for learning the game on easy mode, and making it harder as you level-up.

Last advice: Assign a button to "dampeners off/on". Learn to use it and drift. You can conserve booster energy and fly at boost speed for A LOT of time. Master the skill.

WOW freee missels

Thanks mate, I should have watched this video 20 levels ago….. 👍
Clear & to the point.

Very usefull video.
I was strugling on High Risk area, even at 30%. Crafted 2 Flak and passed it on 1st try.

This is the best video i have seen on the game. Thank you!

Is there a new game plus option for everspace 2?

a bit of missinformation
all weapons can have those modifiers for mining, mining perks are part of a catalyst that any weapon can have, but flak and lasers can have a 25% boost of mining modifiers, flaks are the best ones for it cus it requires one shot to get all resources

So are you saying you carry around your mining laser and when you come across a node you go to your menu and swap your equipped weapon to mine the node then swap back every time? Or you only mine at specific times when you're going around looking for nodes to upgrade something and the rest of the time you just smack it once with your flak cannon cuz you don't really care?

Loved this video! Tahnks!
A question.
I got a legendary weapon in level 17 but I am alreay at level 20. There is nothing I can do to upgrade it right?

Is it possible to make allies that you can summon to help in combat? Besides elek or combat drones, is there any allies in the game like the okkar or bloodstar?

I’d be more willing to play on the harder difficulties if there was actual incentive to do so. Also, a lack of quick save, for me is a nonstarter.

unless you are a bomber where health dmg reduction is just fine as you are a massive target and can heal yourself no issue

Best explanation video on this game ever. I need those combact tip. I didn't see the hook I'll have to check for it.

Excellent guide, thank you. I do have one question. I’ve looked all over but can’t find missile defense system or nano transmitter. I’m at level 12, do they randomly show up in trading outposts? I can’t find them anywhere.

this was so helpful...I wish I could give this video 2 likes ;)

Excellence video thanks

😊😊

This guide is amazing. Just started playing on Xbox. Thank you sir!

You say spread your attribute points, but you didn’t do that. If I’m playing a sentinel ship like you, wouldn’t it make sense to max out expertise for the added shield bonus? How did you spend your mainframe expansions?

Классно рассказываешь. Потрясные советы.
Но чувствуется акцент. Ты русский?
Bist Du Deutch? )))

mlmariss fantastic tips !!! speaking about mining im level 12 and in my map i dont have any any filter and if i point the mouse on a planet i dont see any resource even if i mined several time . is it a mod or a later game feauture ? thx for help

Great video, im in love with this game, best thing since canned bread

I have never seen someone explaining the topic "Computer Games" to me while wearing a white collar Shirt and Suit. Awesome! :D

Great tips specially for new players ... I would love to add 3 tips here:
1: Gunship is REALLY powerful with doubling your guns and damage and specially with when using sniper omg ... but its downside energy cost can be compensated with really cheap consumables for energy
2: for mining yes leaser is the best for 25% increase for mining perks but for time sake or lazy miners like me I use Flak with mining catalyst on highest lvl flak i have ... i couldn't tell the difference actually! yes leaser will produce more on paper ... but i don't think its worth the time and effort ... and i never ran out of materials anyway
3: trying out ships cost nothing ... buy and sell at the same price so try more new ships ... like Bomber ship with free missiles perk is really fun dont miss out on it... try it sometime

i use a Flak with mining catalyst, one shot and you get it all, plus of course the added bonus

thanks a lot for this, there is so much in the game that without reading every thing you will never know what is good and what is best.
I think I went through the jump gate too early in my level as I found myself going from killing everything to OMG Im dead LOL
I will go back tot he game now and grind a little more in the starter system for 2 or 3 levels and save up for a new ship as like you said I was thinking of keeping the starter ship till I found one i like and saving the money for other crap.

I Can not agree with "don't dismantle lower rarities just sell them" It is true, you can not upgrade quality of those, but you can always craft new one appropiate to your level and without dismantling and throwing those out of the window stright to merchant IMO is biggest mistake you can make. Credits are super easy to come by, crafting resources not, do few jobs and get your new ship, build your new coil gun instead of hoping that green or blue one (begore lvl 20) is going to drop anytime soon.

When you talk about missiles you point out that the it is important for them to have the "cannot be damaged" perk so they don't get destroyed while approaching the target. - I'm not a 100 percent on this, but I believe the "cannot be damaged" perk does apply to all sorts of items and means that once you get shot to shit - your stuff does not malfunction. So your shield does not permanently go down and you can still fire the missile. - What you want is the " cannot be intercepted "- perk that ONLY applies to missiles. Some - as the cruise missiles - come with it inbuild some aquire the perk through RNG. - The "cannot be damaged"- perk I find quite useless - for as you say once you are down to your hull hitpoints and your shit starts shutting down - you're probably toast anyway.

It's not always wise to sell your collected ship modules, you'll need the materials you get from them for crafting your catalysts you'll need and to upgrade and improve superior items you either have picked up, or choose to upgrade because of the additional qualities on them, for instance, a beam laser with 175% chance to mine exquisite materials when mining is well worth keeping and upgrading several levels you will need the materials from dismantled superior items to do this. o7 CMDR

i am at level 13 and this is just what i needed, thanks!

Cool

Crafting can be an option while leveling if you are stuck with same weapon for 3+ levels.
One important thing is - zones level up. Sometimes there are so many things to do that they get outleveled and you keep doing low level content all the time which gives bad loot, bad exp and you get bored soon. The thing that can be a bit tricky is that zone level up is not smooth, it jumps by many levels, so after those jumps most of the time enemies are more challenging than you might want. Anyway, the main point I would say is try to do high level things only and main mission until you get at least level 16-17. Then good items can start to drop, game feels different and is much more fun.
If you are struggling with some high risk zone bosses, look for missiles where are only 5 missiles. Depending how good they are, they can usually kill boss with 1-3 missiles. It will cost restock if you are not catching missiles, but will save a lot of time and money in repairs (if device not maxed).
Also, when leveling you use a lot what you find. Flak is great but quite often if its not up to level it lacks dps. Quite good combo I like is coil + blasters, but flak and railgun also is ok so just look out for those.

This video took forever to come out

Just bought the game yesterday, very nice guide, helps a lot. Thanks.