StarCrawlers – Before you start crawlin

Intro

So you wanna be a crawler, eh? 
Well, it’s your lucky day! As a retired crawler I’ve got some tips and tricks I’m willing to share. 
For a fee, of course… 
Just kiddin’ :O 
 
Back in my days I was looking for a ‘things I wish I knew before I started’ guide and sadly it was nowhere to be found.. 
You, however, do have such a guide. Right here. 
 
 
 

Balanced Teams

If you’re looking for an easy start, there are guides that describe the best team comps, with ready-to-use out-of-the-box solutions. 
If you’re into experimenting and figuring things out by yourself, keep in mind the following when assembling your team: 

• Damage mitigation and crowd control are essential. Consider investing in Taunt, Confusion, Daze & Stun skills. 
• Getting damaged is imminent. Always have Regeneration abilities in your team (at least 1 passive heal and 1 active). Early on you can get away with having no heals, but later the game gets a bit more punishing. Make sure to adapt. 
• Dealing high damage is important. It’s not always enough to rely on 1-2 damage-dealing skills. In order to maximize your damage output you gotta look into synergies between classes. 
  Example of good synergy is Soldier’s ‘Cry Havoc’ + Ninja’s ‘Takedown’. Setup phase takes time but once executed, it’s so satisfying to watch all enemies melt in slow-mo! There are many more powerful synergies. It’s fun to discover them by yourself, so by all means – experiment!

 
Each class has 3 branches which allows them to fulfill multiple roles. Obviously some classes are better at that than others. 
Example: Smuggler. Good at dealing damage and great at supporting the team with heals and damage mitigation. Can also serve as an additional source of income 😛 
 
It’s up to you which class to start with, but in my opinion Soldier is a solid choice – tanky, good damage, versatile, synergizes well with all classes. 
 
Conclusion: A balanced team has all the key roles covered. Some crowd control & damage mitigation, good healing capabilities and high damage potential. (Captain obvious, duh) 
 
 
 

Reputation with Corps I

You think your upcoming “adventure” is about shooty-looty? Nope. It’s about managing your relationships with Corporations… 
“Why even bother with rep?” – you ask. 
Well, earning and maintaining good reputation with corps unlocks many interesting things, such as: side quests; useful items (consumables, accessories, gear etc.); even possibilities to repair reputation with other corps! 
 
In the beginning of your journey, your first step is to accumulate at least 15 positive rep with each corp. (Or with the ones whose favors are going to be the most beneficial to you). 
There is a ‘Corp Reputation Guide‘ that contains a list of Corps and the benefits you get crawlin for them. Check that out to determine your corp priorities. 
 
Quick tips: 

• 10 rep allows you to contact a corp representative and ask what they have to offer to you should you choose to ‘cooperate’ with them; 
• 15 rep allows you to start doing ‘quests’ for certain corps. Those quests are usually extra objectives and things to do during your regular runs. 
• Upon completing mini-quests and tasks for corporations, you acquire ‘favors‘. Favors are something like ‘corporate currency’ which you can exchange for goodies. 
• The higher your reputation, the broader the assortment of goodies you’re allowed to exchange your favors for. 
• There is a maximum of 10 favors per Corp you can keep accumulated at a time, so make sure to check the Wire from time to time to exchange your favors for goodies. 
• Each Corp has their own set of goodies to choose from. 
• Several corps don’t need you doing quests for them in order to accumulate favors. It’s enough to just get 15+ rep with them and contact their representative. After which, the favors are going to be auto-generated after each mission. 
• Certain corps are hostile with each other, meaning you won’t be able to exchange favors with them if you’re also friendly with their enemy. 
• In case you have accumulated favors with a corp and for some reason your reputation with them dropped below 15, you’ll start losing favors. And if rep drops below 10 you’ll lose the possibility to contact them. 
• Reputation is not permanent and is reversible. It’s possible to repair reputation even when it’s -100. Gonna take time though.

Reputation with Corps II

Due to the game’s mechanics, losing reputation with Corps is so much easier than gaining it. 
The following simple rules will help you develop good relationships with the majority of Corporations and avoid hidden reputation losses. 
 
There are obvious actions that cause you to lose reputation and there are hidden ones. 
Obvious ways to lose rep are: raiding corp facilities, stealing and selling their artifacts, transmitting sensitive data to 3rd parties. 
There also are hidden ways to lose rep. It’s not explained anywhere, you don’t get warnings / notifications about ’em, and you usually discover the impact (but not the cause) after it’s too late. 
 
The following actions will decrease your rep silently, without any warnings, and will visibly affect the rep bar AFTER the mission: 

• Raising alarm levels; 
• Triggering traps; 
• Failing at disarming traps; 
• Killing corporate security guards, patrols, drones, cameras, bots; 
• Breaking into security and server rooms; 
• Hacking terminals; 
• Breaking maglocked safes. (up to -20 rep for that. Ouch…)

As you can see, all the fun stuff degrades your reputation. (= 
 
It’s common for many players to find themselves in the following situation: 
Having 8 rep with a corp, start a run for +2 rep with that corp, and after the mission shockingly discover that your rep with that corp is ‘somehow’ -10, instead of 10 that you expected to see. 
Now you know why that happens and how to avoid that. 
Also, maniacally opening your rep tab after every step to check if it had a negative impact is pointless, because all your misdoings are calculated at the end of the mission. 
 
 
 

Reputation with Corps III

Now, let’s discuss the best ways to gain reputation with Corps. 
The key to being a successful crawler is the ability to correctly choose who you’re crawlin for and whether it’s worth your time. 
 
There are different types of missions (reputation-wise). 
Ex. 1: (+5 rep with ‘Puppies’, -5 rep with ‘Kittens’). Pretty straightforward – you invade Kittens on behalf of the Puppies. Gain rep with one and lose the same amount with the other (the same amount, assuming you didn’t do risky things from the previous section of the guide…). 
Ex. 2: (+X rep with ‘Birdies’). Those are interesting ones. ‘Birdies’ ask you to invade their own ‘nests’ that they had to abandon because of (reasons). Such missions yield only +rep and don’t have rep loss with other factions. Pay close attention to what you do on their territory (you already know what NOT to do). 
Ex. 3: (+X rep with whoever, -5 rep with The Crimson Pact). TL;DR – The easiest way to boost rep with EVERYONE except The Crimson Pact. 
 
The Crimson Pact faction is basically space pirates. There are no reasons for trying to maintain neutral / good rep with them (unless you’re a pirate deep down in your corrupt soul?). 
 
So, it’s clear that The Crimson Pact is hated by everyone, have 0 value for you (as a faction and in terms of ‘favors’) and it’s totally OK to raid them, butcher them, confiscate ‘their’ stuff and poop in their beds. 
Now, let’s review the benefits and outcomes. 

• they are just an Anarchist faction, not a Corporation. You can’t establish a ‘mutually beneficial’ relationship with them, so there’s no reason to play nice with them. Go ahead and break all the rules. Exploit their very existence. No one will punish you for it; 
• you have complete freedom, don’t have to worry about doing risky stuff, because rep loss with Crimson Pact is not an issue and won’t noticeably impact your experience; 
• each run against The Crimson Pact nets you 1 – 4 artifacts which you can ‘sell’ on The Black Market.

The Black Market works like a bulletin board. Choose an artifact to sell and up to 3 offers from interested Corps will appear. Then, choose which Corp you wish to sell it to, for which amount of creds and rep, sometimes even gear. 
The typical mistake of a newbie is going for credits and gear. The true value here is reputation! There are other ways to roll in credits; and the gear gets obsolete in a couple of levels / missions. 
When choosing a reward for artifacts, always have reputation in mind. 
 
An artifact, depending on its rarity, can net you up to +11 rep with a faction. 
Selling a couple of artifacts from 1 Crimson Pact run brings more +rep than doing 1 regular +5 /-5 corp run in which you have a crap ton of restrictions. 
In other words: The sole purpose of the pirate faction is to help you get tons of rep with corps in a quickest possible way with no negative consequences. 
 
If you’re willing to ‘repair’ rep with The Crimson Pact, there is a way. You can’t run missions for them (AFAIK), but having good relationship with Ragnarok (another Anarchist faction) allows you to exchange favors for repairing reputation with The Crimson Pact. 
I still haven’t found any benefits for doing so.. but at least there is a way to fix your standing with them. 
 
 
 

Secret areas

There are secrets to be discovered on each map type. 
Secret areas on regular maps differ from secrets found in main story missions. 
 
In story missions, secret areas are usually accessed via pushing a button that’s hiding behind a loose panel that you have to push several times to remove. 
 
Regular Corp missions sometimes have the following secrets, depending on the location type: 

• In Ship missions you can find safes that are distinguished by blue light. Thing is, safes can be positioned not only on walls, but also on floor, ceiling, and behind objects you can’t get through (but can loot from distance); 
• In Lab missions you can sometimes find a bunch of pipes sticking out of the wall. On the right side of the pipe there is a green light glowing, and the left side has a valve, which you gotta push several times to unlock a secret compartment nearby; 
• In Office missions you can sometimes find a ‘corrupt terminal’ event. Attempt to cleanse it to open a secret compartment nearby. Having a hacker in the posse helps, otherwise get ready for several waves of guards / securibots; 
• In Mines missions you can find secret areas that are accessed through pipelines, which you’ll have to clear of rocks first. 
  Also in Mines, when in tight rooms, look up and if there’s a lattice instead of rocky ceiling, explore it thoroughly cause there often are artifacts or supplies behind the lattice.

Items & Loot

Each class has a unique accessory that can be crafted after gathering its blueprint and 3 components. 8 classes x 4 pieces = 32 pieces total. 
They are spawning randomly. Sometimes they are behind a maglocked safe, sometimes in a trash can near office cubicle. 
Due to a game flaw, as soon as you craft an accessory, you’ll start getting the duplicate components for that same accessory over again. As long as you have the blueprint and all its components in your stash or inventory, you’re not gonna get duplicate drops for that accessory. 
If you’re planning to go for NG+, I recommend collecting ALL blueprints and components in your 1st playthrough. Refrain from crafting anything until you gather ALL pieces for ALL classes. Then craft all of them at once, before moving to NG+. That way you’ll avoid situation in which you’re missing that one component for a class, but getting dupes for other classes that have the accessory already crafted, over and over. 
 
Items labeled as ‘Loot’ are safe to sell. 
 
Items labeled as ‘Unique’ are used for corps side quests or utility items during missions. Don’t rush to sell them. 
 
Items labeled as ‘Explore Consumable’ are used in missions. Such items have success percentages, and it matters who uses them. Smuggler seem to have the highest chance of success. 
 
 
 

Advanced Tips & Tricks

There are side quests that are not tied to corps. Some are random, some are story-related. 
So far I encountered 4 such quests: 
1. The musician who lost his musical instrument; Help him find his stuff on a mission and he rewards you with a 5-star item to sell at Black Market. 
2. Barkleby, the dog with voice implant. Help him find his owner, and.. not gonna spoil, but if you do things right, you’ll get a pet dog that you can spawn in each mission as 5th party member (Non-controllable); 
3. Riggo. Keep him alive both times and he rewards you with unique accessory that lets you spawn one of his robo-pets as 5th party member (Non-controllable); 
4. The quest with the rogue AI, help him across main story missions and at the end before the final fight you’ll have him fight on your side as a 5-th party member. (Non-controllable); 
————————————————– 
 
When starting ‘New Game+’, you carry over your equipped gear, inventory and decking inventory. 
Reputation with corps, Main story choices, equipped decking utilities and learned decking programs are lost. 
 
There is a neat trick that will allow you to become a decking GOD on NG+: 
In order to not lose your Utility items and be able to use them in NG+, simply replace them with random ones (gotta replace them since you can’t just unequip), keeping your best ones as inventory items. 
Also, don’t sell duplicate Legendary (v5.0) programs, rather keep them in your inventory for use in NG+. On NG+ all those deck inventory items get transferred (while equipped ones are lost). 
Therefore, on NG+ you’ll be able to equip all your high-level Utilities and ‘learn’ the best programs right from the start, which will allow you to stomp ANY decking session, no matter the difficulty, one-shotting everything and completing them within minutes. It’s especially satisfying to do it fast because decking sessions can become extremely long and boring (even annoying). 
After final mission you won’t be able to re-visit STIX, so make preparations either before the last mission or before the last battle. 
The best programs to keep for transferring to NG+ are: ‘Thud’, ‘Tazer’, ‘POW’, ‘Barrier’, ‘Worm’, 
 

This is all about StarCrawlers – Before you start crawlin; I hope you enjoy reading the Guide! If you feel like we should add more information or we forget/mistake, please let us know via commenting below, and thanks! See you soon!