Influence Strategies

For now, this'll be a dumping ground for general (and mostly outdated) info from various Forum threads. So far, sources include http://skyrates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=45446#p45446, http://skyrates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=43736#p43736 and http://skyrates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=43720#p43720. A few more tips are buried in the Factional Forum sections (well, one fewer, thanks Zabrak!), but I'm awaiting permission to copypaste them here. Please correct, update and organize! --Calvin November t/c on 17:10, September 6, 2012 (UTC)

A
Influence is simply a count of skyland favor. The only way to raise influence is to do missions taken from the three fellows in the tavern. Skylands will fly the flag of whichever faction has the most influence there; skylands consider singular players with the most influence "governors". Attaining either of these goals provides no real benefit aside from having attained them.

This guide is to help you focus on maximizing your influence output.

B
"Influence run is an activity that is somewhat time consuming. As a rule of thumb, the more time you spend focusing on it exclusivly, the more effective you will become.

However, there is a limit to the focus you can give this activity, as there are only 24 hours in a day. So, to improve your efficiency, here are some tips.

C
This guide is meant to provide advice from the perspective of the midgame player who's just landed at a Faction capital up through the acquisition of her Tier 9 plane and completion of her skill tree. In other words, this is a "how-to" guide.

Much of the advice here is still quite useful, although many of its assumptions have been radically changed, and so players are advised to take it with a hefty grain of salt.

What to Fly
These are some recommended outfits:

T4 - 3Kit Bolo T4 - 3Kit Hades T4.5 - 3Kit Mantis T5 - 3Kit Thunderbolt

These are all nice and shiny but keep in mind that influence running seriously cuts into money-making. I made the mistake of running influence before I had a good plane and this decision hurt me in the long run. Make sure you're comfortable with the amount of gold vs. influence you'll be making over the long term. I'd suggest getting one of the planes listed above before you dedicate yourself to a career in influence.

The faster a plane is more opportunities arise for better missions from being able to land more often. However, this fact needs to be balanced with a player's playstyle, as more landings won't do a great deal of good without being at a computer at which you can take missions, in which case a slower plane with a larger cargo hold may be optimal.

It should be noted that all of the planes above, except possibly the Bolo due to its arcs, are just fine for combat.

Hire the right crew.

Like Skytopian aircraft, potential crewmates and their jobs are not created equal. Every influence runner will want both a navigator and a diplomat. You may even want to hire a navigator as your very first crewmate due to their importance and how slowly they level, though they may prove hard to find(navigators are thought to be more common at Islo, Eltsina, and Fuseli). To make money a mechanic should take up a third crew slot(particularly if you start running influence and still have a goal to reach in regards to planes and plane upgrades) unless one is a very heavy trader who avoids combat.

A second diplomat or navigator may come in handy until the respective primary crew members attain level 10. A second diplomat will add ~3% more influence after they reach level 4 or so. A second navigator will, likewise, only improve the navigator bonus around 4% or 5% at most.

Eager/Free Spirit personalities are generally the best type to hire due to their significantly increased experience gain.

Choose the right skills.

Influence runners are primarily interested in two skills: Trade Prestige and Skyland Trust. Getting both of these to five stars are crucial for influence running. If you choose to run influence early you may have problems gaining the necessary Trade Points to max out Trade Prestige due to cargo missions taking up valuable cargo space. Each of these skills unlocks a number of missions with each "tier" of the skill. The higher the tier unlocked the better your mission selection will be.

Understand mission basics.

A player may only have three missions at a time. The three gentlemen you will meet in the tavern will offer three missions each, for a total of nine missions from which to choose at each skyland. The moose will offer low quality trade missions. The lion offers more valuable trade missions than the moose does, as well as faction-specific trade and combat missions. The badger offers solely combat missions. A new set of nine missions is only obtained by making a fresh landing. That is, coming back from a hunt or diverting back to a skyland will not change the missions you received when you first landed at a skyland.

There are two basic kinds of missions: Combat missions and Trade missions. Combat missions simply involve downing a mission-specific number of pirates for a set amount of influence depending on the mission. Pirate kills from combats encountered in flight, while hunting, and on patrol all count towards the total; the three patrols granted at a skyland can provide enough fodder to complete missions requiring 10 pirates without taking off from the skyland. Here's a good look at combat levels, though it should still be noted patrols only take the base combat levels of their respective skylands, the bonus from your Combat Infamy skill, and a bonus based on your plane to calculate combat levels.

Trade missions involve transporting a set number of cargo from the skyland on which a mission originates to another, random skyland. Trade missions, with only a few exceptions, do not have a set amount of influence like combat missions and, instead, have a ratio of influence given against the distance travelled. That is to say, a specific trade mission will give twice as much influence with a 400km route than one that is 200km.

Missions have "risk", which makes combat harder with additional/better/higher level planes and/or better AI with better skills. Low risk missions add 2 levels each, medium risk missions add 4, and high risk missions add 6 for up to a total of 18 extra combat levels. Be careful taking on combats that are too hard as some missions will drop if your plane gets shot down in combat, either through manual combats or those fought by the autoresolver. It's also worth mentioning that kills earned in combats ending in flees or bribes count for missions so no need to stick around if things get too hairy.

Missions often give gold alongside the influence. However, if taking missions for gold is one's desire cargo missions will generally not fulfill that desire due to low payouts versus the cargo space needed.

Faction-specific missions are designed with "negative feedback" in mind to make defending skylands from attack harder, and to make attacking skylands easier. Only the lion offers these missions and, at the most, they will only take up two of his slots with one combat mission and one trade mission. The defensive trade mission ties with the very worst trade missions for influence per kilometer. The offensive trade mission is the third best trade mission for influence per kilometer. The defensive combat mission is one of the worst combat missions in the game, while the offensive combat mission is halfway decent. This feedback has certain ramifications on the dynamics of taking and holding skylands, especially since the difference in quality can be significant.

There are sets of mission sequences, so make sure to do every mission once, even if it may not seem particularly beneficial when seeing a mission for the first time.

Also, there's a set of offensive missions (Generous Rebellion, Breaking the Blockade, Smuggled Goods, Generosity) that will only appear at skylands on which one's faction is within a very small distance from taking over the skyland from another faction. (This distance is probably 20k faction or less)

Dropping missions does not yield any negative effects. Losing a mission due to losing a combat likewise does not yield negative effects beside losing a mission inadvertently.

Master the nuances.

Do you like big numbers? I know I do, but big numbers, while important in some instances, aren't everything. There's something to keep in mind besides big influence numbers in one's mission log and that's mission quality. The higher the influence per kilometer the better a mission is, this is important when taking trade missions from different skylands - a skyland further away from the core can give bigger numbers for missions that are technically worse as the maximum distance potential between skylands is greater at the rim. Here's a quick-reference table for variable-influence trade missions:

Moose missions 0.1inf/km "Barrels of Candy" Cargo: 20 0.1inf/km "Taxi Service" Cargo: 10 0.2inf/km "Get Me Home!" Cargo: 10 0.2inf/km "Reliable Transport" Cargo: 10 0.3inf/km "Movement of Goods" Cargo: 20 0.3inf/km "Pillow Shipment" Cargo: 10 0.3inf/km "Twenty Boxes of Pillows" Cargo: 20 0.3inf/km "Twenty Tubs of Fish Food" Cargo: 20

0.4inf/km "Ficus Shipment" Cargo: 10 0.4inf/km "Parts & Labor" Cargo: 20 0.4inf/km "The Winds of Trade" Cargo: 10 0.49inf/km "Barrels of Monkeys" Cargo: 20 0.5inf/km "Help Me..." Cargo: 10 (Trust 1) 0.5inf/km "The Pipeline" Cargo: 50 0.59inf/km "Completely Harmless, I Assure You" Cargo: 50 0.7inf/km "Definitely Not Illegal..." Cargo: 50

0.8inf/km "Help Us..." Cargo: 20 (Trust 2) 0.8inf/km "Oh God...My Head..." Cargo: 10 1.0inf/km "Valuable Parts" Cargo: 50 (Trust 4) 1.1inf/km "Moving a Family" Cargo: 20 1.4inf/km "Transporting a Whale" Cargo: 50 1.5inf/km "Transporting the Guardsmen" Cargo: 10 (Prestige 2) 2.0inf/km "Help all of us..." Cargo: 50 (Trust 3) 2.0inf/km "Transporting the Duke" Cargo: 20 (Prestige 4) 2.5inf/km "Transporting the Duchess" Cargo: 50 (Prestige 5)

Lion missions 0.1inf/km "Defensive Trade Mission" Cargo: 20 1.5inf/km "Opening Negotiations" Cargo: 10 (Prestige 1) 2.0inf/km "Secure the Goods" Cargo: 20 (Prestige 2) 2.0inf/km "Smuggled Goods" Cargo: 50 2.5inf/km "Sweeten the Deal" Cargo: 30 (Prestige 3) 3.0inf/km "Offensive Trade Mission" Cargo: 20 (Trust 2) 3.5inf/km "Make the Exchange" Cargo: 40 (Prestige 4) 8.0inf/km "Eltsina's Boon" Cargo: 50 (Prestige 5)

"Influence per kilometer" doesn't just apply to the above missions, however. Like the "Priceless Relic" and "Mysterious Artifact" trade missions, combat missions have a set amount of influence they give. The influence per kilometer for said trade missions can be worked out with distances provided by the cartographer, oftentimes this won't be necessary for these two missions, especially out on the rim.

Working out the influence per kilometer for combat missions requires a bit of finesse, this is due to encountering pirates being based off flight time(i.e., faster planes see fewer combats between skylands), and the randomness of both combat frequency and quality in regard to the number of pirates in the combat.

A good estimate for the frequency of combat encounters when plotting flights is one encounter every 12 to 15 minutes of risky flight time. The number of pirates in an encounter varies based on combat level, which has a number of variables including distance from the core, the player's skill in combat infamy, and the missions being carried. Overtime you'll get a feel for the number of pirates you're likely to find in encounters across the map. Keeping combats queued until close to the end of a flight leg may also be beneficial as combats queue with level modifiers in place. This way combat levels aren't lost as combat missions requiring fewer pirates are completed. See the Pick up some missions section, about halfway through, for information on hunting for combats.

Another thing to consider is not all planes are made equal. As mentioned above, both speed and cargo capacity are factors for which you should account.

Take the mantis listed above, with 120 cargo space it can hold 51 different trade mission combinations(1 to 3 missions, 10 to 50 cargo a mission). This mantis is only 16% slower than the listed thunderbolt, which with only 65 cargo space has a total of 21 different trade mission combinations. The slower mantis, which can hold more and better quality trade missions, is perfect for a somewhat sporadic influence running. The faster thunderbolt is great for a really active player for zipping around and taking lots of combat missions.

Hammer out your strategy.

The way you run influence will depend on a number of things: how much time you're willing to dedicate to the game, the overall pattern of the time you dedicate, your plane, and, probably most importantly, your goals as an influence runner.

Looking at an overall strategy, trade missions are pretty important. They're good for making influence while you're away from the keyboard. The quality of the missions you take, aside from being dictated by luck, is really up to personal preferences and circumstances. Also, it may be worthwhile to hit every skyland possible. Oftentimes skylands which appear "out of the way" are often in reality only a detour of a handful of minutes, which is very possibly worth sparing for a whole new set of missions.

Also, although seemingly counter-intuitive, seeking out and taking missions from the outer rim for over-nighters may yield better results. The increased number of resets allowed by inner-skylands can easily be outdone by the longer distances and, consequently, higher mission values outer rim skylands allow. This will help maximize your potential overnight travel time.

If your aim is to become a governor of a skyland, your best bet will probably involve going back and forth between that particular skyland and the closest skyland to it.

If your aim is to aid your faction the most you can in a purely defensive manner, your best bet will probably involve taking lower quality missions than you would if you were aiming for governorship as you take the different opportunities for more sets of missions in your faction's territory.

If your aim is to maximize your own, personal influence you'll probably want to focus on staying in foreign territory and taking on offensive missions. This goal may involve alternating between travelling large sections of the map and jumping between two adjacent skylands and everything in-between.

Another, time-intensive way of maximizing your influence is taking a fast plane to the core and going between two very close skylands and doing mainly combat missions. Trade missions in this scenario are often only taken when there's a full suite of high quality missions from which to choose.

I'm thinking of adding another section to the guide:

Pick up some missions.

Undoubtedly, you're going to realize you can't pick up all 9 missions at a skyland. While not every strategy will adhere to the following method for choosing missions, there are some commonalities that exist between all strategies, and most of you will (hopefully) find it helpful. Keep in mind that a lot of mission choice is taking educated gambles; it's more of an art than a science with the data currently available.

Before landing, have a good idea of the missions you already have on board and which missions, if any, you'll be completing upon landing. The idea is to have a 'weight' for the missions you currently have to better compare them to the ones you're about to get.

The weight of a mission, and sets of missions, will include(but is not limited to) the importance of both source and destination skylands to you(and their colors), mission quality(both in terms of distance and IPK), the proximity of mission destinations to each other, the skylands along your projected route(s), missions' cargo sizes against your plane's capacity, and what you expect to be the time/pattern of time you'll be able to dedicate to your pursuit of influence. The same applies to combat missions, only with combat missions kills need to be taken into account.

After landing take a good look over your new set of offered missions. Right now is when you want to decide if you want to drop any missions you currently have.

Ideally, you'll determine how the new missions weigh against the ones you have already, drop unworthy missions, and then pick up combat missions. When choosing which combat missions to take, the best combination isn't always straightforward; both the chance of 10-kill patrols and the number of pirates you expect to counter after takeoff need to be factored against the combination of combat missions with which you're presented. It may be worthwhile to leave a 10-kill mission for your flight, or you may want to take a 10-kill mission and a 50-kill mission for patrols if there's a 30-kill available as well and save the 30-kill for your flight.

But what to do when you're out of patrols and still have kills left? There are only three options: drop the combat mission(s), keep the combat mission(s), or hunt. Hunting will yield approximately one encounter every 7 to 8 minutes with maxed Perception, with encounters coming at every five minutes at the quickest. Once you've reached your kill quota you can divert to a nearby skyland and then divert back to the skyland from which you took off within a few seconds. You'll need to take into account the speed of your craft, the level of the combats you should expect in the hunt, the distance to the next skyland to which you're heading, and the relative value of the mission to determine whether or not to hunt for it.

Now that you've completed your patrols and made sure to pick up your missions you're ready to go...almost.

Maybe most importantly in running influence, however, is how the missions you'll have after taking off will stack up against what you desire/expect out of a set of missions. If you're anything but a go-with-the-flow kind of player, and you've decided your current set of missions is undesirable, you'll probably go to the nearest skyland to get a new set of missions or to make a return trip to your skyland of choice. Make sure you're satisfied with the missions you take. If you can help it, don't skimp or you'll be unsatisfied until you finish your missions and get back to where you want to be.

To break it down: Land Check tavern missions Decide which missions to take and where to take them Drop unwanted logged missions Take combat missions Do patrols, making sure to check for completed combats when appropriate Drop unwanted/incomplete combat missions/hunt Pick up final set of missions Check final set of missions Set your course Take off

And, if you set a course for overnight/the workday, it may be worthwhile to refresh Skyrates and check your course.

Avoid mistakes.

Inevitably, you'll make mistakes. Here are some to avoid:

Failing to check missions after landing, after completing combat missions with patrols remaining, and before taking off. Missing a reason to drop a mission before patrols, which can make room for combat missions. Mixing up the different Alpha skylands.

First of all, you have to know you need to go -fast-. Very fast. The less time it'll take you to run between skylands, the more missions you'll be able to take and deliver; the more influence you will gain. There is an offset to this, though; the more you'll have to land to pickup missions, the more often you'll have to log on to select new missions to accomplish.

Another element just as important as speed is cargo. You need -at least- 50 cargo to be able to pick up the missions with the most payoff. While 50 is a minimal requirement, the more you can get, the better. 100 is ideal. Anymore than that isn't really necessary, though.

You have to find a balance between these elements. You have to get as much cargo as possible, without sacrificing too much speed. So, you need a craft that is able to be good at both. Perf/Trading planes are usually rather well-suited to accomplish this task, but the best planes currently available to run missions are actually the Mantis, the Thunderbolt and the Bolo. You will have to completly avoid pure Perf planes: Until t6, none of them have hull slots, so none can be triple-kitted, and they can barely get past 50 cargo.

Don't forget to boost Trade Prestige. You -can- put points in Skyland Trust if you want to pick up combat missions. However, Trade Prestige yields the most influencial missions.

Recap:

1) Availability 2) Speed - Cargo balance 3) Trade Prestige and Skyland Trust. "

Pick up some missions.

Undoubtedly, you're going to realize you can't pick up all 9 missions at a skyland. While not every strategy will adhere to the following method for choosing missions, there are some commonalities that exist between all strategies, and most of you will (hopefully) find it helpful. Keep in mind that a lot of mission choice is taking educated gambles; it's more of an art than a science with the data currently available.

Before landing, have a good idea of the missions you already have on board and which missions, if any, you'll be completing upon landing. The idea is to have a 'weight' for the missions you currently have to better compare them to the ones you're about to get.

The weight of a mission, and sets of missions, will include(but is not limited to) the importance of both source and destination skylands to you(and their colors), mission quality(both in terms of distance and IPK), the proximity of mission destinations to each other, the skylands along your projected route(s), missions' cargo sizes against your plane's capacity, and what you expect to be the time/pattern of time you'll be able to dedicate to your pursuit of influence. The same applies to combat missions, only with combat missions kills need to be taken into account.

After landing take a good look over your new set of offered missions. Right now is when you want to decide if you want to drop any missions you currently have.

Ideally, you'll determine how the new missions weigh against the ones you have already, drop unworthy missions, and then pick up combat missions. When choosing which combat missions to take, the best combination isn't always straightforward; both the chance of 10-kill patrols and the number of pirates you expect to counter after takeoff need to be factored against the combination of combat missions with which you're presented. It may be worthwhile to leave a 10-kill mission for your flight, or you may want to take a 10-kill mission and a 50-kill mission for patrols if there's a 30-kill available as well and save the 30-kill for your flight.

But what to do when you're out of patrols and still have kills left? There are only three options: drop the combat mission(s), keep the combat mission(s), or hunt. Hunting will yield approximately one encounter every 7 to 8 minutes with maxed Perception, with encounters coming at every five minutes at the quickest. Once you've reached your kill quota you can divert to a nearby skyland and then divert back to the skyland from which you took off within a few seconds. You'll need to take into account the speed of your craft, the level of the combats you should expect in the hunt, the distance to the next skyland to which you're heading, and the relative value of the mission to determine whether or not to hunt for it.

Now that you've completed your patrols and made sure to pick up your missions you're ready to go...almost.

Maybe most importantly in running influence, however, is how the missions you'll have after taking off will stack up against what you desire/expect out of a set of missions. If you're anything but a go-with-the-flow kind of player, and you've decided your current set of missions is undesirable, you'll probably go to the nearest skyland to get a new set of missions or to make a return trip to your skyland of choice. Make sure you're satisfied with the missions you take. If you can help it, don't skimp or you'll be unsatisfied until you finish your missions and get back to where you want to be.

To break it down: Land Check tavern missions Decide which missions to take and where to take them Drop unwanted logged missions Take combat missions Do patrols, making sure to check for completed combats when appropriate Drop unwanted/incomplete combat missions/hunt Pick up final set of missions Check final set of missions Set your course Take off

And, if you set a course for overnight/the workday, it may be worthwhile to refresh Skyrates and check your course.


 * Overall Timing************

Probably the most important observation about the influence game is: don't rush to get into it. Flight Points you can't do anything about, and Combat Points will likely flow like water, but the vagaries of mission running mean that you're just going to get pulled off of good trade routes, and you're going to get your cargo bay filled up with non-trade goods. This is going to absolutely slaughter your Trade Point generation rate. I'll put it this way: in my first 28 days in this round, I earned 5,922 TP. At that point, I fired my traders, swapped in two diplos, and started inf running in earnest. In the subsequent 28 days, I earned 710 TP (and I was shooting for Leadership 5, with 800 TP required, so I was actively working for them). Your mileage may vary, of course, but still, I'd expect quite a dropoff. Your cash flow is also going to take a pretty significant dent, although not quite as bad because you can still combat as effectively and missions do provide some income. The upshot of this is: hold off till your T7 plane at the earliest before you start to make the transition. Honestly, if you wanted to wait till your T9 I certainly wouldn't blame you - it's what I did, after all. It's not like the Court is wanting for influence runners to press into service. Take your time, start when you're ready.


 * Trade Points************

Now to expand the point about TP above. The minimum to be an effective inf runner is Prestige 4, which unlocks two of the larger missions that are out of scale with the previous three levels: Make the Exchange and Transporting the Duke. Frankly, I'd hold off till Prestige 5, because that's even better (albeit a steep TP cost) - it unlocks Eltsina's Boon and Transporting the Duchess, both among the top missions in the game. Other useful TP skill are Creative Storage (definitely worth the investment through level 7, 8 is questionable for trade but helpful for an Inger running missions) and Leadership (level 3 is necessary to have a useful effect on leveling up your navi, level 5 to be useful for your diplos). Again, if you're not yet comfortable burning the TP to make these commitments, then by all means, keep your nose to the trade grindstone and come back to thinking about inf when you are.

Other necessary TP skills just for the trade benefit are Trade License, of course (6 gets you Diamonds, which is where I made a lot of TP, others swear by level 7's Unob); several ranks in Cutthroat Business is usually wise (up to 6, I think, gets you a pretty quick return on investment); LuxSchmux really helps if you are trading those goods because the taxes on them are much higher than other goods (I took mine to level 3 because I did such a brisk diamond trade); and a few points here and there where they're cheap for other tax skills if you think you've got a nice run set up. How much to put into these skills is a hard balance to strike; obviously, they're useless past the point you've switched to full-time inf. You have to calculate how much additional profit you'll make from the reduced taxes and see if that really improves your TP generation rate enough to be worth the opportunity cost.

I'll caution against putting more than a point or two in Salvage Ops, as combat payouts are too low for this to do a lot of good. Likewise leave Smuggling alone; the benefit is too small for the skill point cost. More on this in the combat section below.


 * Flight Points************

FP is similarly tricky, perhaps more so. In the first week or so of the game, Flight License was the most important trading skill of the game, as the prime mover advantage into virgin trading territory was huge. This effect has obviously leveled off. Eventually, you'll need this maxed, but 6 gets you nearly everything. The other necessary skill as an inf runner is Skyland Trust - 3 is the minimum - it gets you the tasty low-commitment Help Us and Flawless Record, plus Researching the Whales (but more on the Whale below). Trust 4 gets two excellent combat missions, Unparalled Record and Perfect Record. Trust 5 unlocks the best mission in the game, Help All of Us, though it's exceedingly rare, plus the middling but occasionally useful Remy combat missions. So, Trust 4 and 5 aren't strictly necessary to be an effective inf runner, and because they also have Cartography as a prereq they have pretty steep FP costs, but since you get FP at the same rate whether you're trading or not, there's no point holding off on inf running on their account. Keep in mind also that Leadership has FP requirements as well, albeit much less than its TP costs.

Other FP considerations: put a point in Airbrake and Afterburner, those are both useful combat skills but don't require further levels. I never bothered with anything in Sideslip or Wingover. Maneuver you'll probably be happy with level 3, more points seem like a waste since that skill doesn't improve your dodging ability any longer. Cartography is a matter of personal preference, but it's at least relatively inexpensive. Perception is a nice little skill - it takes a minute off queued refueling and it gets you more combats during hunts, so it's the rare skill that useful for both long haulers and combaters. Tax Evasion is I suppose useful, but I think just stop at level 2. That just leaves Fuel Efficiency, which is a fairly weird skill. If you're reading this, you made it to Arcadia, which means you already know something about how weird range is in the current round. Most skylands are now pretty accessible, given phil's changes in mid-February, so FE for the most part just functions as a way to cut off fuel stops - it's a speed issue, not a necessity one.


 * Combat Points************

Combat is relatively straightforward to the prospective influence runner. Other than Leadership, CP aren't required for any inf-related skill. You can be an entirely successful inf runner without fighting a single combat, although you should probably do some, for a few reasons listed below. As far as useful CP skills go, I like Gumption quite a bit since I G-turn a lot; Eagle Eye, Precision Fire, and Crack Shot are of course as useful as always. Barrel Roll, Loop, Immelman, and Split S are useful, but hold off on putting more than one point in them until you're swimming in CP. No real need to be squeamish about Combat Infamy in the current state of the game; if you've made it to Arcadia you've probably experienced a pretty healthy diversity of combat levels. Each point in CI just adds one level, so maxed is +10. You can get more from carrying a couple of high risk missions, so this shouldn't really scare you off if you've earned the CP to afford it.

A few other notes about combat. First, as alluded to above, the combat payouts are relatively low. Or more accurately, they pay decently to start out with, but plateau around level 30. Unlike last round, when I would advise that most of your cash would be from combat, this round I would guess that most pilots with a Tier 9 craft and no extra cash to their name probably got about two-thirds to three-quarters of that money from trade. Again, this makes Salvage Ops not particularly valuable. And the indirect effect of this is that any given combat is not worth risking a loss over - until you get a nigh-invulnerable Inger, you should keep your mouse constantly hovering over the Bribe button and practice lunging for the pause key. Losing a combat is bad news - huge lost cargo, angry crew, no combats for the rest of the flight. Bribes are a small price to pay.

There's plenty of threads on combat tips and configuring your mods elsewhere, so I won't belabor the point. I will note that it's still valuable to fly risky and fight combats even after you've got your T9 and even if you don't have any combat missions - getting some sweet mods is more than worthwhile, it doesn't really take any longer, and you need all the xp you can get for your diplomats and mechs (note that even if you aren't yet running inf, it still makes sense to pick up combat missions for this reason - higher difficulty means more CP and thus xp for your diplo and mech, the inf goes to xp for your mech as well, and if you're not yet in your T9, the cash is nice. And they don't take any cargo, so it doesn't affect your trade running). I will advise, however, that you set your AR cowardice to 100% - the amount of cash, CP, and mods you get from an AR combat is nowhere near worth the risk of your AR blowing the combat for you.


 * Crewmembers************

Speaking of crew, managing that transition can be tricky. I've stressed earlier that getting your trade phase out of the way is key, so getting a couple of Traders is crucial. On the other hand, Diplos take forever to level up - you get, basically, 1 xp for each TP, CP, and FP, and then 9 xp per 5,000 inf (which doesn't really change till you get Leadership 5). My attitude is that even with the fixes in place, Mechs are basically useless. The mods are nice, the occasional repairs are okay, I don't even know if there is a DR boost, but still, Diplos take forever. So my advice is the order should be: Navi, then 1st Trader, then 2nd Trader, then Diplo (and then a second Diplo, if you go with a 5-crew plane), then when you're finished with trade, fire the two Traders, and keep the Navi and the first Diplo, hire (or keep) the second Diplo, then hire a Mech (and another Mech, if you finish trade before switching into an Inger or otherwise have a 5+ seat plane).


 * Mission Running************

There's a lot to be said about running missions themselves. In terms of the actual mechanics of picking up and clearing missions, Beav's checklist in that thread up top is still the way to go, although of course the mission values have changed. I've personally kept the summary page on the Skybrary accurate: http://skyrates.wikia.com/wiki/Mission_Summary

Also, resets (meaning, flying to another skyland and fuel station then back, to get a fresh set of mission offers) are, sadly, still quite effective. You'll need to budget your time so that you land at your destination target during a period of time when you'll be able to reset a couple of times before taking off again.

And one thing which isn't obvious is that there are mission chains. What this means is that certain missions have antecedents which must be performed before they'll spawn. Here are the chains I'm aware of, in descending order of importance:

Help Me > Help Us > Help All of Us Transporting the Guardsmen > Transporting the Duke > Transporting the Duchess Opening Negotiations > Secure the Goods > Sweeten the Deal > Make the Exchange > Eltsina's Boon Perfect Record > Unparalled Record > Perfect Record We Can't Offer Much > Aiding the People > Crusade of Hope We're Desperate > Desperate Times > Crusade of Bounties I Suppose We Can Deal > If We Must ...

Those last two chains are for inf-less, cash-only missions. You should use this to your advantage by simply always refusing the initial missions, to keep the subsequent ones out of your spawning pools.


 * Plane Selection************

This is what's changed the most with Taft's February 4th mission 'rebalances'. The Inger has been taken down a peg, although I still maintain it's the best inf runner. First of all, it's basically invulnerable, due to its very low silhouette and the current combat system's overrepresentation of that stat, meaning that there's no need for the TBolt's extra combat capabilities to get a combat mission done. The Kingfisher, on the other side of that coin, is more or less useless in combat. That means the chief consideration is cargo. My attitude is: mission selection is so inconsistent (or rather, so consistently poor), that while very frustrating, the number of times you're actually kept from taking a slate of great missions by the cargo limit of 149 (with maxed Storage) is pretty low. The Whale missions are not so great that the slow speed of the Kingfisher is justified, I think. The Spectre andTBolt are a nice compromise for those who don't want to reset but are comfortable taking some clunky (poor inf/km/crate) missions at a steady clip.


 * Final Thoughts************

As I've said a few times, this will probably need to be rewritten as the game is changed. I'll put up a bumping post to notify folks when I do.

Again, I want to stress that the inf game is really an end-game kind of thing - getting into it too early can cause you to lag behind in your progression, meaning you'll overall be doing worse than if you waited. I did this last round, and I don't want people repeating my mistakes!