Drox Operative

Drox Operative

49 ratings
How to Win the Game
By FUBAR!
A quick guide and some tips on winning and how not to lose the game.
   
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Introduction
There are four ways to beat a sector in Drox operative; Military, Diplomacy, Economic, Fear, Legend. Here are some tips on how to win for each one, as well as some tips to avoid losing the game.
Why You Want to Win
Each win gives you different rewards. For example: the military gives you a medium loot chest and a piece of loot related to the race that you supported. Diplomacy gives you a small chest for each surviving race. Economic gives you a chest of loot and half the money you made them. Fear gives you a small chest from each surviving race, similar to diplomacy. Legend gives you a chest and a nice XP boost.

This makes some wins more attractive than others. For example, a medium chest is great, but if you get 6 small chests that is better. More loot means more money, which means you get to become more powerful than you can image. I suggest trying to play things smooth for exploration phase of the sector. Meet the races, do a few quests for them but try not to get too committed to any one race yet. By the time you have finished exploring some races should be at war, when this happens start picking sides and plan for which win you want to achieve. Once your plan is set, put it in motion by starting to pick sides. Finally, enact your final scenario that you wanted to achieve.

To break this down:

Explore
Plan
Enact
Win
Military Win
Military victory is obtained when you are allied with the last remaining power in the sector, ensuring that the Drox operative is key to power in the sector as you get to do all the hard work. It is by far, in my experience, the easiest of the victories to win with. Best way to get a military victory is to side with the strongest group and knock everyone else’s heads. You will gain more happiness points by going to war with races that are at war with the said ally, meaning it is easier to not piss them off and get the lose victory.

One thing to note is that the side you ally with has to be the last man standing, if you are siding with a side where you are not going to be the strongest, ie you side with one dude and are facing two others that are allies, then it may be best to break your alliance and side with the other guys. Hey, you’re a Drox Operative, being scummy like that is basically your MO. If things are not looking good for the race you sided with, see if you can raise your rep enough with one of the other powers and try and get them to turn on each other by spreading rumors.
Diplomacy Victory
I find this one to be difficult as races are more than happy to bash each other’s heads in than work together. Easiest way is to spread the love: do quests that involve diplomats, spread nice rumors. What makes this difficult is that there is no real good way to foster peace outside these options spending money.

It is also important to keep up good relations with your allies, as if they go to war with you, well then you aren't winning the game. It is best to keep everyone as happy as possible which, like real life, is a very daunting task.
Economic Victory
Another tough one, mostly because if you die you get set back by a bit. The way you win this one is to do missions and sell everything you find to make money. So keep doing jobs, sell as much as you can, and eventually you will get there. Remember to keep on good enough terms with everyone and don't die and you should be able to get a economic victory as long as you don't obtain any other victory.
Fear Victory
This is an interesting one: you get this one by being a boss. The more boss monsters you kill, the more you raise this. Also, the more you wage war and destroy enemy planets, the more this increases. You also gain points by killing colony ships. I found an easy way to win this is to go to war with a race or two and camp a gate for their colony ships. If they slip one past you, find the planet and kill it. Basically be the biggest ♥♥♥♥ you can be. Instill the fear that the Drox Guild should not be crossed.

It is VERY important to remember that you must keep on good terms with some of the races, because if everyone goes to war with you then you will trigger the Diplomacy Loss. Be a jerk, but not so much of a jerk that everyone is out for your blood. Give gifts now and then, do a few tasks before murdering planets and everyone will be terrified of you. After all, you're doing petty fetch quests between racial genocide, how is that not fearsome?

Fear is actually really easy to build, all you do is go to war. There are some quests that generate fear (kill bost monsters), as well as some that remove it (saving ships). Destroying other race ships tends to build fear depending on the ship. Normal ships are very low generating while planets and colony ships are much higher.
Note that if you gain fear points by war, meaning you are destroying planets and blowing up ships, you lose Legend points!
Legend Victory
Personally I think this makes the economic win a breeze. You win this one by being a nice guy and making the universe safer for everyone. Be a nice guy, kill those bosses, rescue those stranded ships, keep doing quests until the you win. This one is hard because you most likely will get a different win condition before a legend condition.

Legend points are typically gained through quests of heroic natures. Destroying comets, blowing up boss monsters, and rescuing stranded ships are good examples. Legend points are also gained by destroying monster races as well as the ancients, so the only safe planets to kill are the Overlords, the Talon, the Legion, and ancients. Champion mobs also give a small number of legend points. Green give the lowest number of points, while red gives the highest. Destroying monster race ships, from colony to dreadnaughts, also give points per a ship. If you are lucky, you will face all three monster races and they will go to war with you, which means you get to destroy their worlds to be Legendy.
Introduction to Loss
Three ways to fail, two ways are really really hard to lose by...if you are smart. The good news is you have 10 minutes to fix the problem. So you really have to work hard to fail…for two of the loss options. These 10 minutes are critical. It does seem like enough time to not lose but things tend to creep up when you are busy being a public failure for the galaxy. Interestingly enough, like most problems these seem to go away with enough money. If things go south for you, start bribing your way out a (for the military and economic loss) or start playing safe and selling as much as you can (for the economic loss).

Fortunately, two of the loss conditions are pretty tough to do and you would need to work towards them in order to obtain them. The economic loss however is pretty easy to get and hard to get out of. Be careful, and keep your plan on winning flexible enough and you will never lose the game.
Military Loss
If the last surviving race is not your ally, you lose. This happens if you fail to ally with someone and everybody else gets wiped out. This can happen if you: don’t forge any alliances, your ally dies from mysterious circumstances. You can prevent this by being by being an ally before all the other races are dead. Or, of course, by winning the game.

If you have this loss triggered, just start doing lots of trading and quests for the remaining race. Offer gifts and tributes, lure monsters to their worlds and blow them up for them. Sabotage some worlds and then solve the problems you created. Yeah, thats pretty evil but who said you were a good guy? Remember, you are a representative of the Drox Operation, basically be the best mobster you can be and you can dig yourself out.
Diplomatic Loss
You score a diplomatic loss if all surviving races are at war with you. What this means is: you fail to understand at how to communicate with others tactfully. You are a pimple on society's rump. There is no difference between your ship and the enemy ships you keep blowing up because all you are doing is pissing people off. The best way to prevent this loss is to stop pissing everybody off. Stay neutral with everyone and if it looks like the only side that likes you is going to fall, then start puckering up, because you will have to do some serious digging. Particularly if you keep blowing up their ships, which is why they are probably pissed at you in the first place.

If you are facing a diplomatic loss, don't panic. You can still do quests for races, and you can try and join in some wars in certain cases. If you can't join a war, cause one through rumors and use that to build up better rep with one of the other races. You can also pay your way out of this by purchasing a ceasefire, then trade like a mofo with that race so they stop hating you for a while. So there you go, you can prevent a diplomatic loss with some diplomacy and war mongering or with bribes. Drox Operative? More like Drox Moberative.
Economic Loss
This one…this is the hard one. This loss is triggered by you losing too much money in the sector. What this means is: if you die a lot, you will lose the sector due to your insurance premium being too high. And think about it, would you really consider someone who keeps dying a “great and all powerful” entity that you need to have favor with control the sector? Didn’t think so. This one is easy to trigger though because it can be really easy to die if you aren’t careful. You can prevent and get out of this one by making more money, but problem is if you have been dying enough that this is triggered, then you may want to consider an easier galaxy until you have better stuff.

The only way to get out of the diplomatic loss is to make enough money to not trigger it. This is hard because if you triggered this loss condition something has gone terribly wrong and you can't seem to stay alive enough to make money in the first place. In my opinion, if you trigger this loss you may be better off starting off a new sector under an easier difficulty. Lower the level a little, its ok, monsters in this game are generated on a range so you will get some challenge.
Bad Things That Will Ruin Your Day
While quests and killing are a great way to win, there are some obstacles standing in the way to greatness (excluding the galaxy of bloodbaths and war). These would be bounty hunters and, if you are using the expansion pack, the Ancients. Both of these are bad for different reasons but present nice opportunities.

Bounty hunters are bad because they can be a little bit of a pain to kill as they a bit stronger than your standard enemy vessel. These are usually dispatched when a surviving race is super pissed at you for something you did and want you dead. So they hire some super mook to do you in. Basically, they make an elite enemy that looks for you and tries to kill you. Just blow em up, get their loot.

Ancients are another story. Ancients are like secret factions that run stronger than usual ships and try and take over a planet. They also provide opportunities for fear and legend points, as a surviving race will typically give you a quest to destroy them. While Ancients do not cause a lose condition, they will make the game harder as they actively oppose YOU and basically anyone who isn't an Ancient. This makes the end game harder as their ships are fairly strong and if they build up enough power can make the sector unwinable. I strongly recommend hunting them out of existence with extreme prejudiced. And if you can, use a WMD on them.
7 Comments
RPINerd 26 Nov, 2019 @ 2:39pm 
Selling items from your inventory does not contribute to an economic win. This is by far the hardest victory condition in my opinion
RawrKitteh 11 Dec, 2017 @ 4:39am 
Destroying legion planet with defense lowered my legend rating with about 13 points...
Penguin Blender 4 Jul, 2014 @ 7:59pm 
My first win was a legend win too. I just did heaps of quests for everyone.
Good guide. Thanks.
FUBAR!  [author] 14 Mar, 2014 @ 6:23am 
Updated guide with new info about legendary wins (I just got one!)
FUBAR!  [author] 7 Mar, 2014 @ 2:35pm 
you're lucky, I have a really hard time getting the legend win. usually I end up with a galaxy at war with each other. apparently being boss is a bad thing
Barbarossa 6 Mar, 2014 @ 11:21pm 
Huh, weird, I just got my first win, it was a legend win. I accidently got it just as I was closing in on diplomatic win with 4 races alive.
FUBAR!  [author] 26 Feb, 2014 @ 12:04am 
If you found the guide helpful at all, please rate up!