For those who don’t already know, I have been following Exode for years. It is a labor of love project by a single developer so the progress is slow but steady. There has been a playable evacuation demo for years. Last year we got to test away team functionality and some aspects of the colonization phase and hopefully we will get some big news about that within the next couple of months. To tide us over, Elindos has released three Beta Starters which are already usable in the evacuation demo.
I previously discussed the Religious Visionary starter, in which your crew is actually a cult. You can read about that deck here.
I’m very excited for the eventual Rebel Agent starter, but that’s a special treat for us enduring fans and won’t be released for a while.
That leaves the remaining two to discuss, the Self-made Savior and Utopian Thinker. I was originally considering combining the two, since they have a lot of similarities, but decided that would be too much to swallow from a single post. So today I’ll start with the deck which I feel is better suited for Evac, the Self-made Savior.
The Self-made Savior deck is probably the most tanky civilian deck you can get. When properly equipped you will have a really tough crew. I expect the hard part will be keeping them under control once you land at your eventual colony. As the deck has room for two additional crew members, you will want to keep post-evac in mind when choosing them. I’ll go more into detail about that at the end of this post.
ORIGIN
The heart of every deck is the origin card. Self-made Savior provides a boost to Civilian cards and familial ties. It also increases heroism and toughness. Honestly, I have no clue what the familial ties boost will do, but the rest is pretty clear. It increases how civilians perform and increases survivability.
SHIP
The Daystar Taxi Corvette is an interesting ship. It's older technology, which probably means it's easier to repair and maintain. It can hold a crew of 5 and 4 passengers. Assuming you fill up completely you’ll end up with a decent sized colony - 12 people.
EQUIPMENT
To help feed your decent sized colony, you have food supplies. This will take some of the initial pressure off your colony. It partially makes up for having only 1 cargo slot.
OFFICERS
You have a very interesting mix of officers. They each have distinct skills resulting in a fairly well rounded group.
- Mob Leader: As the name says, this is a leader. Her strength is her social skills. She will likely be very helpful in collecting passengers, but she may also stir up trouble.
- Motivated Civilian: Give this guy a gun and put him on guard duty. As long as he believes in the cause, he will keep you safe.
- Retired War Veteran: This is my personal favorite of the three. He will get stuff done. He can handle the station. He can handle the planet. He can handle a gun. Make this guy your XO and you will have a bunch better chance at evacuating safely.
CREW
As mentioned previously, this deck comes with three crew members and has room for two more. You have two thug-like characters and the mandatory techie.
- Versatile Worker: He’s tough. There’s really not much else to say about him. You can send him to do all the grunt work, loading fueling and loading cargo.
- Tough Worker: This guy is so tough it's in his name. If you can keep him under control, he can get stuff done. Alternatively you could just let him bash some skulls.
- Maintenance Worker: This is the guy who repairs your hyperdrive. This is probably the guy who repairs your ship. He is critical to your survival. I would seriously consider including him in my alpha decks.
EVACUATION TIPS
If you are going to use the deck as is, you need to play it safe.
- If anyone is not present, and has their comms off, send your toughest characters to get them.
- Immediately tell your Maintenance Worker to upgrade the hyperdrive. It could take as much as 300 seconds, and you’ll likely want to do it twice.
- Anyone with low toughness or vital skills should be safely collecting fuel.
If you are willing to take some chances, focusing on passengers would be useful.
- Have your strong leadership / charisma characters escort civilians to your ship. You will likely need their skills on the planet.
- Have your tough characters collect cargo. It's a gamble, but you have limited resources so it certainly can’t hurt.
DECK IMPROVEMENTS
As with all starter decks, there are some basic improvements you should do to prosper - Guns, Armor, Crew. All of these will help with evacuation and colony survivability. You can find these cards on the player market after logging into the website.
Guns
Thanks to the Alpha Rekatron Contract, the player market is FLOODED with guns.
- The Rekatron SD is my personal favorite. It's a well rounded rifle with good power, good accuracy and good ammo. It's relatively inexpensive and you should get one for anyone you expect to fight. Honestly it wouldn’t hurt to get one for EVERYONE in your deck.
- The Firetalker is a bargain option. It's the least expensive option if you are looking to save money. It's a good weapon for those characters who won’t actively look for a fight.
- Defensive Ammo is a useful extra. It ensures you won’t run out of bullets.
Armor
Armor will literally save your life. If you are unlucky, some low toughness characters will die from one or two shots.
- Eisen Suit - Arctic Edition is my armor of choice. While not cheap, it's certainly one of the less expensive options. I’d give it to all my officers and anyone I expect to go looking for a fight.
- “Universal Fixer” Suit is a good option for the rest of your crew. It grants mechanics and basic protection at a low price.
Crew
This is the hard part. Who you choose for the crew will be based on your strategy. This deck is fairly combat heavy, so I personally recommend someone with other skills to help you thrive on the planet.
Counting the cards already in the deck, I think there are 24 to choose from. If you really want to look at all the options, you can view them yourself through the deck expert. You can use anyone from the civilian faction, robots, or any who does not have a faction.
My suggestion to you though, is to simply buy the other two beta starters. You can try each deck individually and combine them as desired. If you limit your choices to the other beta starters, you have three options.
- Religious Clerk: This is a non-combat character who will help keep your colony running smoothly. Of course the religious side may lead to some complications.
- Cult Station Security: Another combat option. It doesn’t really add anything new, unless you want to focus on combat. Again, we don’t know what, if any, issues will arise from them being religious.
- Colonial Security: While still a fighter, this character gives you more planetary options. He will help you survive evac and then help you survive in a brave new world.
Ultimately you need to decide what works for you. Also we will get MANY more options once Beta Boosters release. I’d love to hear what you decide to do in the comments!
Video Links
Unfortunately I don’t have any Self-made Savior gameplay videos at this time. I’m hoping to add them in the future after one specific bug is fixed. Regrettably, while I expect the bug to be fixed this weekend, I have no idea when I’ll get the time to record one.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read this!
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
As for any new players who are convinced to buy a starter after reading this, please use my referral code! We will both get account bound boosters and officers to help in our future games. While these bonus cards cannot be sold, they are definitely useful.
With the revamped website, I’m not sure if my referral link will still work. If that doesn’t work, simply type “984a3c4” when prompted.