Stellar Hunter is an awesome space-themed RPG from Leiting Games, that’s available on iOS and Android platforms. Set in a futuristic, space-themed fantasy world and packed with roguelike elements, Stellar Hunter promises to be unlike any RPG you have seen or played before. From the visual and audio design down to the core gameplay elements, it can easily be surmised that a lot of work and effort has been invested in Stellar Hunter. If you are up for a truly unique adventure that banks a lot on strategy and a bit on luck, then you should definitely dive into this game!
Stellar Hunter sets you off on an adventure across 8 different galaxies each with its own sets of planets to explore and missions to accomplish. You will only be starting the journey on your own as you are bound to recruit and team up with a host of bounty hunters to aid you in your missions. Each bounty hunter is unique, not just in race and appearances, as every unit that forms part of your 4-person team can be groomed to take the role of specific classes that further branch out as they become stronger.
Each one can further be tailor-fitted to your liking with gears and mods. Life within the world of Stellar Hunter goes beyond firefights and exploration as various random events and decision points challenge your wits and luck as well, ensuring a unique experience with every dive into any planet.
With Stellar Hunter being a completely unique RPG, it goes without saying that there are gameplay elements new to even experience RPG players. Despite the mix of features it has, though, Stellar Hunter provides a very user-friendly interface and mechanics. A quick and simple tutorial provides all the basic things you need to know.
If you are looking to dominate every bounty mission in the game, then stay with us and read our Stellar Hunter beginner’s guide below! We have come up with loads of tips and strategies to help you boost your bounty hunting career!
1. Prioritize The Story Missions
There are only story missions to begin with as you start your journey in the world of Stellar Hunter. As you make progress in your adventure, you will begin to unlock various types of missions as well. Every type of mission has something in it for you but story missions are the most important bunch.
Beyond providing you with a lot of the basic items and resources to help you strengthen your team and gears, rewards from story missions include the largest amount of fame you need to level up as a commander.
As every level up unlocks additional features and heroes as well as provide you with extra perks such as increased AP or backpack capacity, it is important to prioritize story missions above all else. You can access all missions via the checklist icon at the lower right side of the screen.
If the entire list of available missions overwhelms you, tap on the specific mission types on the tabs above the page. On the missions page as well, you can check specific rewards to obtain after clearing the mission as well as the details of where to head to and what to accomplish.
Note that in some scenarios, you will have to engage in conversations with some supporting characters through the icon above the missions icon. These may be necessary to unlock certain story missions or features in the game. The dialogues come in different lengths but it is important as well to take note of certain details, just like numerous other conversation scenarios that you will encounter in different instances within your adventure.
2. Manage Energy And AP Efficiently
There are 2 different stamina systems in Stellar Hunter that you need to manage and before progressing further into a story mission after the tutorial and you should pay attention to both. You have a limited amount of energy to spend on missions and this can be seen at the upper left side of the home screen.
Travelling to different star systems and planets do not consume energy but choosing to land on any area within each planet does. It is comparable to playing a particular stage or level in other games where you have to spend in-game stamina for every attempt. Backing out after you land will not replenish the energy you consumed, so plan wisely before any landings. Energy replenishes over time and for best results, you should do your best to ensure that energy is never capped.
Once you have chosen to land on an area within the planet where you chose to explore, there is a limited action points (AP) that you need to manage as well. Travelling from one point on the map to another does not consume energy but all other actions do. It is critical for you to manage AP as efficiently as possible as running out of it can be fatal.
Whenever you have 0 AP, you will continue to receive damage over time. If you run out of energy while being far from the extraction point, it can happen that your whole team will be wiped out before you leave the planet. As such, make it a habit to save some of your AP for the trip back to the extraction point.
You can also use the escape pod from anywhere on the map and instantly evacuate the planet. As you only have 3 chances to do so per day, it is best to save it for real emergencies. Energy may not be the only reason for you to have to bail out on a mission halfway through. It may be due to low HP or mana, or it could happen as well that you will lose some team members while exploring. In any case, you can opt for an escape pad through the exit icon at the upper right side of the screen while exploring a world.
3. Check All Other Missions That Coincide With The Story Mission Location
Beyond the expansive story missions in Stellar Hunter, there are also Bounty Missions, Daily Missions, and Event Missions you can accomplish. Each one also comes with its own set of rewards and can help strengthen your band of bounty hunters even further.
As we mentioned earlier, the main story missions should always be your top priority but at some point, some of the other missions in hand can be accomplished while pursuing the main storyline. Several missions can take place within the same map and it is best to strategize around completing as many missions as possible in one go for less hassles in traveling back and forth.
Bounty Missions are like side quests that have stories of their own. These missions have varying amounts of fame as rewards and typically include random gears as added incentives as well. Daily Missions are typically the easiest of the bunch and work more like petty errands in other RPGs. Daily Missions may not offer much boost in fame, but every bit of fame still counts.
Random modules and star coins can be earned from daily missions as well and for every 3 daily missions you accomplish, an extra sum of star coins will be accorded to you as well. Last, but definitely not the least of the bunch are Event Missions. Some of these missions are only available for a limited period of time and offer diamonds, which is a premium currency, as well as gacha tickets as rewards. Some of these missions can be a challenge but the rewards are definitely worth the effort.
At some point in your adventure, it can happen that the main story mission will become a little too overwhelming for your crew, despite best efforts to strengthen them. While we encourage prioritizing progression through the main story, there will definitely be instances when you have to consider going for the other missions exclusively to farm for more XP and resources. Note that you can always visit any planet or location to do just that and each one takes several sessions to completely explore.
4. Maintain A Balanced And Synergistic Team
When turn-based strategy RPGs have gacha elements, the gacha element typically revolves around characters, making it highly improbable for a lot of players to experience using some of the rarer characters in the game’s roster. In Stellar Hunter, however, characters can be unlocked through progression in the story or reaching certain fame levels as part of the unlocked extras.
In a relatively short amount of time, you will soon have a full crew of 4 people in your team. As you make further progress, more and more bounty hunters will join your squad, each with his or her set of stats and different skills to utilize in combat and exploration. As you will only be able to take 4 members per mission, it is best to ensure that the team you have will always be balanced and synergistic.
To start off, a team’s formation can be a critical factor as well in their overall performance in each battle. Be sure to check the details of each character you recruit as well as the main protagonist. You can access them through the crew icon at the lower left side of the home screen. Some are built to be sturdier than others and should be fit for the front position.
Others who may not have as much defense or HP ought to be considered for the rear slots. While you are free to go with whichever members you want, efficiency and the need to survive dictates having a support role unit as well, so be sure to take that into full consideration when building your team.
Beyond the displayed stats on the left side of the hero’s page, you can click on the magnifying glass icon for a more extensive presentation of their stats. You can see the skills of the character at the upper right side of the page as well as their own set of luck as dictated by their personal dice. It can be helpful to check the comments made by other players on each character as well and if you want to share your views on any hero, you can also leave your comment for everyone to read.
Given the uniqueness of each character and how widely each one can be built, it may happen that you will have to switch rosters for specific missions later on. It is not that some missions only allow specific characters or so, but rather, some missions are a lot easier to accomplish with the right squad components.
It may take a while to get a good grasp of each hero and you may have to take them into battle to more suitably gauge their strengths and limitations. In any case, be sure to consider how each new member of your team will work well with the rest of the squad.
5. Sparingly Upgrade Until You Find Your Main Team
Each character in Stellar Hunter has its own unique set of attributes and skills and their class or role also has an expansive path within which you can fit them better to your needs. While it is true that there are best roles or team rosters for each possible scenario you will face in the pursuit of your mission, there are also characters or roles that are more staple in the sense that you will almost always need them to be around.
Despite the numerous starting classes and exponentially growing promotion class options, it is recommended to primarily stick with the more conventional elements that make up a basic team in any RPG. Classes in Stellar Hunter may sport as many functions as there are as many class titles but, more often than not, you will be able to associate each one to the most common roles that units tend to play.
In conventional RPGs, the roles that are always present is a DPS unit or damage-dealer, a tank or defender, and a support unit or healer. Some may have skills more streamlined than others but are essentially considered for their main role. Even if the skill inventory and character functions of heroes in Stellar Hunter are broader than the usual strategy RPG units, the 3 basic roles ought to be present most of the time if not always.
Naturally, someone will always have to be tasked to deal major damage to enemies. Another should handle defending the entire party against damage. To ensure survival as well, a healer or support unit should also be considered.
With these 3 roles fulfilled, flexibility as far as the fourth member of the team is provided. It may be an additional support unit who can strengthen the party or weaken enemies, another DPS unit who may have more AoE strength, a hunter who excels in controlling the battlefield, and so on.
Once you have fully decided which from among your growing number of heroes will take on which role, then that should be the time to fully invest in them. For starters, you should only invest heavily in team members who will always be a member of your team.
The most basic way of enhancing a character in Stellar Hunter is through levelling them up. Each new level reached provides stat increases to the unit. Experience in combat as well as participation in other actions within a mission can earn units XP. However, there will be instances when your team’s level may hardly be enough to ensure victory through the entirety of the mission at hand.
Fortunately enough, there is a more convenient alternative to grinding for XP in missions and explorations. You actually earn EXP Potions as rewards and can use them on heroes whom you need to level up faster than others.
On the hero screen, simply tap the “+” sign beside the character’s level and consume EXP Potions to provide the hero with extra experience points. While you can boost the levelling up of your current team’s heroes with this option, be sure to save some as these will be crucial if ever you will use one of the newer characters you acquire. All recruited heroes start at level 1 and you will need EXP Potions for newer heroes to catch up in terms of levelling them up.
Once your hero reaches level 10, you can change to a more advanced class. Upgrading to a different class requires data clips and cores and more advanced classes become available upon reaching higher level milestones. For the best results, be sure to read through all the skills of the most advanced class that you would like to have for each hero.
While the initial dichotomy of choices for class is relatively easy to decide on, having a clear idea of your hero’s end or final class will make it easier and more economical to strategize on your entire team’s build. The materials required for class advancement may not be as easy to farm, which is why it is best to have a solid and well-thought of decision first before you make any actions.
6. Strategize Around Gears For Each Hero
Beyond tailor-fitting heroes to get closer to having your personalized ultimate team through choosing the right class for each member, you can further customize how each unit is built through the gears they have.
Although heroes in Stellar Hunter and the different teams you can build around them are by themselves an immersive and exciting aspect of the game, choosing the best gears to amplify their strengths or compensate for their weaknesses can be an equally tedious yet rewarding activity.
To start off, the gacha system in Stellar Hunter revolves around gears and modules. Both are bound by a rarity grade, naturally rendering higher grade gears stronger than their more common counterparts. If you have played several strategy RPGs before, though, then you should already know that stronger gears are not necessarily the most effective. Each hero in Stellar Hunter has their own set of stats and needs and careful consideration of it should be a factor on how you decide which unit gets which gears.
Beyond rarity, as well as the different boosts that each piece of gear provides, epic and legendary gears in Stellar Hunter have set elements. Every 2 pieces of set gears equipped on the same hero unlocks an additional perk and a full set of 6 gears unlock 3 bonuses.
Naturally, these set effects should be the determinant as to which heroes should be the priority for which set. Likewise, even equipping a hero with 6 legendary grade gears of varying set types may prove to be less effective than a full set of gears of varying rarity grades.
Like the heroes themselves, Stellar Hunter provides ways of further strengthening each piece of gear you have. Alloys are required to initiate an upgrade and a gear’s rarity grade determines the maximum upgrade level. Each piece of gear comes with main and sub stats and you can change some sub stats randomly through reforging. Reforging consumes Reforgers. As the sub stats also come with different rarities as indicated by their color, you may want to consider replacing the more common ones first.
The most challenging part of gear enhancement comes with the advancement option. This can raise the bas stats of the gear even further but at the cost of sacrificing gears of similar rarity and type. While you may be naturally inclined to employ this feature at a certain point in time, note that legendary gears will require other legendary gears as sacrificial items.
7. Remember To Equip Modules
Each Hero’s weapon and armor set can tremendously contribute to their unique build and performance in battle on their own. Beyond that, however, Stellar Hunter provides for even more customization through the module system, which can be attached to certain gears.
Weapons have 3 slots for modules while the helm, chest armor, gloves, and boots each have one. Do not hesitate to attach modules on each of these gears as you can readily switch across different modules at any time without any cost. Like gears as well, modules come in different rarities with higher grade ones having greater effects. Note that similar modules may have the same rarity or name but the stat boosts they provide may vary.
Lower grade modules can be sacrificed to craft higher grade ones. Under the modules tab of your warehouse, which you can access via its icon at the bottom of the screen, you can click on the batch craft button to initiate the conversion of lower grade gears into their higher grade counterparts.
You can likewise tap on an existing module to craft it using lower grade modules. Legendary grade modules are at the highest rarity and can no longer be used to craft a higher grade module. Instead, you can modify it and add additional random sub stats by sacrificing other legendary grade modules.
Keep in mind that modules do not automatically transfer to newly equipped gears and, as such should be removed from previously equipped gears. You can easily do this by tapping on the gear and the “x” marks beside each module to be removed.
8. Visit The Tavern And Deploy Charaters On Exploration Missions Often
The Tavern serves as your main source of recruits and while some of the heroes are locked behind fame levels, plenty of heroes will be available to recruit early on. Even better, you can use star coins to do so. The availability of heroes to recruit may be random but you will certainly chance upon each hero if you visit often.
Beyond recruiting heroes, the tavern is also your means of establishing rapport with each of your crews. The plethora of items you acquire from missions include gift items that you can give to each hero to raise your intimacy with them. Intimacy levels indicated by hearts at the top of the character screen are not just for show.
Higher intimacy levels boost the hero’s stats and efficiency of skills in combat. Note that heroes have favorite items for you to discover and these items raise intimacy faster. You can learn the favorite item of each hero via the comments of other players as well.
Early on, one of the important features you will unlock is the Exploration. You will have to swipe across the icons at the bottom of the screen to see the other features. Exploration is comparable to idle rewards in other games. To initiate one, you simply need to deploy characters on an exploration mission and visit back once the deed is done.
Explorations not only earn you items, but it also provides an opportunity for heroes to earn extra experience points. More opportunities for explorations will become available as you achieve 50% exploration levels on other planets. Note as well that heroes sent on an exploration can still be used in missions.
9. Never Rush During A Mission
While the declining amount of AP and managing it throughout the mission adds a bit of pressure after every landing, the absence of a time restriction on each mission tends to ease down the challenge a bit. What typically happens, though, is that most players, especially beginners, naturally rush towards the completion of a mission in that they tend to make careless mistakes in the process.
As a newbie in the world of Stellar Hunter, it is best to make it a habit to take exploration a bit slow for starters. This goes in tandem with keeping an eye on your team’s HP, MP, and AP.
Your first land on a new map will leave all but the entry point covered in darkness. Revisiting the same area within the current session leaves all explored locations uncovered but random elements within the map itself will be situated differently.
Although you can tap on far areas for your heroes to automatically travel through, longer walks mean that there will be higher risk of encounters along the way. In this sense, managing AP as well as avoiding unwanted skirmishes will be less likely if numerous events pop up along the way. As such, it is best to take more but shorter strides toward the area you want to check out.
Quick battle becomes an option early on and it is a fast and convenient way of going through combat. You will certainly save a lot of minutes as you plow through one battle after another, collecting XP and loot at an instant. In some cases, however, stealth is part of the requirements within the mission and quick battles alert enemies. Likewise, there will be instances when you simply want to avoid fights altogether, perhaps to save AP or whatever other reasons.
Some dialogues, whether a part of the main story or just an interaction with some characters can take a bit of your time as well. As a beginner, you should consider reading through it to familiarize yourself better with the world of Stellar Hunter or to secure important information about the mission at hand.
Lastly, Stellar Hunter also provides an auto mode to make battles outside of the quick battle option convenient and fast as well, compared to manually engaging in combat. On auto mode, be sure to set each heroes tactics in combat. This will impact how they behave in combat when acting on their own.
Although convenient and still involves strategy relative to tactics set, auto combat is still far from the efficiency level of a team that is manually controlled by you. Even if you are a total beginner to the turn-based strategy RPG genre, you should be confident enough that you can perform a lot better than the A.I. Auto mode will never be able to target specific units better than you can and will not use each hero’s special abilities better than you.
For boss battles, or missions in areas where the combat power of your team is lower than or equal to the opponents’, manual battle is recommended. Relative to this, be sure to always take note of the enemy team’s combat power before engaging. You can always opt out of battles if you feel that you cannot win the particular encounter.
Despite the variety of scenarios you will encounter with each mission and exploration, encountering a loosely similar or exact situation multiple times can occur. This is yet again another set of instances where taking as much time as you need to decide on your actions matter.
Some decision calls yield better results and if the outcome of one call is not as satisfactory for you, remembering such choices will help you decide better on subsequent occurrences of the same scenario. It pays to read all options presented to you especially on the first instance so be sure to extend your patience more on the early part of your exploration.
10. Accomplish Achievement Objectives For Extra Rewards
Stellar Hunter certainly packs a lot of loots and rewards from every mission you engage in. Beyond all that, more can be obtained through the accomplishment of achievement objectives. Achievements are simply a collection of milestones to reach across every aspect of the game. As such, you are highly likely to accomplish a good number of achievement objectives regardless of what you do in your adventures.
For efficiency, though, it is beneficial to peek into each list of achievement categories and let its entirety serve as your guide towards progressing faster in the game. Diamonds are a constant reward for every feat you accomplish so earning them sooner than later is always an advantage.
Relative to this, there is also a Recon Progress feature that rewards you with data clips, gift boxes, and legendary gear parts based on the recon progress points you have earned. There is a separate list of tasks to achieve per galaxy and per planet so be sure to look into each list.
11. Manage Your Inventory Levels
Every dive into a planet as you pursue missions or explore the unknown guarantees a lot of loot to earned in the process. There is always a huge chance of having a full backpack by the time you end the mission or even halfway through it. While you naturally will not be able to pick up new loot if your backpack is full, you can always opt to leave some items behind to pick up something that you need or want more.
Ensuring that you have an idea of which items in your backpack are okay to drop for you to have more space for better items is important. Although you can check an item’s details at the time you need to clear some slots, you can familiarize yourself with each new item via your warehouse.
While the backpack serves as your inventory within the planet you are exploring, the loot you obtain from missions as well as the additional rewards you earn wind up in your warehouse. The warehouse can hold a lot more items but likewise has limited slots per item group as well.
As such, you should also tend to it from time to time and ensure that there are always empty spaces available for new loots that you will undoubtedly acquire. For items, it is important to get to know what each one does. Some items include chests or boxes that reveal the true rewards when used.
Gears you amass can also pile up tremendously fast. Common, Uncommon, and even Rare gears can be disposed of. You can choose to dismantle gears by batch and obtain star coins. Modules, on the other hand can be crafted by batch, although at times you may want to be selective when it comes to sacrificing modules to obtain higher grade ones.
Some materials you have within your warehouse can be recycled at the Workshop to obtain various crafting materials. These items actually have no other purpose except to be ground into raw materials for crafting new gears or items. Whenever it is time for you to clear your warehouse inventory, make it a point to visit the workshop as well to cut your items further down and generate more crafting materials.
And this is where we end our beginner’s guide for Stellar Hunter. There is definitely a lot more in store for you as explore every nook and cranny of the game but we are fairly certain that the compilation of tips and strategies we shared with you will suffice to jumpstart your adventure and send you on your way towards dominating every challenge thrown at you.
If you want to find out more about Stellar Hunter’s background stories, lore, and detailed guides, there is a library you can readily access on the rightmost icon at the bottom of the home screen. If you have ventured far and wide enough within the world of Stellar Hunter and have stumbled upon a neat trick or strategy we have not covered, feel free to share it with us in the comment area!