Ah young pilot, so you come in here
looking for a drink? No? Oh... new underwear? Right...
...You obviously have just found out how massive this place really is!
EH BARKEEP, A COUPLE OF WHISKEYS! Lemme tell ya, if you think its gonna
be easy creds out there... You've got learning to do.
Lemme tell ya this, don't go looking for a goal. Goals are things
you make in life, you're not handed them on a plate. Don't expect
someone to tell you what to do - that is your job.
Also start small - its ok to have a long term goal, but expecting
to be able to fly a Destroyer - let alone own one - within days of your
first entry from Planetside is rather foolish to put it at best.
You've got to make a name for yourself for that luxury, and even
then you need the money to afford it! No, start small. Your path is
something you decide.
Pirates are something you should avoid unless your confident enough to
start a fight, or at least smart enough to run from one.
If you must start a fight, make it on small groups. Don't go and
attack one of those stolen Nova's unless you know what you are doing,
and keep your wits about you.
Needless to say its easier to stay safe. From here in Argon Prime,
you can make it to Boron and Paranid space in relative safety - beware
of the Paranid, they are a cocky race that should be taken down a peg
or two.
If you stay legit, Argon and Boron space gives enough opputunities
to give a young pilot such as you a good start in life. Remeber, the
Argon hate the Paranid, and the Boron hate the Split, so attacking
Split ships in boron space is a sure fire way of increasing your rep
amongst the Fish, same with taking out those Paranid git's here in the
Argon Federation.
I know what you thought when you first left that shipyard - "Christ I'm
lost... now where?"
Problem solved, go and explore the Argon sectors, get a bearing on
your surroundings - don't go any further east than Elena's Fortune, and
even when your there its best to turn back west and head north via the
Graveyard (Presidents End if you don't know).
This avoids Pirate space and several problems.
Dont go any further south than Cloudbase South West to begin with
either, Paranid space is lying past the south gate there and you will
miss the hospitality the Argon and the Goner Temple that is there
supply you...
...Boron space, at least that north of here, is safe for trade.
Ah, money, you can't get anywhere in the Universe without it! Best
way to earn money legit is to capture pirate ships and sell them off.
Of course, your just starting out, so I'd practice on a paranid
freighter or two until you get the idea - you can even keep one for
your personal trades.
That would be a good plan.
If you turn to more, shall we say... shady routes, there is a
Distillery in Herrons Nebula (just one gate north of here!) that sells
to the local Trading Station. You can make a good bit of money doing
that trade run, but avoid being scanned by the Argon Police, else you
will either loose your profit... or your life. They are not picky.
Whatever you do, to begin with making money is a pain in the bastu.
But the best way I find to start making it big comes when you can
afford your first Frieghter. If you don't want to wait... Demeters are
lovely ships...
Once you have your TS class frieghter, start doing trade routes -
sillicon always sells well in Argon space, as does BoGas, which also
sells extremely well with the Fish. Ok, the Boron look more like squids
but Fish does them justice.
Once you have enough money in the bank, try entering the world of
Mining to begin with, word is there are some mighty fine 'roids in
orebelt that are well worth using. Of course these take money to set
up, but set it to buy energy high, sell sillicon low with a small
profit margin and it'll produce long enough for you to get some more
ships to buy and sell for it.
Also don't forget to transfer funds, else it'll be nothing except a 200
megaton Paperweight.
Now, I'm out of whiskey, and I aint buying seconds, I've got an Empire
to run.
Apricotslice
G’Day mate !
Correct
me if I’m wrong, but you look like someone who’s just finished
a few rounds in a simulator and been thrust straight into the cockpit
of a fighter and been given orders to go engage the enemy. And you cant
even figure out where the good guys are ?
Am I
right ?
And so
here you are in this bar getting a bracer before rushing off to
put your life on the line.
Am I
right or am I right ? I knew it, you have greenhorn written all
over your face. Here’s a towel mate, wipe it off before anyone else
sees it
Well,
you are lucky you met me. I’m full of it, and you need it.
Information mate, what else did you think I meant ? Sheesh. Working for
the Apricot Mapping Service, I’ve been everywhere man, been there and
got the t-shirt.
So, you
just got orders from god-high Ban Danna himself.
Ok,
first thing to do is let em wait.
If you
havent upgraded your software yet, theres an upgrade to 1.4
available. Just register here, download and install.
You
have a Mercury freighter sitting out in space doing nothing
except being vulnerable. Park it. For mine, the Argon Prime Equipment
Dock or Shipyard are the safest for now. But keep in mind that stations
have a habit of disappearing these days taking your ships with them.
I’m not sure you noticed, buts its not a nice place out there these
days. So park it somewhere safe.
Hey,
I’m not here to tell you how to pilot your ship, pal. There are
some things you need to work out for yourself.
Next,
park your Buster at the Equipment dock, and use some of those
credits they gave you up front to get maximum speed and rudder
upgrades. You need ‘em, might just save your life.
Next,
when your in space again, hit the k button twice, so the guns are
set to auto-aim. This means that when you line up to shoot someone, the
guns will correct for your lousy aiming and a few more shots will
actually hit.
The
first mission is in the next sector. The Argon military bean
counters are so lousy I bet they didn’t even give you a nav map of
Argon sectors did they ? *sigh*.
Ok,
so....On your nav map (sheesh, press dot), you will see in the
list something called the South Gate. The gates are how we navigate
between sectors and each one leads to a particular place. Don’t hassle
it, you will get the hang of it rapidly.
Down
arrow until you have the South Gate highlighted and press ‘t’ to
target the gate. Don’t shoot it !
Now hit
dot again or escape, and then press the u key to engage
your autopilot. The ship will now fly to the gate at maximum speed and
will perform the jump through it.
When
you come out the other side, you will be in the sector called
Home of Light. Your ship will target the Flight Leader of your patrol
for you (the one and only time it will do this mind you), so autopilot
over to him. When you get close, the mission will start. Just keep
following him.
At some
point, you will be attacked by Khaak. These will show up as
little red dots and the object of the exercise is to kill them before
they kill you. As soon as you see them, kill the autopilot and go get
‘em. Good luck pal, your going to need it
Assuming
you survive your first mission, you will find yourself in
Cloudbase SouthWest.
Dock at
the Goner Temple. They have a few things you need. Jumpdrive
and transporter are useful items, but you cant afford them now. But
remember they are here for later on.
What
you do need now is Salvage Insurance. Buy at least 10.
The X
universe is a dangerous place full of unseen hazzards and
random glitches. You can die in the wink of an eye for no apparent
reason. If a pirate mine doesn’t get you, the asteroid belts will. And
sad to say, the electronics in your ship are subject to random
malfunctions, and about 1 in 50 docking operations will splat your
sorry arse into the station instead of parking you.
By the
way, never jump into a gate and then engage the autopilot to
go back through the same gate without putting in some distance first.
It will quite happily splat you against the inside wall of the gate and
send your wreckage through the gate instead.
That’s
why we save. So you can resurrect yourself and try again. If
you don’t save, you start again. If you saved a long time ago, you lose
everything you did since then.
So,
SAVE OFTEN. Cant emphasize that enough. Every time you do
something you don’t want to have to do again, dock. An Autosave happens
every time you dock, but these are overwritten every 3 dock/saves.
Manual save as well. This gives you a choice of 20 save points to go
back to if you really have cocked something up badly and need to go
back further than the last save.
As you
save, remember to use the next save position or you will
keep overwriting the same one. When you get to position 19, go back and
overwrite position 1.
When
your in space, you can only save if you have Salvage Insurance.
There are times when this is essential, so buy some now.
Complete
a mission ? Save. Capture another ship ? Save. Survived a
particularly nasty situation ? Save. Save every time you change sector,
and save yourself the bother of having to redo it sometime. About to
take on something tricky ? Save first, do it, then save after.
Determine
for yourself how much you are prepared to redo if
necessary and save at that point. And for heavens sake save immediately
you do something that may not happen again if you have to reload and do
it again, especially anything random that happens. You will work these
out as you go.
Save
Save Save.
Zod
If your under fire do NOT fire missles! Pretty much
everything but Mosquito has a blast radius.
Bigger is not always better with guns... A Nova
with 8xAIRE's can keep
going, and going, and going. If you have ever been cought in a dogfight
with 6+ you will appreciate this. Also tends to cause a LOT deaths if
they launch missles since they are under a continious rain of fire, see
above... Better them then you.
No one seems to mention it but you can swap out
guns in combat, not
just groups but type, i.e. swap out those cap-matic AIRE's for AHEPT's
when you discover that falcon has the dreaded PSG. Unless, of course, your using a joystick...
Nanook
And just what
does that have to do with the price of spacefuel in Getsu
Fune? I use keyboard, mouse AND joystick, all for different tasks.
Besides, you can't manuever your ship with your mouse while in cursor
mode anyway. But I can move my joystick with the left hand while
clicking with the mouse with my right. So don't be giving those poor
newbies false impressions. They have enough to worry about as it is.
moggy2
The best ship in
the game is the one you're happiest flying.
If you're a racing driver or fighter pilot in real life, you'll
probably do fine in a discoverer. For the rest of us mere mortals
something with bigger shields is probably more appropriate.
Jammin1984
I cant figure
out how to send one ship to some destination then to leave and control
my other ship.
Nanook
Assuming you're
not physically in the freighter,
here's what you do from inside a station. Choose the 'Station' option
from the main icon bar at the bottom. Then choose ships. Both your
ships should be listed if they're both docked at the same station.
Choose the freighter, then cursor down the menu that pops up to
'Command Console'. There, you'll have all the options to control that
ship remotely, depending on the software installed. Even the basic
Navigation menu should have sufficient commands for what you need.
You do something similar if the freighter is docked at another station.
You just need to access that station's menu system first, and choose
'landed ships' to gain access to yours. If in space, then access your
freighter through the sector map list. One final way to access all your
ships is to use the Property Menu with the 'r' key.
Just remember, to control your remote ships, you always need to access
that ship's 'Command Console'. Good Luck.
Carl Sumner
Or, if you are
in space, hit "R" for owned ships
and stations. Then select the line with that ship and hit enter, then
select Command menu. You can give commands, from anywhere, to any of
your ships or stations.
Note that, if you are in a ship and you give it a command and then
jump out to go to one of your other ships, the command in the first
ship is cancelled and it stops. Transfer first, and then give the
command remotely to the first ship.
Tracker001
The flashing
lights at the gates; Ya, they are traffic
control.
Not that pilots follow the rules. But if you
wish to ,at least lower your chances of running
into a very large ship when you exit a gate.
Follow the traffic sig's.
Finding that an "Orca" is entering a gate your exiting,
Kind-a lookes like this >
<
Evan more fun entering into a nebula sector.
Your useually looking down,checking the >What to do
next list < when this happens.
Mazer
if you have a
glazed look i say lay off the spacefuel and start killing stuff
Apricotslice
Dont start killing stuff til you know how to
stay alive yourself. Nothing worse than seeing a newbie blown to dust
because they bit off more than they could chew somewhere they shouldnta
gone in a ship they should have done some upgrading to before getting
all gungho and triggerhappy.
Btw, if you cant find a gate, follow the ships, they will lead you to
it. If you have a jump drive, set a goto point near where you think the
gate should be, will pop your ship out of the very gate you are trying
to find.
Pilot
How do I set a homebase ? Damn computer wont
take one.
Apricotslice
You have to own a station or carrier to
set a homebase. For a fighter, either an M1 or a TL. For a freighter,
only a station. There is no point in setting a homebase on your
personal ship anyway, so dont bother. The homebase is only used by your
freighters for station supply and selling, and by fighters for
protecting their base.
Pilot
I was looking at new ships, but could
not find out any details about them.
Apricotslice
Huh, yeah, confusing that is. You
highlight which ship your looking at, and then press the I key. All its
specs then pop up.
Pilot
I also noticed at the equipment dock
that no cargo extensions were available. Surely they keep plenty of
stocks of those on hand ?
Apricotslice
Also confusing. They do have stocks on
hand. But if your ship is fully maxed out with cargo space, the sales
screen shows that there are no more available instead of telling you
your an idiot for not knowing the specs of your own ship !
Pilot
Is the lottery worth entering ? I never
seem to win.
Apricotslice
Haha, thats a joke that one. Never
heard of anyone winning the BBS lotteries. I think they are scams
myself, but never been able to prove it. I have heard there are other
lotteries offered by the Modding Community that do pay out however.
Pilot
I saw a UFO on the way over here. Are
they worth following ?
Apricotslice
Did you now ? No-one knows who they are
or where they go, but following them can be beneficial, as they seem to
fly all over, so if you ahvent been all over yet, its one way of
getting there. If you have the time to dawdle along doing nothing that
is. It'll give you frequent flyer miles I guess.
hahaha. Just dont kill one. The Goners do not like it. But no-one knows
why.
Pilot
Someone said something about video
feeds from satelites. Didnt make any sense at the time.
Nanook
Here's how it works. Deploy an advanced
satellite. Then bring up the sector map. Now hit 'k'. This brings up
the video feed. It will be at the same scale as the sector map. Using
the Home/End keys, you can zoom in and out. And using the numberpad
keys, you can move the cursor around, which changes the center of the
zoomed video feed. The insert key works to show the vertical as well.
This can actually be quite handy when placing factories, because it
will show up close and personal how they're oriented before you
actually deploy them.
Pilot
Freind of mine has a jumpdrive but it
never lets him jump. Any idea what the problem is ? The only time he
did get a jump happening, my
freind also had trouble getting his wingmen to follow him. Whats the
problem there ?
Apricotslice
There are two ways of
triggering the jumpdrive. By hotkey, or by the
command console. Hotkey activation will jump only your ship. Command
console activation will jump your ship and any ship that is protecting
it or following it, assuming they have sufficient ecells on board
themselves to make the jump.
Jumpdrives use ecells to power them. If your not carrying any, it wont
work. So before you go somewhere, make sure you have enough ecells to
get you there, AND get you out of there if you jump into a hostile
area. Dont jump into a Xenon or Khaak sector without enough ecells to
jump out again, unless your planning a quick death for yourself. Some
pirate sectors too. Got to be careful, and always plan ahead. Its a
nasty universe out there for the unprepared.
Do yourself a favour and dont get
advise from your freind.
Are
you alright ? You dont look so good.
The
newbie pilot's eyes unfocus and he slowly slides off his chair on to
the floor.
Apricotslice
Was it something we said ?