Free roaming gameplay

[Kyriel]

Hi guys, I've been away from the game for a few months and on my return I was delighted to see that free-roaming open world gameplay has finally come to the masses! Unfortunately, if there's a guide to doing stuff in this new and awesome gamemode, I missed it. I've been out of the faction base and blown up some aliens and helped close some portals - what else is there to do? I've seen mining related stuff come up on my hud - is there a player-based industry now? :) I hope so but I'm not too confident. Could anyone who feels like being a pro give me the lowdown on what's new since this whole open world thing kicked off please? Much appreciated!

[Subtle Ebb]

I am by no means a pro, but I'll try.

So the open world is meant for a few things:

1. Flying from faction station to faction station and docking there. Once docked at a particular station, you automtically accept that factions contracts. You can't change to a different faction's contracts without docking a different station or paying a fee to basically teleport there.

2. Collecting materials. You can collect loot and fuel in open space. Fuel is self-explanatory.
The items are for making munitions and upgrading modules and weapons in ways that you can only find in the Workshop tab. The materials are also for building the "Secret Project" ships at the end of your ship tree. These items are found in mini-asteroids that you can "mine" by flying near them and pressing a button. You can also get loot from killing AI ships.

3. Fulfilling daily contracts. These contracts appear at the right of your screen, and will refresh every 24 hours. (I am in Easter Standard time zone, so it happens at 8:00 pm for me) These contracts give you money, synergy, and monocrystals, the monocrystals being important for "secret Project" ship construction.

4. PVP. When you look at the map of open space in the hangar (you can access it while in space by pressing M(default)), you will notice that some sectors are red. This means that statoin protection is off, basically that PVP is enabled. Sometimes it is fun to get corporation members and fight others in those sectors.

5. Karma. You will notice on your profile or at the top of the screen while in space that you have a Karma bar. You can gain more karma by killing bad AIs (Cartel in Federation sectors, Cybers in Jericho sectors, and Pirates in Empire sectors). You can make it lower by killing other players and station police, as well as station guard turrets and good AIs. I'm not sure what purpose a high or low Karma serves other than putting you on the leaderboards for high or low Karma.

I hope that this helps. I have covered everything I know about open space. If you have any more questions, feel free to message or friend me in-game: iSkele.

Good luck!

[Kyriel]

MANY THANKS man, very much appreciated, you're a pro! :)