Quick Tips

[Trifler]

Just a few quick tips for new players:

- The starter engine (Octergol) is already obsolete when the game starts. Researching better ones should be a priority. Cooling M is also useful right away. The Water Tank M is another good one.

Engines of note:
- The NP-27 is much shorter, 40% faster, requires less energy and cooling, and requires 3 technicians. Probably the cheapest you should consider.
- The Bussard is the fastest of the solar (first tier) engines.
- Since the Bussard is the fastest, you might be inclined to ignore the Orion Engine, but note that it only requires 2 technicians. That makes it worth considering when using CyO's, or when one person makes all the difference with the stored air/water.
- The Fission Engine is the only interstellar engine that will fit in the Bug.

- For ships that you own, more speed allows them to complete their tasks faster, which in turn allows you to earn money faster. Thus, it's generally worthwhile to spend more making your own ships more "uber" than what you might typically sell. The food and ore transport missions, in particular, come to mind here. For missions where the customer is buying the ship, cost is the primary factor.

- When you set a budget for a research category, note the color of the number text. It isn't explained anywhere and it took me ages to figure it out, but if the numbers are red, then you're spending more money than your researchers can use, and it will just get wasted. I'm not clear on whether there's a negative to yellow numbers or not.

- Budgeted research is not divided between each item, but rather applied in full to each. That means that if you budget 2000, then each item progresses by 2000. One would naturally think the number gets divided by the number of projects, but nope.

- You can only assign one of your ships to a service contract if it's inside the blue circle of the system the contract originates at. If your ship is outside of the circle, you need to bring it over before you can start the contract.

[pingu_of_doom]

When using the right click radial menu, just release the mouse over desired option e.g. Suit up. I kept clicking witht the left click, but this only cancels the menu.


Use Groups ctrl+number / Shift+number to select. When everyone is sat on everyone it gets crowded

Always set 1 second on a waypoint to make sure it resets the timer properly

If it says you need 4 technicians, make sure you have 4 technicians! My engine exploded on the tutorial coz I assumed 1 tech was enough to reset timer and repair it

Some rooms need medics/ pilots to reset maintenance timers - again i assumed tecnicians were needed for all - not the case

[AlterEgo45]

Originally posted by pingu_of_doom:

When using the right click radial menu, just release the mouse over desired option e.g. Suit up. I kept clicking witht the left click, but this only cancels the menu.


Use Groups ctrl+number / Shift+number to select. When everyone is sat on everyone it gets crowded

Always set 1 second on a waypoint to make sure it resets the timer properly

If it says you need 4 technicians, make sure you have 4 technicians! My engine exploded on the tutorial coz I assumed 1 tech was enough to reset timer and repair it

Some rooms need medics/ pilots to reset maintenance timers - again i assumed tecnicians were needed for all - not the case

Tried the first tutorial mission and had a hull breach.

I accidentally locked all of the hatches, preventing my techs from fixing it.

Then after clicking a tech, I accidently used him to partly weld a door shut.

Then when he finally got to the hull breach, he got sucked out into space.

After watching that and reading some comments regarding crew management, I decided I'm going to auto-resolve all of my missions. I think direct crew management is a good idea, but the interface is going to irritate me and setting waypoints for everyone seems like a bore.

What I'd really like is to have the crew automatically perform their tasks while I watch, and then if I see inefficiencies, change the design of the ship to correct them. To me, that seems like a more accurate portrayal of what I'd do as a builder/designer. Doesn't look like this is possible though.

[Trifler]

To repair hull breaches:

1) Turn off the power to the room with the hull breach *and* the room or corridor next to it. This turns off the life support and the air pressure.
2) Put a technician in the room next to the room with the hull breach, and lock the hatch behind them.
3) Now open the hatch to the room with the hull breach. Give it a second for the air to finish venting into space.
4) Both rooms are now at vaccum. As a result, the technician can now approach the hull breach without getting sucked into space.
5) Repair the breach.
6) Turn the power back on.
7) Move the technician away in case the room gets hit again.

[Trifler]

You can autoresolve the maintenance mission and still play individual missions. There are options to autoresolve all, autoresolve just all green/yellow/red, and options to autoresolve individual missions. So, you can pick and choose to your heart's content. For a generic design, feel free to autoresolve all. For your uber ship for your own fleet, you might want to manually play some of the missions and try to get a better score.

Note that on easy difficulty, it's damn near impossible to do better than the autoresolve. On medium and above though, you can manage it on many of the missions. Particularly with the yellow missions, in my experience.

Also note that autoresolve only cares how much armor a ship has. It completely ignores positioning. Manually playing is exactly the opposite, where the position of the armor is everything.

[pingu_of_doom]

Originally posted by Trifler:

To repair hull breaches:

1) Turn off the power to the room with the hull breach *and* the room or corridor next to it. This turns off the life support and the air pressure.
2) Put a technician in the room next to the room with the hull breach, and lock the hatch behind them.
3) Now open the hatch to the room with the hull breach. Give it a second for the air to finish venting into space.
4) Both rooms are now at vaccum. As a result, the technician can now approach the hull breach without getting sucked into space.
5) Repair the breach.
6) Turn the power back on.
7) Move the technician away in case the room gets hit again.

This needs to replace the tutorial text - or be in addition to it!!!!!!!!!

[Trifler]

Note that for Routeworker ships, having too fast of an engine will result in them passing through the field they're supposed to clear before they finish clearing it. The field gets smaller, but it doesn't go away. So, I recommend sticking to the stellar engines (max speed 1.6) for this specific task.

[Trifler]

Added this under the Guides section.

[SpamIam]

:D If you empty the wings: you can fit transgalactic drives into the little bug which is hilarious, unfortunately outside of some very specific missions, such a craft while fast: won't transport much. It took me a large fusion gen plus a small to power one: slap in a weapon system (i hate pirates) and and a mining beam and you can clear routes between stars on the cheap (:.

If you want a fast cargo ship: then you need to get the yanmori 2 which is two decks of large open space: very useful for most generic jobs early game.

Frankly: the best value for money missions are Route clearing and some of the cargo ones (particualy once you unlock transgalactic drives) and most of the design missions are a bit weak, and salvage missions DO NOT RESPAWN, indicating they are a good source of early cash, but the old Grail will not survive encounters with pirates (no weapons) so keep her close to home, and scrap her instead of losing her value trying to make the trip to Maji.

The old Mary however is the only ship i've seen able to mine and route clear: keep her away from maji too: clearing al the routes between the stars near the homeworld she can earn a tidy profit for you.

If planning to fight pirates: consider slapping a hanger on, and CYO units when you can unlock them, They kick ass in boarding actions allowing you to capture around 2/3 of the pirates you encounter: now some pirates fly Little bugs worth 100k, and sell for half, but some fly Ajkulas worth 350k, which makes a potentially valuable income stream once you start sweeping the galaxy with long range sensors on research mode to uncover all the pirate sectors. I see no utility in keeping these pirate ships: we aren't allowed to inspect them nor 'upgrade' them at local facilities, So with my preference to only use Transgalactic drives (for speed) their design speeds of 1.0 to 2.8 is pathetic, even worse: you CANNOT 'run away' simply because your ship is fast (i've lost unarmed transgalactic transports assuming that, I'd covered the ENTIRE HULL with shields and she still died) as a result i've learned that beyond Delos you NEED to arm your cargo ships. your route clearers, your miners, your salvage ships, and one of your designs you ought to arm with plenty of dakka to smash the pirates.

Then again: how do you lock the damn doors? I haven't found the button or wheel prompt!

[Trifler]

Nice Spamlam. I didn't know about capturing pirate ships, so that's good to know.

Mary Celeste is the only ship that you see that can mine, but you can design an improved version of your own.

I designed a Little Bug with a Deep Freeze Cargo room that I find very useful for cargo runs, but a Yanmori works just as well.

To lock doors, click and hold down the left mouse button on a hatch. After a second it will lock. If you continue to hold it, an option to lock all hatches on the ship will come up. I kind of wish there was an option to lock all hatches on that deck, but oh well.

[SpamIam]

I repeat: any ship with the mining lazer, collecter and ore processing plant can mine: but the only miner that can routeclear is the Mary: i dunno why but i have route clear ships (ML only) and mining ships, and no ship i have built can do both jobs. I assume that is a bug.

And thank you for the locking prompt: the game SAYS you can but no matter if i click on the computer (the control center) on doors with crew selected, it NEVER tells me ;_; and the mission doesn't offer clues either, so we are all learning together ^_^

So is the campaign supposed to crawl to a halt after i tell the government that private research should be private, licencing is possible but no way am i giving over my tech for free to i quote 'small independant companies' who haven't understood the technology? Because i completed every mission bar the first racer one (the crew limits plus twin engine requirement plus a wall/stairway glitch made me give up on the design entirely) and despite farming up 15 million mBTC I haven't seen any new tasks to complete.
The last mission i got was a fairly long time ago: for a Crusader class (for which i did not even need the 'restricted' technology)

Oops: missed my favorite pirate prey: F-RangerII worth 455k mBTC giving me a cool 227 mBTC per capture :D I wonder if pirates get bigger ships later into the game?

Also: Didn't get a mission, just cleared some map after scanning and managed to open the path between Maji and Kirkwood station. Not sure how helpful that will be but hey it looks cool.

[Trifler]

Originally posted by SpamIam:

I repeat: any ship with the mining lazer, collecter and ore processing plant can mine: but the only miner that can routeclear is the Mary: i dunno why but i have route clear ships (ML only) and mining ships, and no ship i have built can do both jobs. I assume that is a bug.

OIC what you're saying now. I don't think I've tried that yet (I'm taking it slow), but I would check to make sure the ship you designed meets the requirements for the route clearing contract. For example, it might be over the max budget they allow. Or it might not have enough EEVs. Or something undoubtedly obscure.

Originally posted by SpamIam:

So is the campaign supposed to crawl to a halt after i tell the government that private research should be private, licencing is possible but no way am i giving over my tech for free to i quote 'small independant companies' who haven't understood the technology? Because i completed every mission bar the first racer one (the crew limits plus twin engine requirement plus a wall/stairway glitch made me give up on the design entirely) and despite farming up 15 million mBTC I haven't seen any new tasks to complete.
The last mission i got was a fairly long time ago: for a Crusader class (for which i did not even need the 'restricted' technology)

No clue about where the campaign is supposed to end. I've heard there are a couple of different endings. As for the racer line of contracts, I made the prototype racer, then got another mission to make the racer, then another contract to make a few modifications and build racer 2. A bit later I got a different campaign contract to build some ships for the police.

[SpamIam]

Hilarously: i can build the ship: and assign it to route clearing, but when i rightclick on the map it only brings up mining, the area where route clearing should appear is blank: it's silly, they have 10 rating on mining, 10 rating on asteroid saftey, perfect scores in military, but cannot clear a route despite being good miners/cargohaulers/combatcraft/salvagers/boarders. I love the design (although they ARE 500,000 mBTC a pop). the game dubs them 'acceptable' but they lack the functionality: I've seen someone else report the same issue. It's puzzling.
Oh and before you say 'it's doing to many things and is getting confused' Sorry but no: a modified route clearer with added mining kit (identical design bar the two essential rooms) is able to mine but unable to route clear, and with the two removed, can route clear just fine. Alpha will be Alpha. The only ship (as i stated before) able to do both in my install is the Mary. Lovable old doll.

I have finished the police, finished the prision into crusader, and been yelled at by Sol: I wanted to remind the government that private sector RnD isn't cheap, and that i would only licence the tech to competent individuals: but my choices are 'ignore the legistlation' (which seriously looked downright ILLEGAL and would not hold up in court) or 'surrender the tech' neither felt like my prefered way of seeing the matter. But alpha is alpha and asking for 20 variants of response seems excessive. I'm just getting bored clearing asteroids :p

Oh and a tip to Fast routeclearers: Rightclicking on the areas you need to clear will allow you to clear that one blip: clear the furtherst one first, that way you finish the clearing close to the origin, and it usually only takes a quarter to re-open the request. (you will also partially complete all the regions you pass through on the way out, being more efficent for time)

[Trifler]

@Spamlam
Ok. I don't have any other ideas for that that one of us hasn't mentioned. If I figure something out, I'll post later, but it sounds unlikely.

[SpamIam]

When scanning (this is in the provided Game Manual that comes in the game files) Orange are routclear sectors, Yellow is Minable Asteroids (which don't provide much wealth: although i haven't experimented with MORE LAZERS to see if they increase the income rate) Red are hostile. In red regions, you will be attacked almost certainly by whatever pirates are present: It appears a ship can only encounter one pirate per quarter, one asteroid field and only attempt one mission at a time: so no you cannot routeclear while you haul freight. Nor Haul freight between multiple starsystems in a single long looping pass, despite the fact you have more storage space and could presumably load the frieght into seperate independant cargo bays to prevent mishaps.

Research and development: what a troublesome department: it works fine, but it costs you the price of only the most expensive item of research when you pay for the credits per quarter method.otherwise you need to pay for every tech seperately, at full cost: a significant hit to your finances.
Note the colour of the input number when investing over time: the optimal investment per turn is 2k per subject. Usually i dump in 2.4 because it still shows green and it makes for a small boost ^_^ Generally aim to spend as much as you are earning from reliable income such as route clearance and cargo tasks, don't over-extend and you will find yourself rolling in cash.
Subjects I consider valuable (in approximate order):
Transgalactic engines (faster movement, no fuel requirements)
Cargo,
Mining lazers (for more route clearing income)
Shields and Fusion reactors,
General storage upgrades (fuel is the most valuable when aiming for ship building, Water and Air for meeting duration requirements),
All Connection/hatches and corridors,
Bridges > Scanners > Nav > Radio = Computers,
CYO, Emergency and Life support kit.
Weapons (I have noticed the missile tree has significantly more weapon 'value' than guns,)
Anything else you've been staring at curious: starting with steering thrusters and on into all the cargo and military hulls, then the rest of the hulls (to avoid leaving gaps)
Notice the defence upgrades too: I love ADV shields to the point i usually buy then before i start investing in research in the subject, three on differnt decks can 5/5 the collision (only in manual) with 0 damage received.

Usually i also keep some money on one of the Berth upgrades, usually Military into the armories then back for Technitians on to pilots (for bigger ships) and ultimately invest into all of them at once to finish all the things :D

[Varis]

Awesome thread, keep them coming.

How can you perform the tasks (eg. route clearing) to earn income with your existing ships? I tried to fly them somewhere and do stuff but I seem to get 0 credits.