Official Ostranauts Starting Guide

Look here for the official Developer-made starting guide for your first 30 minutes or so of Ostranauts gameplay!
We aim to update this guide in the future as our writer adds more sections they'll be updated here.

Introduction

Welcome to Ostranauts! We're glad you're here. This guide is meant to introduce you to the various systems you will encounter in the game during your first 30 minutes or so of play.

Ostranauts is designed to be complex, immersive, and very dangerous. Some players find great thrill in navigating the game without a guide like this. If you're one of those people, you should dive right in. There's a short, objective based in-game tutorial that will assist you if you do.

But if you want an even smoother start (and possibly avoid a painful and lonely death suffocating in the void during your first hour of play) this guide should get you there.

Much of the information here can be gleaned from other text within the game, including the Encounter screens and the in-world game documents also found within this folder. Our Discord is also a great place to find answers quickly, and we have a developing Wiki you can peruse and contribute to.

Let's begin.

1. CHARACTER CREATION

You start the game by selecting your appearance, name and gender and then entering into the yellow character creation kiosk. Here, you spend resources (in the form of precious years) to gain traits, skills, money, contacts and finally the starting ship you will use to begin salvage at the K-Leg station Boneyard.

It is important to note that your character begins at 18 years old and is already in very poor shape. Growing up on an asteroid has rendered you feeble with bad eyesight and insomnia, among a few other lingering issues. That said, the character creation system is robust enough to build just about any character you like, providing you're willing to enter the game at an older age.

Each "turn" you can choose among several options, each of which offer you choices as to how to spend your years.

SEEK ADVENTURE

This button costs a single year and places you in a randomized narrative encounter representing the most exciting and significant thing that happened to you during that year. At the end of your encounter, you will receive rewards and/or detriments based on your choices in the form of traits, skills, contacts, items and money. The "Seek Adventure" option is chaotic, but offers the greatest return on your one year investment among all the available buttons.

Note that some choices within the encounters require a skill as a prerequisite. This means that if you gained a skill or trait earlier in the character creation process they can be accessed. These are high risk, but offer huge starting rewards if discovered and successfully navigated.

WORK ON SKILLS

While the Seek Adventure button offers more randomized access to character rewards, the other buttons allow players to build a more specific and/or specialized character. The "Work on Skills" button, for instance, allows you to spend 1-3 years to gain (or remove) a skill that will prove valuable during gameplay.

Skills represent expertise learned through study and practice. These can have a varying and sometimes dramatic impact during gameplay. A player skilled in Unarmed Melee, for example, can reasonably expect to win most fistfights. Without it, you should expect to struggle during unarmed combat.

Note that unlike traits, skills can be learned in-game. That said, it takes a very, very long time. For that reason, the best place to gain skills is during character creation, either here or in the "Seek Adventure" option.

WORK ON TRAITS

While skills represent learned expertise, traits are inherent features of your character's personality and body. For this reason, the vast majority cannot be gained during gameplay, and are only made available here, during character creation.

Ostranauts offers the player a huge variety of traits, many of which have both positive and negative gameplay impacts. Like the skills button, this one allows you to add or remove a trait at the cost of 1-3 years. Note that here you can remove some of the more punishing traits associated with growing up on K-Leg, such as "feeble."

Like skills, traits can have significant impact on gameplay, and thus should be taken seriously during character creation. If you decide to create a big mean brawler, for example, you shouldn't expect to be making tons of friends in the gameworld.

SAVE SOME MONEY

If reliable money is what you're after, this button allows you to spend the year saving several hundred dollars. Money is very tight at the start of the game, so leaving character generation with a little cash in your pocket is useful if you want to have a strong start to the game.

SEEK SHIP

This option allows you to spend one year seeking out a possible starting ship for your game. Once selected, you are able to review one spacecraft and decide whether to purchase it (and accumulate a hefty mortgage.) You may decline the offered ship, but note that selecting it ends the character creation process.

There are many factors to consider when selecting a starting ship, and in some ways your starting ship is your primary indicator of how difficult your start might be. Chief among these factors is your mortgage, size, and a working life support system. You will be required to pay a portion of your mortgage at the end of every shift, so a higher mortgage requires you to make more money faster. The size of your ship offers more storage space during salvage expeditions, which can aid you in your cash making endeavors.

REVIEW RESUME

At any point during the character creation process you can press the "Review Resume" button to get a full sense of your money, skills, traits and contacts accumulated thus far. Note that your contacts, including your parents, will appear as NPCs in the gameworld, and can offer you support or grievance at any time, depending on your relationship with them.

2a. PRIMARY HUD AND K-LEG STATION

Once your character is finished and you press the "submit" button in the yellow kiosk you are immediately transported into the gameworld, specifically to a shared dorm on K-Leg station. The game quickly puts you through a mini-tutorial using the objective system. Following these objectives will introduce you to some of the main interactions of the game, so it is important for new players to work through them.

The view and HUD you see here will be your primary perspective during Ostranauts play. The Ostranauts HUD presents many options, only a few of which beginning players will use during the early stages of play. Chief among these are:

STATUS BARS (bottom left)

These bars track and indicate the shifting moods and conditions of your selected character. The status bars are labeled with an icon, and you can also hover them to get a tooltip that describes them in greater detail. In general, a filled reddish bar represents an immediately pressing need while a greenish low or empty bar represents comfort. For early players, the most important moodlets will be Satiety (indicating when to eat), Pain (indicating when you are hurting), and Encumbrance (representing your carried weight multiplied by the current G Force you are experiencing.)

Almost all of these bars can kill you if they are high enough, so it is good practice to keep an eye on them and address your character needs as soon as you can.

INVENTORY SCREEN (bottom left)

You can access the inventory management screen by clicking your character portrait on the bottom left or by pressing the hotkey "I". This UI presents an image of your character (aka "paper doll"), inventory grids for the various bags and containers you have access to, as well as a grid that shows you any items on the ground in your vicinity.

Items may be dragged and dropped between any visible grids in the inventory UI, including the ground grid, provided there is room on the grid to store them. Shift-clicking an item will automatically send it to your hand slot or another available slot if your hand slot is full.

Note that you can navigate the gameworld while the inventory UI is open and gain access to new parts of the map, including the ground and containers, which will present new inventory grids. Items can be rotated by pressing hotkey "R" when the item is selected.

The paper doll represents your character's body, including what they are wearing, any injuries they have, and what they are carrying at a given time. The paper doll has slots on the head for a hat or helmet, the chest and legs for clothing, both hands for carrying items, and both feet for shoes. Additional slots will open up on the body if the character is wounded, where you can apply medical items such as bandages and splints. Items can be dragged and dropped to the paper doll from any inventory grid, including the ground.

There are two additional slots on the paper doll screen. The first, in the top right corner, is your backpack slot, where you can place a bag to gain more inventory space. The second, in the bottom right, is your drag slot. Heavier items can be placed in the drag slot and dragged around the game world. Finally, there is a button on the bottom left of the paper doll screen that opens an inventory showing the set of special social moves you have available. These are gained by having unique experiences during gameplay, and can be used in social interactions, including negotiations.

TIME BAR (top left)

From left to right the Time Bar displays the current date, time, shift, and a set of buttons for pausing and speeding up time in the game world. Each day in Ostranauts consists of four six hour shifts and a final brief period called "untime." Most payments, including your mortgage, trigger at the end of each shift, so it is a good idea to keep an eye on the bar to know when it's time to pay up.

The buttons on the right end of the time bar are used to dilate time. The gameworld can be paused, slowed to quarter time, played in real time, and played at speeds up to 16x. Adjusting game speed is vital to successful Ostranauts play, whether it is slowing down during a tense combat scenario or speeding up during a long repair or salvage job.

The final button is a Super Fast Forward button that can skip up to six hours ahead in the gameworld. Pressing it will bring up an interface that displays an interface with a slider labeled "minimum" that you can drag to decide how many hours you'd like to skip. Importantly, your character will continue doing whatever action they are doing at the time during the skipped hours, excluding any items in your personal work queue. For example, if they are working out on an exercise machine, they will continue to do so for the duration of the skip, gaining all the benefits and detriments of that action for the entire period. Below each hour the UI will list the action being taken and the active effect that will be applied for that hour. Additionally, the UI will list any risk factors associated with that action.

After applying the skip, the UI will report the effects achieved during the skip, including the negative effects associated with the risk factor. In addition, skipping time often offers bonus effects to the character and crew associated with their respective skills and traits. While Super Fast Forward is not often used in the early stages of play, it becomes crucial during the midgame, when travel between planets takes days at a time.

GAME LOG (bottom right)

The bottom right hand of the HUD produces an ongoing log of all the events occurring around you in the game world. Many of these events are presented elsewhere, but the log is the most exhaustive listing of information as you play.

The log messages are color coded according to categories. Light gray messages are neutral. Reddish messages indicate negative effects while greenish indicate positive. Blue log messages are communications, dialogues, and plot events. Bright red log messages track combat.

Far from an irrelevant or redundant listing of game events, the log is the beating heart of Ostranauts play. It is good practice to keep an eye on the log, and scroll up through it during more tense moments of play to gain a full sense of your immediate circumstances.

QUICK ACTION BAR (QAB) (bottom center)

The Quick Action Bar (QAB) displays a sorted list of available interactions your character can perform on an object or NPC when you select it in the game world. The Ostranauts world is built to be fully interactable, so nearly every item in the game can be selected, and a huge range of possible actions are presented in the QAB at a given time. For that reason, it also includes hotkey selection, color coding, as well as tools for sorting available actions.

The first four actions in the QAB can be selected by using hotkeys 1-4. The 5 hotkey will scroll up in the action list. The QAB is responsive to changes in the game world, and new actions become available based on those changes in real time. For that reason, the 6 hotkey can reset the QAB and present any new actions that have become available. The 7 hotkey expands the QAB to see more actions.

The color coded icons at the top of the QAB filter the list of available actions between certain categories. The red swords show combat actions. The green speech bubble shows dialogue options. The blue hand lets you use an object as it was designed. The yellow hammer shows building and repair options.

2b. PRIMARY HUD AND K-LEG STATION (Cont.)

MULTI TOOLTIP (MTT) (top right)

When you select an object or NPC all the information about it will be displayed in the Multi Tooltip (MTT). Often, several objects or NPCs will overlap on one tile in the game world, so the left side of the MTT displays every item on the selected tile in a list of small boxes. You can switch between selected items by clicking the boxes.

The black box on the MTT displays an image of the selected object or NPC along with its name and the state it is in (on or off, open or closed etc). Below that is a short description and a list of factions associated with the object. Factions are most important when dealing with NPCs. Building up favor or disfavor within a given faction will grant access to new dialogues and actions with NPCs within that faction.

WEAR AND DAMAGE

Below that you'll find a red and green bar displaying how worn and damaged the object is. Wear and damage are distinct categories within the game.

Wear is represented by the green section of the bar. A worn item is working but in less-than-perfect shape. It will have cosmetic blemishes and will run at lower efficiency, depending on how worn it is. All items become worn with use and time. Worn items can be returned to better shape by using the "restore" action on them, provided you have the right tools. Once an item becomes too worn, or it is otherwise destroyed, it will enter into the "damaged" state.

Damage is represented by the red section of the bar. A damaged item will no longer work. In fact, it will often lack internal components necessary for functioning. In order to fix a damaged item, you must use the "repair" action. The "repair" action requires you have the necessary tools and internal component items nearby in order to apply them to the damaged item. These component items are often small mechanical or electronic objects such as motors and motherboards, so it is good practice to keep a stock of these onboard your ship when salvaging.

Note that if you hover the "repair" action in the QAB when a damaged item is selected, a tooltip will display all the tools and internal components necessary to repair said item.

Finally, the bottom of the MTT shows all the traits and conditions associated with that item. All of these traits have game mechanics associated with them in one way or another, and you can hover them to find a tooltip that explains more about what they mean.

When selecting an NPC, the MTT will also show a paper doll. You can use this to learn more about what an NPC is wearing or holding, as well as get a sense of whether they have any visible injuries. Often, the traits and conditions on an NPC will be displayed as "???". This means you have not learned enough about the NPC to know what that trait might be (such as, for example, whether or not they are cruel.) These can be uncovered through interacting with the NPC via dialogue and other kinds of observation.

PDA (right middle)

Your PDA includes a wide range of apps that can assist you during play. Seven of these apps are available on the main HUD, and many more are accessible by pressing the "Home" button or pressing the Tab hotkey. Many of these are only useful to advanced players, but they are made available immediately. For new players, there are a handful of vital apps.

The first is Power Viz, which displays a yellow icon on every powered device, including all the conduits carrying power to those items from power sources on the ship such as a battery or reactor.

The Goals app shows a UI of your various objectives, including those you have already accomplished. Crucially, you can quickly link out to contacts and locations listed in the Goals app by clicking on underlined names.

The Install and Orders apps help you manage and queue tasks for your Captain and Crew. The Roster app allows you to set work schedules as well as permissions for NPCs, such as whether or not they are allowed to pass through airlocks. The Socials app displays all your contacts, as well as their locations, which are linkable in the same manner as the Goals app.

ZONES

Finally, the Zones app allows you to select areas within the gameworld and designate them for specific purposes. Barter zones are particularly useful, as any items within them become available for sale when dealing with shops and brokers. Items purchased from a shop can also be immediately transported to the barter zone. Many players create a cargo hold within their ship and designate it as a barter zone so that they do not have to carry every item into stations when doing trade.

There are other apps available, including PASS for fast travel, Files for reading data cards, and a couple more apps associated with the ship navigation console described later in this document.

3. EARLY K-LEG (OKLG) STATION

After obtaining all the tools and items you'd like from the dorm you may exit the room and enter K-Leg station. While the tutorial will lead you directly to your starting ship, you also have the option to explore the station beforehand.

South of the dorm room you'll find a small darkened corridor. If you equip the lamp attached to the clip point of the Pressure Suit from the dorm locker to your hand and turn it on it will illuminate the spaces around you. Here, you'll see a switch attached to conduits. Toggle it on to bring power to the door and pass through to find a crowbar.
Following the corridor north and then west of both the darkened corridor and the dorm room you'll pass a conduit on the ground with a ground labeling instructing you to install it to the wall conduits. Once you do so, you may enter the room, open the wall rack, and obtain a knife and a simple welder.

TOOLS AND BATTERIES

There are many kinds of tools in Ostranauts and each has a specialized use. Broadly speaking, in order to salvage successfully you'll need the ability to solder, screw, cut, pry and weld. If you select a tool and look at the MTT, you can find a condition indicating what a given tool can do. In your starting dorm you'll find crude hand tools that can screw, cut, and solder. The extra tools found in the rooms near the dorm allow you to pry and weld.

Power tools require a charged battery to operate. Some batteries are disposable while others can be recharged. If you select a tool in your inventory you will find a new inventory box indicating whether or not the tool has a battery installed.

There are several brands of batteries, and tools can only accept the right kind. Gott brand tools use green rechargeable batteries while Halverson tools use red rechargeable batteries. The Weber Laser Torch and Bingham EVA suit have specialized batteries and chargers, and many smaller items use disposable Azul brand batteries.

Rechargeable batteries can be charged in specialized docking stations of that brand. K-Leg station has a Bingham battery charging station at port, but chargers for other tools must be purchased or salvaged. To use a charger, first make sure it is installed to a powered conduit. Then select the charger's inventory and place the correct battery into it. A powered charger will illuminate with a blue light. When a battery is charging inside the charger, the sprite will change to show that battery.

SUPPLY AND SCRAP TRADE

There are many different economies in Ostranauts, including salvage, cargo, data and supplies. When first starting out, it's a good idea to check out the supply trade on K-Leg station. If you continue following the arrows on the floor from the dorm room towards the airlock you'll pass a number of useful vendors.

First you'll find a number of food vendors who offer high priced station fare, perfect for if you need an emotional boost in addition to filling your belly. Next you'll pass a blue kiosk labeled "supplies." This is a kind of spacer general store where you can buy goods that will help you in your day to day operations, including during salvage runs. Take a moment to browse the goods to get a sense of the price ranges. Some early purchases worth considering are battery chargers, extra batteries, tool boxes, and upgraded tools. If you plan to be out for a long time on your first salvage run, food, water, and hygiene wipes might also come in handy.

Just beyond the supplies kiosk you'll find the airlock where your starting ship is docked. Just above it, you'll see two important trade locations: the scrap kiosk and the license kiosk. The scrap kiosk is a bit like a junkyard shop. It will buy and sell low value items from anyone, often in a damaged state. This can present an opportunity if you know how to fix things, or if you have damaged items you'd like to offload for a small profit.

Just below the scrap kiosk you'll find a yellow licensed salvage kiosk. To access trade here, you'll have to purchase a temporary salvage license for $5000. With this license, you can buy and sell high value items, including the rare salvage you'll find the K-Leg Boneyard. Licenses last 24 hours, and once you purchase one you can inspect it to find the expiration date. In addition to granting access to this kiosk, the license allows you to salvage derelicts in the Boneyard legally. This means if you are questioned by law enforcement while you're salvaging then you will not be fined or arrested.

Finally, there are other black market salvage opportunities, most notably The Fixer in the Mescaform bar in the Old Emporium district of K-Leg. These will be discussed later in this guide.

Nearly all the vendors in Ostranauts will update their stock every 24 hours of in-game time. Some update more frequently, such as The Fixer. For this reason it is good practice to check prices and item stocks whenever you find yourself back on a station.

4. YOUR STARTING SHIP and SHIP SYSTEMS

When you feel like you're prepared to leave the station, follow the indicators on the floor to the airlock where you'll find the ship you purchased during character creation. This will be your home for the early game of Ostranauts, so it is important to familiarize yourself with the layout and systems.

While ships in Ostranauts can reach a nearly infinite level of complexity, they are best understood as an airlock and hull filled with installed parts that create systems of play. These systems include hull, electrical, environmental, thrust, navigation, and (in the late game) fusion.

HULL

Your hull consists of installed floors, walls, doors and vents that hold environmental gasses against the external vacuum (or atmosphere) surrounding it. Generally, your airlock should be the only way to enter and exit your ship, and for this reason there are permissions in the "roster" app of the PDA you can toggle to decide who can freely disembark. Fully enclosed areas within a ship are considered a "compartment," meaning they can hold environmental gasses within them against the vacuum or against other compartments with differing atmospheric conditions. If you click a floor tile in your ship, the MTT will indicate the compartment of that tile in a selectable box on the left side.

ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS

Ships are powered by ship batteries and/or generators, and the parts within them receive electricity from those sources via a chain of conduits. Using the "Power Viz" app on your PDA (hotkey "L) you can see what parts on your ship are receiving power. Yellow icons indicate that there is a powered item on a given tile, and grayed out icons indicate that an item there is unpowered.

Your starting ship likely has a single battery and an unbroken, branching chain of conduits powering all the items within it. Conduit chains can be interrupted by power switches which will stop the power beyond the switch location or pass the power through, depending whether they are toggled on or off.

Using clever combinations of power sources, conduits, and switches you can isolate certain systems from others and quickly turn them on or off. For advanced players, there is also a fusebox item that can link together parts within the ship and use simple logic gating to run or cut power to them automatically.

ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS

The goal of an environmental system is to create a temperate, breathable atmosphere such that your characters are safe within it while not wearing a pressure or EVA suit. A sealed compartment within a hull can hold a gas mixture within it, colloquially called an "environment." Adding a gas mixture to a compartment (or canister) is also called "pressurizing" it.

BREATHABLE ENVIRONMENTS

There are several gasses in Ostranauts, but the most vital for creating a safe environment on your ship are oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. To immediately learn what the gas mixture is in a given location, use the "G" hotkey. This will display a color coded list of gasses and their pressure in the unit of KPa, as well as the temperature of the room in Kelvin. This list is disabled by default, but if an environment begins to reach dangerous levels of a given gas or temperature, the dangerous value will appear on the cursor until the levels become safe again.

A breathable environment has oxygen levels above 20 KPa and carbon dioxide below 1 KPa. Nitrogen is neither poisonous nor vital, but spacefarers conditioned to planetside atmospheres are best suited for levels between 40 and 70 KPa.

There is a highly advanced, in-world manual for creating safe and breathable environments within the Ostranauts manual. To access it, click the red binder on the home screen or the escape menu.

To create a breathable environment within a ship you must install a system of air pumps and canisters. Optionally, you can use alarms to automate pressurization and vents to pass gas mixtures between compartments. An installed and powered air pump will take pressure from the gas canister within it and distribute it as a gas throughout the compartment. Canisters can hold any gas mixture, but in general green cans hold oxygen, blue cans hold nitrogen, and orange cans are for general use. To install a canister inside an installed pump, use the "install" action on a can and place it beneath the red triangle on the pump.

Air pumps have a control panel that offers information, automation, and settings toggles (see left). To access it, select the air pump and use the "control panel" action. Setting the pump to "on" will continually pull from the installed canister and distribute it as a gas mixture into the listed compartment. The current pressure of the canister is displayed as a percentage, a total KPA, and on a color coded pressure dial.

You can automate your environment system by connecting an alarm to the air pump's sensor input. To do this, click any of the screws on the left side of the settings panel. This will display all the alarms installed on your ship. Click the golden screw and draw the blue line to the alarm you'd like the pump to be connected to. Now, when the pump is toggled to "auto", it will turn on and off based on the sensor's detection of the relevant gas within the compartment in which it is housed.

The pump also has controls to reverse the direction of the pump. If the pump is reversed, it will suck nearby gasses in the compartment into the attached canister.

The "reverse" action can also move gasses from canisters on one side of the air pump to another. Be careful when doing this not to over pressurize and explode the canister. The "slow" toggle allows you to do this action more carefully, or to pressurize the compartment more slowly if the "reverse" button is not toggled.

TEMPERATE ENVIRONMENTS

The temperature in a ship is controlled by coolers and heaters. A heater can be installed on any wall with a powered conduit, while a cooler requires both exterior and interior space on the walls to be installed. Much like the air pump, heaters and coolers can be automated by using the settings panel and linking them with a thermostat.

A safe and comfortable temperature for a ship is between 290-300 degrees Kelvin. Values below or above this range pose the risk of hypothermia on the low end or heat stroke on the high end.

THRUST SYSTEM

Standard travel in local space uses a Reaction Control System (RCS) to blast inert, cold compressed gas (usually N2) controlled by an intake regulator. The RCS system consists of these intake regulators with an installed gas can as well as one or more RCS thrusters. You do not need to run a line from the intake regulator to your thrusters in order to make the system work. Any and all installed thrusters take gas from installed intake regulators at even levels to achieve thrust.

That said, Ostranauts runs a physics calculation that takes into account your ship's mass, total thrusters, and any gravitational forces on your ship to determine your velocity and fuel usage while under thrust. Installing the correct number of thrusters to achieve your desired maneuverability based on mass is an advanced and important skill when ship building, and it is worth experimenting to achieve best results.

5a. FLIGHT

Spaceflight in Ostranauts is done at any installed and powered Navigation (nav) Console. To access the map and navigation screen, select the nav console and perform the "use" action. This will bring up your flight console as well as a map of the system (figure 5.1).

The first thing you'll see when opening the console is a short in-world note about flying called the "Don't Crash Guide". If you follow this note along with the in-game objective tutorial, you will get a reasonably good idea about how to fly in Ostranauts. The rest of this section of the guide should fill in any remaining information gaps important for beginning play.

The first thing to note is that Ostranauts uses a two-dimensional approximation of Newtonian flight physics. This means that when your ship reaches a certain speed in a certain direction, it will remain at that speed traveling in that direction until it is offset by another force. From a practical standpoint, this means that RCS flight is done by applying relatively short bursts of thrust to reach a certain speed in a given direction, and then traveling in that direction at that speed until you apply thrust in an equal and opposite direction.

NAVIGATION CONSOLE

Flight Navigation Console (figure 5.1)

While the nav console will be overwhelming at first, with time you will gain a satisfying mastery over the controls. The console is divided into several panels labeled at the top. Only some of the panels will be used in the beginning stages of the game. Most important among these panels are the NAV MODE, MANEUVER DRIVE, MAP, and WARNINGS.

NAV MODE and MANEUVER DRIVE

You can use this small panel to toggle between whether your WASD keys control the map or the thrusters on your ship. When toggled to "MAP CONTROLS," you can use WASD keys to scan around the map to learn more about local space or the wider system, depending on how far you are zoomed in. When switched to "RCS MANEUVERS," the WASD keys will apply thrust in the direction you press at the rate set on your MANEUVER DRIVE panel.

Ostranauts runs a constant G Force simulation on your ship and your characters. For the player, that G Force is most readily noticeable in the "Encumbrance" status bar, which will spike and turn red when under high force. If you are under high G Force long enough, your character portrait will look distressed and the screen will begin to darken until you eventually pass out.

This can be avoided by using the MANEUVER DRIVE slider to set a more reasonable max thrust. G Force is only experienced when velocity changes quickly, so using short bursts of RCS thrust instead of long sustained ones is good practice.

MAP

The system map is your constant guide to the larger world of Ostranauts. In addition to simulating the objects in near space, it can be zoomed out to show the entire Solar System, whose planetary orbits are fully simulated as well. In the early game, you will only be navigating near space, so using the mouse scroll wheel (or + and - buttons on the CONTROLS panel) is the most you will need to see the entire OKLG system.

Map Icons

If you zoom out you'll see 1036 Ganymed, the asteroid where the K-Leg station is housed, represented as a large greenish circle. Stations on the map, like OKLG, are represented as white/gray diamonds. Most ships are represented as yellow triangles, except for law enforcement vessels, which are red. If you zoom out to the very edges of the OKLG system you'll find a ring of orbitals, which are represented as squares with lines on each face.

Finally, and most importantly in the early game, you'll see gray asterisks with a "?" beneath them. These are derelicts: wrecked or decommissioned ships floating in the OKLG Boneyard waiting to be repaired, sold, or salvaged.

WARNINGS

The WARNINGS panel is a set of lamps, buttons and toggles that alert you to various states of danger regarding your ship. While undocked, the PROX ALARM will flash red and ping when you are close to another ship, station, or any other collidable objects in space. The alarm pings at a faster or slower rate indicating how close you are to that object. You can temporarily clear the alarm by pressing the "CLEAR" button.

The TRACK WARN alarm pings when you are being tracked by another ship sensor, usually a local law enforcement vessel. Like the PROX ALARM, it can be temporarily cleared using the nearby button.

The ANT FAULT and XPDR FAULT warning lamps indicate a problem with your antenna or transponder, respectively. You'll find the transponder part attached to your nav station and the antenna installed somewhere on the exterior of the ship. For a ship to be in good legal standing, both of these parts must be installed and powered at all times. If you'd like to skirt local air traffic laws and not be tracked, you can turn your transponder on and off using its control panel or the red toggle on the TRANSPONDER/IFF panel below the WARNING panel.

The DOCK SYS CLAMP lamp will illuminate when you are docked to a ship or station. Beside that lamp you will see a yellow arrow that brings you to the Communication Controls Panel, where you can control docking.

UNDOCKING and COMMUNICATION CONTROL PANEL

Clicking the bumper on the right side of the Navigation Console will bring you to the Communication and Control Panel. This interface is used to communicate with other vessels, most importantly to secure permissions and clearance for docking procedures.

Docking and other aspects of comms will be covered later in this guide. The first step to flight, however, is undocking. To undock from a station or vessel, click the "DOCK INFO" button on the COMMS CONTROL screen, then REQUEST CLEARANCE, followed by "Request Undocking Clearance." Once you are cleared to undock, you can press the black and yellow "CLAMPS" button to unclamp your ship.

Further information on docking can be found later in this guide.

MANEUVERING via RCS

After undocking your ship from OKLG the tutorial will present you with a set of objectives meant to familiarize you with the RCS flight system in Ostranauts. Basic maneuvering entails selecting a destination target, using WASD to apply thrust to your ship, and then keeping a close eye on flight metrics as you approach before eventually docking.

5b. FLIGHT (Cont.)

FLIGHT METRICS

Selecting a target on the System Map, such as a derelict or another ship, will display a set of vital flight metrics on the right side of the nav console screen. While the map display and icons offer a general idea of where and how you are flying, these metrics are far more granular and detailed. For this reason, successful flight in Ostranauts is a discipline of constantly checking your instruments and using WASD to adjust thrust based on the following readouts:

VREL (Relative Velocity)

Because Ostranauts uses a Newtonian flight model, your ship velocity is not static (as a speed might be on the surface of Earth) but instead always relative to another object in space. This relative value is displayed as a velocity (VREL) measured in meters per second (m/s) when you select an object on the System Map.

In practice, this means you'll often be selecting an object with low velocity relative to your own, such as a derelict or station, and raising or lowering your VREL using RCS thrust to either approach the object quickly or slowly, depending on the circumstances. If you approach an object with a high VREL (usually above 100 m/s) and then collide with that object, it will do damage to the object, your ship, and anything inside it (including your body).

Note that if you select a ship with its own thrust, your VREL might change dramatically as the ship accelerates towards or away from you. Bringing your VREL to zero in this context means you are essentially matching speeds with the other ship. This puts you in less danger of colliding with said ship, but still means your velocity might be very high relative to other nearby objects, such as comparatively static derelicts or stations.

The System Map offers a visual indicator of VREL to aid in flight. When accelerating your ship, faded duplicates of your ship icon will appear. The more distant these duplicates, the higher your VREL. If you reduce your VREL the distance between the duplicates will shrink. If the duplicates completely overlap, you have reached VREL zero, exactly matching the velocity of the targeted object.

If you use the MATCH SPEED toggle on the CONTROLS panel your ship will work to match the speed of the selected object, essentially bringing your VREL to zero. This can be a useful tool while docking, as your ship will slow your velocity when you are not applying bursts of RCS. It can also be used to match the velocity of other ships, as described above.

VCRS (Cross Velocity)

Cross velocity is a relative velocity measured between the docking point on your ship (i.e. the tip of the triangle on your ship icon) and the docking ring on the targeted object. You can think about it as the sideways drift speed relative to your target, indicating how quickly you are crossing your docking point laterally.

A negative VCRS value indicates drift towards the left (port) side of your target. A positive VCRS value indicates drift towards the right (starboard) side of your target. Zero VCRS indicates no drift. Having a high VCRS value in either direction indicates that you will likely miss the target on approach, so it should always be zeroed out before docking.

RNG (Range)

The RNG is the distance between your ship and the selected object measured in kilometers (km) or, if the object is very far away, astronomical units (au), which is the equivalent of about 150 million kilometers. This distance will shrink or grow based on your relative velocity to that object (VREL). Note that a very quickly shrinking RNG likely means you are closing on the object at a high VREL, which puts you at danger of a high velocity collision, as noted above.

BRG (Bearing)

Your bearing indicates your airlock's orientation towards your target's docking ring and represents it as a degree.

ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival)

Your ETA indicates when you will arrive at your targeted destination if you continue at your current VREL. Note that if your target is moving, your ETA will grow as your relative velocity shrinks. Your ETA does not take into account fuel consumption, which is covered in other metrics.

RCS (Reaction Control System)

The RCS metric is measured in a line of "+" signs indicating how much fuel you have left on your ship. A high number of "+" signs means you have high fuel, and fewer "+" signs means lower fuel. Fuel, in this case, is measured by how much gas you have in installed canisters on your ship running to an intake regulator.

DELTA-V

Delta-V is a way to determine whether you have enough remaining fuel to reach your target based on your current velocity. In technical terms, it represents the total change in velocity your ship is able to perform. For example, if your ship has 1000 m/s of Delta V remaining and you have zero VREL to your target, you would run out of fuel when you reach 1000 m/s VREL.

Note that Delta-V only expends when you thrust, not when you accelerate. This means you can conserve Delta-V (and thus fuel) by thrusting and then coasting to your target over time rather than attempting to reach it at full burn.

As a rule of thumb, if you're traveling towards your target at a higher VREL than your remaining Delta-V, you are likely to crash.

PWR RESERVE (Power Reserve)

Your power reserve is measured in Kilowatt Hours (kWh) and indicates how much power you have remaining on your vessel at a given time. This power is usually provided by your installed batteries, but in the later stages of the game can be provided by a fusion reactor.

Running out of power during flight is extremely dangerous, and doing so requires you to call for immediate rescue or end your game entirely. For this reason it is good practice to make sure you have a high power reserve at all times, and keep backup batteries on hand for emergencies.

FLYING USING METRICS

By keeping a close eye on your flight metrics you can travel throughout local space safely and with minimal fuel use.

To do this, select your target and use the Q/E and R keys to rotate your ship until it reaches a zero BRG, or as close as possible to that. Next, use A and D to bring your VCRS as close as possible to zero. Next, increase your forward VREL using W until you reach your desired velocity (keeping an eye on Delta-V, power, and total fuel). Finally, as you approach your destination, use S to thrust backwards to a safe approach speed below 100 m/s.

At that point you are safe to initiate docking procedures with the target.

5c. DOCKING

To enter a derelict, station or ship you must first dock with it. Docking begins with obtaining docking clearance from air traffic control, then moves into a short dexterity sequence in which you must align your docking ring to the docking ring of the other vessel. The docking sequence takes place on the comms controls panel to the right of the nav console (Figure 5.2).

Navigation Console Docking Panels (Figure 5.2)

CLEARANCE

To initiate clearance with a vessel you must be within 5 km of it. Next, click the right bumper on the nav console to access the comms controls. Then click the arrow button next to "HAIL SHIP" on the COMMS CONTROL screen to find a list of ships you can communicate with. Selected vessels will be bracketed in red and indicated as a "?" if you have no info on the ship. Otherwise, the ship will show the call sign.

Select the ship you'd like to hail (usually the selected, bracketed ship) to find a list of communication options. In the case of docking with a derelict, select "Initiate Uncontrolled Docking Procedure." For occupied ships or stations with air traffic control, you'll follow the same process, but will have to request clearance to dock from the other vessel.

CLAMPING

After gaining clearance or beginning the uncontrolled docking procedure, the left screen labeled "POLARIS MFD" will display the docking ring user interface. The goal of this interface is to allow you to get as close to the vessel as possible before aligning docking rings and engaging your clamps.

The flight controls during docking are nearly identical to flying from the System Map on the nav console panel. WASD will control your thrust using RCS, Q and E will rotate your ship, and R will stop rotation. As you maneuver, you will see the target docking ring shift in and out of your own docking ring. Additionally, you will see your white ship icon rotate on an indicator on the left side of the screen. If the white triangle icon is perfectly aligned with the blue indicator triangle, it signals that your rotation is aligned with the target ring.

In addition to these visual indicators you'll also find all the flight metrics available on the nav console flight screen, including VREL, BRG, VCRS etc. While these will all aid in your docking maneuvers, the most important is VREL, which should remain below 100 m/s to avoid crashing into the target ring.

Note that you can use the "MATCH SPEED" toggle on the "CONTROLS" panel of the nav panel to automatically match speeds with the docking target. With this button toggled, your ship will always work to bring you to zero VREL of the target. While this option might use more fuel than drifting into range of the dock, it will also prevent you from slamming into your target at high VREL.

Once you are within clamping range and aligned with the target, the clamp indicators of your docking ring will turn green, as well as your "CLAMP ALIGN" lamp. At this point you can press the yellow and black striped "CLAMPS" toggle to dock with the target.

Once docked, you can exit your airlock and enter the docked target to begin your salvage mission. Be aware that if the target is a derelict it will almost certainly be dark, airless, and possibly hostile. Make sure to enter these vessels wearing a pressure suit, holding a lamp, and prepared to fight if necessary.

6. SALVAGING & BUILDING

The core game loop in the early stages of Ostranauts involves salvaging parts from derelict ships in the Boneyard and selling them to various brokers on OKLG and elsewhere for profit. There are both legal and non-legal ways to go about salvaging, and both methods will be covered here.

The crucial thing to keep in mind during salvage runs is that all the derelicts within the Boneyard are property of Ayotimiwa, the corporation that has de facto control over the region. This means that without a salvage license, taking parts from ships and selling them is illegal.

Law enforcement vessels patrol the Boneyard and will occasionally scan ships to prevent illegal salvage and other activities. These patrol vessels appear as orange-red icons in the system map on the nav console. In addition to scanning, patrol ships will dock with your ship and deploy a Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) to question you and render fines for illegal activity.

Temporary salvage licenses can be purchased from Ayotimiwa at the License kiosk in the OKLG station port just across the hallway from the docking port. Licenses cost $5000 and will grant you 24 hours of legal salvage in the Boneyard. This license will also give you access to the trade window of the license kiosk, where you can sell low and medium value salvaged parts to Ayotimiwa at a profit. Selling salvage will be covered in greater detail later in this guide.

SAFE SALVAGE and YOUR FIRST SALVAGE RUN

Safely salvaging parts from derelicts involves entering a dead vessel, exploring a darkened ship for the highest value parts, uninstalling them using the correct tools, and bringing them back to your own ship. Crucially, all of this must be done using limited oxygen drawn from your ship or suit, as derelicts are almost always in vacuum.

In the early stages, the first step is to put on your pressure suit (obtained from the closet in the dorm room where you began the game) and equip the lamp on the "clip point" slot of your inventory to your hand. Note that the lamp cannot illuminate the game world from the clip point and can only work when equipped to your hand and turned on.

Your pressure suit will trap the environment from your ship in your helmet and create a breathable environment for a short time. The red lights on the bottom right corner of the helmet HUD will indicate when you are approaching unsafe levels of oxygen or carbon-dioxide, at which point you should return to your ship, take off your helmet, and put it back on again. This will once again trap your ship's atmosphere in the helmet for another salvage run.

EXPLORING DERELICTS

Derelicts are in various stages of disrepair, from nearly functional to fully wrecked. In every case, the parts within them can be uninstalled, picked up, and taken back to your ship for resale later.

Most high value salvage will have to be uninstalled using the tools you have at your disposal. Different parts require different tools for uninstallation and repair. To salvage everything on a ship, you'll need the ability to solder, screw, cut, pry and weld. But many parts, including some high value parts, will only require a screwdriver. If you hover the "uninstall" action on an item, a tooltip will appear and show you what tool you'll need for the job.

When you select a part or item in the game, you'll see 1-5 dollar signs ($) indicating how valuable that part is. Note that this indicates the base value of the item, and the actual price you get for it during trade will change depending on the vendor. Additionally, if you have the "Admin" on the character you control when you select the item, you'll be able to see a more accurate, numeric approximation of the value.
In addition to ship parts, derelicts will contain abandoned and discarded items that can be collected for salvage. While many of these are low value, such as small mechanical and electrical components, others might be quite high, such as PDAs and active salvage licenses. For this reason, it is good practice to check every storage bin on the walls and floors of the derelict in case there is something there you need or want.

Lastly, parts can be installed on your own ship instead of sold back to the corporation. Good early candidates for such parts are thrusters, improved RCS intake regulators, battery chargers, and any missing sensors. These parts will immediately improve your own ship, and can be used in future ships when you decide to upgrade.

BUILDING and DEMOLITION

In addition to installing and uninstalling parts, you can use a structure cutting tool to build, scrap, and dismantle hulls within derelicts or your own ship. While your starting ship is likely large enough for early salvage runs, eventually you'll want to expand it using building actions to gain more storage space.

One way to access demolition options is to use the standard QAB buttons (see above). When you select a wall or floor, you'll see options to dismantle and scrap. Scrapping a part will break it down quickly, leaving behind fewer (and less valuable) component parts. Dismantling a part, by contrast, is a careful process of breaking it down into its component pieces, including things like motherboards, small motors, heat sinks and the like. These can be used later to build or repair other items that require said components.

Expanding your floor and wall space uses the same process as installing parts. The primary difference is that removing floors and walls will expose your ship to vacuum, and any atmosphere you've created within it will rush out into the void. Be aware of this when dismantling hull pieces in pressurized environments. More information on environmental systems can be found in the User Manual accessible via the ESC menu.

USING ORDERS

In addition to working through the QAB, you can use the "Order" application on the PDA to perform work on the ship in batches. Select the application through the PDA on the left side of the screen to see the interface.

In the top row of the interface you'll see a series of part category toggles with lightning bolt icons, and on the bottom you'll see a list of actions. Any of the selected categories on the top row can be applied to the action on the bottom row to set autotask behavior for your selected character.

Once you've toggled your desired categories, select an action and bring the icon into the game world. Left click to select the parts on the ship where you'd like to apply the order, leaving behind a yellow icon. In this way, you can "paint" actions all over the game world.

Finally, toggle the "autotask" button on the bottom of the HUD. At this point your character will set to completing these tasks to the best of their ability. Note that they will abandon these tasks if more pressing needs confront them, but will return to them once those needs are satisfied.

Once you have enough salvage to turn a profit you can undock your ship and head back to OKLG station to sell it.

7. SELLING at OKLG

There are several brokers at OKLG where you can offload salvage, ranging from legal to less-than-legal. The primary vendors for salvage will be the salvage kiosk, the license kiosk, and The Fixer, who runs black market operations in the system. Before you head to any of the three, it is a good idea to create a barter zone to make the transactions a little simpler.

SCRAP KIOSK

The scrap kiosk (labeled "We buy (S)crap") is a clearing house for low value goods. They will reliably purchase and sell small items such as food, water, tools, small mechanical parts etc. It is the most reliable place to sell in that they are always accepting a wide range of goods, but the least lucrative as the goods aren't particularly valuable unless sold in bulk.

LICENSE KIOSK

The yellow "License" kiosk is the hub of legal salvage trade on OKLG. To access trade here, you'll have to purchase a temporary salvage license for $5000. With this license, you can buy and sell high value items, including the rare salvage you'll find the K-Leg Boneyard. Licenses last 24 hours, and once you purchase one you can inspect it to find the expiration date. In addition to granting access to this kiosk, the license allows you to salvage derelicts in the Boneyard legally. This means if you are questioned by law enforcement while you're salvaging then you will not be fined or arrested.

Purchase prices in the License kiosk are set by the Ayotimiwa corporation, meaning they are standardized but somewhat low. Additionally, they won't often buy rare and high value parts. For this reason, it is a good option to quickly and legally offload salvaged goods to turn a respectable profit.

The above options are available for legal trade. For black market trade, you'll have to gain the trust of The Fixer. You can find The Fixer in the Mescaform Bar in the Old Emporium district of OKLG. This region, and others, are accessible by rail using the transit kiosk.

Transit

The white transit kiosk, located above your docking port past the license kiosk, offers you travel to multiple zones on OKLG. Select it and access using the QAB. This will bring up a transit map in a bit of disrepair. While most of the locations aren't available to you, you will have access to the Port (where you stand now), the Commercial District, the Estate District, and the Old Emporium.

The Commercial and Estate Districts will be covered in greater detail later in this guide. To reach The Fixer, you'll have to travel to the station's decaying leisure district: The Old Emporium.

THE FIXER

You'll find The Fixer in a darkened corner of the bar at a table they've permanently reserved for themself. Asking them to trade on the black market will automatically trigger a negotiation in which you must use your social skills to convince them you deserve access. This is called a "stakes conversation," and it includes a set of advanced social moves you won't see in other conversations.

Social Combat (Stakes Conversations)

Stakes conversations are built around a unique social move called a "gambit." Gambits (labeled GMB in the QAB) will persuade a target towards a positive outcome, but they require the target to be in a specific mood to be successful. If you hover a gambit in the QAB you'll see a tooltip that details exactly what mood the target must be in for the gambit to be successful, as well as what moods will automatically fail the persuasion and kick you out of the conversation.

Once the mood goals of the conversation are clear, it is your job to use the social moves at your disposal to move the target towards those moods. There are a wide range of social moves available to you to achieve this, and hovering them will show a tooltip detailing how the target's mood will change when you use a given move. The strength of the move is indicated by a number of up or down arrows, with more arrows representing more powerful moves.

In addition to the normal social moves, gambits will also often include a few Advanced moves (labeled ADV in the QAB) unique to that particular conversation. These are designed to pair with the gambits in that they target the specific mood the gambit requires. Hovering these advanced moves will show you how the target's mood will be changed when those moves are selected.

When the target reaches the desired mood, it will show under their portrait in the MTT. At that point, you can execute the gambit and it will be successful.
For the fixer stakes conversation, you'll be offered two gambits to achieve access to the black market. In one, you can intimidate the fixer by threatening them with violence, a gambit which requires the fixer to have a low security mood. In the other, you can charm the fixer, requiring the fixer to have a particular intimacy mood. In both cases you'll have access to powerful advanced moves, and using them should influence the fixer's mood relatively quickly.

Once you succeed in your gambit, you'll be given permanent access to the black market.

The OKLG Black Market

The black market offers the best prices on salvaged goods, and will even accept purchase rare, high value items that aren't accepted in other markets. That said, the market is ever shifting, so the fixer will be seeking to buy and sell a small, specific list of goods for short periods of time.

The market changes every 1.5 game hours, and you can see a ticking timer in the top right corner of the trade UI to see when the items change over. For this reason it is good practice to check the black market whenever you return to OKLG and discover what high value items the fixer is seeking.

More to Come!

This guide is currently unfinished and will eventually cover more topics including:

• Adventuring beyond

[Sergio]

There's nothing about gig system. My mind is just blown up.

[maximustrajan23]

pretty awesome, excited for the rest of it