Beginner's Guide

This Beginner's Guide is for easing new players into the game spoiler-free.

The First Five Steps to Get Going

Disclaimer: If you haven't played the tutorial of Objects in Space yet, you should start a new game with the tutorial enabled in order to get familiar with the basic ship systems.

While there are many ways to play Objects in Space, be it by trading, collecting bounties, exploring, smuggling and so forth, all of them require the credits to outfit your ship with new parts or to buy a brand-new ship in order to support your chosen playing style.

The following is a chronological list of the things you should do first upon starting a new game.

The main idea is to get a high income through trading as soon as possible but with the least amount of effort put into it. Once a steady flow of cash is secured, you are free to buy whatever ship or upgrades you wish and be on your way to do whatever you want.

Step 1: Get the Maximum Cargo Space

1. Finish the dialog with Leslie Garbut.
   
2. At the Shipbroker Terminal trade in your current ship for a Ceres Class ship.
   
3. At the Mechanixx Repair Terminal click on the subsection "Pods" and buy the maximum amount of pods (which is eight in total) and upgrade each pod with "Temp" and "Shield" with your leftover money. This is to ensure that your ship can carry the maximum amount of cargo even if said cargo requires temperature-controlled or shield-regulated pods.

Step 2: Get a Decent Jump Drive

1. At the Mechanixx Repair Terminal return to the main menu and click on "Modules." Make sure "Sell Mode" isn't on and check what kind of jump drives are currently on offer at the station. Search for a "Jump Drive" with a "range" of at least "medium." This is to ensure that you can hyper-jump far enough without the need to have to make undesired stops in potentially dangerous systems between jumps.
   
2. If you found a suitable jump drive, exit the terminal and go to the Commerce Link Terminal (different screen). Click on "Loans" and take on as many as you can plus a little extra to buy goods. That should amount to 7k plus 1k-2k change. If you didn't find a decent jump drive yet, read on.
   
3. Don't worry if you can't find a suitable jump drive yet. This is more or less a long-term goal for as long as you stay in the Leo system. Just continue looking for one until you find one good enough to pick up (probably already at the next station you visit). Then commence with taking as many loans as suggested above to buy said jump drive.
   
4. Go back to talk to Leslie Garbut who will hook you up with your first trading contract.
   
5. At the Commerce Link Terminal click on "Contracts" and take as many contracts that take you in a single direction as your cargo space allows.

Step 3: Get Your Trading On

1. While you are potentially still looking for a good enough jump drive, check each station for new licenses to buy at the Commerce Link Terminal (subsection "Licenses"). The more (trading) licenses you have, the more trading contracts on offer for you. The farther away the destination you have to deliver the commodities to, the more profitable and potentially dangerous the trade route.
   
2. Take as many contracts to a single trading outpost or star system as your cargo space allows. This is the crux of trading profitably. You take as many contracts that lead you in a single direction or to a single station, let's say Crassus Harbour, as you can. Then you load up everything and be on your way. This is to maximize your profit while keeping the time spent traveling between stations at a minimum.
   
3. Still got a little cargo space after loading up? Check the Trading Terminal once more and look for commodities that are being sold "below market value" especially if these items are already needed at the next port you are heading to (you kind-of know this because your contract is already making you deliver a specific sort of goods there). Buy as much as you can and dump the cargo at the next port that buys it "above market value". Only sell above market value.
   
4. Check the Commerce Link Terminal for any passengers to pick up and drop off at the next port. While I have never found the standard passenger contracts to be profitable at all (passengers usually look to get to remote ports for too little a fee), you will never know until you checked the passenger requests.
   
5. Remember the farther and more dangerous the destination of your trading route, the more profitable the sale gets. Put in double the amount of effort to get a good jump drive!

Step 4: Get Your First Upgrades

1. Obviously, get a good Jump Drive first. This allows for efficient travel between entire star systems for maximum profit.
   
2. Since you will be venturing into ever more dangerous space, you will need higher-capacity Batteries second. This allows you to stay much longer in EmCon mode in order to fly undetected avoiding those pesky pirates and federal agents as best as you can. You can sell your old low-capacity batteries once you have new ones as well.
   
3. Get a good Sensor Suite third. This is to detect potential threats ahead of time and to scan the sector you are currently in much more efficiently.
   
4. Get a Solar Wing fourth. This acts like a backup generator only that it constantly generates power (the closer you are to the sun, the more power you get) even in EmCon mode and without emitting anything. Hence, it not only allows you to stay indefintely in EmCom mode but it is also quite inexpensive to acquire. A must-buy!

Step 5: Become Han Solo

1. Take as many illegal contracts (trading drugs, weapons, etc.) as you can if the pay is good (it always is). Don't forget to fulfill urgent passenger transportation requests if the money is right since passengers don't take up any cargo space.
   
2. Always switch off IFF on your ship so as to avoid sending out your ship's friend/foe identification signal to everyone in the vicinity. This will mark you as a yellow "?" on everyone's radar. Especially after a hyperjump make doubly sure IFF is switched off since it always defaults back on after each jump. If authority vessels happen to scan your ship with your having IFF disabled, you will get fined a rather meagre fee for their troubles. If you are certain you have no contraband onboard (illegal commodities like weapons or wanted persons aboard), quickly switch on IFF upon them scanning you in order to avoid getting fined. Otherwise, always avoid the authorities and pay up your accumulated fines at the next station. You should be fairly wealthy off by now so that it shouldn't pose a problem.
   
3. Be sure to stay in hidden inside blue nebulae as often as you can in order not to get detected so easily. In fact, plan your whole route inside and alongside nebulae as your safe passage to the next haven.
   
4. Avoid asteroid belts at any cost since they damage your ship rather quickly. Also avoid red and purple nebulae.
   
5. Plot your entire route ahead of time (Shift+Left Click). Additionally, only rotate your ship and engage thrusters inside nebulae. Be sure to set those navigational waypoints where you ship re-adjusts course inside those nebulae!
   
6. Always fly silently using EmCon Mode (emission control) as often as you can but especially when detecting a new object marked "?" on your radar (= unidentified object in space), federal authority vessels (blue), and pirates (red). In fact, stay as much in EmCon mode as you can, only disabling it intermittently when rotating the ship or engaging thrusters. This ensures that you emit as little radiation signals as possible in order to avoid detection. As discussed above under Step 4, additional maximum-capacity batteries and a Solar Wing generator should help you stay indefinitely in EmCon mode.

[Meth-AnKretmine]

anyways to find where you need to go easier?

[KingWhiteHorne]

Anyone know how to fix broken screens?

[Binraider]

Pray tell, how do you get the game to not crash endlessly? I'd love to get into it, but when boarding your ship inexplicably causes a crash to desktop and you can no longer continue your game, it somewhat ruins the experience.

[SoujiroSeta(Qc)]

right, thanks!

[Leonard McCoy]

The trading terminal shows you if you're buying or selling below or above market value if you click on an item.

[SoujiroSeta(Qc)]

How do you know the market value of a good, and if your buying/selling it above or below?

[Munum]

Great guide Leonard!
Thank you!

[Leonard McCoy]

Please keep the comments spoiler-free.

[Barich]

Thanks for guide. How player can use jumpdrive? Only in systems outside jumpgate network or also in central systems, like Leo-Tega?

[Leonard McCoy]

For illegal contracts, follow the story, talk to smugglers, and respond to questionable trading requests sent to you via in-game mail.