Q1: I just bought the game. What should I do?
A1: Install the game, then run the tutorial. The tutorial can be accessed from the main menu.
Q2: Finished the tutorial. What’s next?
A2: You can host your own game, join the public server or play solo. Suggest you join the Bolehland server if you are in SEA region.
Q3: I joined/started a game and it asked me to join a faction. Which faction should I choose?
A3: There are 4 factions to choose from. What makes each different is the starting resource and money and also the starter stations.
- Hurles Corp: This faction deals in mining and resource trading. A very easy faction to start with as the starter station has a huge mining facility (3 extractor, 2 refinery for a single mining hall and they have 2 halls). Offer a starting extractor ship for purchase. If you are beginner, suggest you choose this faction.
- Galactic Trade: This faction deals in trading and hauling. Offers a starting hauling ship for purchase. No mining capability on the starter station. Not recommended for beginner.
- S3: S3 deals in mission running. Offer a good mission running ship for purchase. No mining capability on the starter station.
- Drifters: A neutral faction which consists of free miners. No starter ship for purchase so you need to design and build your own to leave the starter station. Has 2 small mining hall (single extractor and single refinery in 1 hall) on the starter station.
Do take note that all 4 factions start in different systems so if you are planning to play with friends, make sure they join same faction to spawn in same system.
Q4: Joined a faction, what is next?
A4: Depending on the faction you joined, you can buy starter ship and start doing mining, trading or mission running. As a drifter, you need to mine enough ores, refine ingots then build a ship in order to leave the starter station.
Q5: How do I mine ores and make ingots?
A5: If you did the tutorial, you should know by now. Go and do the tutorial!
Q6: Why is it hard to do trading?
A5: Not all stations that you found can do trading. Only some of it is able to do trading such as Trade Hub, GT Trans System Sphere. Each station has its own supply and demand. More supply means cheaper to buy from and high demand means higher sale price. Problem is, you can’t view those trading data/price data remotely. You need to go to the station, and take note of it. I suggest you screenshot the trade terminal screen when you visit those station. Imagine that you bought some stuff, travel some distance spending all those fuel only to find out that the other station has low demand of the stuff you have. By the way, if demand is 0, they will not buy those stuffs.
Q7: I was travelling in warp then I died.
A7: It happened to me few times. Most likely culprit is that I’ve slammed into a planet which is still being rendered. There is one time where I saw a black sphere then bam hitting it at warp 8 speed.
Q8: I logout and when I came back logged in, my ship is gone! I have “Ship no longer available” message.
A8: I have this issue few times and those ships are lost without any explanation. When I asked around, it appears that your ship is destroyed by:
- Space alien destroyed your ship. I saw this first hand when I logged back in, the space alien is in the process trying to destroy my ship. I also saw ships around the starter station being destroyed one by one by the space alien.
- Defense drone sometime spawned in asteroid field. So if you left your ship in asteroid field, there is a possibilities that those drone kill your ship.
- Ships destroyed by asteroid. Yep this can happen if your shield system is not sustainable and your ship ran out of fuel.
- Another player destroy your ship.
Q9: My ship always ran out of hydrogen fuel even when I didn’t fly it!
A9: This is due to the ship design especially the starter ship. What happened here is that the ship has a single power grid where the hydrogen power generator and the batteries are in a single grid. Means that the generator will always work providing power to charge up the batteries. So how to avoid this? When you didn’t have to fly or move the ship around, remove all the hydrogen from the hydrogen tank and the generator will stop working. If there are solar cells on the same grid, it will be used to charge up the batteries. A single battery can store up to 14M energy. Imagine how much power required to fully charge up the battery.
You can design a better ship by segregating the power grid. For example, life support system/oxygen generator, door, light, teleporter, respawner can be tied into a separate power grid which can be powered by solar completely. Don’t add the battery into this grid. Instead add a power cell to cater for the devices with peak power drain.
Q10: I want to be good at power management. Tell me how.
A10: Ideally you should split the power into 4 grids.
- Warp and Propulsion: Few hydrogen generator and batteries with some solar panels. For small ship setup, 3 generator, 4 batteries, 20 to 40 solar panels. This grid is solely for flying. When you are not flying, the batteries will be charged by the generator or solar cells. Remember to take out the hydrogen if you are not flying.
- Auxiliaries: 2 or 3 batteries with some solar panels and maybe few power cell for high peak drain devices. This group has the rest of the devices such as assembler, extractor, refinery, holotable, mounted weapon or turret, ammo loader.
- Life Support: Single battery with some solar panels. This group has lights, oxygen vent, generator, doors, lockers and important devices that did not drain much power. Make sure that the solar panels and the battery supply excess power than the always on drain (not peak drain).
- Shield (Optional): This is optional but can be considered. Very useful for single or dual small shield generator setup. What I did is that I ran them totally on solar panels and they will run forever. You will need 75 panels to run a single generator at full capacity 600hp (drain is 150). 1 small generator running off solar panels can tank 3 to 4 normal skrill found in the starter system. One of my ship still survive but got pushed like 4km away from starter station by the skrills.
Q11: How do I go to other star system?
A11: You will need a rift generator and some rift fuel (xanthium, Di-Xanthium, Tetra-Xanthium). Rift generator can be installed on your ship or you can find one located on stations such as Rift Hub, Trans System. Using the generator, you can open a rift portal (wormhole) which will allow you to transit into another system. So how much rift fuel is needed? It depends on the tonnage that the rift portal can support and the range of the target system (it is not clear how far the rift can reach but it will show up as red if it require more than single rift jump). Using xanthium, you can open up a rift supporting up to 100k tonnage (which mean a single 100k ton ship or 2 50k ton ships can pass through the portal). Alternatively Di can open up to 1M and Tetra up to 10M.
Opening a big portal will use up more fuel so you should open up to just over your ship tonnage plus the cargo. Once the portal is opened, it will start collapsing reducing the passable tonnage until it fully collapsed. You will see the rift formed up outside the station or ship and all you need to do is just fly toward it and through it. On HUD, the rift portal is represent by sawblade icon.
How to find the ship tonnage size? You need to be on your ship. Open up the GRIP (press tab), select Ship Status, then select Cargo. It will shows the ship tonnage with and without cargo n the left.
Plan your trip to the target star system carefully. If your ship did not have a rift generator, make sure the systems along the way has rift generator stations. You don’t want to be in a scenario where you jump in and there is no way to jump out.
Q12: I ran out of hydrogen fuel. Help!
A12:Try these:
- Try asking for help on the chat. Someone maybe want to help you by bringing some hydrogen. Make sure to compensate him and be careful he didn’t put in a plasma bullet in your head.
- If your ship has solar panels and batteries, you may want to wait them charge up enough for warp. Seriously it will be very looooonnggggg before you can warp.
- Look around for stations. If you are lucky, you may in a range of stations that sell hydrogen. Wait for a charge and do slow warp 1 jump.
- Turn on your transponder, commit respawn then respawn on stations that has ability to build ship. Build a cheap small ship, grab lots of hydrogen then fly back to the abandoned ship. Refuel, dump the rescue ship and go home.
- Totally dump the ship and respawn. Treat it as lesson learned. Next time build a ship that capable of long distance travel and try it out in creative mode.