I just bought this on steam and have played for about 2hrs and still don't have a clue what I'm doing.
It is a bit of a learning curve, as there's so much involved, but the rewards once you get the hang are fantastic.
Do check out the manuals, both the official one and the fan-made ones, as they give a LOT of useful info!
Also, remember that your noob ship (ie the starting Sidewinder) gets replaced effectively for free. So go mess around and make as many mistakes as you like with that as, even if you reset your whole game, you don't really lose anything at this point.
When I am in supercruise I can see the pirate I want but when I try and fly to him and jump out of supercruise there are no ships nearby.
You have to pull the target out of Supercruise, for which you'll need a Frame Shift Interdictor. You have to get within range (HUD will tell you) and behind the target, fire the Interdictor and then wrangle them under control to break their frame shift. If successful, you'll then be in normal space with them right by you and can get your guns out to rain merry hell on them!!
I can see why some people dont like this as few times you are flying towards a space station and it could be couple of minutes real time when you are just doing nothing.
That is what full throttle, full pips to ENG and the Boost button are all for!
In the 20-ish seconds it usually takes me to close the 8-10km from drop to docking hatch, I've scanned for cops, set up my next system destination, requested docking permission, swigged some coffee/coke and taken a few drags on a cigarette.
Needs more play time but its not a game you can jump into for ten minutes and get a rewarding experience.
What, 500,000 Credits in just under 11 minutes isn't rewarding enough...?
OK, I am being cheeky there, but I agree - It's a good couple of hours minimum!
Made a couple of illegal runs and made enough to buy a Viper to see what thats like.
Awesome.
Wicked.
Brilliant.
Stunning.
The Viper is one of the best low-end combat ships around. The Eagle is very cool and extremely nippy, far more capable than you'd expect once you kit it out right... but the Viper kicks butt from the outset and can be specced up to lay on some serious damage!
Is there any knack to the ones that say go to this system and look out for a particular ship or is it pot luck you find them. Also the ones where they say if you come across x cargo we want it ?
Go To System generally means bimbling about, stopping at Unidentified Signal Sources. More so with Kill X number of Pirates/Traders/Authority ships, although other locations like Nav Beacons and Resource Extraction Sites may also yield some of them. Nicely, when you scan a ship it now tells you if they are a valid mission target on your left-side HUD, as well as if they're Wanted.
For actual named targets, the USS thing applies, although I'm increasingly finding these zooming about in Cruise as well. For those instances, you really need a Frame Shift Interdictor to pull them out first... and they rarely travel alone, so be prepared to take on several escorts, as well!!
Coming across X cargo is a matter of locating a station that sells it, which usually means a bit of work on the ol' Galaxy Map.
If it says it must be stolen, then it's more likely a case of hunting down traders and getting their cargo off them, or checking out some Weak Signal Sources (like the USSes, but 'weak'), to see if there's anty floating in space. Bear in mind many of these are traps too, though!
