Day 2 (Config and flying)

Day 2. Screw the fighter.

I picked Evochron up again the next day and deleted my pilot. Mostly accidental but I usually do this anyway. Learn the game then start fresh, you get a better jump on things from the go and any skills and cash can be more wisely spent.

I created a new pilot, this time as a Racer. I figured, hey, what better to force me to learn some flight lessons? Dear LORD was I right there. Grabbed a racing mission from the nearby starport and engaged jump.

Now initially it's not clear what you have to do. There's a tunnel type thing leading away from the navpoint. After flying around for a bit I worked out you have to approach the tunnel roughly from the navpoint and (more obviously) fly through the rings. You HAVE to hit each ring in sequence and within a certain amount of time (or if there is another racer, faster than him).

This is where I learned the limits of IDS. It's a great function that's good for simple navigation but it just doesn't give the SPEED necessary to complete a course. I tried turning it off but as my W and S were configured for IDS speed they didn't work, strafe up and down were set to Z and X which was awkward, and of course I was very inexperienced so I kept missing rings and had to go back for them. Needless to say, I failed that mission.

Time for another look at the keyboard config. Below is a list of what I ended up with, which seems to still be working a week later.

W- strafe down
S- strafe up (swap with W if you don't like inverted)
A- strafe left
D- strafe right
Q- slow down (primary thrusters. They're near the top of the second page)
E- speed up
LShift- Rotate anticlockwise
Spacebar- Rotate clockwise
R- engage IDS
1- Secondary slow down (IDS)
2- Secondary speed up
3- Match speed (only applies to IDS)
4- Tractor beam
C- Countermeasures (I think this is also on Mouse 4 as I have 5 button mouse)
X- Select nearest ship
H- HUD
J- Jettison cargo
TAB - Afterburners

All others as default, I don't tend to use much else. Obviously if you have a joypad (or two) you'll want to configure those appropriately but mouse and keyboard work just fine.

From the Pause menu there's an option for mouse controls, I left this as the one with the deadzone (can't remember the name) so that I have a mouse pointer that the ship turns towards whatever direction I point it in (in oppose to moving with the mouse like a FPS). While slightly sacrificing accuracy this allows me to spin as many times as I like without having to pick up the mouse. Accuracy isn't particularly important anyway as your weapons will automatically aim at any ships as long as they're within the larger circle.

So, let's try these races again. Opened the Nav menu (F1) and pointed my ship at the starbase Sapphire, then launched (actually I initially got confused and thought F2 was navigation, which is engage warp. Fun times) and picked up another mission. Worked out that starbases don't really seem to care how fast you enter the dock.

Tried a second race, MUCH better. Still failed as I missed several rings while testing the limits of my ship, but worked out I could make most turns while going around 1000 (I assume m/s?), but managing speed with travel direction AND facing direction was taking some getting used to.

I committed myself to not using IDS from this point to boost my coordination and returned to the starbase. Bit of a wild entry but got there in the end (again, no impact damage, at least not travelling ~1200 so don't be hesitant) and picked up another race. Nearly finished this one! Got to something around 89/99 rings before the time ran out. Returned and picked up another race, success! Did a few more races and bought LOADS of fuel so I didn't have to worry about it, though it cost me most my cash. Tried a few of the mundane missions, like destroying asteroids (get closer until sparks fly, it's around 700m for the starting cannon on the racer) and mining (need to be closer still, about 150m - Turn on IDS and put it to 0, lock your tractor beam on using ALT+4 or ALT+B if you're using defaults, and press J to jettison your cargo until you get the required resource.

I concluded day 2 rather happy with my progress.