Day 8, I am SO changing the Launch button.
Okay so today I was messing around in Thuban - turns out this is MUCH better that Onyx for a "next level" as the enemy ships are still fairly low tech but there are still some tasty missions. Mostly "go kill these things" and again, involving lots of fighting, but hey if it didn't then they wouldn't need mercenaries and we'd all be out of a job.Out of a game. Yeah.
I quickly worked my way up to 1 MILLION credits - wow! Sweet stuff. I upgraded my ship, skipped the Saber frame and went straight for Raven. So much more assembly... Boosted my cargo to 4 and equipped the Falcon Mk II wings for better agility, while I was at it upgraded my shields to class 2.
While in this view I worked out there IS a way of telling what you have equipped (will edit previous post, I originally said to make note of the remaining assembly and keep equipping stuff until it got back there), in the top left you have the current stats of your ship. Obviously cargo and fuel can be worked out easily, everything else simply says a number, eg "Wings: 5". This means you have the fifth set of wings installed, which is labelled such, so "Falcon Mk II (5)".
Bit easier. On the right you have what you are changing to so you can compare your upgrades against how much it's costing.
Lastly for advanced tips, if you're getting frustrated with landing on planets I can provide further advice there. Most of the time a yellow (might be green, I'm colourblind ^^) box with a + appears somewhere on the outskirts, this is the location of the city. Additional cities are marked with green + symbols. Just jump above it and cruise down. If you don't have the box, get close to the planet so you get a gravity warning and an altimeter, it should then come up (I presume your ship scans the planet).
Now I was getting bored with random missions, I wanted to try the campaign. I looked up where to start and found that it all begins on New Hope in sector -3, 0, 2. One of the contracts comes up with an "I.M.G Contract" label indicating a main story quest. Take a satellite to space. Easy peasy.
Launched and dropped the satellite. Mission accomplished. It was at this point I got disconnected from the server (really glad it lets you save) so I had NO idea where I was going next.
Reconnected, no messages came up. Hm. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING NOW. The site I looked up only had the first mission and I couldn't find anything for the second. Someone was however kind enough to direct me to News (open Inventory, then click News Console). Within there is a button for "View Last Quest Message". Excellent, go to the orbiting station and race the guy waiting there.
Etc, etc, you know the drill. Soon enough I had to mine something so went and did that, watched it count up then when I hit 25, closed my inventory.
Except I didn't close my inventory. I missed F3 entirely and hit F2, which is of course the Launch button and the reason for the first statement. My ship quickly accellerated straight into the asteroid and blew up. Apparently this happens often but I intend to prevent further cases by putting the Launch button on the other end of the keyboard. The End button looks appropriate (it's the top right key on my Asus G73 laptop).
I found myself back above Erato, having just cleaned the solar array. Yeeaaah screw that, I'll go again tomorrow. This post is long enough as it is anyway! xD
Showing posts with label configuration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label configuration. Show all posts
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
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.
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.
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