Newbie questions

[Frunobulax]

Hi,

I discovered OOLite a week ago and I immediately became addicted (again - I used to play Elite a lot on my C64 20 years ago). Congratulations for a very good game, which kinda makes me feel younger than I really am

But I've got a ton of (typical newbie) questions - which could be phrased in short as "is there a rookie guide available?" - but here we go. I did try to find answers to these questions in the Wiki and the forum, but I failed - maybe I just haven't found the right thread...

(1) What is a good starting strategy? In my first game I sold my Cobra for a Moray that I could equip with some combat addons, but due to the small cargo space it seemed that I lost more money than I earned (by getting equipment damaged and cargo destroyed). In the second game I kept my Cobra and eventually managed to earn some money and buy some enhancements, and now I'm approaching 100 kills, including my first Thargoid. OK.

(2) The ship description on the Wiki is, um, sketchy. I got the data sheet which lists shields and speeds, but doesn't answer the most important question: How does a ship perform in combat? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the available ships? Why should I buy, say, a Fer-de-Lance which is really expensive, but seems vastly inferior to the standard Cobra? (To me it seems that the Boa Class Cruiser is the ship of choice for an iron ass, is this correct?)

(3) Speaking of ships, how does one earn some serious money? A shipment of computers earns something like 1000 credits, but that's a LONG way to get, say, a Boa Class Cruiser. Especially since I found that getting into some serious firefights with pirates can prove costly due to damaged equipment (but if I want to avoid fights then I may as well play solitaire).

(4) Does taking on taxi and cargo contracts unlock some things, or is it just a way to earn money? (It seems like a rather inefficient way to earn money, compared to shuttling computers.)

(5) Where can I get that cloaking device?

(6) In Elite there was some special key one had to press to get to Thargoid space. How do I do that in OOLite?

(7) When do these missions start to pop up? The most exciting thing that happened to me is that somebody offered me a trumble - well, I politely declined. (I never managed to get rid of them in my old Elite games

And how can I check whether I have an expansion pack installed or not? I put the assassins addon in my AddOns directory, but I didn't notice a change. Maybe I got confused with the folder structure?

Enough for a start

Regards, F.

[Dr. Nil]

Hi

Here are answers to some of your questions:

[SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING!]

1) I'd stick with the Cobra. Perhaps install the m-pak expansion and look for a rusty Cobra-MK3 with some Naval or Military gear. Then make enough money to buy something with a larger cargo. Make a lot of money and live of those changing ships as you like.

3) Different expansions add more ways to earn money. Hoopy Casinos, Assassins, Renegades, Ore Processor, Oo-Haul (when combined with Your Ad Here). Trade Gold, Platinum and Gems on the side (keep an eye on the prices at the casinos). Picking up cargo from other ships that somehow got destroyed makes a lot more profit than the computer-fur trade (I've been told).

4) I've heard that passengers should give hint about built in missions and that cargo contract should get better paid as you complete more of them.

5) You have to kill some special Asp that only shows up once and pick up a special looking piece of cargo, I think.

6) Dive or climb at max rate while entering witchspace, will have you exit witchspace in the wrong place - interplanetary space, where you will meet Thargoids - I recommend that you at least install some Thargoid related expansions and the Behemoth expansion for some nice action in interplanetary space.

7) Missions are set to pop up when some conditions are met. The trumbles are more likely to be offered to with more credits. Other missions need you to be in a certain place and or have at least a certain number of kills - conditions for the built in missions are in the Wiki

[/SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING!]

When you extract an archive with an oxp you might get more than just the actual expansion folder. The one you need to have at the top of you Add-Ons folder is the one ending with .oxp

[Killer Wolf]

personally, i dumped the Cobra III for a Cobra I, to get more money to trade w/ and buy docking puters etc. eventually got a Cob III back, but i've just switched to a Python to get more money w/ the 115t cargo capability. Soon as i get enough, i'm going to switch to one of my very own Vampire MkIIs and go for kills instead.

not tried contracts, paying someone to take their cargo seemed the wrong way about it and made the fee not as attractive. someoen said you could also courier packages but i've only seen passengers and huge cargo contracts :-/

[Captain Hesperus]

I can't really add much to Dr. Nil's post, but I can say that if you ship furs to Rich Industrials and Computer/Machinery to Poor Agriculturals you won't go far wrong in terms of profit margins. As for the Assassins.oxp, you have to be in Galaxy 7 with at least 200 kills.

Captain Hesperus

[Killer Wolf]

i wanna play that one, but getting to G7 will be 30k of expenses i don't need!
get myself a million and then i'll start exploring and playing about, i think.

[TGHC]

Ok how to make money fast:-
Personally I'd stick with the MKIII, and concentrate on trading to start off with. Fit a cargo bay extension and get a docking computer as soon as you can afford it.

Avoiding the space corridors speeds up interplanetry travel by avoiding other spacecraft, you don't need any hassle untill you can afford to fill your cargo bay with computers and buy all the spare platinum when the price is low.

Always visit Hoopys Casino but don't gamble away your profits.
There is no cargo space limit for gold, platinum or gemstones so trade them as much as possible, you'll soon workout your buy/sell prices.

Try to find an optimal trading route, these would be a high tech planet to a very low tech planet giving maximum economical trading differences
(there are three in Galaxy 1, two of which are pretty much diagonally opposite Lave.

Once you have the confidence to use the busy space lanes get a fuel scoop , and leave some cargo space for scooping flotsum, and also escape pods which can give good insurance rewards. (around the coriolis is good picking grounds for escape pods and metal fragments)

[LittleBear]

Checking out the Wikki at this link, will answer a lot of Questions:-

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite_Main_Page

@Killer Wolf. There are a lot of cool missions to play in Galaxies 2, 3 and 4, so rather than jump straight though to G7 you might want to take a strole through the Galaxies, playing Missions as you go.[/url]

[Commander McLane]

I found it a good strategy for making profit to stay in each system for a while. So after you arrived at the station and unloaded your cargo, don't take new cargo, but launch again and go hunting for pirates. Then you can scoop their cargo until your cargo bay is full again (or there are no pirates left, whatever be the sooner). Then return to the station and sell the scooped items for a 100%-profit, which often will be as high as or even higher than the ca. 1000 cr you have made by selling your computers, depending on the prices in that particular system and the cargo carried by its pirates, of course. (If you only scoop let's say 10 kg of platinum and a few tons of luxuries, computers or firearms, which is not so unlikely after all, you're already there.)

With this strategy you can very easily double up your profit per planet, not to mention the fun blowing up all the pirates and seeing your kills count rise.

N.B. it is highly advisable to save your pilot both times you dock, as pirate hunting is not without risks.

[Killer Wolf]

where is the Hoopy oxp? another one AWOL from Oosat at the mo?? seem to be a lot of thread here about it but no link :-/

[LittleBear]

On page 3 of Oosat2 here http://oosat.alioth.net/?q=node&page=3

[TGHC]

I think just about all the OXPs are on Oosat, it's just not ordered very well.

[Killer Wolf]

the search must be dodgy too, cos i tried "hoopy" and "casino" and nowt came up :-\

[Rxke]

Yeah, the search is pretty much broken to the bone. Nothing seems to come up when you use it

[Frunobulax]

Here are answers to some of your questions:

6) Dive or climb at max rate while entering witchspace, will have you exit witchspace in the wrong place - interplanetary space, where you will meet Thargoids - I recommend that you at least install some Thargoid related expansions and the Behemoth expansion for some nice action in interplanetary space.

Many thanks, you answered most of my questions. However, I didn't manage to jump to interplanetary space (just once, accidentally, and met no Thargoids there). Do I need some special equipment, or a special expansion pack? I did install ThargoidWars.

As for my second question, I guess I'll see soon how a Python fights - I'm closing in on having enough money to upgrade my ship

Best regards, F.

[TGHC]

Ok the conventional way to enter witchspace is to hold down the "up arrow" cursor key during a normal hyperspace. If it's worked correctly on exiting hyperspace you should encounter thargoids, and there won't be a planet to navigate to. To leave witchspace you can hyperspace again if you have enough fuel, otherwise it'll have to be a Galactic hyperspace.