New Player + Manifest (and many other) Question(s)

[DeathKnyte]

Greetings,

First; I'd like to sincerely thank all the people who have worked on making this most excellent game!
I can't get over how well conceptualized and designed it is!



If I could figure out how to safely dock with a space station, and then how to fight the pirates (who always seem to know I'm so inept), it would then become a truly masterpiece of a game.

Any ways, I have many questions, but there is one that I'd like addressed a.s.a.p., if you would please...

In the 'Ships Manifest' screen (F5 + F5); is there a way to see all the available passenger destinations and cargo contracts?
As soon as I have over 14 passengers, the rest are not accessible, and the cargo is even less so.

Thanks for your time.

[Smivs]

Hi DeathKnyte, and welcome to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat.

There has been some discussion recently about the manifest scren getting overloaded, so it's a 'job in hand' as far as I know...people are looking for solutions.
But 14 passengers! Are you flying a bus or something?

[Cody]

If I could figure out how to safely dock with a space station, and then how to fight the pirates

Hi, and welcome aboard! Docking is a knack that comes with practice - try launching, then immediately turning round and docking (and remember - you can come to a dead-stop), rinse and repeat! You'll soon get the knack! As for pirates - if you're not up to the fight yet (as is not unusual, early on), try avoiding the main spacelane between the witchpoint and the station - take a slightly curved route in-system. Again, practice with aiming your laser (and use short bursts, so as not to overheat the laser) etc will yield results - eventually!

[Shipbuilder]

Hi DeathKnyte - Welcome to the forum.

If I could figure out how to safely dock with a space station

After you have practiced what El Viejo has suggested and you have started to get the knack fly away from the station and try the following: -

1) Fly towards the beacon and once you reach it come to a stop.
2) Turn your ship to face the station.
3)You should now be correctly lined up with the stations docking port. Start to fly towards the station (You do not need to try to match the rotation of the station until you get close to the docking bay).
4) When you are near the station start to rotate your ships to match the rotation of the station and hopefully you can land.
5) Once you are confident with manual landing see if you can afford a docking computer.

how to fight the pirates

At first it can be quite hard to avoid getting killed but don't worry it happens to all of us.

The best way I found was to avoid too much combat until you can afford a little equipment. I would suggest the following: -

1) Front beam laser.
2) ECM.
3) Fuel scoop (To pick up any cargo pods and make some extra credits).

Therefore try to earn money by trading furs to industrial systems and computers to agricultural systems.

Initially with new games I try to keep in the safer systems i.e. Corporate States and Democracies so that the number of pirates will be less (This will give you a better chance of survival). Also when exiting witch space do not fly directly to the planet instead fly using the jump option for a few seconds at approximately 90 degrees from the planet then head for the planet (This again reduces the chance of meeting too many pirates).

Once you have accumulated some credits you can invest in the equipment noted above and you will be in a position to fight back, destroy the majority of missiles launched at you and collect the booty.

Fuel injectors are also very useful as you can use them to make a quick get away if things are going bad.

Hope that this helps.

[DeathKnyte]

Hi DeathKnyte, and welcome to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat.

Thanks man.

There has been some discussion recently about the manifest scren getting overloaded, so it's a 'job in hand' as far as I know...people are looking for solutions.

Ah well... Hopefully it'll get resolved soon. Would be really great for someone like me.
Perhaps just a simple scroll function (by depressing the Down Arrow Key, for example) could be figured out (?).

But 14 passengers! Are you flying a bus or something?

hehe - uh...no!
I'm currently piloting a 'Boa Class Cruiser' with 20x Passenger Berths.
As I'm so utterly useless with anything having to do with combat, I found a niche for myself, in the passenger service market.
I discovered this on page 4, under Career Choices, in the Oolite Reference Sheet document, that came with the game.

[Rese249er]

Do you actually manage to get them there on time???

[DeathKnyte]

Hi, and welcome aboard!

Thanks Man.

Docking is a knack that comes with practice - try launching, then immediately turning round and docking (and remember - you can come to a dead-stop), rinse and repeat! You'll soon get the knack! As for pirates - if you're not up to the fight yet (as is not unusual, early on), try avoiding the main spacelane between the witchpoint and the station - take a slightly curved route in-system. Again, practice with aiming your laser (and use short bursts, so as not to overheat the laser) etc will yield results - eventually!

Well...
I really tried these things, and some other ways too (!).
The problem is, that I'm not as dextrous as when I was younger, and trying to push more than one key at a time is quite the task, to do so successfully, any ways.
I got splattered many times on the face of the station, and inside the landing bay as well. Took six pilots, before I could afford a docking computer, but when I finally had one that survived (docking) enough times to acquire one - what a game changer that became!

Next problem became surviving combat situations....


That proved impossible, in fact it was worse than docking. It requires depressing several keys simultaneously and in quick succession(s), but just to simply roll + dive + acquire target + evade incoming missile + shake off the guy on your tail + try and line up the one ahead of you (who can hit me with precision from beyond my visual range), etc. etc... I'm now looking for the eject button!


So I changed my approach, and concentrated on avoiding combat all together.

As you can see from my initial question (I have made over 1 million credits with my current pilot), I've obviously figured out how to avoid pirates, and am more concerned with seeing all my contracts displayed more than anything else.

Question is, I suppose, that I will soon not know what to do with all my credits...

[DeathKnyte]

Hi DeathKnyte - Welcome to the forum.

Thank you, kindly.



I'm not going to quote all your post, because it'll take a lot of room unnecessarily.

That was a lot of good advice, I appreciate the time you spent typing all of that.

I have read all the documents that came with the game, and have incorporated (or at least tried to) much of it in how I play the game.
The document entitled 'Advice for New Commanders' was quite helpful in this regard.


I can run to any system, pick up, deliver, trade, star skim, avoid (and evade) combat now.
I found a niche career for me, passenger service, I can also traffic (trade in illegal) goods, with no real problems.

The problem with docking and combat is more of a physical / mechanical one. It requires someone who knows where all the keys are on the keyboard (without having to look down at it), while keeping an eye on the view screen, and being able to react quickly enough - that's beyond my capabilities.

My experience and specialties (genre) is mostly with strategic gaming - not action (reflex) games.

[DeathKnyte]

Do you actually manage to get them there on time???

Yes sir!

Last run from the SW cluster, to the NE corner cluster, netted over 300,000 credits.

I could do more, but the game offers up to five "known" possible passenger contracts per planet. There could be more, but you have to accept from those listed first, before the other ones become known, and then, only one at a time. Of those, you can't accept any that are not on your main route (or at least not far off of it), so it becomes a hit or miss affair - unless you first scout out all the planets in a cluster.

If you also pick and choose carefully, you can make more along the route through regular trade in commodities.

[Rese249er]

Impressive! Sounds like your experience in strategic gaming has served you well. Good on you!

With that many credits, you can easily afford a docking computer, you know... A lot of pilots on the board don't use them, but I personally do. Why risk a wreck after making a profitable run? Docking computers are insurance.

[Wildeblood]

In the 'Ships Manifest' screen (F5 + F5); is there a way to see all the available passenger destinations and cargo contracts?
As soon as I have over 14 passengers, the rest are not accessible, and the cargo is even less so.

If you want to try the development version, the manifest screen is now multi-paged.

http://terrastorage.ath.cx/oolite/status_win32.html

[cim]

A quick tip which gives you a few more passenger rows in: the F5 screen displays more if the HUD is hidden. Pause the game with 'P', press 'O' to hide the HUD, and unpause again with 'P'. You should get about six extra rows for your passenger list. It might still not be enough, depending on how big your ship is, but you'll be able to see more.

And welcome to the boards.

If you want to try the development version, the manifest screen is now multi-paged.

http://terrastorage.ath.cx/oolite/status_win32.html

If you do decide to do this, I strongly recommend taking a backup of your save game first. The development version can load games created in 1.76 just fine, but 1.76 will not load games created in the development version without losing some information.

Unlike the official releases, the development version may often have bugs which make it unstable or unusable. By the time it becomes the next official version, those should have been thoroughly tested out and removed, but that is some way away yet.

[Shipbuilder]

It requires someone who knows where all the keys are on the keyboard (without having to look down at it),

Also note that you can play using a joystick which will cover most of the issues regarding flying during combat and landing.

[Eric Walch]

As soon as I have over 14 passengers, the rest are not accessible, and the cargo is even less so.

The max number depends on the number of commodities you are carrying. With no commodities is should be one or two more.

As Wildeblood writes, will this change in a future release were we will have a second page if needed. On top of that, the colour and shape of the markers for passenger and cargo contracts will change so you can easy tell them apart from each other and mission destinations.

Just one warning: development versions change on a daily basis and bugs can slip in. For starters, it is not advised to use them. And because the change of the galactic chart markers, the mission markers in a saved development game will not be recognised by the official released version when switching back. Markers set by the contract screen will be fine when switching back though.

Edit: Warning ninjad by Cim

[DeathKnyte]

Rese249er: I have a docking computer. There's no way I could have progressed so far without one! Although, admittedly, it is not infallible... With the Cobra Mk III, it will scratch the entrance from time to time, but with the Boa Class Cruiser, it will do so more often, I estimate one chance in five. And on two occasions so far, it took all my forward shields down and started hitting into my energy banks, good thing the Boa has more than the Cobra...


Wildeblood: Thanks, but I'll try and muddle along as I am. I don't know how to fix anything with computers, so if something goes wrong, I'd be helpless and have to start over. I'll wait for any bugs to be ironed out first.


cim: Thanks for the tip(s). I have re-read the instructions, and also discovered a way to lock out my weapons too (!). I had an unfortunate instance in the past, when I tried to slow down and hit the "A" key instead of the "S" key. The pulse laser shot into the docking bay at a Coriolis Stations, and two police cruisers came out and.... That was the end of that commander....


Shipbuilder: I like the game so much, that I decided to go and purchase a joystick, however, I'm told they don't make them any more...