Newbie questions (very basic stuff)

[WCG]

OK, I decided to try building another ship, with lots of shields, and see if I could escape my deathtrap of a home planet. When I was halfway through, it blew up, killing me yet again.

I checked the radar when I respawned. The nearest pirate ship was 11 km away - 11 km! Furthermore, my base is no longer open to the sky at all. There's a side opening, which then twists around to the left and up. (I seem to be one layer above the molten core of the planet.) So whatever it was that killed me must go around corners.

What do you do when pirates discover your home planet? My home base is supposed to be invulnerable, but that doesn't include me or my ships, so... what good is it? Note that I still haven't actually seen a pirate. I just suddenly get a respawn option, which tells me that I've been killed. How? No idea. I assume it's pirates just because I don't know of anything else in the game that's deadly.

The last time, since I was killed in my home base just a few steps from my spawn point, I could see the wreckage of my new attempt at a ship. I stopped the ship core from overheating, and put it out in the passage where pirates could see it from space. I also went into build mode and uncovered the ship core I had on the surface of the planet. But the pirates - if that's what's killing me - have ignored those 'ships' entirely!

I don't get it. How do you defend your home base, especially when you're still just starting? Are turrets on your home planet invulnerable? (As I say, I'm certainly not, nor are my ships.) Is that the first thing you do? Of course, I can't make weapons, anyway - well, cannons, at least. (I haven't checked the requirements for other weapons.) I've got lots of resources, but I'm very short of at least two kinds of capsules, including one required for cannons.

The shop didn't have very many, either. I bought out all they had just to build my mining ship (which used cannons slaved to the salvage computer). Of course, I'm rather short of money, now, after dying four times in rapid succession. :p But I don't know how quickly shops respawn resources.

Yeah, I can just start over with a new universe,... but what do I do if this happens again? Is there something I'm missing here? I'm dying without ever even seeing a pirate. Not once, in the few days I've been playing, have I actually seen a pirate. But once they showed up on my navigation screen, I'm just dead. Apparently, they can always see me. (I thought that radar jammers would keep them from targeting me - or even noticing me - at long range, but apparently not.) And I'm not safe even in the bowels of my home planet, buried under invulnerable ice and stone!

So I tried again. I can't build cannons, but I can build shield components. And I kept the ship as far from the side entrance as I could get it. (Note that it's a real pain to build ships in gravity! But I'm starting to get quicker at it, with all the practice I've had.) This is a lot bigger ship than my miner, with a bunch of shields and lots more power. Again, I put in a radar jammer, though that has seemed completely useless in my previous ships.

Once I had it built, though, I realized that I can't get it out. Missiles might be able to get through that access tunnel (at least, something did, apparently), but not a ship this big. It might fit in the opening, but it's too long to make tight turns. And if I go into build mode and make a new way to the surface, my ship will likely be destroyed the minute I enter it - or even before I enter it. (Obviously, I can't blast my way out, since I don't have any weapons - and my planet - but not me or my ship - is invulnerable, anyway.)

Starting over would be an option if I had a plan to avoid this next time, but I don't. What do you do? Is this just what happens in the game? Once the pirates find you, you're just dead, if you don't already have a ship which can survive their attack? My 'invulnerable' base has proved to be completely useless. What good is an invulnerable base if you can't ever leave it? Heck, I can't even survive inside my base, if I leave any way to get in or out.

Is that just the way StarMade is, or is there some way to avoid this next time?

 

[Jananton]

Hmm, I think you're the victim of one of the new Pirate Space stations called Alpha something that has ridiculous heavy guided missiles that can obliterate you from 2 or 3 sectors away. I experienced that once by just by re-spawning without any warning or knowing what happened.

If you have unexplored / undiscovered Space Stations near your Planet in the above range I would suspect one of those. You could try to set the AI-difficulty to easy in the setup window and see if you can get away using that setting. You can always set it back to what you had later.

The Universe is generated at random, so there's always a chance you spawn in a situation that's extremely harsh when starting out. Long ago, when I first encountered StarMade I even stopped playing after a week because I got creamed by pirates so often the fun went out of it all. I had no idea that you could reset the Universe. Once I came aware of that a month or so later I started again and this time it went much better. Also, certainly in the beginning, setting the difficulty to easy or medium can help a lot to get in a more comfortable position when starting out.

Greets,

Jan

 

[Voldrath]

If you have, or can manufacture, a jump drive, you can get your ship clear of the planet without having to fly it out. Also it can land you up to 8 sectors away witch should be outside of missile range. Unless you're unlucky enough to jump straight to the opposite side or the pirate/station that's pinning you down

 

[WCG]

You could try to set the AI-difficulty to easy in the setup window and see if you can get away using that setting. You can always set it back to what you had later.

Thanks, but I'm already playing on Easy, since that's how the game started (and I'm more of a casual player, anyway). Heck, if there were a 'Super-Easy,' I'd switch to that. This is easy? :p

I think you're the victim of one of the new Pirate Space stations called Alpha something that has ridiculous heavy guided missiles that can obliterate you from 2 or 3 sectors away.

OK. I wonder why it didn't shoot me earlier, then? I spent a lot of time mining, while traveling to and from the planet, and I spent lots of time building up my base (and building ships), too. Oh, well.

I saw on another thread that the game will tell you who kills you. I didn't realize that. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the messages aren't saved between play sessions. So I may never know.

I opened up my exit corridor just enough to get my latest ship out (barely), expecting to die, but at least be able to tell how this time. And I put shields on this one, though I don't really know how many. There were pirates on the nav screen, 3-4 km out, but nothing happened. As far as I can tell, nothing shot at me or even noticed me. (Then again, that's exactly how it was before I died those four times, too.)

I didn't stop until the nav screen showed no more pirates. Then I looked at the map and decided to go to a planet nearer the sun. There were no pirates there (not yet, at least), but there are several asteroid fields - and two nearby shops. The planet is covered in grass and flowers - not very big, but with a mountain just about covering one side.

So I'm digging a tunnel into the side of the mountain (slowly; this ship isn't as good at mining, but that's OK). I plan to get far enough inside that the ship will fit, then dig upward and over. I want a big enough cavern to turn the ship around, so if pirates do show up, I can just drop down and immediately hit the gas.

So far, I haven't seen any sign of pirates at all - just like at my last planet.

If you have, or can manufacture, a jump drive, you can get your ship clear of the planet without having to fly it out.

Thanks. That's a good idea. I don't know anything about jump drives right now, but I'll look into it. My first priority is cannons, so I can slave them to my salvage computer and speed things up. But I don't have the resources for them. If I can build a jump drive, I will.

 

[SmilingDemon]

the difficulty setting is affecting the AI ability to hit .. problem is the missiles from Alpha Pirate Station are log-on .. they do not miss anyway

Landing a ship on or even inside a planet without docking it is a bad idea .. that would continualy trigger the collision routines of the game causing lag and other problems .. so do not do that ... place a docking area and dock the ship to it to prevent that.

 

[SilentRider_14]

I forgot that pirate were made more aggressive with the universe and territory claim update a while back don't know how big a bubble you need to be safe around your claim.

But locating your factions designated home-base is easy as it is both listed in the factions menu and you can manually save the coordinates of your current location in the N button Navigation menu.

 

[WCG]

Landing a ship on or even inside a planet without docking it is a bad idea .. that would continualy trigger the collision routines of the game causing lag and other problems .. so do not do that ... place a docking area and dock the ship to it to prevent that.

Thanks. I tried at my first home base, but could never get it to work right. I'll try again at the new planet, when I have time.

But locating your factions designated home-base is easy as it is both listed in the factions menu and you can manually save the coordinates of your current location in the N button Navigation menu.

Thanks! I'm covered, anyway. I wrote it down on a piece of scrap paper. :p

 

[Edymnion]

Something that might help you.

Next time you go to a shop, look for a Shop Module. Put it in your base. Technically it turns your base into a shop, but only with what you stock it with yourself, so its kinda useless at that unless you're setting up a trading post.

HOWEVER!

It lets you access the blueprints from your base. As long as you're stuck on a planet base, it will be much easier if you use blueprints to spawn your ship instead of trying to park it.

Enter the ship you want to save, hit I to open your inventory, look at the top of the screen. There is a tab called Catalog. Click that, and hit the button that says Save Blueprint to Server. That stores the plans for the ship you are currently in. Scroll down the list and you should find it. Click the name to open the expanded box, and hit Buy. The blueprint is free, so don't worry about that part.

Now, when you want to land, go into build mode and just delete all the blocks on your ship and the core to despawn it completely. Right click on the blueprint, and hit the button that says Add All. All the blocks you just took out of your ship will go into the blueprint. Now just make a quick little core with one energy and thruster to shuttle down to the planet base and do whatever with (delete it same way when you get down there to get rid of it).

Then when you're ready to leave, make the little 3 block shuttle to get back up into space, delete the shuttle, and then right click the blueprint in your inventory and hit the Spawn button. That'll bring back your ship just the way you saved it. Hop in and go play around.

That way you can have your planet base, and still make a big mining ship and not have to worry about what to do with it when you aren't in it.

This is what I do when I'm on a server that hasn't disabled docking enhancers yet.

 

[WCG]

As long as you're stuck on a planet base, it will be much easier if you use blueprints to spawn your ship instead of trying to park it.

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I'd prefer to park my ships, but we'll see.


For one thing, I'm having a horrible time getting a docking module to work at all. I've been spending forever enlarging the cavern I've made under that mountain - and continually enlarging the docking box, which keeps giving me the message that it's too small.

The box is already at least twice the size of my ship in every direction! Finally, I got a different message when I tried to dock. But it's just left me with more questions:

1. The new message said, more or less, "Cannot dock here. Target not compatible." Any idea what that means?

2. Despite the message, the ship did dock there. However, it docked sideways from the way I wanted it, which was probably why I kept getting messages that the box was too small (my ship is much longer than it is wide or tall).

What I mean is, I wanted the ship to park east-west, and that's how I approached the docking module. However, it actually parked north-south. (As far as I know, those directions don't actually exist in the game, but you get the idea, I'm sure.) So how do I get the ship to park facing the direction I want it to face (both for space reasons and for quick exit from the cavern)?

3. As I say, the ship docked, despite the error message, but when I released it to fly out of the cavern, my ship went through the middle of the planet, instead. Weird, huh? It went right through the planet, as if I were in build mode. Any idea what's going on?

I must admit, it takes all the work out of leaving my home base. If I could only get the ship to land that way, too. :D On the other hand, I can't move it just a bit to do some work there. When the ship flies off, I have to bring it back through the tunnel, which is a bit annoying.


Oh, and I found some messages about my deaths, after all. I was looking at the Faction tab and there are three messages about losing faction points (whatever those are) by dying. According to them, a pirate ship did kill me. Each time, it was an "Isanth Type-Zero Mb 6-1 (Pirates)," although the second time, but not the first or the third, the message also said "missile."

Oddly, my fourth death - presumably the one where my half-built ship blew up as I was working on it deep underground - wasn't listed at all. I don't know what that means. Maybe it's just that I no longer have any faction points to lose? I really have no idea, since I know nothing about 'faction points. Either way, there's no record of my fourth death, as far as I can tell.


Anyway, does anyone know what's going on with my docking module? I've spent way too many hours just trying to get a ship to dock! It's getting old!

 

[DraconisDomini]

In answer to question 1, I get that 'cannot dock here' message, when it clearly can dock there because it just did, all the time, I assume it is a bug.

For question 2 although you can change which face of the docking module is 'up' (and so where the box appears), you cannot to my knowledge rotate the docking module (or the direction you docked ship will face) around the 'up' axis, so your ship will always dock 'north-south'. When the new docking system is introduced this will presumably be solved.

For question 3, I've had that 'fall through the planet' sort of thing happen too. Once I actually got stuck inside a planet and the only way I could get out was by jumping to another sector.

As for your continued pirate problems I would strongly recommend that if you are in singleplayer (which from the sounds of it you are), you select the offending pirates, either through the navigation menu or using 'F', open chat and type /destroy_entity. This will do what it sounds like it should and remove the offending pirate from the universe. Do that to all of the pirates you can find and hopefully you might be able to get away. Do be careful when using that though as if you accidentally use that command with one of your own ships selected it will equally just disappear and there is no way to undo it. Alternatively if you just want to abandon your planet you could open up the galaxy map select a suitably far away sector and use the 'admin warp' to move yourself. If you do this while in your ship you will move your ship as well.

 

[Jananton]

...According to them, a pirate ship did kill me. Each time, it was an "Isanth Type-Zero Mb 6-1 (Pirates)," although the second time, but not the first or the third, the message also said "missile."

Additional to what DraconisDomini told you in single player you should / could place your username in the file admins.txt found in your StarMade installation folder so you will always be the administrator and have direct access to the commands he mentioned.
Being the admin you also have the choice to select what ships will spawn for pirates. All types with a 'M' in the name are missile flavors and you could switch them off for the moment. You can do that in the Catalog menu on the Admins Tab.

As for the fourth non described death, maybe deep under ground you hit the lava and got fried instantly, the only thing I can think of that could have happened.

Greets,

Jan

 

[Megacrafter127]

1. The new message said, more or less, "Cannot dock here. Target not compatible." Any idea what that means?

It just means you hit a block aside from the docking module before hitting the docking module.

2. Despite the message, the ship did dock there. However, it docked sideways from the way I wanted it, which was probably why I kept getting messages that the box was too small (my ship is much longer than it is wide or tall).

What I mean is, I wanted the ship to park east-west, and that's how I approached the docking module. However, it actually parked north-south. (As far as I know, those directions don't actually exist in the game, but you get the idea, I'm sure.) So how do I get the ship to park facing the direction I want it to face (both for space reasons and for quick exit from the cavern)?

Until the next update, there will be no way. The next update however, will also completely overhaul the docking mechanics, and add rails.

 

[WCG]

or question 2 although you can change which face of the docking module is 'up' (and so where the box appears), you cannot to my knowledge rotate the docking module (or the direction you docked ship will face) around the 'up' axis, so your ship will always dock 'north-south'.

Really? Man, I spent two days hollowing out that mountain, trying to make a base underground,... and now it's all oriented the wrong way?

It wouldn't be such a big deal if I could remove more than one block at a time. Yes, I know there's a procedure for that, but I can never tell which blocks it's going to remove (except that it's never the blocks I want to remove). It works fine for filling in spaces quickly, but not for digging them out. Oh, well...

As for your continued pirate problems

Thanks, but I did escape from the pirates, eventually. As far as I could tell, they didn't even notice me leaving. Don't ask me why.

I'm on a new planet now - no pirates in the sector (not yet, at least).

As for the fourth non described death, maybe deep under ground you hit the lava and got fried instantly, the only thing I can think of that could have happened.

I never saw any lava on that planet - not anywhere, and certainly not in my base. But there was a swirling mass of... something (maybe the molten core of the planet?), just a couple of blocks below my base. There were no openings to that, but maybe the ship clipped through the blocks? Then again, I've been flying my latest ship right through my new planet - I don't know why it's doing that - without any trouble.

So I don't know. But I'll keep an eye out for lava now!

It just means you hit a block aside from the docking module before hitting the docking module.

OK, thanks. No problem, then.

 

[DraconisDomini]

It wouldn't be such a big deal if I could remove more than one block at a time. Yes, I know there's a procedure for that, but I can never tell which blocks it's going to remove (except that it's never the blocks I want to remove). It works fine for filling in spaces quickly, but not for digging them out. Oh, well...

If you bring up the advanced build dialog (hold 'ctrl') then select 'remove mode', the cursor box will turn red and show you which blocks are going to be removed, rather than where new blocks will be placed. Remove mode also works with the enlarged placement box you can use with the advanced build dialog. That should allow you to hollow out mountains much faster.

 

[WCG]

If you bring up the advanced build dialog (hold 'ctrl') then select 'remove mode', the cursor box will turn red and show you which blocks are going to be removed, rather than where new blocks will be placed.

Oh, OK. Wow, I've sure got a lot to learn, don't I? Thanks for the info!


And on to more questions. I'm on my fourth mining ship, and I just built a missile turret. But I have no idea if it's going to work, how much damage it will do, or anything else.

I got in it, as I would a ship, and tried to fire the weapon. I had nothing to shoot at, but something happened, so I assume that's working. But then the turret and I both fell into the center of the planet. I had a heck of a time getting out again. Exiting the game and then re-starting it did nothing. But I made it out, eventually, and so did the turret,... somehow. At least, I found it on the surface. I had to put thrusters on it to move it back to the docking port, then I went back into the Bobby AI module, so it should be working,... I guess.

Anyway, I have a few questions about ship/turret stats:

1. In build mode, my mining ship shows the Power as "50000.0/100000.0 (5943.0 e/sec)." The last part of that seems obvious, but what does the first part mean? Note that my turret also shows "50000.0/100000.0" although the power generation is only 1999.7 e/sec.

2. Thrust is 46.5, with "PowerCons" (power consumption?) of only 15.0. If that really does mean power consumption, the thrusters don't seem to use any power at all, to speak of. Is that right?

3. If I understand correctly, the thrust doesn't affect the maximum speed of the ship (which is fixed, right?), but only the acceleration? If that's the case, this ship is more than quick enough, as I can barely handle it as it is. But I just wanted to confirm that that's the way it works.

4. Turning speed is X-Axis 5.0, Y-Axis 5.0, Z-Axis 2.7. Is the Z-Axis turning speed always lower, or is that somehow the result of my ship's design? I don't know if these are reasonable or not, but it would seem likely that I'd want the same turning speed in every direction.

5. Unlike my first three mining ships, this one has shields, so maybe it will last long enough for me to tell I'm taking fire. :p It says Shields 2185.0/2185.0 - current shield strength and maximum shield strength, I assume - with a "PowerCons" of 104.0. Again, if that's power consumption, it doesn't seem like much.

I believe I've heard that the power consumption increases by a factor of ten when the shields have taken damage, but I'd still seem to have more than five times as much power as I'd need. Am I interpreting this correctly?

6. On the other hand, shield strength of 2185 doesn't sound like much at all. Of course, I have no idea how much damage my turret does, for example, or any other weapon. (Can I see that anywhere?) And I've never even seen a pirate ship, or lasted long enough to tell I was under fire. Should I be adding more shields?

This is just a mining ship, but I plan to use the same general design for a military ship, only replacing the salvage computer and salvage barrels with some other weapon. If I'm reading this correctly, I seem to have power up the yin-yang, but not much for shielding. Would you agree? (Hmm,... then again, weapons will need power during combat - I don't know how much - so that will be different than with a mining ship. And I probably should put armor on any military ship, huh?)

7. As an aside, when it comes to my turret, I don't need to add shielding, right? It's docked on my home planet, so it should be invulnerable anyway?

Thanks again for the help, guys!

 

[SmilingDemon]

1. that is current energy / max energy capacity (energy recharge per second)
2. Thrust is given in mass (kind of) so 45 Thrust on a 450 Block (45 mass) ship would be 1:1 thrust ratio (maybe you have heared someone talk about recommendations on that ratio some where) ... the power con is the power draw in standby .. but i think that is bugged afaik ...
3. yes .. only acceleration.
4. those values are affected by ship size ... i assume your ship is much longer than it is wide and tall ?
5. the shields will help if you get hit by a stray cannon shot from a pirate ship ... everything that has killed you before in a ship in an instant will just kill those shields and then you just as fast as before ... the 104 is the standby power consumption of your shield system .. this will drasticaly increase when the shield is recharging.
6. hit "N" (navigation window) to bring up the dropdown bar at the top of the screen. Choose Ship -> Entity Stucture ... everything on your ship is listed there. Not everyinformation may be show correctly or at all yet.
7. Yes ... it should be.

 

[Dannage]

Ahh, the joys of starting this game afresh! (Saying that, I'm still a noob)

Whenever one of the new stations has blown up my ship without a moment's warning, I have activated god mode. That keeps you and the ship you're in safe, at least long enough for you to wander around and see what is shooting at you. It's the only way I managed to get close enough to one of the Pirate stations to figure out what it was killing me with!

Beware around planet 8,8,5 - Tends to be 6 shops here but also many pirates near that area. You also often accidentally fly into the sun, whilst in combat!!

For figuring out how multi-block-removal works, you'll get us to it in time. It tends to go in the opposite direction of the yellow build recticle. Set it on 2x1x1 and practice on large areas, you'll figure it out.

Latest Questions:
1. Your stored energy is increased by power capacitors. You'll need more energy for missile weapons and the like. The power generators only recharge. Battleships tend to have around 20m-50m power capacity! Take a look in the ship yard at some of Bench's ship reviews, I have just taken a look at these to see some sample stats for community ships.

2. Yeah, I guess. They want to make sure they've balanced the ships. Otherwise, big ships would need insane power demands. Just remember, thrust doesn't affect your turning speed as much as your size does.

3. Correct. Watch out if you join other servers as they often change the max speed setting.

4. They do some maths to effectively calculate how quickly you should be able to turn, based on the maximum size in that axis. So a long thin short ship (like a bullet) could roll easily, but yaw and pitch would take a longer time. Far as I know, thrust doesn't affect this... But, I've not checked.

5. Might not seem like much, but those stations may do several thousand damage in one hit (hence your immediate death) 2000 shields will hold up for a few seconds against most Isanth cannons, providing you move quickly. When you build 20k shields, you'll soon notice the power drain. You also want many rechargers. As an example, one of the reviewed ships mentioned earlier (Will grant you this was a battleship!) had 1.3m shields, with a 28k recharge rate. For a small mining ship, I'd say 25k shields with 5k recharge ought to keep you alive long enough to get out of any scrapes!

6. Yes you should add more. I use a slightly different approach from SmilingDemon, in that I press T to get me to weapons, then I expand the weapon detail and look. Also shows range and reload times, these can be affected by slaving other weapons systems together. Look in shipyards thread and there's a chart that shows you how weapons react when linked.

As a shameless self plug, I uploaded some community content yesterday for a competition. 3 fighters and 2 corvettes. From what I can tell these are woefully underpowered, but you are welcome to download them and get a feel for what I've done. (Bear in mind I've only really been playing for a couple of months on and off)

7. Turrets in general use their own shielding, but if your turret is on you invulnerable om planet, I think it should be safe.

 

[WCG]

Thanks, guys. That helps a lot. I have a few more questions, of course. :p

1. that is current energy / max energy capacity (energy recharge per second)

That makes sense. In fact, I would have assumed that, but the ship is at rest, docked at my base. So why would the current energy be different from the max energy capacity?

1. Your stored energy is increased by power capacitors. You'll need more energy for missile weapons and the like. The power generators only recharge.

Power capacitors? So I need more than just power reactor modules? I knew I needed shield capacitors, along with shield rechargers (I've got them on the ship in equal numbers), but I didn't know I needed power capacitors. How many?

Then again, there are a ton of things I can make in my factories that I don't have a clue about. Sometimes, I'll make one, just to look at the description. But that still doesn't tell me how to use them, normally.

2. Thrust is given in mass (kind of) so 45 Thrust on a 450 Block (45 mass) ship would be 1:1 thrust ratio

OK, I see. I didn't mention it, but my ship only has a mass of 16.1, so I guess the thrust ratio would be 2.89 to 1. It seems to be plenty quick enough for me, although a military ship of similar design would have more mass. Is there a general rule for this kind of thing? Do I keep the thrust ratio at least 1:1 or something?

Keep in mind that I'm really inept at flying a ship, and I won't ever get very good. (My eye-hand coordination stinks, since I didn't grow up with video games.) So I'd struggle with a ship that was too responsive. Heck, I struggle with this one. :p

4. those values are affected by ship size ... i assume your ship is much longer than it is wide and tall ?

4. They do some maths to effectively calculate how quickly you should be able to turn, based on the maximum size in that axis. So a long thin short ship (like a bullet) could roll easily, but yaw and pitch would take a longer time.

That makes sense. I was wondering why there'd be three axes for turning speed, since I could only seem to turn up/down or left/right. I forgot about rolling.

6. hit "N" (navigation window) to bring up the dropdown bar at the top of the screen. Choose Ship -> Entity Stucture ... everything on your ship is listed there.

Hmm,... I could swear I've done that before, but got nothing other than "the named entity does not exist," or something like that. I did look for all of this stuff - on my turret, too, since my mining ship doesn't have weapons - before I posted here.

I press T to get me to weapons, then I expand the weapon detail and look. Also shows range and reload times, these can be affected by slaving other weapons systems together. Look in shipyards thread and there's a chart that shows you how weapons react when linked.

Yes, I've got a cannon computer slaved to my salvage computer, and on the turret, a beam weapon slaved to a missile weapon. But I didn't get any useful information from weapon detail.

On the other hand, the weapon detail on the turret is largely covered up by drop-down text from the tabs above it. So if it's there, maybe it's just covered up? And my mining ship doesn't have weapons at all - not as weapons, at least - but only salvage beams. So I'll check when I get a military ship built.

Beware around planet 8,8,5 - Tends to be 6 shops here but also many pirates near that area. You also often accidentally fly into the sun, whilst in combat!!

Hmm,... now you've really confused me. I thought the universe was procedurally generated, thus different for everyone. Not so? My new home base really is at 8,8,5. Are you telling me that there's always a planet there?

There are two shops in the immediate vicinity, but no pirates, so far. However, there have been a truly massive number of guild trading vessels lately. The whole sector is full of them. I was actually wondering if they'd attract pirates.


Thanks again, guys!

 

[SmilingDemon]

That makes sense. In fact, I would have assumed that, but the ship is at rest, docked at my base. So why would the current energy be different from the max energy capacity?

that is because it lists the combined power of the ship and your base (you are not using any power capacitors so it is 2x 50K)
power capacitors increase the max power available. systems can otherwise easily draw more than 50K in one go.

Thrust/Mass ratio you can handle as you see fit ... but the bigger your ship gets the thrusters are less efficient (i think there is cap)

"Ship -> Entity Stucture" : lists everything system off the currently entered Entity/structure. just aming at it causes that to be not selectable.

 

[Dannage]

The 1984 Elite was procedurally generated, yet was the same for all of us. I have deleted worlds about 10 times and started new ones and they al have the systems in the same place. Stations, now, those move about all over the place. Shops ought to be different every time, but my last two universe reboots, I did find 6 aroun8,8,5... haven't got enough shields on my Salvage ship to try going there on my new sandbox! Have run out of materials in the current shop though, and trying to avoid using Admin commands to give myself what I need..

As for finding details, here's some screen caps. Press T the first time and it pretends it doesn't have anything. Second time, it gives you your current layout (I don't know why it does this) - then you should see the computers. Select the blank space next to one and it should expand, then when you select details it shows you every barrel, then you select to expand one.



As for how many power capacitors you need, as with all items on this game, I would buy them as you need them. i.e. once you start using missiles, or systems which drain power quickly. Until you get those missiles going you're unlikely to use too mental a set of power...