How to survive out there

First steps

1. You start in Tranquility City on the Moon, and you already own the UESA Atlas, your first ship.
2. Open your watch with R. NAV is the map and course plotter, Contracts lists every port's jobs, and Ship shows your fleet and fuel.
3. Take a contract, fly it and get paid. Credits buy oxygen, food, drills and eventually better ships.
4. In any port's hab, step into a clone pod to store your neural map. If you die, you're reprinted there.

Controls

Air and oxygen

Inside a port's sealed rooms the air is breathable. Outside, on almost every world and in space, you live on your suit. The only exception is Alpha Centauri Ab I (Halcyon), where you can breathe outdoors.

• A full suit holds 20 minutes of oxygen. The helmet display shows what's left.
• An oxygen canister holds 5 minutes more and is used automatically when your suit runs low. Carry spares.
• Refill stations by every port airlock top up your suit and canisters.
• Canisters cost 90 CR at any quartermaster (Colony Stores), and come in packs at clinics and chandleries.

Food and health

• Every quartermaster sells ration packs, hydroponic bread and medkits.
• Markets, cafés and delis sell better food. You'll find them in the Olympus Galleria on Mars, and on the stalls in Halcyon Harbour, Coral Reach, Mirage and Twilight.
• Clinics sell medkits, trauma kits and stim packs.

Contracts

Every port has a contracts board, and you can also take any port's work from the watch. You can hold 3 contracts at once. Jobs change every day.

Your HUD steers you to each objective. Pay goes up with distance, so the outer system pays more.

Pilot rating

Every finished contract raises your rating, and a higher rating raises what every board pays you. Rescues and star runs count double. Dropping a contract costs 2 points, and going to prison costs 5. Your rating shows on the board and in the watch.

Mining

Every world has two ores of its own: a common one and a rare one. Dig them out with a pick or a drill, then sell them.

Getting a drill

Drills are sold by Hollis Drillworks (Olympus Heights, Mars), Delgado Drills (Tranquility, the Moon) and the drill stall at Mirage (Alpha Centauri Bb).

Where to mine

Look where rock breaks open: cliffs, crater walls, canyon sides and young craters. The port quartermasters will tell you where their world's good ore is.

Selling

Any quartermaster buys raw ore: talk to them and pick "I have ore to sell." Ore pays 20% more sold away from the world it came from, and anything sold at Olympus Heights (its quartermaster or the Assay House) pays 25% more again.

Ships

• Where to buy: Olympus Coachworks at Olympus Heights (Mars), the shipyard in Halcyon Harbour, and the shipyard kiosk at every Alpha Centauri station. Talk to the dealer and pick "Show me the ships."
• A new ship is delivered to a pad at the port where you bought it.
• Ship terminals at every port call any ship you own to a free pad.

Fuel

• Each ship has its own tank. A full tank lasts about 15 minutes at full throttle, and a fold takes a share of it.
• To refuel: set down on a port's pad or in a hangar, open the watch (R) and use the Ship tab. You pay for what's missing.
• A full tank costs: Atlas 600, Kestrel 800, Corsair 1,400, Regent 2,200, Star Surfer 6,000 CR.
• Fuel cells (a quarter of a tank, used at the controls) and fuel drums (a full tank) are sold at chandleries. Carry one and you'll never be stranded.

Travel

1. Sit at your ship's controls and lift off.
2. On a world, climb above 296 m. At a station, fly clear of the hangar.
3. Open the watch, pick a port in NAV and set the course. The fold spools up and carries you there.

A fold costs 4% of a tank to a neighbour, up to about a third of a tank for the longest run in the system. For another port on the same world (Coral Reach from Halcyon Harbour, say), NAV sets a waypoint instead and you fly there through the air.

Star jumps

• Only the Star Surfer can jump between stars.
• In NAV, scroll out past the Solar System to see Alpha Centauri, 4.37 light-years away.
• A star jump takes 5 minutes in the fold and burns 60% of a tank, so fill up first. You can walk around your ship during the fold.
• Alpha Centauri has its own ports, shops, shipyards and ores, plus breathable air on Ab I.

Crime and Vex

Vex, the fixer, hangs about somewhere quiet in every port. His jobs pay far more than the boards, and every one is risky.

Street name

Vex keeps his own score. Finished jobs build your street name (drug runs count double), and a bigger name means bigger pay on his board. A run that times out costs 2 points, and a load customs takes costs 3.

Customs

Arrive at a port carrying contraband and you're scanned within seconds. If they find it, an officer stops you:

• Hand it over: a fine, and your job is lost. If it's drugs, you go to prison instead.
• Bribe: it might work. It works less often with a record, and rarely with drugs.
• A scan jammer (900 CR from Vex) beats most cargo scans, but only half of drug scans. It burns out either way.

Heat

Your record (heat, 0–100) goes up when you're caught with contraband, when you kill pilots or miners, and when you bribe officers. It cools a point every 30 seconds. At 30 you're a person of interest. At 70 you're wanted: walk into any port and you're arrested. At 100 you're arrested wherever you are. Vex can clean your record, for a price.

Prison

• Arrested players go to the Lakshmi Penitentiary on Venus for 60 minutes. The clock runs in real time, offline too.
• Your gear is held and given back on release, along with a clean record.
• You get a prison suit and a quarry drill. There's no way out early except work. See the work officer in Processing:
  • Mine 32 ore in the quarry: 10 minutes off.
  • Service the four air scrubbers in Life Support: 6 minutes off. They need 4 minutes between rounds.
• You start with 3 ration packs. Osei, the cook in the mess hall (through the hub's north door), fills a tray for you every 5 minutes.
• When you're released, you're dropped at Ishtar Deep Camp on Venus.

Quick tips

• Always carry a spare oxygen canister and a fuel cell.
• Store your neural map in a clone pod at each new port you visit.
• Start with cargo runs, then buy a Survey Drill and mine the rare ore of whatever world you're on.
• Ore sells for more away from its home world. Fly it somewhere else before you sell.
• Ports are armistice zones: no player can hurt you there, and the laser pistol won't fire.