Questions

[220048]

A friend of me wants to buy this game.
He had a few questions about Evochron.

1: Can NPC ships dock at stations and planet bases?

2: Are there also illegal goods wich you can trade to make more money/profit?

3: If so, is there some kind of police which will scan you ship randomly for cargo and destroy you when they find something illegal?

Thank you already for responding.

P.S., sorry for my English.

[Vice]

1: Can NPC ships dock at stations and planet bases?

Yes and specifically for station docking, it affects the frequency or lack thereof with market/inventory/contract updates while you are in the area.

2: Are there also illegal goods wich you can trade to make more money/profit?

Not 'illegal' per se, but high demand and rare items that can command a very high relative price. There can be times when certain items are considered 'contraband' for specific possesers and contracts can be offered to the player to hunt down and destroy such a smuggler and such conditions/opportunities are exclusive to and for that objective.

3: If so, is there some kind of police which will scan you ship randomly for cargo and destroy you when they find something illegal?

That's something the player can be hired to do via contract. The player can be stopped and their cargo ordered to be dropped by an AI ship trying to pirate them, then it's up to the player if they want to comply, fight, or eventually try to run. So it's a little more nuanced for demands issued to the player by AI ships.

[220048]

Thank you for responding.
One question, from me this time.
I have played the game now for over 2 months, and I never saw a spaceship dock at a planet base.
Does this happen only very rarely, or am I just at the wrong place at the wrong time?

[Vice]

They will quickly fly to the dock and back up into space (or at least away from the docking pad above the terrain). It's more frequent if there is a station in the same sector, but not a flood of traffic regardless. If you avoid hovering over the docking pad and just land nearby, you will likely spot a ship approaching, reaching the docking pad, then quickly turning to fly away.

[220048]

Thanks again for responding.
My friend told me he wants to buy the game.
Evochron is great and space is huge.
So many planets and systems are still undiscovered.
When you play in sandbox mode, is there a 'cheat' to find all the planets and systems?

[Vice]

There are visual cues while flying in uncharted space that can help point in the direction of stars, flying in between charted system and monitoring the nav map at maximum range for detected planets/stars/asteroids that might be in range along the way, or pay for information from NPC ships which may (on rare occasion) offer specific location information to uncharted planets/systems (and if/when they do, it gets automatically added to your map log). So there are a few different ways to explore for and/or acquire uncharted system information.

Additionally, with the introduction of 2.0408, you can get paid to scan areas near uncharted planets. Just look for the new deep space scanning objectives in the list of available contracts. They can pay pretty well and lead you to uncharted planet locations you can utilize for station/city building for new trade routes, supply centers, and/or expanding territory control.

* Possible Spoiler Alert *

For more of a spoiler option:

[Show Hidden Text]

You can explore the nav map in either sandbox or standard mode for logged navigation data, including deep space. Switch to quadrant mode, then left click on a sector location you might want to look at, you can then click on 'Nav Map' to switch back to the local map mode, then click on 'Center' to toggle the map over to the location you selected. You can zoom in and out from there to view the space around the selected point. You can click on 'Center' again to return the map back to your current sector location.

You can also optionally type in coordinates to view remotely, but it's a little more time consuming.

[Marvin]

While the above "spoiler" works fairly well when investigating the star systems plotted on the Nav map, there are numerous stars and planets which exist between those systems. And not all of them are along the route lines. The easiest way to explore "empty space" is to make note of the Current Position found in the upper-left corner of the Nav map. It changes as you move between star systems. In the example below, I'm in the New Hope system but that will change as I travel away from New Hope.

[Marvin]

And, if you're wondering how that will help when exploring, it sometimes depends on how far you've zoomed out on the Nav map. Often, you will see the name of the system change prior to seeing the system itself.

[Vice]

That's a good point Marvin mentions. Watch for changing system names as you travel through uncharted space. That will indicate when you are closer in range to such a system, so it's generally nearby and some nav map prospecting can help reveal the exact location from there. Further recommendations along that line:

[Show Hidden Text]

Left click on empty space around your location in uncharted space to set sector locations to prospect. Use the 'Enlarge Map' mode button for a higher level of precision and easier plotting. Once you've selected a sector location, click on 'Nav Map' to return to the map mode, then click on 'Center' to center the nav map to the nav point you just plotted. At 33X zoom, you can search that many sector in the area for objects of interest in uncharted space.

[Marvin]

Here's another similar bit of info. If you follow the instructions listed above and still don't see any planets or suns ... or you see them when the Nav map is zoomed way out but they "disappear" when you zoom in, check the Rear view (what I call the Side view) after zooming back out (where the star system reappears). And you will almost certainly see that the objects are either way above or way below your current Y axis. Ergo, you will need to set your jump point in 3 dimensions. Cause the Earth isn't flat and neither is the universe.

[220048]

Thank you for your help.
And it really works.
I found two extra hidden systems.
I read on the wiki that there are multiple types of planets.
I found mixed, icy, vulcanic and dessert planets.
Do ocean planets exist as well, because I never found any?

[Marvin]

There are oceans. I don't remember seeing any planets like Waterword where land was scarce but there are planty of planets with oceans, even in Sapphire. Some even have fish in them. You'll probably need a terrain walker (TW) if you want to go wading.

Which reminds me, there are times when a salvage mission will require you to recover a box from an ocean. That can be tricky since the TW likes to suck up the H2O. The way to get the box is to get really close and target it.