How to survive hostile systems

PapaRosario · Post by **PapaRosario** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:23 pm

I just purchased Evochron Mercenary last night during the Steam sale. I've been playing quite a bit today and have made about 1.5 million from mining and contracts in Sapphire. After that, I googled what the best way to make money is and it brought me to this thread.

http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6772

That sounds great, but there's probably something big I'm missing because I always die very fast when entering hostile systems. That post makes it sound like you should be able to make it through Pearl in the starter ship. I got to Port Oasis by just running away from all of the hostile ships. As soon as I tried docking with the port I got blown to bits. Is there some sort of trick to doing this that I am missing?

Post by **Marvin** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:25 pm

Do you have a shield generator? Did you enter the shipyard as soon as you docked?

Major Grubert · Post by **Major Grubert** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:27 pm

From post: 141232, Topic: tid=9598, author=PapaRosario wrote:I just purchased Evochron Mercenary last night during the Steam sale. I've been playing quite a bit today and have made about 1.5 million from mining and contracts in Sapphire. After that, I googled what the best way to make money is and it brought me to this thread.

http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6772

That sounds great, but there's probably something big I'm missing because I always die very fast when entering hostile systems. That post makes it sound like you should be able to make it through Pearl in the starter ship. I got to Port Oasis by just running away from all of the hostile ships. As soon as I tried docking with the port I got blown to bits. Is there some sort of trick to doing this that I am missing?

what's your ship config ? i mean shield etc... frame... ?

Sinbad · Post by **Sinbad** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:39 pm

Hi PapaRosario, welcome to Evochron!

Some tips to avoid being killed by hostiles:
- Accelerate to around 2000 speed and the missiles won't be able to hit you.
- For dangerous trade runs jump directly into the station hanger by right clicking the station on the Nav Map before you jump.
- Once docked click on enter station and you'll be safe until you launch again.
- In MP ask someone to fly escort with you to hold off the reds.

Major Grubert · Post by **Major Grubert** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:46 pm

keep an eye on missile alert colors before using as smartly as possible your contermesure... C key is your friend

speed s one of best rookie friends

look on doc about missile distance perf. you'll know till which point you really have to "stress" about all that red guys...

Janus · Post by **Janus** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:43 pm

Survive Pearl in a starter ship? Yeah, you can, if you know what you are doing. But for a newbie? Might be problematic. I recommend at minimum an X3 shield booster. And no less than a class 5 shield.

I could do it in a starter ship. Now. When I first started? It is to laugh. I died several times when I first went to Pearl. Of course I had a class 1 shield and an X1 shield booster.

Here's an idea though. If you see antimatter for sale in Sapphire, buy it if you have the funds; even if this puts you near or at $0. Take it to the Earto constructor; the gate near evochron station will put you in the near vacinity of that constructor. They will trade you a fuel converter for it. Fuel converters run around 600k in Sapphire. This can get you some quick starting funds so you can buy better shields, equipment, and frames.

Janus

PapaRosario · Post by **PapaRosario** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 11:09 pm

Thanks for all the replies guys. I did not think to enter the station after docking. That is a very good idea. I got blown up while I was docked and trying to trade. The next time around, I will definitely enter the station immediately. I will probably also try to upgrade my shields a bit before going back. I believe I had class 3 shields and the baseline shield equipment slot.

Edit: Also, if my goal is to simply outrun and not engage hostile ships, would you recommend I stick with the baseline ship for its speed? Or try to upgrade to a better frame for the additional upgrade points so I can put on a better engine and shields?

[Edited on 7-23-2012 by PapaRosario]

[Edited on 7-23-2012 by PapaRosario]

Agent Zirdik · Post by **Agent Zirdik** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 12:55 am

better ships will have better armor and will have more assembly for better engines and more defensive equipment. Honestly, countermeasures are great, but if you have enough speed and learn to jump right into a station dock, and then "enter the station", countermeasures aren't really necessary.

To jump into a station, you should already have a good velocity, set IDS throttle to your maximum speed at maximum x5 IDS scale.
Then right click on the station from the nav map, that will set the exact coords of its dock.
Then set pitch to 0, since that will make you come out of jump level.
Then manually jump, don't use autopilot, because that slows you down and messes up pitch.
You should come out exactly level to the dock, only a couple thousand meters from the station, if you already have goods speed, you'll zoom right in and then you can click "enter station". also switch to inertial.

and you're safe! Rinse and repeat

when you exit the station, switch back to IDS, your throttle will still be set, so you can accelerate out of the dock, still level, with enough speed to get away from lingering baddies, and able to safely plot a new point!

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 1:05 am

Worth repeating: Set your IDS multiplyer to increase max engine speed. It's the cheap way of "upgrading" your engine.

Sinbad · Post by **Sinbad** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:01 am

All excellent advice above. Another perspective: If you are not interested in engaging hostiles I'd recommend upgrading your frame to have more assembly resources, then max out your shields (and cargo for mining). If you need an extra engine boost for escaping hostiles try installing the afterburner drive (although does drain your energy).

PapaRosario · Post by **PapaRosario** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 5:36 pm

Thank you very much for the advice about the IDS multiplier. I didn't even know that existed. After looking through the key configuration I figured it out and it makes traveling a whole lot less painful. The tip about setting pitch to 0 was also very useful. I didn't realize that dictated how you came out of a jump. Now I can just glide straight in to the station off inertia when coming off a jump rather than having to fly in.

After doing the trading run a couple of times, I just wanted to share a couple pieces of advice for any other newbies considering doing it which I did not see listed in that other thread (probably because they're obvious to most people who've played the game for more than a few hours):

1. Make sure you have couple hundred thousand extra credits on you to pay for the docking fees. The first time around I spent all of my money buying things at Oasis and spent probably 20 minutes traveling to the Pearl Hidden Station on a class 2 Fulcrum Drive. When I finally reached there, I didn't have enough to pay for the docking fees and I had to turn around and go back without selling anything.

2. Make sure you upgrade your Fulcrum Drive before starting this run. I just upgraded to a Class 5 Fulcrum Drive, which should make the journies much less painful. But doing it on a Class 2 was terrible.

Edit: Something I just realized, diverting all your power to weapons will allow your jump drive to recharge faster. I had all of my power diverted to shields because I thought I wouldn't need my weapons.

[Edited on 7-24-2012 by PapaRosario]

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 7:11 pm

Yes ... diverting power to weapons is a good way to save fuel on those long journeys in the night. And, btw, you can save on docking fees if you jump into MP and use a player-owned station ... none of them charge a fee.

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 1:51 pm

Hi PapaRosario, welcome to the game and forum!....Hope to see you out there some time!.....

Also first thing you should do on your trade run to the hidden pearl station or city when you have enough credits from trading is upgrade your class 5 jumpdrive!....Yes there is a Jumpdrive that lets you travel 10 sectors at a time!....much faster!......

:P

[Edited on 7-25-2012 by Maarschalk]

Agent Zirdik · Post by **Agent Zirdik** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 2:32 pm

Also, something that HELPS, is a stealth generator. I know that's probably not practical at your current stage in the game, but I've found it helps to avoid undesired engagements when you are far from safety. It is an expensive device and it is inconvenient the way it takes out your shields AND drains your weapon energy, making you very vulnerable when you come out of it.

But the stealth generator can keep you invisible for more than a minute if say you're putting around mining and some hostile jumps nearby. You can cloak and wait until the ship leaves, then you can resume mining without having to microjump away from the asteroid field. This can be particularly useful if you are mining on a planet's surface, because you can't microjump there.

It can also helps if you want to complete certain contracts, such as cargo delivery while under fire. Or scanning capital ships.

It also feels really cool