So, I will simplify 2 essential aspects of the game:
- The Shipyard explained
- Good trading practise so you can afford all the goodies of this universe
A. The Shipyard Explained
On a first glance, the Shipyard may confuse you a lot, but you will learn to love it.
The principle is very simple: To succeed in your actions, it's important to first configure your ship correctly.
You modify your ship in 2 basic areas:
- Frame Configuration
- Assembly Ressources
Assembly Ressources:
In the Shipyard, you can drag & drop upgrades from the left to your ship frame in the center. In the window just below are tabs for each category to chose from.
Every ship frame has a limited number of Ressources available expressed in Ressource points. Larger frames have a higher number of ressources. This system forces you to distribute the ressources efficiently also depending on what you plan to do. For sure, you will NOT be able to upgrade to maximum every aspect of your ship, so you must find good compromises. Also, it's highly a matter of how much money you can spend, so you have to focus on what's most important.
The most important upgrades that you will need for defence and combat are SHIELDS and WINGS. For non-combat, exploration, mining etc. focus instead on CARGO and bigger FUEL TANKS. With higher frames, install higher ENGINES.
Frame Configuration:
This is as important as your Assembly Ressources, and the good news: it won't cost you anything! Here you can reduce one feature to increase another one. Again, what you will change largely depends on your activity. How much overall features you have depends on the frame, only the higher frames will give you more capacity.
The most important features to chose are the HARDPOINTS able to install special equipment and the number of SECONDARY WEAPONS you can take, be it for combat or for defense during your exploration.
You can change your entire ship frame by chosing one in the right side and dragging it to the center.
The costs of all modifications is shown in the upper center display, showing your cash and below the modification costs. Your original ship is on the left, all your modifications are shown on the right.
Be sure to always adapt your ship to your actions... You don't need big cargo bays for combat, nor do you need 5 secondary weapon slots for mining or exploration. At some point you need to buy a higher frame to do large-scale activity like combat or trading between far and dangerous systems, a small frame will quickly show its limits, especially regarding capacity (number of things you can install).
B. Trading
In the Nav Map you can display the systems according to their wealth, and in a blink of an eye you will know which systems are generally poor with low prices, and which ones do have a high tech level with high prices.
But even inside a system, there may be some difference in prices, for goods and equipements as well. What will mostly help you is this:
In the Nav Map, put the labels on. Just after a planet name there is a letter in brackets which indicates the place's production activity.
[T] = Technology
[A] = Agriculture
[M] = Manufacturing
[E] = Energy
[G] = General
This all tells you what the planet is mostly producing. As the offer is high for these sort of products, the prices will be lower than in another non-specialized system.
You always want to buy low and sell high, so for example, the best price to buy a technical product is a place with a T showing, whereas the same tech products are worth selling in agricultural or other non-tech places where the offer of tech products is lower and the demand probably much higher than elsewhere.
Be aware however that special events may occur in any place that can highly influence the market prices for some time. This information is available in the news section of the Inventory screen. Always check it out first before trading. One sort of message could be that there recently was a high quantity arrival of mineral products, thus causing the prices of minable goods to go down. Another time, all goods may be concerned because of economic grow etc.
Tip: In some missions, you will be asked to collect some goods and bring them to the station. The payment for these goods are well above the market price, so check out the missions first, especially if you have minable goods.
Hope that helps, have fun
XenonS
