New Frames & Inventory Console Features

SamKillitson · Post by **SamKillitson** » Wed May 06, 2015 7:28 pm

I understand that both directional headings must be centered to acquire the right approach via compass and pitch ladder via ids or thruster manipulation and then put into inertial mode to acquire the gate number via compass (if in motion). Once I initiate jump I go to ids again and once jump is complete I inertia on into station, if no corrections are necessary. Its usually right on and more dependent on compass and pitch than anything else.

The suggestion is merely, a bookmark, hot keyable to the situational position of my ship to the galactic ecliptic of Evochron itself, saving me a lot of fiddling about.

I used to enjoy making bookmarks of gates and safe spots in Eve.

If you go ahead and centrifugally spin the station it won't really matter what you do other than bookmark proximity to whatever you are jumping to.

[Edited on 5-6-2015 by SamKillitson]

Post by **Marvin** » Wed May 06, 2015 9:52 pm

The stations won't need to spin (tho, that too, would be cool) ... just built so that (like airfields) they aren't all aligned the same way.

marlowe221 · Post by **marlowe221** » Wed May 06, 2015 10:13 pm

I know I have posted ideas in this thread already, about 10 pages back, but here are a couple of general thoughts I've had on this subject:

1. Exploration - All the tools that the community has come up with to aid in exploration and finding uncharted systems are fantastic! But it would be really nice if some of the functionality of these programs could be incorporated into the in-game Nav system. Those of us without multi-monitor set ups have to keep alt-tabbing out of the game to use them. That's kind of annoying and immersion-breaking.

2. Immersion/Flavor Stuff - For me, more immersion is always better! In that regard, I would love to see some "space bars" where mercs would gather to swap war stories and rumors. The game could use the rumor/tip system that is used in ship-to-ship trading or something similar. Even if the bar was just a few static scenes and largely text driven, it would still be awesome. It would also be cool if some of the available missions could be taken from patrons at the local watering hole in addition to the inventory/docking console.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of things that might need to be cleaned up a little in this department. The other night I was parked outside the central trade station in Rucker, trading with NPC ships and trying to pick up interesting coordinates to go investigate, etc. The first one I got? The coordinates to the trade station sitting right behind me... Perhaps the NPCs should be programed to NOT give out information on locations that are plainly displayed in the nav maps of the charted systems. Little things like that can make a huge difference.

3. Trade - A trade log would be cool, particularly one that is automatic! For example, if I mine some plat and sell it in Rucker, my computer should remember the last price I sold plat for at that location/station/planet (if it already does this, how do I get to it?). Sure, the prices fluctuate for various reasons and that is part of what makes the trading model unique in EM. Even information that is slightly out of date can still be useful - if the player happens to pick up some obscure equipment item and decides that he/she wants to sell it, being able to quickly pull up some information on the last place that he/she sold equipment for a good price would be really handy to have, especially if it is halfway across the quadrant. Of course, the situation at that location may have changed but that's part of the risk involved. So, I'm not advocating for in-game spoilers but a kind of middle ground, particularly with regard to information that it makes sense my ship's computer would have a record of.

4. Lore - The game history/lore is often somewhat confusing. I know that a lot of it comes from previous games in the series but to read the write ups of it often lead to more questions than the written materials tend to answer. Also, some things just plain don't make a lot of sense (or are not well explained). For example, Fauston will give you a hard time about landing, etc. because it is hostile to Mercs by default but... isn't it squarely in Alliance space? The Alliance is generally merc-friendly right? So what gives? My own, fan-fiction explanation is that at this point in history, after all the wars against each other and the Vonari, the names "Alliance" and "Federation" really don't mean much anymore. Neither faction has the ability to enforce their will/laws on all the systems in their territory and their rule is nominal at best. Most systems, in practice, are more independent than anything else regardless of the claims of control of the major political factions. To the extent that this explanation coincides with official lore, that's cool but it would be nice to have a better explanation of the political situation, etc. that requires less work on the player's part to piece together.

(@Vice - I will volunteer to write for you for free. I will happily do re-writes/edits of lore/flavor text for free. I love the game and the Evoverse lore, though it is puzzling at times, and would be happy to contribute. Writing is a big part of my career out here in the real world and I am pretty good at it.)

Really, I am just nitpicking though. The game is great and I have a blast playing it. I look forward to future updates and/or new games.

[Edited on 5-6-2015 by marlowe221]

[Edited on 5-6-2015 by marlowe221]

Rubber Chicken · Post by **Rubber Chicken** » Wed May 06, 2015 11:45 pm

I'm pretty sure you can find (#3) a pilot's Flight Log with trade information in the News Console of the Inventory screen.

Serayl · Post by **Serayl** » Wed May 06, 2015 11:56 pm

From post: 176665, Topic: tid=10221, author=marlowe221 wrote:2. Immersion/Flavor Stuff - For me, more immersion is always better! In that regard, I would love to see some "space bars" where mercs would gather to swap war stories and rumors. The game could use the rumor/tip system that is used in ship-to-ship trading or something similar. Even if the bar was just a few static scenes and largely text driven, it would still be awesome. It would also be cool if some of the available missions could be taken from patrons at the local watering hole in addition to the inventory/docking console.

I swear I was thinking about this very thing not fifteen minutes ago, except with some further detail - I guess I'll go ahead and explain more.

A station lounge would be accessible only after one enters a station, and as I saw it would be 100% button/text-based functionality with static backgrounds for ease of implementation, looking and working much like the existing menu when you enter a station does currently.

And much as marlowe's mentioned, it would serve a number of very similar roles:

tips as mentioned, from less obvious gameplay hints to navigational data, trade hints and so forth with the caveat that more useful info costs money,
serving up more interesting contracts. I thought of a lounge as being a good place to pick up less conventional contracts than 'find item, patrol waypoints, clean solar panels, escort ship' - more on this below,
bribing factions as necessary,
hiring crew/taking on passengers could be done through here as well.

I also thought that each faction would have representatives for the player to interface with depending on that system's politics. You'd be hard-pressed to find Guild/Rebel reps at Evochron Station, while it'd be the opposite (no Navy/Energy or Alliance/Fed) in other areas of the universe. These characters would provide services to a player conditional on their reputation.

The big thing I thought could be put through a station lounge contract-wise would be special missions for each faction designed to be completed by either a wing of NPCs aiding the player (SP) or a small team of players (MP).

This system would not replace the existing contract board, but instead is meant to provide the bigger challenges "on-demand" versus waiting or rerolling for what you want and to add additional things for groups to do whether you've got a wingman posse in SP or other players in MP. Each faction would have a different 'big' mission to choose from, for example...

a Navy big mission could be assaulting a Rebel base, defended by a large number of Rebel craft and a capital ship.
a Rebel big mission could be a large-scale convoy ambush: kill a Transport that is guarded by Navy/Energy craft + a couple capital ships in formation.
the Guild's big one could be something along the lines of a ship heist or a prisoner liberation via a boarding action (escort & defend mission critical target until it has done its thing) - this sort of mission would need a lot of extra work to make it work as intended.
a Warzone big mission could be a Vonari-themed version of the above, or something like assaulting a Vonari carrier, or defending an Alliance one from attack.

I'm not sure what Energy and Miners' variants would be right now; I'd bet someone else could think of a good idea for them.

Other speciality contracts could also go through characters at a lounge that could hinge upon what's happening at the time in-system. An example would be if the system's experiencing a Metal shortage, you could get a contract to deliver 25 or more Metal at a slightly better rate than you'd get through the board. Another one could be to execute a lightning raid to destroy orbital solar panel farms - right after someone else has painstakingly cleaned them.

It would take a lot of effort to make it work, but I think it'd be worth it given that a lounge has a lot of things it can do both from a gameplay perspective and an immersion one too.

marlowe221 · Post by **marlowe221** » Thu May 07, 2015 12:12 am

From post: 176668, Topic: tid=10221, author=Rubber Chicken wrote:I'm pretty sure you can find (#3) a pilot's Flight Log with trade information in the News Console of the Inventory screen.

Really? Crap, I have been using pen and paper!

Post by **Marvin** » Thu May 07, 2015 1:14 am

Yes. Really.

Post by **Marvin** » Thu May 07, 2015 1:31 am

Default F3 -> Flight/Event Log button (under Additional Options, left-center)

marlowe221 · Post by **marlowe221** » Thu May 07, 2015 1:57 am

From post: 176674, Topic: tid=10221, author=Marvin wrote:Default F3 -> Flight/Event Log button (under Additional Options, left-center)

I'll be damned. Thanks!

Post by **Marvin** » Thu May 07, 2015 5:24 am

You might be surprised at how many options are available when you press F3 ... or F4 (when another pilot is targeted).

Oblivion Wolf · Post by **Oblivion Wolf** » Mon May 18, 2015 8:41 pm

As a relatively new player to EM I have some ideas I would like to throw into the hat.

1. I would like to see more specialized setups, right now most people's combat frames probably look the same, this probably goes for trading and exploring as well. My suggestion to this is to make the 1st 3 equipment slots specialized. This would have to be in conjunction with a new crafting system, which could be a whole bunch of fun in itself. This forces player to make tough but interesting decisions, do I craft a better shield, heat sink and relay, or do I improve my repair unit? Perhaps one could craft a 12 sector drive or a more fuel efficient one, more accurate anti-missile system. Perhaps a build constructor that builds quicker. I really feel something like this could allow players just a little more customization and limiting it to only 3 slots stops the uber ship layout, you would really have to decide what you want to focus on.

2. Larger asteroid fields, ones you can fly through for minutes, not seconds. If there are ones like this I haven't seen them yet and I have flown through the one's in Rucker and Sol.

3. Away to affect opponent's radar, thus making long range detection difficult. If you fly into an asteroid field it becomes harder to spot you on the radar amongst the background noise. You wanna find someone get closer and use your eyes. This could also provide another option for choosing certain engines, as some has less of a signature. Hell messing with any system could be fun, imagine forcing your opponent to do some manual aiming

4. Real contraband, build constructors and TW's are not contraband

but I also know this is a touchy issue. Smuggling is an untouched gem that could really be fleshed out in EM.

5. Being able to fly closer to things, like the super structure of a station or capitol ship, I don't mean inside of the Death Star. I have often been soaring like a bird through space only to bounce off what I thought was a gap in the research station, would love to be able to fly through more things.

That's just my two cents worth, hope you enjoyed.

[Edited on 5-19-2015 by Oblivion Wolf]

Beta_ver · Post by **Beta_ver** » Tue May 19, 2015 9:26 am

Hi all.
For my part, it's pretty basic stuff, a couple of things that don't seem quite right :
- Possibility to control main engine thrust with the throttle (currently only speed setting available, no main engine control possible in inertial)
- Make stations and cities docking a bit more realistic, meaning that you can crash into them and be destroyed (including running into station's docking bay) if you come in too fast over 500 for example as it seems to happen for the construct. That would prevent jumping from within a station (that I always do but it's not pretty) or "crashing" into a city's docking bay at 1400.

In the same line, ships can collide together without any consequences, allow some possibility to die in a ship to ship collision, I don't think the occupants or hardware would resist a full speed head on collision, shield or not. Damage to the other ship would be proportional to their compared masses vs angle of collision vs current shields power (if you collide with a destroyer while piloting a lamprey for example, you would take as damage destroyer's mass * added speedsÂ² * angle - your remaining shield power, destroyer would take your mass * added speedsÂ² * angle - his remaining shield power). This would allow interesting scenarios such as kamikaze possibility to finish a big ship, or deliberately run into your opponent during PvP as a desperate maneuver ...

Like Wolf said, some larger asteroid fields would be nice too.
Also the radar seems to detect quite easily, maybe put some restrictions there, meaning for example a ship at full stop, with hud off, right next to an asteroid, would not be detected except by visual contact, but would be detected as soon as the instruments are turned back on and/or engine turned on. another situation, you come to full stop or low speed and turn everything off like above but you are in empty space, then reduce opponent's detection of a "dead ship" to the same range as it would detect for a container or escape pod. But maybe it's already the case, I don't know, never came around to test this.

Cheers

[Edited on 19-5-2015 by Beta_ver]

Post by **DaveK** » Tue May 19, 2015 5:41 pm

From post: 177004, Topic: tid=10221, author=Beta_ver wrote:Also the radar seems to detect quite easily, maybe put some restrictions there, meaning for example a ship at full stop, with hud off, right next to an asteroid, would not be detected except by visual contact, but would be detected as soon as the instruments are turned back on and/or engine turned on.

Great idea! But turning the HUD off is just that - you turn off the display. To make the ship 'invisible' to scanners you would have to turn everything bar minimal life support off and give a bit of time for the hull to cool down. That would take time and it would take time to reboot the ship - meaning that you wouldn't just be able to park next to an asteroid, press 'H' twice and disappear.

It would add a great feel to sneaky combat and allow ambushing - I remember a scene from an early episode of 'Space Above & Beyond' when the Wild Cards did it. Working in a team you could lure opponents into a prepped ambush zone. Vice would have to code a 'shut down' and a 'system boot' and provide a couple of buttons, but payback could be high in terms of gameplay.

There are already stealth packs and stealth generators that let you hide - even flying around - great for scanning cap ship contracts solo. Your suggestion is a whole new area of being sneaky!

Beta_ver · Post by **Beta_ver** » Tue May 19, 2015 8:38 pm

Yeah, turning off the hud was the closest thing to complete shutdown I could think of in the existing version. Indeed having the boot sequence coded would be awesome.
Tactically though, it's not the boot that's most annoying to me, it's the fact that ok, you can't be seen, but you can't see either. That means that either you have to have the target come within visual contact to know it's there, and if you can see the enemy, the enemy can see you (yeah, boot your ship, good idea ... hope it takes less than 30 seconds), or have someone transmit updates via comm, in receive mode, cuz if you transmit you're detected. I was thinking of Galactica with those silons waiting in ambush in the asteroid field.
Now the boot time has to be thought through to be not too short to make it tense but not too long so as not to render it tactically useless since you're very vulnerable then.

Edit : and maybe a boot time per frame.

[Edited on 19-5-2015 by Beta_ver]

PaulB · Post by **PaulB** » Tue May 19, 2015 11:16 pm

From post: 177004, Topic: tid=10221, author=Beta_ver wrote:Hi all.
For my part, it's pretty basic stuff, a couple of things that don't - SNIP -

In the same line, ships can collide together without any consequences, allow some possibility to die in a ship to ship collision, I don't think the occupants or hardware would resist a full speed head on collision, shield or not. Damage to the other ship would be proportional to their compared masses vs angle of collision vs current shields power (if you collide with a destroyer while piloting a lamprey for example, you would take as damage destroyer's mass * added speedsÂ² * angle - your remaining shield power, destroyer would take your mass * added speedsÂ² * angle - his remaining shield power). This would allow interesting scenarios such as kamikaze possibility to finish a big ship, or deliberately run into your opponent during PvP as a desperate maneuver ...

- SNIP -

Cheers

[Edited on 19-5-2015 by Beta_ver]

Your 2nd idea there I don't like because in contract AI ship often collide with you and I don't want to die cause of stupid AI dodging about all over the place.
And what about the times jumping out of a station when an AI decides to come in or by.
No, to me that would be annoying and a few of those would prompt me to just chuck the game.
As I see it that's another thing the shields are for is to take an occasional glancing blowof a ship or asterroid - note I said glancing blow and two ships with two shields = more of a cushion like an airbag.
But I was flying fast on one combat mission and couldn't get out of the way of a friendly CAP ships side deflectors or whatever they are and I exploded - so there is some ship to ship collisions that will kill you now.
It might even be if you fly head on into another ship the much weaker one might die - I don't know.

Beta_ver · Post by **Beta_ver** » Wed May 20, 2015 7:38 am

I guess we need to do some crash tests now

Regarding the shutdown/powerup sequence, maybe more simple for the coding, couldn't we just press a key, shutdown, then press again, power up, this starts you ship with shields charge at 0 and energy at 0, the time it takes to recharge could symbolize the ship's boot ?

(and have a specific charging time just for the boot of the ship, independent of the shield/energy balance setting, meaning setting at -5/5 or 5/-5 wont make any difference, it just takes X seconds for systems to charge and come online.)

As for the collisions, yes it would make it harder, and I agree this would indeed change a lot of habits and could be frustrating when getting run into by AI ships. But at least the station's op message saying traffic is heavy and to be cautious would make some sense, as it would make sense to have a clear path before you jump. The Angle parameter would indeed take in account that you can hit another ship/obstacle with your shields and not suffer any/too much damage if it's not head on as you kind of bounce off or skid by. on a head on collision at 2500 added speeds through, even if the ship itself survives, the deceleration would make you look like a spilled tomato juice on the hud. Adjusting properly that angle parameter would allow all ranges of damage due to collisions to be adjusted as well, so it doesn't mean that if you touch something you die, we could determine what the proper multiplier is for fun game play so as to punish senseless pilot's behavior (such as jumping from inside a station without lining up with an exit) but not get killed if you run into something smaller such as a ship you size during a combat.

[Edited on 20-5-2015 by Beta_ver]

Post by **DaveK** » Wed May 20, 2015 10:02 pm

From post: 177039, Topic: tid=10221, author=Beta_ver wrote:Tactically though, it's not the boot that's most annoying to me, it's the fact that ok, you can't be seen, but you can't see either. That means that either you have to have the target come within visual contact to know it's there, and if you can see the enemy, the enemy can see you (yeah, boot your ship, good idea ... hope it takes less than 30 seconds), or have someone transmit updates via comm, in receive mode, cuz if you transmit you're detected. I was thinking of Galactica with those silons waiting in ambush in the asteroid field.

Have a passive scanner fitted - short range and not as accurate as active scanning - sort of like a sub in silent running mode

Post by **DaveK** » Wed May 20, 2015 10:04 pm

From post: 177055, Topic: tid=10221, author=PaulB wrote:
From post: 177004, Topic: tid=10221, author=Beta_ver wrote:Hi all.
For my part, it's pretty basic stuff, a couple of things that don't - SNIP -

In the same line, ships can collide together without any consequences, allow some possibility to die in a ship to ship collision, I don't think the occupants or hardware would resist a full speed head on collision, shield or not. Damage to the other ship would be proportional to their compared masses vs angle of collision vs current shields power (if you collide with a destroyer while piloting a lamprey for example, you would take as damage destroyer's mass * added speedsÂ² * angle - your remaining shield power, destroyer would take your mass * added speedsÂ² * angle - his remaining shield power). This would allow interesting scenarios such as kamikaze possibility to finish a big ship, or deliberately run into your opponent during PvP as a desperate maneuver ...

- SNIP -

Cheers

[Edited on 19-5-2015 by Beta_ver]
Your 2nd idea there I don't like because in contract AI ship often collide with you and I don't want to die cause of stupid AI dodging about all over the place.
And what about the times jumping out of a station when an AI decides to come in or by.
No, to me that would be annoying and a few of those would prompt me to just chuck the game.
As I see it that's another thing the shields are for is to take an occasional glancing blowof a ship or asterroid - note I said glancing blow and two ships with two shields = more of a cushion like an airbag.
But I was flying fast on one combat mission and couldn't get out of the way of a friendly CAP ships side deflectors or whatever they are and I exploded - so there is some ship to ship collisions that will kill you now.
It might even be if you fly head on into another ship the much weaker one might die - I don't know.

Perhaps some level of shield damage per collision? - you would have to be in lots of collisions before you'd die, but getting bumped a lot could leaver you vulnerable.

Beta_ver · Post by **Beta_ver** » Wed May 20, 2015 10:46 pm

From post: 177149, Topic: tid=10221, author=DaveK wrote:
From post: 177039, Topic: tid=10221, author=Beta_ver wrote:Tactically though, it's not the boot that's most annoying to me, it's the fact that ok, you can't be seen, but you can't see either. That means that either you have to have the target come within visual contact to know it's there, and if you can see the enemy, the enemy can see you (yeah, boot your ship, good idea ... hope it takes less than 30 seconds), or have someone transmit updates via comm, in receive mode, cuz if you transmit you're detected. I was thinking of Galactica with those silons waiting in ambush in the asteroid field.
Have a passive scanner fitted - short range and not as accurate as active scanning - sort of like a sub in silent running mode

That's a cool idea ! New piece of equipment !

XenonSurf · Post by **XenonSurf** » Mon Aug 10, 2015 2:15 pm

I know this idea will not please most of the veterans, but although I'm a passionate of EM for many years, I cannot afford to play EM during a long extend of time without pausing the game, then taking my pilot again etc. I have made a serie of notes in order to get me easily familiar again with difficult procedures of EM, but I realize that the whole Combat aspect is very difficult to get aquained with once you leave the game for a longer time.

I often wished that there were 'Difficulty Levels' for the Combat as for the FLIGHT MODEL used. I know the flight model is a Newtonian one, very realistic, but alas too realistic in combat. I would highly like a challenging non-Newtonian flight model for combat to be selected in a 'Easy' difficulty level that can be switched to 'Normal' later on.
Such an option would also help any player that doesn't focus on combat in the first place, but wants to do a serie of missions (e.g. mining or non-combat) or Exploration in EM and still have an interesting - but not too hard - a situation when it comes to combat. I just want to emphasize that the difficulty is not so much the lack of weapons or adequate ship frames (these can be changed for the player's scope in the shipyard), but rather has to do with the FLIGHT MODEL during combat making it a difficult endeavor if you are not in the game for many, many days in a row.

By reading topics about EM out of this forum, I think that EM would attract many more players if such an easier flight model would be implemented at least as 1 of a choice for the player.

Greetings,
XenonS

[Edited on 8-10-2015 by XenonSurf]

Beta_ver · Post by **Beta_ver** » Mon Aug 10, 2015 4:19 pm

Having different flight model levels would not really be fair in MP. Maybe for SP, definitely not for MP, it's part of the fun in my sense.
As for combat, I would suggest to get trained if you like to get into it, some players will do that for you, or even just fight pvp as much as possible and get tips from the veterans. Having a simpler flight model won't help you much against other players if they know what they are doing.
I for my part sit around Talison WZ and can provide trainings to those who like, usually in the end you are a threat to most players, the IA will not stand much of a chance against you.

Cheers.

Post by **Marvin** » Mon Aug 10, 2015 4:21 pm

There are two "flight models" ... IDS and inertial. The veterans make good use of inertial while the new guys usually get along very well by remaining is IDS ... which is a lot like flying a fighter jet. To mitigate any other difficulty with combat, you also have at your disposal the various stages of hostility in star systems. Keep away from Moderate and Hostile systems until you can handle yourself and your ship.

XenonSurf · Post by **XenonSurf** » Mon Aug 10, 2015 6:45 pm

Thank you Beta_ver and Marvin for your tips. I should have said that I don't play MP.
Yes, I'm aware that there are some 'quiet' systems to (re)-start with, but I think I will look for some threads and docs pointing out the combat differences in IDS and Inertial Mode.
I know that you can make usage of the IDS Multiplier (up to 5x I think), but Is this enough to keep a decent chance in following enemies and missile avoidance?
I generally use IDS in planetary fights, but the Inertial mode is the most useful and demanding, alas there are so many factors to watch and infos to track in the Hud, all this while flying and pointing in 2 different directions; your situational awereness gets satured pretty quickly, this is what makes it so difficult IMO.

Thanks,
XenonS

[Edited on 8-10-2015 by XenonSurf]

PaulB · Post by **PaulB** » Mon Aug 10, 2015 8:27 pm

Anything over 1800 - 2000 will outrun missiles unlessmaybe the are coming from ahead.
But a good example is if you want to pass thru Fauston or Thuban (both hostile), then while in Sapphire set IDS *5 then set inertial mode and press 0 for max possible speed (depening on your frame and Engines could be anywhere from ~1200 - 3600+) then right-click the appropriate Gate in the Nav Map and with your Heading set to either 0 or 180 and Pitch 0 then Jump.
Once I come out of the Jump in Thuban/Fauston if I'm not already at 2400+ then if there are a lot of hostiles I will afterburn to 3000+ and you will leave them behind and then you can look in the Nav Map and find your next Jump Gate to (Talison or Virgo or Pices or where ever you want to go).
I'm practically never hit by fire and I'm never destroyed if I am.
It's really not that hard.

[Edited on 8-10-2015 by PaulB]

Post by **DaveK** » Mon Aug 10, 2015 9:20 pm

From post: 179656, Topic: tid=10221, author=XenonSurf wrote:Thank you Beta_ver and Marvin for your tips. I should have said that I don't play MP.
Yes, I'm aware that there are some 'quiet' systems to (re)-start with, but I think I will look for some threads and docs pointing out the combat differences in IDS and Inertial Mode.
I know that you can make usage of the IDS Multiplier (up to 5x I think), but Is this enough to keep a decent chance in following enemies and missile avoidance?
I generally use IDS in planetary fights, but the Inertial mode is the most useful and demanding, alas there are so many factors to watch and infos to track in the Hud, all this while flying and pointing in 2 different directions; your situational awereness gets satured pretty quickly, this is what makes it so difficult IMO.

Thanks,
XenonS

[Edited on 8-10-2015 by XenonSurf]

On SeeJay's site there's the Hints&Tips Guide. Beware it does have some spoilers but on the whole they are hard to read accidentally. It does have a big section on contact advice and tips from experienced players.