Might purchase this

[marcuso]

Hello all. I played the demo and I was pretty impressed. I have a few concerns, however, that I hope you all will try to answer in as unbiased a way as possible so that I may decide whether to purchase or not.

1.) I noticed that, when mining, it's really easy to just mine and mine at the same asteroid. Do asteroids ever run out of mining material? This seems like an easy way to just earn a lot of money and doesn't really provide much of a challenge.

2.) I really like the notion of flying a capital ship, but Renegades only seems to allow you to build your own ship. Does this mean that you can't ever really have a huge capital ship, complete with deadly weaponry and clunky controls? Is it still possible to custom build yet still be feasible?

3.) I crashed into objects about 30 times trying to use the Navigation Console. Is there a trick to doing this in order not to collide with objects? It was kind of a turn off having to land about 10 km away and having to fly the entire distance just so I wouldn't crash. I'm not a big fan of spending 10 minutes just trying to land somewhere...

4.) Kind of continuing on from question 3, is there a way to dock sooner than 3 - 5 minutes after jumping near? I know I'm a noob, so please excuse anything I may have overlooked something...but it seems like all docking takes a pretty long time.

5.) The missions seem kind of limited to only either a) kill enemies, b) race, or c) clean solar arrays/clear asteroid fields. Do they ever get more exciting or difficult (aside from the main story)?

6.) I did a few contracts and already had enough money to upgrade my ships to the third or fourth tier upgrades. This was all within about 35 minutes. Does this say much for how long it will take to make the "ultimate ship" for what I plan to do? Or does the cost go up exponentially?

I really appreciate anyone taking the time to answer these questions. The community here seems really cool which is nice. If there's anything anyone wants to add, feel free!

Thanks!

[Le Sauvage]

Jump into multi-player. Most experienced players are willing to show you the ropes, and maybe a few tricks in getting better equipment.

[Edited on 6-26-2008 by Le Sauvage]

[Edited on 6-26-2008 by Vice]

[tha_rami]

1.) I noticed that, when mining, it's really easy to just mine and mine at the same asteroid. Do asteroids ever run out of mining material? This seems like an easy way to just earn a lot of money and doesn't really provide much of a challenge.

Well, the point of mining, like cleaning shelves, isn't that it's hard, it's boring for most. The revenues, like cleaning shelves, aren't very high as well. Basically, the only places you'll make good amounts of money from mining are places where hostiles are crawling the mining fields and believe me, that adds quite some challenge.

2.) I really like the notion of flying a capital ship, but Renegades only seems to allow you to build your own ship. Does this mean that you can't ever really have a huge capital ship, complete with deadly weaponry and clunky controls? Is it still possible to custom build yet still be feasible?

No, this is not possible yet yes, I agree with you it would be cool. However, if you upgrade to the last ship tiers, you'll definitely find some semi-carrier style ships, like the Leviathan (also called the lorry by some).

3.) I crashed into objects about 30 times trying to use the Navigation Console. Is there a trick to doing this in order not to collide with objects? It was kind of a turn off having to land about 10 km away and having to fly the entire distance just so I wouldn't crash. I'm not a big fan of spending 10 minutes just trying to land somewhere...

First tip is rightclicking on an item, which will place you in the most appropriate location to directly move to that location. For stations, do mind your pitch should be set to 0 (check by the vertical numbers ranging from -90 to 90 central on the HUD). Planets take time to land on, although someone recently found out a trick to still land a planet immediately without burning up.

4.) Kind of continuing on from question 3, is there a way to dock sooner than 3 - 5 minutes after jumping near? I know I'm a noob, so please excuse anything I may have overlooked something...but it seems like all docking takes a pretty long time.

Takes about 12 seconds to jump in and dock, 7 seconds to grab whatever I need and 5 seconds to jump out. So, yes, if you're good, it takes about 30 seconds to dock, do your stuff and undock.

5.) The missions seem kind of limited to only either a) kill enemies, b) race, or c) clean solar arrays/clear asteroid fields. Do they ever get more exciting or difficult (aside from the main story)?

Espionage and Carrier Assault and the like get pretty intense later on, but I guess you haven't moved into the areas that provide those yet. Search for hostile locations for those and pack up on missiles.

6.) I did a few contracts and already had enough money to upgrade my ships to the third or fourth tier upgrades. This was all within about 35 minutes. Does this say much for how long it will take to make the "ultimate ship" for what I plan to do? Or does the cost go up exponentially?

Costs go up exponentially, and depending on your skills, your wealthbuilding should be able to keep the pace up a bit. First playthrough cost me two months till a Centurion with stats maxed out, but only because I made it a challenge to explore as much as I can instead of build wealth. Lot of nice secrets, and the Beacon quest is quite fun too.

[verbosity]

6.) I did a few contracts and already had enough money to upgrade my ships to the third or fourth tier upgrades. This was all within about 35 minutes. Does this say much for how long it will take to make the "ultimate ship" for what I plan to do? Or does the cost go up exponentially?

a good pilot who has already played the game can get up to the highest ship in about a couple of hours from scratch, everybody else would have to have about 6 hours ( or more ) to get kitted out ( assuming that they were going only for building their ship up and do nothing else), there is also the amount of time you spend searching for the renegades path ( I think the best I've heard of is about 6 hours), or finding other secret locations, as these are the only places that have the 'super' weapons and goodies......

tha_rami is an exceptional games player, I doubt any new player would be able to beat his 2 months without either cheating , or a lot of help

[Vice]

Rami provided great answers, I'll add some more details:

1.) I noticed that, when mining, it's really easy to just mine and mine at the same asteroid. Do asteroids ever run out of mining material? This seems like an easy way to just earn a lot of money and doesn't really provide much of a challenge.

Asteroids are many times larger than your ship, let alone your cargo bay, they can carry numerous units of materials far beyond what you could carry in dozens of trips. It is pretty easy to mine, but it doesn't earn you a lot of money in the grand scheme of the game's economic system. Mining in safe space is not challenging, nor should it be, that option is provided as a way for new players to get started making some low risk money. Mining provides a much better challenge (and pays much better) in hostile systems while you try to recover material while avoiding getting killed. If you want more of a challenge, try mining in Arvoch, other areas of Pearl, or even Thuban.

2.) I really like the notion of flying a capital ship, but Renegades only seems to allow you to build your own ship. Does this mean that you can't ever really have a huge capital ship, complete with deadly weaponry and clunky controls? Is it still possible to custom build yet still be feasible?

Flying capital ships is not part of this game, which focuses on lone-wolf mercenary actions with relatively agile ships. You can build a larger ship with poor handling designed more for hauling cargo, if desired.

3.) I crashed into objects about 30 times trying to use the Navigation Console. Is there a trick to doing this in order not to collide with objects? It was kind of a turn off having to land about 10 km away and having to fly the entire distance just so I wouldn't crash. I'm not a big fan of spending 10 minutes just trying to land somewhere...

Right click instead of left click to lock the nav/jump point directly to an object. Also, learn to flip the map if you want to manually plot nav/jump points to make sure you get close enough to the object with all 3 coordinates to make it a short trip.

4.) Kind of continuing on from question 3, is there a way to dock sooner than 3 - 5 minutes after jumping near? I know I'm a noob, so please excuse anything I may have overlooked something...but it seems like all docking takes a pretty long time.

Right click on the station's map icon, set pitch to 0, jump.

5.) The missions seem kind of limited to only either a) kill enemies, b) race, or c) clean solar arrays/clear asteroid fields. Do they ever get more exciting or difficult (aside from the main story)?

You'll get more variety as you travel to systems with different economies and reputation levels. Also, consider you don't have to limit yourself just to contracts. You can complete many new and different objectives on your own terms. That is, create your own contract objectives. This game rewards players who 'think outside of the box' and go beyond the standard operations of gameplay. Contracts are just one way to earn money in the game with known factors. Things get more interesting when you take risks on your own and formulate your own objective strategies.

6.) I did a few contracts and already had enough money to upgrade my ships to the third or fourth tier upgrades. This was all within about 35 minutes. Does this say much for how long it will take to make the "ultimate ship" for what I plan to do? Or does the cost go up exponentially?

Depends on what you plan to do. But the costs do go up quickly and you'll soon find that a few million is pocket change in other systems where the more powerful ship frames are available. Generally speaking (based on my discussions with players through e-mail) new players who have never played Evochron before take around a few weeks of casual gameplay time to earn their first mid-level frame with decent equipment. To get a Hunter or higher frame with high end equipment can often take a month or two. That timeframe will likely be much shorter if you play more often. If you want to eliminate the challenge, there are shortcuts available in the strategy guide and you can get advice from other players to make the process much faster. Some players prefer the challenege though, so it depends on what approach you want to take.

[Edited on 6-26-2008 by Vice]

[marcuso]

Thanks a lot for all of your responses, guys. I'm going to go ahead with the purchase. It's really refreshing to see that the game's creator makes time in his day to answer questions for noobs like myself.

Is there any way to 'insure' your ship? What if you die in Multiplayer? Do you lose everything? Thanks!

[Vice]

Thanks for your support. Everything is preserved to your last save point, except for certain events in multiplayer that force a save to prevent undoing... preventing some exploits/cheating. As most of the experienced players will tell you, it's a good idea to save your profile in multiple slots anyway just in case you need to undo a bad decision or get lost. And always be sure to backup your profiles frequently.

[Poodle]

Right click on the station's map icon, set pitch to 0, jump.

Turn off your IDS. Saves fuel, and lets you continue moving forward at 400MPS+ coming out of the jump, causing you to dock in a couple of seconds.
Enjoy the game; can't wait to see you in multiplayer.

[warsign]

Waiting for you in MP...Welcome..