frustration is mounting

[Philosaur]

First: I REALLY want to like this game.

There are many really cool things about this game, but the "what the hell just happened?" and "what am I supposed to do now?" moments are piling up and eroding whatever fun-factor I'm seeing.

For instance, I just completed the first IMG escort mission, where, like others have mentioned, the "2" enemy ships I'm supposed to encounter turned into at least 6. Not that big a deal. But then I get a mission message saying there's a hidden cache of Exodus missiles on Olympus Sigma. The coords given were somewhere out in space, and not on a planet surface, so they didn't seem to help. I looked for a bit, but got frustrated and lost interest because of the clunky navigation interface.

I went to dock at the nearest station to refuel, and upon trying to leave, found myself stuck. I turned on and off the IDS, tried afterburners, directional thrust, nothing. My speedometer is saying I'm going 2500+, but I'm not moving out of the blue force field. Finally, I bump my way lose somehow (again, no idea what happened), and was on my way.


So I go on to Cerulean. I've been there before, flown around, done races, some combat, etc. I go to dock at the Cerulean Construct base. I line up with one of the hangars and start to move inside. I've docked at this kind of enclosed hangar before, so I think I know what I'm doing. Apparently I was wrong, because I get one warning hoot before my ship explodes.

Now, I understand that there's a learning curve for this game. I can handle learning curves. What I can't handle is negative reinforcement that has no apparent reason and no feedback telling me what I did wrong.

Maybe I'm getting stupid in my old age--but am I really the only one who this is happening to?

[Philosaur]

Almost forgot two other random issues: I have dual monitors and the mouse keeps wandering onto the other monitor (always in the middle of combat!), and someone in another thread said to try the "locked" screen mode. I did that, and it worked perfectly...for a while. Next time I loaded the game, the mouse wandered again. I went to check my settings, and the locked screen mode was still on, but it just didn't work anymore.

Also, the autopilot navigation sometimes just fails. I go to the nav map, click a destination, click auto pilot, and my ship swings around, but it never jumps. I try hitting the launch button myself, and it says it can't jump without navigation coorddinates (or calculations, or something).

[Rush]

I think you have a small problem with docking. The surfaces of the docking areas of the stations can be sometimes...tricky to avoid if you don't dock using the correct vector. I have the same problem with construction stations, sometimes.
Try to be as stabilized as possibile, try to line with the entrance and use low speeds. At low speeds there's no danger of a lethal collision, so you can try many times and practice

For the navigation thing: try to use also your eyes well, not only the map. Maybe the map could use some more magnification, but it works also as it already is.
The enemies can be more than expected, because other ships often jump in. If you have a bad reputation among their "clan" or corporation or whatever, they'll attack you.
If you don't want to fight n enemies (although it is fun ) , try to remember what enemies are your target, and destroy only them. The contract will be completed even if there are still "red guys" alive.

Also, you can try MP (multiplayer). You'll often find someone who will help you, and maybe accompany you during contracts. Or at least, I would

[MMaggio]

Joining MP is a good solution. It is not a game of free-for-all nor will you be pounced upon by other players, Romulan excepted.
Most players are glad to help and even the server can answer questions. If they can do it, so can you. For one thing, try right clicking on a map icon, level ship to zero pitch and then jump. You should arrive lined up for entry to stations. One of the probs you mentioned above sounds like you might have accidently hit the "M" key and that kept the engines giong.
At any rate, pop on the server and pester away with questions. We will be glad to help
"Today's noob is tomorrow's ace"!

[SeeJay]

Welcome aboard. It's really cool in MP. JOIN!!

[Sinbad]

With regards to your autopilot problem, I've had a similar situation. I found out that sometimes instead of autopilot activating, it would activate the "fly in formation with targeted ship". For that reason my ship would just swing around to follow some other ship. I don't know why the two commands are getting mixed up... I use speech recognition for this command so there may be some confusion as a result of that. If this is happening to you, next time look closely at the HUD to the lower let of the gunsight to see if it is saying "autopilot" or "formation".

[warsign]

Everything works fine for me guys...

Philosaur, give yourself another chance and join Mp...

Your problems are very easy...

Nice flying...

[Edited on 10-2-2010 by warsign]