I must say that I found the game to be rather easy. However, I was raised with a flight stick in hand, and was raised on Wing Commander and Falcon 4.0, so your experiences may vary. However, I think I know what may be one of your problems- you may not be trading. Trading is sooo much easier to make quick cash than fighting. You load up on a good commodity, and jet for the destination. When your trade lane is disrupted/ attacked by a base, just hit the afterburners, and run away to the nearest trade lane. Also, when Juni calls you to come do a mission, ignore her until you think you have enough money to go on. You can do this by just not landing on the planet where she's located. Remember, it's better in video games to be a living coward than a dead hero

"If there are other intelligent beings in the Universe, why aren't they here?". - Enrico Fermi

(Also known as the Fermi Paradox ...)

if you are neutral to the corsairs (though i doubt it) i would suggest you take this traderoute:
New London (New London) => Cadiz Base (Omega-5)
sell Artifacts on London: 1147
profit: 1012
buy Light Arms on London: 350

Cadiz Base (Omega-5) => New London (New London)
sell Light Arms on Cadiz: 840
profit: 490
buy artifacts on Cadiz: 135

takes about 14 minutes and gets you an overall profit of 1502 per minute and cargo unit.
(the jumphole to Omega-5 is in F6 in the Cambridge System, Cadiz Base is in D5)

if you are not neutral to the corsairs, id suggest this one:

Glasgow Outpost (Leeds)
buy Alien Organisms: 1400

Cambridge Research Station (Cambridge)
sell Alien Organisms: 2000
profit: 600

Planet Cambridge (Cambridge)
buy Diamonds: 879

Planet Leeds (Leeds)
sell Diamonds: 1275
profit: 396

overall profit: 996

should be the best (legal) traderoute within bretonia.


(wenn du noch weitere fragen hast, kannst du mir ja mailen )

Thanks to all the people who were kind enough to offer me advice

Seems like it was a medium-term problem, between about levels 6 & 9, when I probably had bad equipment for my play-style, and hadn't stopped to trade enough.

I turned off the damage for 1 level, traded Diamonds from Cambridge to Leeds, and Optronics from Leeds to Cambridge, bought myself a well equiped heavy fighter with the proceeds, turned the damage back on, and now I'm level 14 & everything seems remarkably easy

I even got through the race first try

I made sure I was a millionaire before (or around) level 8 in the single player campaign. That helps. Also, this game seems to be dynamically scalable. If you play one of the campaign missions and fail when you reload the difficulty is somewhat less. Fail again and it scales the difficulty down again. I though it was just a matter of my perception, but by the last mission it was pretty obvious that the game gets easier if you fail. You do have to factor in fatigue too, which makes it harder the longer you play. But on the other hand the practice effect kicks in too which makes it easier the more experience you have.

Ne frustra vixisse videar

Well ... I had to turn the damage off again in Mission 10.

Destroying the ship prototype itself was no problem at all, but I always got destroyed myself seconds later, whilst my allies were busy talking crap, and before the new waypoint became targetable. I tried it about 10 times, always with the same result, even if permanently pressing F & G, so I figured that was just a heap of crap and turned the damage off.

Anyone know how to finish that mission without cheating?

just fly around behind the shipyards untill your friend blows them all up

gee, that guy's cool.

Gah - I had to turn the damage off again for Mission 11 too :/
After the first fight I had no Shield Batteries left, so the second of the 5 fights was already suicide
Just like the other missions I tried to do it 10 times unsuccessfully with damage on before turning the damage off.

Having to turn the damage off every mission is beginning to seriously **** me off.

I don't understand why there aren't any difficulty options for single player mode.
Easy, Normal, Hard.
Is that really too much to ask?

every battleship has a "blind spot", where not only will it not be able to hit you, but nothing else will either. On the Rhineland ones, it is right on the front of the ship...there should be an opening just big enough to fly your ship into, where you can hide out and wait for the next objective to come up. The nomad ships can hide you right under those long curved spikes, Kusari ones between their underside fins(or topside, too), liberty ones right near the docking bay, and same with bretonian ones(though you never fight a bretonian one). That should help you stay out of harm's way to collect yourself, let your shields, power, and thruster recharge, repair your hull, or whatever else you want to do. Then pop out again when you need to and complete the mission.

Reaper: $200,000,000.
Rockets: $100,000
The look on that pilot's face when you launch a full pod of screamers up his tailpipe: priceless

My advice is don't rush into the next mission right when it becomes available. Trade your ass off, and buy whatever the best fighter in the region is, and your level will let you. I felt like I went into some of the mid game missions a bit underpowered- mission 10-11-12.

Strafe. Shut off auto leveling (L by default I think) Use engine kill - the AI hates that. Afterburn like crazy. Use asteroids and mines to your benefit.
Release mines right at the end of a head on attack, 9 time sout of 10 they will run right into them.
Later the ultimate cheese factor is go head on, no afterburn and launch torpedoes at incoming fighters.

Dont always take missions, i spent a fair ammount of time just going exploring and killing whatever got in my way. Gets your dogfighting skills up to par, and gets you more places to trade. Nevermind finding a wreck or two can really boost your credits.

If you have issues aiming, go with high speed weapons. If you have good aim go with they heavy damage low refire rate. But in my experience early in the game the more shots you can put on target the better you are doing...of course later in the game, I found the heavy firepower much more useful (like the last 3 missions).

Don't panic with the shield restores- I never use mine until I'm 2/3 empty. sometimes I will let my shields fail if the odds are only 3 to 1.
If you are using light fighters, find high ticket items to trade with a huge payback-it is the only way to make money with a lt fighter and trading. Stay away from the move Water or Food stuff.

Become friendly with Corsairs. hunt down Red Hessians like the dogs they are. One very quick money maker traderoute (see earlier post) and eventually the Titan.

If you are really dying that quick, upgrade your shields as soon as possible, I also recommend a Heavy Fighter because it can take more punishment. A Lt fighter is like a scalpel, a heavy is like a hammer.

You are new here aren't you?
Uh huh.

In dogfights, use your afterburners and strafe when you shield gets low, else take the damage but make sure you take at least one or two opponents out (advance stunpulse is essential - takes out shield in a couple of hits)

As others say, trade or do mini missions as much as you can between the story line missions to get the best equipment as you move around the galaxy.

Cheating is for wimps.

Here's hoping for reincarnation!

I still can't find the file for the invincibility hack. I'm using WinME...

Ever thought of engineering an Über shield? Then take some trips in the Zone 21 minefield.
That is not so hard, just be a little easy on the values, otherwise you would be in - (minus) on capacity!

There is no problem that can't be resolved with a weapon, if it don't resolve, try a bigger one.

Mustaphina

Obvious questions but....

Are you targetting the enemy ship or the target cross hairs in front of it? You need to target the crosshairs.

Are you finishing off one enemy before moving on to another? Concentrating your fire on one (or two) at a time and wiping them out before moving on quickly reduces the volume of crap they fire at you. Left click on an enemy and the locator arrow appears larger to help you find it again to finish it off.

PB

go to http://codes.ign.com/ob2/068/011/011219.html and scroll to the bottom of the page and you can get no damage on your hull