I'm assuming no. 6 is a bug?

8. engine kill while in cruise speed keeps you at a higher speed. Doesn't work with go-to and dock commands

Practice zero-delay docking techniques. You can fly right up to a tradelane or jumpgate before hitting the dock button. For fun, I start shooting off into space when I hit F3, and use the number of shots fired before the dock activates to gauge the time elapsed before the dock activates. More than 1 second is bad.

You can also zero-delay dock on planetary docking rings (thanks to Sherlog for teaching me this). Fly into the ring, between the pincers and between the two striped 'pegs' on the left and right, and hit dock. This only works if you are facing the planet - if you are off-target, the game will loop you around to the front of the docking ring instead.

You can hit F2 with no target selected (hitting Ctrl-T clears your target selection) and your ship will automatically dodge obstacles while still flying in whatever direction you point it.


Combat techniques...

Fire-and-forget tactics for missiles and torpedoes: Line up a target at 1000m away, fly straight towards it at thruster speed, and launch a heavy missile or torpedo. Hit it with guns (Stunpulses/Debilitators are nice) until the shield is depleted. Then kill the engine, and you can turn to acquire another target while your torpedo is still on the way to the first target; the engine kill keeps you flying straight towards them so they fly straight towards you and don't dodge the torpedo. You can kill fighters as fast as the torpedo tube can fire, if you're good.

The infamous getaway tactic: Thrust to 200 speed, kill engine, turn around to face enemy fighters (flying backwards), and they'll break off pursuit leaving you in safety.

You can also strafe when approacing an enemy head-on to throw off their aim. Throws off your own aim a little bit but the crosshair stays accurate so shoot at that.

Map a key to Auto-Leveling and turn that off before entering dogfights. It's much easier to acquire new targets when the universe isn't spinning around you. Do turn it back on once you're done or you might get very confused.

Don't forget the hotkeys R to acquire nearest target, T and shift-T for next and previous targets (in the currently selected list.)

Also, I map the ~ key to fire torpedo, easier to hit than shift-Q.

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Edited by - T-hawk on 17-08-2003 04:53:39

Edited by - T-hawk on 17-08-2003 04:58:07

T-hawk: For me the game will let me zero-delay dock facing whichever way I'm at, always funny to watch my ship going in sideways or backwards or any other odd angle, great way to get away from annoying pkers

Poison From The Past

found something else that may be of interest, when you go to dock with a jumpgate, and someone else is using it, fly to the middle of the jumpgate, where the hazy stuff appears, then join formation with whoever is docking with the gate, you'll immediately start jumping

im making toast

i prefer hit-and-run tactic

I've only had that going-down-sideways thing happen to me in a Humpback. I found out about the fast docking technique on my first day of gameplay - I got bored of having my ship slow down too far from the docking target.

This happen to any of you guys? - I thrust ahead into a trade lane, just ahead of someone who's docking using the normal slow way... I start the trade lane sequence about 3 or 4 seconds before they do, and they end up passing me anyway. I had a HUGE freighter pass right THROUGH me. I ended up exiting the lane inside the ship, phased... it was alright until I got out of it... out of curiosity, I ran into it again, but it was solid then.