Watch the lights - green means go, red means no go (duh).

Hi.
It´s a simple solution to your problem. First look for lanes having green flashing lights in every corner. It means they are open. And my advice for the docking problem: 1. click at the trade lane , 2. cruise as near to the green laine as possible pointing at bullseye, 3. press F3 for docking. Now u should be sucked in by the lane immediately. Just try it a few times, it works! It´s a great way to escape mean battles!!! The baddies all look real stupid when ur up and away, hahaha...
Hope i could help you! Enjoy the game as i do, and i do!!!

generally, you want to dock as the lane fills up your screen.

Make sure you actually have the lane SELECTED when you try to dock, otherwise you just fly through

ER

Yeah, i ment "select" by saying "click on it". Wasnt that clear? And u DONT have to scream...

Ah, ok. Thanks for the help.

who was screaming? flame 'em

Remember, on a scale of 1 to Awesome, I'm Totally Great

I usually just GoTo the lane on cruise, wait until the ship is auto-aligned with whichever lane it's going to use, hit Freeflight, then hit Dock when I see the distance go under 100K. Useful when running from lots of enemies (especially enemies you don't want to kill because you're trying to increase faction with them).

I use the same strategy with jumpholes (when I hit dock, I'm instantly taken to the traveling-funky-light-show). In the case of jumpgates, if the gate isn't being used, I'll do the above tactic, but hit dock at 300K (any closer makes the ship turn around, move to 300K, then try to dock).

I just had to comment on the suggestion that trade lanes be horizontal. I believe the recommendation was that if they were horizontal, then you would just always use the right hand side...

I'm sorry, I can't keep quiet in the presence of such an obvious oversight, but you must realize you would still have the same problem. Space is 3-Dimensional. How would you ever know if the side you were approaching was the correct side? Just because it's on YOUR right hand side, doesn't mean your ship isn't upside down and therefore you are actually approaching the left hand side...

Just an observation. The green lights are the way to go. Right, left, up, down; these references have no meaning in space (unless you're looking at the 2-Dimensional maps). Which brings me to another observation:

Why are my maps in 2D, but I can fly around in 3D? What happens to my ship icon on the map if I am flying toward Manhatten and suddenly pull "up"? According to the map, I would not be travelling along either the X or Y axis, but rather along a Z-axis. Does my ship icon just sit there as I travel hundreds of K away?

Just some more of my ramblings...



Those are my thoughts, not yours, I'm WapCaplet[!

"I'm sorry, I can't keep quiet in the presence of such an obvious oversight, but you must realize you would still have the same problem. Space is 3-Dimensional. How would you ever know if the side you were approaching was the correct side?"


If you turn off mouseflight your ship turns itself "right side up". While the given solution wouldn't make sense in a realistic sim, it would be entirely effective in Freelancer. I go by the green lights as well, but I've noticed that often when a nearby tradelane gate has come back up from being disrupted that it's lights don't reappear.

I think the best argument for having the tradelane gates be verticle is that it helps obscure the very 2D nature of the game.

Ah yes. I have been corrected. I forgot about how the ship rights itself out of mouse flight. I almost always fly in mouse flight so it didn't occur to me. Of course, now that I think about that, I must agree that having horizontal trade lanes would be easier to navigate.

I kind of wish trade lanes didn't slow you down when you reached the end. It would be pretty fun to just get shot out the other side at over 1000 clicks. Could make it interesting when approaching planets though...



Those are my thoughts, not yours, I'm WapCaplet[!

If you use a tradelane when it's only 1 section from ending, you DO shoot out a bit fast, because you're still accelerating when you would normally begin decelerating.

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