You have to advance a level on your own by doing missions for the factions for money, the player stats window (the one that shows your reps) will tell you how much money you need to advance. Normally it's about 6 decent-paying missions before you advance.

"I don't want to end up a corspe before my time because YOU were daydreaming... AAAAAHHH[!"

No, normally it is about one decently-paid mission, with the exception of the last two freelancing interludes where the bar is raised a little and you have to fly two to three decent freelance missions.

Of course, if you buy equipment or ships before you level up then it takes longer, since this stuff is counted against your net worth at resale value (80% of purchase price for ships, 30% for equipment).

On the other hand, if you happen to have the right cargo in your hold at the end of a story mission then you only need to sell that cargo to level up (could even be loot, in some cases). This way you can fly the story missions back-to-back; the whole campaign took me just 06:31 hours when I tried this.

Of course, for the first time through the campaign it would be absolutely wrong to rush through it. Much better to progress at one's own pace: explore, give trading a try (can be done with a fighter although trading is more lucrative with a freighters), try out different weapons/ships to see which are most suitable to your fighting style (also to find out what your preferred fighting style is in the first place). You can ignore Juni's call for as long as you wish, she'll wait.

Rule of thumb: if you find a story mission frustratingly hard then you have progressed too fast. Go back, learn to fight better, and/or choose more adequate fighting gear.

P.S.: a few reasons for exploring instead of rushing are
- other bases/systems may offer different ships/equipment
- you may get to fight higher-level enemies who may drop weapons that you are not yet allowed to buy, or that you cannot buy because they are sold by hostile factions only
- you may stumble across shipwrecks with real good loot
- you may discover nice, lucrative trade routes
- exploring is fun!

In general, the inner systems of the four Houses are the most boring and the least lucrative in terms of mission fees, and it gets better as you approach the border and enter the border worlds (and the independent worlds).

Edited by - Sherlog on 18-05-2003 12:51:24

thanks for the heads up guys,
appreciated.

Absolutely take your time. Check the associations and pick missions for/against factions that are already for or against you. No sense pissing people off before you have to, unless you take a dislike to them, i.e. "We don't like your kind around here, stranger." No one ever had too much money in this game, try trading, try freighters, try all the ships you can, except light fighters.

"NO LIGHT FIGHTERS, NO LIGHT BEERS."

Words to live by.



You're no match for m----

Catslayer wrote:

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try all the ships you can, except light fighters

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Huh? What made you say that? Combat is way easier in the light fighters (during the campaign: Starflier, Patriot, Cavalier and Drake) than in the heavier fighters.

A light fighter may have only 2/3 of the firepower of a heavy fighter but it can stay on the six of an enemy and dish it out, instead of the other way round. Also, heavy fighters cannot evade enemy fire effectively and so they take much more damage in a melee; shields go down little by little until you have to start using batteries (expensive, limited resource). The light fighters are pretty much invulnerable unless the enemy ships are fast and nimble too (or so heavy that an accidental hit from the enemy turns you to dust; think class 10 VHF).

Strangely enough, it seems that most people prefer the heavy fighters (Defender, Crusader, Dragon/Barracuda) during their first time through the campaign, even though they are more difficult to use than light fighters. I did, too. I guess I was put off by the Startracker thing they sell in Liberty (utterly useless piece of junk) and I was also too fixated on fire power (six gun mounts for heavy fighters compared to four in a light one).

It was only during multiplayer games that I discovered the supreme advantages of light fighters. Just for the hell of it I flew a difficulty 23 mission in a Patriot ; of course, I did have to fight for survival but I made it, with nary a scratch in my armour. The Defender would have been burned to cinder.

After that I re-played the campaign using only light fighters and it was much easier than with heavy ones. I did not have to use a single shield battery during the whole campaign until I switched to the Anubis (which is a heavy fighter), and I had to use nanobots only once (during mission 10, to repair radiation damage).

Edited by - Sherlog on 19-05-2003 02:14:45

I only went through SP once, and at that time went to meet Juni as soon as it was requested. Is it possible to keep on trading / flying missions until you show up wherever she asks?

I'm just wondering because it would be rediculously easy, knowing what I know now, if I just took some extra time to rake in a lot of cash and max out a VHF before returning to the bar at Manhattan.

Yes, Juni will wait until you show up. You can still trade, freelance, explore as much as you want... The nav map will highlight the path to Juni but these waypoints will disappear if you start setting your own waypoints (or if you book a freelance mission), and they reappear automatically as soon as all other waypoints are gone.

So, you can earn as much money as you desire but level restrictions impose limits on what you can buy. You can loot weapons of higher class than you are allowed to buy but this only helps if your ship can mount the stuff.

In order to fly campaign missions in a VHF you need to modify a savegame or the game data (i.e. find a mod that removes the level restrictions in market_misc.ini).

A while ago I wanted to try Sunslayer torpedoes and all the other doomsday weapons against the Rheinland fleet, and so I warped a fully equipped Eagle from a post-campaign savegame to one of the automatic mission 7 savegames. It was real fun to let the mighty Eagle swoop down on hapless battleships, only the cutscenes and scripted talk were a bit annoying as there is no way to skip them.