Detailed Walkthrough

This article contains the Starcom: Unknown Space detailed walkthrough.
Navigation:
Preamble
New Game
Beyond the Gateway
To the extent that a linear walkthrough is of any use to the player in an open-universe game where the objectives can be completed in at least several orders (if not a completely arbitrary order) this may be useful for players who e.g.
- Are more story-focused than combatants or problem-solvers ; or
- Need precise assistance with a specific mission, achievement, or puzzle.
The game's story is rich enough, and the gameplay rewarding enough, that a detailed walkthrough should not be needed. However, it is provided in any case.
If a FAQ with spoilers would be preferable to a walkthrough, please contact the wiki administrator(s).
==Preamble==
FIRST: Read the Quick Start page and get a feel for what will be involved in the early game.
SECOND: Read the General Walkthrough as well, and get a feel for what it suggests and why those things will be important in the early game.
Starting the game
On launching the game, you will see several options:
- New Game is for creating an entirely new playthrough from the start ;
- Continue Last will resume play from your last save, quicksave, or autosave ;
- Load Save will let you manually select a save to resume from ;
- Ship Screenshot will let you customize a screenshot of a ship against a specific background, using specific lighting, etc. etc. so that you can share with friends, make system wallpaper, etc. ; 
- Options will let you configure the game’s graphics and control options ; 
- Credits will roll the game credits cinematic ; and
- Quit to Desktop is self-explanatory.
Before starting a new game, you may wish to open the Options interface and review what’s available. In particular, pay attention to the following:
Game Settings
- Graphics quality and effects options may adversely affect your system performance and graphics FPS
- Gameplay options can be left at the default settings except for the Difficulty slider
If this is the first time you are playing one of the Starcom titles, you may wish to set the difficulty easier than ‘Normal’.
If you are familiar with the game, you may set ‘Normal’ or ‘Hard(er)’ difficulty for an additional challenge.
The mouseover text for Difficulty mentions two aspects: Damage and reinforcements, and that the setting is exponential in nature. Damage applies to enemy weapons, collisions, and space hazards such as radiation, flux from a dangerous star, or other damage sources.
‘Very Hard (3.0)’ is difficult even for expert players, and in particular you may soft-lock yourself into a scenario where you cannot escape an enemy or a space hazard without taking fatal damage, even if you reload your save. This may force you to load an earlier save and lose game progress.
‘Normal’ difficulty is a well-balanced experience and should be enjoyable for most gamers without sacrificing difficulty.
Keybindings
The game’s keybindings are not dissimilar from Starcom: Nexus but you may notice some differences if you have played the other title before. Certain controls you will be using frequently, so remap them if you find them more convenient mapped to other inputs. Scroll down the entire list to get a sense of what you may find yourself using through the course of the game.
Starting a new game
If you have played Starcom: Unknown Space before, and wish to skip the game’s tutorial and introductory phases, you may wish to select Load Save and manually load either of the Arrival_Complete or Post_Prologue saves, to skip past those parts. (Not coincidentally you can then skip ahead in this document to the section relating to the Beyond the Gateway mission. However, feel free to skim through the following paragraphs to get a sense of any special tips or pointers, if you wish).
If you have not played Starcom: Unknown Space before, or wish to play through the game’s prologue for achievements, dialogue, easter eggs, etc. etc., you may wish to start from first principles using the New Game option. 
With a new game, you can customize your ship commander’s first and last names, and the name of your vessel. These will not have any effect on the gameplay – they are strictly cosmetic. You can also set your game difficulty here (bearing in mind that you can change the difficulty later).
A new game will place you in the Alpha universe (that is, the universe you’d expect normally to be in) as a new Starcom vessel commander.
Your first view will be of your written operational orders.
The game will then take you into the top-down tactical display.
You’ll get a notification from your ship’s first officer, Lieutenant Octavia Avery. This will be the first of many useful hints from her, and it’s worth pointing out two things about her:
The role of a first officer is to protect the command. (Starship, aircraft, blimp, destroyer, battleship, bunker, or pastoral acre filled with artillery craters — whichever the case may be. This includes the welfare of the command’s personnel – command or enlisted, permanent or temporary.
The role of a first officer is also to protect the commanding officer from themselves.
Rule # 1 is therefore: Listen to your first officer.
Why? Your first officer knows more about the ship’s operations and how to manage your crew than you do. Being the Captain, however, you’re free to make as informed or snap decisions as you like.
Before you go about your first mission, hit the key to open the Ship Management interface (defaults to Z) and familiarize yourself with the tabs there:
Missions keeps an interactive, expandable and collapsable list of your active and completed missions ;
Log keeps an interactive, searchable record of your ship’s encounters and conversations with your ship’s officers ;
Cargo keeps a record of the resources and artifacts collected along your journey ; 
Crew keeps a record of your command crew, their skills, and their health ; and
Ship Systems gives a breakdown of your ship’s equipped modules and statistics.
If you’re starting a new game for the first time, you’ll only have the one mission in-progress, a very short log, no cargo, no command crew, and some pretty basic information in the Ship Systems tab.
Some observations on the various sections in Ship Systems first & foremost:
Hull - You will note that the ship has a Max Hull Health and a Hull Collapse rating. This holds true for your ship as well as other ships – derelicts, neutrals, allies, and enemies.
Energy - Your Energy Production is the sum of your ship’s power output (between your bridge and any reactors you have installed. Max Reserves is the sum of energy storage your ship has (between your ship’s bridge and any batteries you have installed). Peak Draw is a calculation of your ship’s systems operating at full capacity – throttle open wide, weapons with the triggers held down. Naturally, if your Peak Draw is higher than your energy production, you will draw on your energy reserves if you operate most or all of your systems at once. Once depleted, you will not have enough energy to operate all of your systems at once (or, if operating all at once, not nearly at full efficiency or output).
Engines
Max / Void Speed — these indicate your ship’s maximum speed in-system or in interstellar space, provided your engines are sufficiently powered.
Turn Rate - Degrees per second. For example, if this is 360, you can yaw your ship around in a circle in one second flat. If this is 180, then you can only yaw your ship around in a half-circle in one second, and therefore take two seconds for a complete circle.
Engines Draw - The power (energy per second) drawn by your engines at full power. If this is lower than your Energy Production figure (see above), or equal, then your undamaged ship can fly at top speed indefinitely. If this is above your Energy Production then your engines will automatically throttle back once your reserves are depleted (to whatever percentage they can draw of full power)
Scanners
The ship’s detection ranges for various astral bodies is listed here. The relationship between AU as a unit of linear measure, and a grid square on the game map (Default key is M) will become evident when you first use the map and move the pointer around.
NERD CONTENT: The luminosity of a star is related to its temperature and size. For more on this you may have a look at something called the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (not bad for a graph over 100 years old)
Plasma Cannons
These are your initial and default weaponry for use in Starcom: Unknown Space. The statistics for your DPS, Range, and power draw are important. At this starting point in the game, your Plasma Draw is exactly equal to your Energy Production, so you can expect to fire your plasma cannons indefinitely only while the engines are unpowered.
Rule #2 is therefore: Read everything.
Why? The game provides some clues and subtle tips about how to win, without necessarily instructing you through your command crew or mission goals.
Following Rules 1 and 2, you should be able to complete the first missions (Cargo Spill, and Emergency Priority Override) as the mission steps familiarize you with the controls & game interface for moving, firing weapons, and interacting with game entities (as well as the use of the HUD)
Following Emergency Priority Override you will need to complete both Evacuate Outpost and Ship Activity. These mission steps will familiarize you with several new things:
The Shipyard interface
The Research interface
as well as the Operations interface where you’ll be taking orders from your superiors and asking questions of your colleagues.
Rule #3 is therefore: Talk to everyone.
Why? Beyond providing information, the game may not progress you from one point to the next unless you’ve read a particular bit of dialogue.
You’ll also learn to switch between the tactical view and the map, zooming and panning the map display to get a better sense of the positioning of stars, planets, and other objects including markers or destinations
At this point, you’ll be able to estimate that each grid square is 5000 AU on a side, and that your grid coordinate system is Cartesian (negative numbers on the X scale – left-to-right - corresponding to ‘west’, positive numbers on that scale corresponding to ‘east.’ Similarly, negative numbers on the Y scale - up-and-down - being ‘south’, positive numbers being ‘north’)
You’ll be encouraged to research specific technology on the Research interface, and to add specific module(s) to your ship in the Shipyard interface before proceeding to later stages.
When you’re fully ready to proceed with interstellar missions, you’ll start the Beyond the Gateway mission.
Beyond the Gateway
This mission will familiarize you with the use of the ring artifacts commonly called Wormhole Gateways (which link each other in instantaneous point-to-point interstellar travel across arbitrary distances) and other technologies (which permit merely fast point-to-point interstellar travel across long distances). You’ll also become familiar with first scanning and then surveying unexplored planets (those planets which have anything worth exploring, anyway). You may receive resource or research bonuses from surveys, artifacts recovered during surveys, and items recovered during space combat.
Rule #4 is therefore: Scan, investigate, interact with, and survey everything possible – especially before you fire on it.
Why? You actually progress faster than if you just blast your way through every encounter. True, you can get an infinite amount of resources just by reaping spaceship debris or analyzing artifact drops from destroyed hulls. However, you’ll progress faster if you focus on Starcom’s primary mission (peaceful exploration) than if you go on the warpath. Also, because you gain command crew experience points by completing encounters, this is the way your crew will become more proficient at their specialties.
Incidentally, the achievements Explorer I, Explorer II, and Explorer III each are obtained when you have surveyed 10, 50, and 100 planetary anomalies.
You will likely encounter your first spacefaring faction] native to Unknown Space in this mission, and your interactions may lead to hostilities or to alliances, or to trade opportunities.
This sets the pattern for the rest of the game: Your encounters with other factions, space combat against hostiles, and planetary surveys will give you the information necessary to spawn further missions, as well as research and resource bonuses needed to outfit your ship and research technologies in the lab.
You may observe, for example, that your ability to move around the map and collect resource drops (from hostile ships, from asteroids, etc.) is limited heavily by the following:
* Tractor beam technology
* Engine technology & overall thrust
* Reactor output to power engines, or weapons, or both
You should therefore focus on the following technologies & try to use the exponential nature of growth (Faster resource accumulation -> quicker ship expansion & upgrades -> faster resource accumulation, etc, etc.)
* Tractor Beam Splitter & all dependencies (all technologies possible)
* Trade Analysis (as early as available)
* Battlestation Training
* Resource Spotters
* Artifact Spotters
* Plasma Fire Support
* Sensor Calibration & all dependencies
Rule #5 is therefore: Activate any Remnant Gateway you come across
Why? There’s no penalty to leaving a gateway activated or inactive, but inactive gateways you didn’t discover through some kind of scientific method (mission rewards, dialogue with factions, etc.) won’t show up on your map as destinations to travel between. Better to activate them first instead of forgetting. Think of them as waypoints or checkpoints.
Accumulate resources according to how they will help your exponential accumulation of resources (for example, you’ll need Aluminum at first, and a lot of both Gold and Yttrium to build engines and plasma turrets respectively. You’ll also need Chiralite, which is relatively expensive, to build reactor modules).
Later, when you max out the hull of your ship using the Scout-class bridge, and researching Compact Construction and Explorer Hull, you can focus on improving individual modules (for example, replace any light bulkheads with bulkheads, consider replacing mini deflectors with half-deflectors or full deflectors where possible). Only when you’ve reached the envelope of a ship’s hull class and can’t squeeze any more speed or combat durability out of it, with no remaining hexes to occupy, will you need to consider upgrading to a larger hull.
Incidentally, you begin to get a sense of how the ship construction & resource requirements will go, as you research Mk2 engines and weapons
- Mk1 reactors, engines and weapons all require a base amount of Aluminum and one other ‘rare’ resource. 
- Mk2 reactors, engines and weapons all require Titanium instead of Aluminum, but the concept is the same. The increase in efficiency is made up by requiring more of the rare resource ‘per hex’ and also causing more heat output.
- Mk3 requirements get somewhat unique depending on the application. For example, a Mk3 reactor requires only a modest amount of Titanium but a lot of Chiralite per hex. Heavier armor may switch Aluminum for Titanium but then the heaviest armor requires almost as much valuable Iridium as Titanium. Bulkheads start out as an Aluminum-Titanium mix, but then move on to a Titanium-Neutronium mix.
Rule #6 is therefore: Be nice to people & make allies
Why? Beyond the obvious (Starcom being a peaceful organization) you will need trade partners and allies at the start of the game, and at the end of the game as well. 
Beyond this point, the detailed walkthrough is all hand-holding and observational. 
==New Game==
Cargo Spill
- Scan the cargo ship
- Destroy the cargo ship ; focus on the angled bulkhead joining the engine mount to the hull, and then the hexes underneath which aren’t deflectors (void control surfaces, etc). You may receive a few units of Aluminum as loot.
- Note that rather than inflicting critical damage on a ship's bridge module directly, you can destroy a ship by shearing off enough modules which represent more health than its hull collapse rating. In the base of the cargo ship, destroying:
* one Angled Bulkhead
* two Small Wing
* and the rectangular engine mount (that the engine nozzle and Double Deflectors are behind
will be sufficient to destroy the ship even if you haven't touched the bridge.
- Managing to have your ship undergo hull collapse in cleaning up the cargo spill is the requirement to get the Death by Misadventure achievement.
- Destroy a few cargo containers until you get the Emergency Priority Override mission
- Cargo Spill will be auto-completed
Emergency Priority Override
- Travel to Alcyone and interact with the Starcom ship there to get the Sailing to Byzantium achievement. The SCS Byzantium will be on a patrol route between the planets in that system
(spoilers!)
 
Selecting the "Just looking for a little adventure." option when interacting with Captain Lee will provide a tie-in with the events of Starcom: Nexus
 
- Return to the Maia Beta system and interact with Maia Station
- Activate one of the wormhole stabilizers (suggest you do this with the northwest stabilizer first)
- Activate the other stabilizer
- Be drawn into the wormhole and the mission will auto-complete. You will also gain the Unknown Space achievement
After the Emergency Priority Override mission concludes, wait for the Celaeno station to be highlighted on your HUD, and travel there.
Dock with Celaeno Station
Speak with Commodore Vincent Yu in the Operations tab
Switch to the Shipyard tab
Follow Lt. Milton’s instructions to add a Survey Lander module module to the ship
You can exhaust Milton’s dialogue options now, or later.
Adding the Survey Lander module permits you to depart Celaeno. This mission will auto-complete and starts the Evacuate Outpost mission
Evacuate Outpost
- Head for the indicated planet. Note the appearance of small hostiles between you and the planet. Destroy them and scan the planet before surveying it.
- Open the Ship Management interface, then switch to the Cargo tab. You’ll have the option to select the Alien Device artifact and then the Analyze Artifact button
- Return to & dock with Celaeno
- By this time you should also have secured the Rescue achievement
- Talk to Commodore Yu again
- Wait for the option to interact with Dr. Rama to become available.
- Follow her to the Research lab
- Follow her instructions to research the Turbo Thrust technology (under Engines I)
- Switch back to Operations and interact with Commodore Yu again to have your command crew assigned. The mission will auto-complete and starts the Ship Activity mission. Do not leave Celaeno Station yet.
Ship Activity
- Switch back to the Research tab and research Tractor Beam Splitter and Strange Attractors
- Switch to the Shipyard tab
- Swap the Bulkhead modules for Light Bulkheads. Move them each one hex to aft (rearward)
- Replace the Engine Mk I modules which were mounted on the bulkheads
- Install a Micro Reactor – behind the bridge is a fine place for it
- Drag the Survey Lander module to the rear of the ship and rotate it, so that the Surveyor is still attached to one of the bulkheads, but has an edge facing aft.
- Attach a third Plasma Mk I turret
- Feel free to streamline the hull a bit with a couple of extra Basic Connector modules or Light Bulkheads, particularly if you’re playing on a high difficulty level and don’t want weapons fire hitting your bridge
- Exit Celaeno and experiment with the map controls for a bit
- Head for the indicated world to the northeast of Celaeno
- Destroy the hostile ships defending the hostile station
- Note that at close magnification the hostile station has three spokes and three interior sides. Two sides are deflectors, but the third is a Plasma Mk II turret without any extra armor. Fly around to that side and engage until destroyed.
- Scan and survey the vacated planet
- The mission will auto-complete but there is nothing to do at the present moment except navigate to the Celaeno and report in.
Interact with Dr. Rama and she will describe how the discovery of the Alien Device and the inactive gateway will hopefully lead to further stars and exploration opportunities.
Interact with Commodore Yu to be granted the Beyond the Gateway mission
Do not leave Celaeno yet
Enter the Shipyard tab, and with the gold from your last planetary survey you can now attach a third engine to the edge of your Survey Lander module.
Feel free to research further tractor beam or weapons technologies.
Depart Celaeno to begin the next mission
==Beyond the Gateway==
Beyond the Gateway
- Recall that if you are entering the playthrough by loading the Post_Prologue save, you’ll need to fly back to Celaeno briefly to take advantage of your resources and research points.
- Observe that while there are plenty of planets to scan, you’re not able to conduct a survey if there’s a hostile (or potential hostile) within 350 AU of you.
- Enemies will respawn periodically, but you should focus on destroying the hostile station to the northeast once you’re ready.
- The Red Raider Region mission will spawn once you’ve destroyed one or two ships and/or stations
- You’ll get a modest research bonus when you approach a Higgs Flinger for the first time.
- With the flinger lit up and energized, imagine a line spanning right across the middle of the structure (where the field of accelerated blue particles appears to start out of nowhere). Any part of your ship touching that line will activate the flinger, and you won’t need to necessarily approach it from the “entry” side to be flung out in the direction of travel.
- Feel free to depart through the flinger to the south when you’re ready
- Leaving this cluster of stars (a ‘constellation’, if you will) for a moment, cross the small distance to the west to visit the nearby star, and survey all the planets.
- Note the The Emissary (anomaly) survey results which describe the Emissary encounters of the past.
- On scanning the last planet, switch to your map
- If you fly toward the rough center of the planets & parent star, you’ll notice a circular marker come within sensor range and start winding its way through the system. It will only visit each planet or static celestial body once. Don’t worry if you can’t catch up with it, but note where it appears to aim its trajectory through the last of the planets to visit, before departing in a straight line.
- Follow the marker to where it appears to stop moving
- You’ll encounter a wormhole or aperture of some kind. Enter it
This will complete the Strange Celestial mission and leave you in a very distant star, inside a bluish / reddish nebula. You will also gain the The Emissary achievement.
Ring Structure
Scan and survey everything, and be on the lookout for a few things:
- There should be an inactive gateway just beside the large gas giant planet.
- You may catch sight of a moving blue object within sensor range
- Attempt to come near to it, but like with the Emissary it’s unlikely you’ll be able to follow it at speed. Close inspection will reveal it to be a comet, and your Astroscience officer will suggest you be on the lookout for others.
- When scanning and surveying the desert planet, you may note that the planet has nothing worth surveying ; the object in orbit can be surveyed repeatedly. Make a note to revisit this at the appropriate time.
Having exhausted the desert planet, the comet, and the gateway, you may optionally return to Celaeno first for research & upgrades, and then resume the Beyond the Gateway mission.
Beyond the Gateway (continued)
- Having returned to the wormhole gateway and already gone through the flinger to the south, continue exploring the star to the south & note that there are flingers linking the star systems in a counter-clockwise direction. 
- Follow this and continue scanning & surveying worlds, destroying any Raiders or hostile stations you come across.
- When you arrive in a greyish-orange nebula, with flingers leading both north and south and a star some distance off to the west, explore just far enough west to locate another inactive wormhole gateway, and activate it. Having done so, Beyond the Gateway will complete, leaving you with Red Raider Region still in progress.
- Optionally return to Celaeno for research and outfitting, and then return to the star system you just left
Red Raider Region
- Scanning the planets one by one, you may notice a neutral (yellow-coded) ship icon hovering around one of the planets. If you approach this ship, you be given the option to enter into dialogue with this faction.
- The Ermyr (this faction being informally the Ermyr ‘Defenders’ since they do not leave this constellation of stars, but also that’s what their ship class is called) will not attack you unless you give them a reason. 
- The achievement Soldier of Fortune cannot be obtained unless you avoid combat with them, so select the “Perhaps we can reach some peaceful arrangement(...)?” dialogue option.
- Avoid scanning or surveying that specific planet just yet. The Forbidden Planet (mission)]] mission will spawn in-progress.
- The planet in this system to the extreme east has a Starliner Wreck on it, where you may recover copper and also get a clue as to how to interact with the Ermyr.
- Returning to the Ermyr Defender patrolling near the forbidden planet, hail them and select the “We need your services(...)” dialogue option.
- Having bribed the Ermyr, the Soldiers of Fortune achievement should complete, and the Ermyr will begin flying away. Once they depart sensor range (450 AU or thereabouts) you may scan and survey the Forbidden Planet anomaly itself.
- The Enigmatic Shapes artifact will come in handy later. Your first officer suggests presenting it to Dr. Rama, which you should do the next time you’re at Celaeno. This will later spawn the Codex Shape mission if certain conditions are met.
- Skip exploring the star directly to the west, and continue through the linked set of flingers counter-clockwise.
- In the next star system, one of your planetary surveys of an Empty Outpost will provide you with the Outpost Log mission, as well as a new wormhole gateway location on the map.
- Continue sweeping through the stars in the Beyond the Gateway constellation, including the star to the northeast which is not joined by a flinger across its short distance.
- Having completed a full rotation around the constellation, you will note that the flingers form a closed loop roughly in the shape of a pentagon, with the un-scanned star in the nebula closer to the middle.
- Enemies will continue to spawn at a fixed rate until the Red Raider Region mission is completed, so feel free to grind between these stars to gain combat experience or resources.
- Optionally return to Celaeno, and then continue to the location mentioned in the Outpost Log mission
Outpost Log
- This mission will auto-complete when you have explored this system a bit, and the asteroid fields (of which there are three).
- Take advantage of the opportunity to track and maneuver close by another comet in this system.
- The asteroids will occasionally drop artifacts when destroyed.
- The “Refinery Traders” are a faction without ships. They can provide resources which are otherwise hard to pick up from ship debris or random encounters (such as Chiralite) but their markup between purchased resources and resources sold to you is sufficiently large that there’s a bit of waste going on. Trade with a different faction where possible.
Progress check-in
By now, you may have done any or all of the following:
- Obtained one or more artifact drops from destroyed Raider ships that you are partly / completely able to finish the Fixed Gun (mission). Remember to exhaust Lt. Milton’s dialogue regarding weapon designs recovered through combat.
- If you obtain three artifact drops relating to Fixed Gun (mission) you will be able to research the weapon type.
- Consider saving your game before you unlock a new weapon. The cost in research points may not be worth it, if you find the weapon doesn’t work with your playstyle.
- This leads to what is arguably Rule #0 – Save Early, Save Often.
- Spoken to Commodore Yu after recovering the Enigmatic Shapes / Codex Shape artifact and spawning the The Aletheia (mission). Ensure that you check-in with Dr. Rama (who will decline to analyze the artifact) and then with Lt. Milton (for both delivering the artifact to him, and exhausting his dialogue options regarding deep-space travel).
- Encountered a faction called the CXTA, hauling cargo around the Outpost Traders star. They will not offer trade opportunities but will feature in the game later.
- Encountered a faction called the Goryr, appearing out of the gateway near Celaeno. They will offer dialogue options regarding themselves, other factions, and hints about exploration in the region. They will also offer trade in resources and artifacts for sale. The artifacts provide a convenient way to trade resources for research points, or resources for an artifact you’ll need later in the game. Do not exhaust the resources you’ll need for ship building ; the artifacts will still be available for purchase later.
- Between the Ermyr, the Goryr, and the Outpost Traders, you may be notified of the option to research Trade Analysis, which will tell you whether you can trade a resource competitively or not.
- For the purposes of progressing the game, you should finish off Red Raider Region
first.
Red Raider Region (continued)
- From the eastern one of the two gateways in the Beyond the Gateway constellation, proceed west and approach the star identified as where the Red Raider faction is based.
- Combat the ships and disengage where necessary.
- After you have destroyed sufficiently many ships and outposts, and gotten close to the Raider Base guarding the Terrestrial planet, you will be joined by a few Ermyr Defenders if you paid for their services.
- The destruction of the Raider Base will usually drop an artifact making up part (one-third) of the new Guided Missiles mission.
- This mission will complete when you have destroyed all hostiles, and shut down raider production on the planet below. Don’t forget to review this mission completion with Commodore Yu the next time you are at Celaeno. You should also be granted the The Machine Stops achievement.
Mission: The Aletheia
- You’ll notice (definitely) during this mission that your ship’s top speed will modestly increase in deep space between stars. Where the HUD’s Void Effect is at 100%, this effect is maximized and your ship will reach its top cruising speed so long as the engines are fully powered.
- For this reason, it’s suggested that you power your ship in such a way that the engines are always fully powered at full turbo thrust, even if this means you can’t move and fire any weapons at the same time.
- Similarly, you’ll have the advantage of combat initiative, and eluding any ships you can’t easily beat, if you have a speed advantage over other ships (chasing down comets or other moving objects is a bonus consideration here).
- Before you encounter the star you’re headed for, you may encounter either a random derelict ship, or something else to inspect later. Feel free to investigate the derelict before destroying it, and inspect anything you wish to revisit after inspecting the star systems where the Aletheia was last seen.
- The Deep Space Gravity mission will start if you pass close enough to the latter.
- If you’re only equipped with plasma cannons, and you want to damage or destroy a ship coded as friendly / allied (blue in the HUD) then you’ve got no choice except to gently ram it. The repair rate (if above zero) of the derelict and the fact that you can knock hull components from that ship means that you can ram, wait for repairs, and ram again, as often as you need. Be mindful that too fast of an impact can destroy your ship outright.
- First inspect the planets near and to the north of the gateway you encounter
- Approaching the planets further south, you will enter sensor range of a few ships of a neutral faction. These will turn hostile, but that can’t be avoided.
- When you have destroyed or evaded these ships, continue exploring south until you encounter the Aletheia and then hail her captain, Capt. Dolson
- The Aletheia is an ‘essential actor’ in game parlance – destroying her or permitting her to be destroyed will end the game, so protect her at all costs.
- At the end of the dialogue with Capt. Dolson, you will gain the Intricate Triangles artifact.
- Following your survey of the final planets in the southern of the two stars, you will also recover the Iridescent Globe artifact
- The Aletheia will not need an escort back to Celaeno, so you may part ways at this time. 
- You may start active investigation of the Deep Space Gravity mission on your way back to Celaeno, bypassing the use of the gateway you just discovered.
Mission: Deep Space Gravity
- You may need to circle around the spot where you first encountered unusual gravity and expand your search (a spiral search, essentially) until the object you’re looking for appears on sensors.
- If you investigate the polyhedral artifact before you’ve analyzed the Intricate Triangles artifact, you’ll receive some extra context around what the Polyhedron needs to function
- After analyzing the Intricate Triangles, you can interact with the Polyhedron in such a way that it activates.
- You are not in danger ; remain near the Polyhedron until you get the dialogue from your first officer that the artifact’s emissions are harmless, but there’s nothing further to be learned. This should grant you the My god, it's full of stars achievement.
- Continue on your way to Celaeno
- You can turn in Deep Space Gravity by speaking with Dr. Rama ; you can turn in The Aletheia with Commodore Yu.
- If you’ve analyzed the Iridescent Globe artifact, you can interact with Lt. Milton to unlock the Chromaplate technology
Progress check-in
At this stage, the linear nature of the game begins to branch out. You may note one or both of the following:
- A star to the northwest of where the Aletheia was ambushed ; or
- A star to the east of Celaeno
You’re at liberty to explore in any way you choose, but from this point the walkthrough can only suggest doing the missions in a specific order.
Suggestion: Explore eastward first, since the star is roughly between Celaeno and the Beyond the Gateway constellation.
Mission: Medical Delivery
Granted by: CXTA hauler
Pre-requisites: Game progress plus non-hostile CXTA faction within comms range.
Completion criteria: Deliver the medical supplies to the Plague Colony marked on the map. Analyze the supplies for free research points before delivering.
Turn in: Any CXTA hauler ; CXTA alignment to player becomes Friendly
Mission: Legend of Wiskamug
Granted by: Hailing the ship The Legendary Steed of Wiskamug
Pre-requisites: Overall game progress ; possibly The Aletheia and/or Deep Space Gravity completed
Turn in: None (the end conditions for this mission are far in the future from where you first encounter him).
- You can get better results out of Wiskamug by using a friendly approach. If Wiskamug is allied with you (rather than neutral) the speed bonus through a system with his ship in it is noticeable.  
- Select the “Surely you cannot be the Wiskamug?” dialogue option.
- You’ll notice that Wiskamug offers trade opportunities and also sells artifacts. The artifacts include:
- The remaining parts of any In Progress technologies-research quests you have (e.g. if you have one Guided Missiles component, he will have the other two for sale), but no components for systems you don’t know about ; and
- A special artifact if you’ve completely researched the range upgrades of your plasma turrets.
- Don’t worry if you can’t afford his prices ; he will appear and disappear frequently.
Mission: Cargo Clean Up II
Granted by: proximity to the Meteor Craters planet (near the first Codex Shape gateway)
Pre-requisites: None
Turn in: Commodore Yu. Once you have analyzed the Starcom Components artifact, this will unlock dialogue with him in relation to the rest of the story.
- The two debris fields around the planet will yield some valuable & rare resources considering your progress through the game so far. Spend as much time as you need collecting them all up.
- A star to the southeast should appear on sensors ; unless you have other mission goals to prioritize, consider exploring in that direction.
Progress check-in
If you explore to the southeast, you may encounter the Overgrown Pyramid world, and near it a flinger. This is the western end of a line of flingers relating to the main story.
- The next system to the east contains a few items of note:
- A crude facsimile of a Remnant Gateway, created by persons unknown
- A planet at the south of the system which provides a Lone Antenna anomaly.
The lone antenna can be left alone – especially if combat is difficult – since disassembling it will cause Devout ships to spawn almost immediately, and thereafter Devout ships and stations to spawn along this constellation at intervals. Provided you do not disassemble the antenna nor activate the Portal artifact, you will not be attacked. This decision point does not have its own specific mission in relation to it.
If you investigate (or choose not to investigate) the crude facsimile of the Remnant Gateways, which the HUD will call “Portal,” you’ll receive the Heretic Portal mission anyway. Investigating the portal will reveal that it cannot be accessed quite yet.
The next system to the east (after the Heretic Portal / Lone Antenna system) is unremarkable except for the Island Traders world in the south.
East of the Island Traders system is the end of that constellation and another inactive Gateway
The star system at the end of this constellation has an encounter called Doomed Pyramid, which grants you the Kaleidoscope artifact
Mission: Heretic Portal
Granted by: Proximity to the first heretic portal, west of the Island Traders system
Pre-requisites: None
Turn in: Having analyzed the Kaleidoscope artifact, you will note that it outputs randomized data with an error-correcting mechanism. If you then interact with the Portal, you can activate it.
Activating the Portal, or disassembling the antenna on the Lone Antenna planet – either action will summon Devout to investigate.
Moving onto the portal ring will transport you in a one-direction travel not unlike the Remnant Gateways. You will end up on an actual Remnant Gateway, this one inactive, in a system somewhat to the south of the eastern end of the constellation you just left. The ‘Defender’ station orbiting near one of the nearby planets is extremely dangerous, and you should prepare to intercept incoming missiles with your weapons. Consider departing this system for Celaeno and visiting it later
Mission: Codex Shape (continued)
- If you have traversed the first constellation which is hinted at by the Codex Shape mission (the one which starts with the Starcom debris field and ends with the system east of the Island Traders system) the mission should end (whether you waited for Lt. Milton to provide you with the western gateway as a starting point, or finished exploring it before he notified you). Further clues from the codex shape should be evident in later missions
Mission: Cepheid Variable
Pre-requisites: Turn in the Beyond the Gateway and Deep Space Gravity missions with Dr. Rama and wait for her to offer new dialogue.
- The star is considerably far from any gateway you have discovered until now – even from a system reachable by gateway and then by flinger.
- There is no specific penalty nor benefit to waiting on executing this mission, but it does provide a series of connected stars near Devout space, and opportunities to get bonus research points in nearby stars & missions.
- This mission will (mostly) complete when you have inspected the star noted on the map. The mission results can be turned in to both Dr. Rama and Commodore Yu.
- On the way to the Cepheid star in question, an adjoining system connected by a flinger has a few planets available to survey, and one in particular which hosts a number of Shield Inducers. The shield inducers are powering the shield of a station in orbit.
- A linear-thinker would attempt the skill check on the planet until successful, at which point the shield will power down.
- A lateral-thinker, wanting to get the Shield Shove achievement, would gently touch and then push the shielded station away from the planet, until the shield bubble collapses.
- The station can then be inspected directly for an artifact bonus.
- This system nearby to the Cepheid also has an inactive Gateway for your benefit.
Mission: The Starlance
Pre-requisites: Progress through the Cepheid Variable mission normally, and inspect the megastructure in question.
- This mission will not conclude until after related research is completed, so feel free to ignore this mission entry for now.
Suggestion: If you can detect the nearby stars which appear to form a line extending southwest toward Devout space, explore in this direction to start a further mission
Mission: Devout Expansion
Pre-requisite: Unclear, but signs of the Devout expanding their influence to previously un-affected worlds will become evident. One sufficient condition is to visit the star to the southwest of the Cepheid Variable star, destroy the Devout station, and survey the planet below.
- Analyze the Amber Skull, and note that the analysis will uncover a map ping (much) further to the south.
- Progressing to the south, star by star, you will notice that one flinger (instead of dropping you at the mouth of another paired flinger) leaves you at a planet with no flinger nearby. If you scan and survey this planet you will get a resource bonus.
- Scan and survey the marked planet to encounter Nil of Amon
- Accept his offer of help, which will add a map marker for the Devout’s research planet.
- Note also the nearby asteroid fields – a convenient spot to gather Titanium. Unlike the system to the east of Beyond the Gateway, the three fields here rival the size of the fields near the Refinery Traders, without producing so much less-valuable Aluminum
- A further flinger to the southwest will also dump you at a planet instead of at a paired flinger. Scan and survey this planet as well.
- From this system (with a gateway and four flingers leading in different directions), take the flinger to the southwest to reach the system with the Devout’s research planet.
- Flee past the Cathedral guarding the flinger mouth, or destroy it.
- On reaching the research planet and successfully landing your survey craft, you can obtain the three informational rewards from the research database (Dwarf Star Catalogue, Starlance Report, and the Perimeter Defense Schematic) along with a bonus observation on Devout Architecture as you depart. The mission will auto-complete as you leave the planet.
Mission: Fallen Empire
Remarks: This mission will become more readily understood as the history of the galaxy is uncovered. However, it is not possible to progress more rapidly by specific actions, for example.
Encounter: Island Traders
Remarks: This faction has no starships, but do trade in the usual resources and will sell one artifact for their reserve currency. The text accompanying the visit of the command crew indicates an important fact: The Island Traders need Aluminum and pay a premium for it.
Encounter: Devout Debris
Remarks: If you encounter a planet with this artifact, you have the option of scrapping it (for some Chiralite) or keeping it aboard ship as an artifact for research.
Note: If you do keep it aboard ship, you will eventually be ambushed by several Devout with your own ship at a combat disadvantage. However, you will be rewarded with further research points in addition to whatever you can loot from the small fleet which attacks you.
Encounter: Heretic Redoubt
Pre-requisites: None, although you will need to destroy the Defender station orbiting this planet.
Remarks: You may recover some resources from searching the redoubt, although you gain more contextual clues about who the Heretics were and what they were guarding against.
Encounter: Brogidar
Pre-requisites: None, possibly some game progress.
Remarks: You may be visited by one or more Brogidar Barque ships, who will shake you down for protection money. You have the option of paying them off, but since Gold is a rare resource and rather important to your exploring this galaxy at speed, you can always refuse them and fight it out. In either case, this encounter should drop the The Brogidar mission.
Miscellaneous: Command crew eligible for advancement
Pre-requisites: First encountered on accumulating 10 XP from encounters, then reaching 25, 50, etc.
Remarks: Depending on how you’re prioritizing your research in the Command Crew / “Officer Training” branch of the research lab, you may want to spread out the points you’re assigning differently. 
- For example, if you are playing at a high difficulty and need to prioritize repair rate, you may have researched Battlestation Training, Assisted Recovery, Coordinated Response, and/or Miracle Worker. Assisted Recovery is useful only if the maximum number of command crew have a Biomed skill of 1 or 2, so prioritize Biomed first, and then possibly Engineering to boost the effectiveness of Coordinated Response. Miracle Worker is almost prohibitively expensive except to provide one or two crew so skilled (including your chief engineer), but you can consider boosting every officer’s Engineering skill to 1 or 2.
- As another example, if you are keen to destroy everything that moves, and are relying on resource & artifact drops from dead enemy hulls, you may have researched Plasma Fire Support, Resource Spotters, and/or Artifact Spotters. To maximize the effectiveness of Plasma Fire Support, the rationale would be to boost officer skill in Tactics to 1 or 2 each, and boost Astroscience to exactly 2 per officer. 
- Obviously there is a limit to how you can allocate these points, since the game has a max skill level for officer advancement and no officer can be an expert in all skills.
Suggestion: Scout to the east of the Beyond the Gateway constellation. Roughly from the first gateway in the constellation, to the one just east of the Red Raider factory, and that distance again in a straight line (so, east by southeast). You may encounter a star in a yellow nebula with Titanium to harvest. An inactive Gateway should also be present here.
Mission: Stranded CXTA
(see also Encounter: CXTA Tanker / Distress signal)
Pre-requisites: Finish the Medical Delivery mission
- You will come across a CXTA tanker (a larger ship than the Hauler)
- You can pass a difficult skill check and repair this ship’s power grid with 10 Copper, or a less-difficult check with the expense of 1 Chiralite instead.
- A successful repair (indicated by the tanker not blowing itself to smithereens after a few seconds) will net you a reward the next time you interact with a CXTA hauler.
Mission: CXTA Smuggler
Pre-requisites: Finish the Stranded CXTA mission.
- You will be offered a mission similar to Medical Delivery, but with more risk involved, as you will be traveling deep into Devout territory.
- Travel to the indicated planet in Devout space, and land your survey craft. Your command crew will authenticate your mission and receive the item requested by the CXTA. Remember to analyze it yourself before turning the mission in.
Turn-in: Any CXTA hauler
Mission: The Brogidar
Pre-requisites: Encounter the Brogidar, and receive at least one Brogidar Chest artifact drop
- This mission will have you fight successively tougher waves of Brogidar Barques, during which you may recover one chest and/or one artifact relating to Brogidar Cannon (see below). 
- When you analyze a Brogidar chest, you will receive a map marker for a planet to investigate. Traveling to these locations will give bonus resources and also encourages you to explore beyond the current area(s) of the game. 
- For example, Brogidar Chest 1 will point you to explore a planet in the vaguely cruciform-shaped constellation related to the Devout Expansion portion of the game and which hosts part of the Devout Expansion mission (see below). 
- Chests 2 and 3 will have you instead exploring generally further east to recover those resource caches.
- The resource cache relating to Chest 3 in particular will point you on to a further encounter with the Brogidar at their forward operating base in the extreme west of the current map.
- Further Brogidar Barques and a Brogidar Galleon are stationed in this system.
- The Brogidar Galleon will be hostile to you no matter what approach you use, but it can be destroyed – which activates the option to parlay at one of the local planets.
- You will have the option of a peaceful resolution or to continue hostilities.
- You can accept the peace settlement without closing off other mission options, and use the opportunity to trade with the Brogidar for any of the Brogidar Cannon artifacts you may be missing
- As peaceable trading partners, the Brogidar have a markup similar to the Refinery Traders and so aren’t a good way to efficiently trade for other resources.
- Conversely, you aren’t penalized by violating your peace agreement with them, and their ships often drop rare Etherine and Neutronium even after the artifacts and chests above.
- This mission will complete when you have signed the peace agreement – there is no option to refuse their offer permanently, as the mission will remain in a waiting state.
Mission: Brogidar Cannon
Pre-requisites - Start The Brogidar mission, and either loot or purchase from them one of the artifacts supporting research of their cannon technology (Plasma Rifle or Plasma Pressurizer). This mission completes when you have obtained and analyzed both artifacts
Mission: Codex Serpent Gateway
Pre-requisites: Finish the Codex Shape mission
This mission auto-completes when you travel to this destination gateway. This is (almost) the western end of a branching constellation of stars under the control of the Locoan faction. The Locoan do not enter the system with the gateway, but can be found in all other systems along this constellation.
- From the gateway and to the flinger to the south, there is a nebula worth exploring at length
- In the system with the gateway, there is a terrestrial planet (“Fallen Colony”) which you can survey to start the Locoan Vassals mission.
- The constellation continues to the north with a system where you can find the Silent Tower encounter (see below)
- To the east a further system can be found with a greenhouse-class planet featuring the Yellow Fog encounter.
- Across a further small flinger-less gap to the northeast is the system with the Locoan base station.
Encounter: Yellow Fog
Mission: Locoan Vassals
Pre-requisite: None
- If you commit to providing the Fallen Colony with assistance in negotiating with the Locoan, you will have three related options when interacting with any Locoan vessel (unless you declared yourself servants to the Locoan, in which case they will not listen to you):
1. Do nothing ;
2. Try to convince the Locoan to lower the tribute demanded from the Fallen Colony (which can have a positive or negative outcome) ; or
3. Demand that the Locoan leave the colony alone (which will turn the Locoan hostile)
- Option 3 provides the most benefit, as the Locoan do not permit you to trade with them whatever the outcome of your disagreement, but their ships and stations can be looted.
- To complete this mission using Option 3, you will need to fight your way through the remainder of Locoan space to their base station, and destroy it. Having done so, any remaining hostile Locoan ships will switch their combat stance to Neutral, and hail you should you come within range. If no ships remain, the next Locoan you encounter will still be Neutral and hail you once in range.
- The Locoan offer you peace (in the way of the Brogidar, with reparations) which you can accept and return with positive news to the Fallen Colony.
- The Locoan home system also contains their homeworld (which you cannot survey) and an inactive gateway, which you can use to return to the Fallen Colony.
- Re-investigating the Fallen Colony, completes this mission. This will grant the Fog Machine artifact, which you can analyze.
- Also, you may renege on your commitment to leave the Locoan alone, and loot their destroyed ships should you wish.
- The Locoan, after being pacified, will not interact with you to trade. If you have already exhausted the option to ask them about the many destroyed civilizations in their space, they will not have any dialogue options to select. 
Encounter: Gentle Gas Giants
- In the system to the south of the Fallen Colony, a Gas Giant planet has intelligent life. If you do not have the Fog Machine artifact, then you cannot communicate with them. 
- However, you may explore the grid square generally without the hint they provide (“Deep in the shadow of the burning moon.”), which is to travel in the shadow of the Primordial-class planet (i.e. along a line from the parent star, through the Primordial planet, out into the nebula).
- What you encounter is another Polyhedron (but this one pulses with blue instead of amber emissions). The observation can be turned into Dr. Rama but otherwise the Polyhedron doesn’t play a role until after the main game is finished.
Encounter: Silent Tower
Pre-requisite: Complete that portion of the Derelict Refinery which has you reprogram an antenna sending configuration data to a nearby flinger.
- At the Silent Tower anomaly in Locoan space, change the flinger configuration from the primary to the redundancy.
- The flinger to your west will reconfigure its destination
- Through this flinger, you will emerge far to the northwest but near an orange star
- The terrestrial planet can be scanned and surveyed for an Anomaly encounter
- Considering that it was your doing to redirect the flinger to this system, you should really undertake to help the Hidden Refuge population.
- The Secret Passage mission should start.
Mission: Secret Passage
- If you have committed to helping the scaly bipeds inhabiting the Hidden Refuge world, you need to return to the Silent Tower world in Locoan space again
- You will need 1 Chiralite
- A sufficiently long delay, with the flinger left pointing at the Hidden Refuge system, and the Locoan (or some other faction) will explore and loot the place.
- The mission will complete when you reconfigure the flinger to point back to where you originally found it (i.e. back to the Locoan Vassals system)
Encounter: Dispatch Device
Remarks: You may randomly encounter dispatch devices when traveling through space (usually through deep space). These devices should be investigated for Research Point bonuses. They do not drop any resources on being destroyed, however.
Encounter: Burst Relay
Encounter: Military Debris
- Colonel Jyrakk
Encounter: Locoan
- The Locoan resemble serpents with the heads of snapping turtles.
- They respect strength, but will also accept being addressed as equals. If you select the option to name yourself as servants of the Locoan, they will demand resources and become both unhelpful and less patient.
- Locoan ships will not pre-emptively hail your ship, so you may pass by them unannounced.
- There is not an option to trade with this faction, so you may decline to interact with them at all.
Mission: Jetsam and Flotsam
Pre-requisites: Encounter the Devout, possibly some general game progress. Specifically this mission should drop only after you have completed Medical Delivery.
- This mission starts when you encounter a lone piece of jetsam floating in deep space, and (after cracking the container with your weapons) analyzing the recovered artifact.
- You will encounter a total of four pieces of jetsam throughout the main story of the game. Note their experiment numbers.
- If you get the related jetsam piece last of the four, you won’t be given a specific map location to examine until you analyze that artifact.
- Your command crew will recommend a region of the galaxy to explore, and their progress at analyzing the pattern(s) associated with these experiment numbers and other encounters in the game.
- You will encounter up to four further anomalies relating to those experiment numbers (Red Nebula, Blue Crystals, Ochre Fog, and Dead Glade)
- The Red Nebula discovery will prompt (after a delay) your science officer to point out that this is not a natural phenomenon
- The Blue Crystals anomaly (paired with its experiment number) will prompt (after a delay) your Chief Medical officer to point out that this is the likely source of the plague which you alleviated in the Medical Delivery mission
- The Ochre Fog anomaly will prompt (after a delay) your command crew to observe that this is the same dimethyl compound contamination originating from experiment 9440, and is related to the Yellow Fog anomaly encountered previously in Locoan space. Critically, this can be found on a Greenhouse planet
- The Dead Glade anomaly can be found on a rocky planet, and will prompt (also after a delay) your command crew to observe that the missing tree roots associated with experiment 9011 are from this world, and also that the prion disease affecting the Kyrnan habitats in the ‘northern’ part of the galaxy had the same effect on the trees in the Dead Glade before their roots were amputated.
- Having the Blue Crystals anomaly plus the Medical Delivery completion is one pre-requisite
- The discovery of the red nebula itself constitutes a further pre-requisite
- Of Ochre Fog or Dead Glade, you require only one (for a total of three out of four clues)
- Three of four clues will unlock the ability to rebuild the experiment indices at the Isolated Lab anomaly inside the red nebula.
- You will encounter (if not already, soon) a unique area-of-effect missile weapon fielded by the Devout (around the same time as they begin deploying shield projectors around destroyers and frigates). 
Having taken damage from at least one of these missile attacks, your command crew will make an observation that the missile attacks (technically called ‘hard radiation’) are related to this weapons research as well. After a brief delay, your Chief Medical Officer will unlock an item in the research tree. Researching this item will end the mission.
Mission: Derelict Refinery (see also Encounter: Refinery Derelict)
Remarks: Roughly south of the Lone Antenna world (the system in which you first encounter a Heretic Portal) but indicated by a reddish nebula, asteroid field, two planets, a gateway, and a single flinger without a paired twin.
- Do not destroy the refinery
- The refinery will yield a few resources on investigation (Titanium and Platinum), but offer the option to repair the refinery as well.
- Repair costs 80 Aluminum, 25 Titanium, and one Chiralite. The repair is not a skill check, so there is no risk involved.
- This is one of the rare occurrences in the game where you can expect to provide a one-time investment of resources and gain a trickle of resource income which renews with a cooldown. The alternative is to blow apart asteroids and enemy ships ad infinitum
- The gateway is near the gas giant, if you need to temporarily visit Celaeno or another destination for resources or repairs.
- Activate the gateway before entering the flinger.
- From the clue provided by your command crew, you can survey the nearby planet and reconfigure the flinger to send a ship to Celaeno.
- With the flinger reconfigured and the refinery repaired, the mission should complete, and you will be able to regularly interact with Lt. Milton to redeem a modest income of Titanium and Platinum – both important mid-game resources.
Explorer Hull:
100 Titanium, Total 5 Etherine (less any from recycling your current bridge ; if you are upgrading from a Scout-class, that means you recycle only 2 from your bridge, so you will need 3 Etherine. The interface to launch a new ship schematic omits any free resources in your cargo count, so if you have 2 Etherine in your cargo and the interface says you are missing 1 Etherine, what it means is – you still need one Etherine more, so go obtain it first).
Encounter: No Survivors / Flinger Victim
- Protected by a Red Raider Outpost (second-generation)
- The system to the flinger leading east is in a blue nebula, at the center of which is a “Late Stage” red giant star. The flux from this star is dangerous, so give it a wide berth (after you get the anomaly notification that calls the star out as a late stage red giant and gives you a research bonus)
- The southernmost planet in this red giant system has an artifact called the Brass Pillar which will feature prominently later in the game.
- Further east, you will encounter a large structure which your first officer refers to as a Remnant Derelict. Investigate the wreck, which will start the Talonian Wreck mission. 
Mission: Talonian Wreck
- Use weapons fire to collect all the debris here – the resources are valuable, suggesting the Remnants used a Platinum-Iridium alloy for their less-durable (!) items, and an Adamantine alloy for things needing to take a beating.
- Considering your progress so far, make a note to reserve at least 10 Iridium for later, since you’ll need it.
- Also, recovering the Brass Pillar and examining the derelict will provide clues as to the existence of a faction or being called the Talonian(s).
- This will unlock dialogue back at Celaeno, where Commodore Yu will notify you of changes to your overall priorities.
- This will also unlock dialogue with Capt. Dolson, providing a clue in relation to “the brass fragment of a Talonian, awaiting restoration.”
- This interaction will complete the mission.
- When she discloses the existence of a map and its limitations, you may note that there is only one such environment in the game where east-west travel could take a century to close a loop, but north-south travel could never find a closed path – the interior of the Remnant ring structured (orbiting the desert planet, in the nebula with the blue comet).
- Without any reason to delay, you might as well travel there by gateway, investigate the ring structure, and obtain the next brass artifact (the Ringworld Talonian Fragment) before analyzing it and returning.
Encounter: Red Guard Attack on Celaeno
Pre-requisites: Unclear. This spawned after entering and exiting Celaeno for the first time after acquiring two Talonian fragments total. The visiting of the Massive Derelict anomaly ("Full Chariot") appears to also be a possibility
- Multiple Raider Heavy Gunners, Red Guard Scouts, and one Red Guard Cruiser attacking Celaeno
- Normally a Goryr Researcher will not be present when this happens
- The Aletheia may come under considerable fire if the difficulty setting is high and she is not actively screened from damage. The majority of combat will take place outside of the range of Celaeno’s guns, so it will be up to you to protect her from destruction.
- Post-combat, Commodore Yu will outline the urgency of re-establishing a wormhole connection with Starcom space.
Miscellaneous: Green Berries
- Artifact obtained from a planetary survey of a forest world
- Turning this quest in to Dr. Rama and Lt. Milton will provide some research and resource bonuses.
Miscellaneous: Hard Radiation
- You will encounter this discovery the first time you take Support Crew damage from a Devout radiological missile. This is not dangerous unless it cripples the health of your command crew and also reduces your healthy Support Crew below a level where they can repair other hull damage against weapons fire.
- You’ll also note that the radiological missiles don’t fly with intent to impact your hull ; they fly with intent to detonate ahead of your craft so that you’ll fly into the area-of-effect of the radiation cloud (if you continue flying straight and presumably at a constant speed). Acceleration, braking, sideslipping, and turning can all confuse the missile guidance.
Suggestion: Explore generally northeast of the eastern end of Locoan space when you have nothing else to investigate. After a short distance of a few star systems, you may encounter Ermyr and start the Trade Guild mission. As you are warned by the Ermyr, do not scan or survey any planets until authorized.
Mission: Trade Guild
Pre-requisites: Enter Trade Guild space and pass within communications range of an Ermyr or Trade Guild vessel.
- First priority will be to travel east via flinger(s) until encountering a Guild Trader vessel in order to communicate with a Guild Master.
- On purchasing a transponder code for 10 Iridium, the Second Legion Ermyr will leave you alone & you may scan & survey in Guild space at your convenience.
- The Trade Guild will offer two artifacts you may wish to purchase – a Brass Joint which is a Talonian fragment, and a Remnant Scroll which affords a research point bonus.
- The Trade Guild will also permit you to sell any non-mission-item artifacts to them for Iridium. Be careful not to sell an item which is un-analyzed. Incidentally, the Remnant Scroll can be sold back to the Trade Guild right after analyzing it.
- This mission completes on purchasing a transponder code.
Suggestion: Once you have completed the Trade Guild mission and have finished up with resource trades & sales to the Guild Trader ship(s) you can backtrack to the system where you first encountered the Ermyr Second Legion. This is the western edge of Guild space and has both a gateway and an Oceanic-class planet which hosts the Aquarian Colony faction (who are also traders)
Suggestion: You may note that the Guild Traders offer heavily discounted Aluminum for sale (compared to the going rate on the open market). As the Island Traders require Aluminum and will pay a premium for it, you have the option of not only selling harvested Aluminum to them, but also buying Aluminum in bulk from the Guild and doing likewise.
Mission: Imperial Flora
Pre-requisites: Exhaust dialogue options with the administrator of the Aquarian Colony faction regarding Imperial Flora.
- This mission will prioritize you locating a random encounter confined to an Ocean-class planet.
- Analyzing what you find there, you will then need to purchase an item from a Guild Trader
- Having done that, you will need to return to Celaeno and perform some research
- The finished mission can be turned in to the administrator of the Aquarian Colony faction
- This will result in greatly improved Buy/Sell prices at this trade location.
- You can then sell the Imperial Flora Blight artifact to the Guild for Iridium
Mission: CXTA Stalkers
Pre-requisites: Complete Medical Delivery, Stranded CXTA, and CXTA Smuggler, and also have started Trade Guild 
- You will be requested to investigate a hazard in a marked nebula at the north extreme of Guild space.
- A gateway coordinate is provided, so you can travel straight there if desired.
- A flinger from this system leads south, whereas the nebula covers both of two stars in this area.
- There should be a formation of CXTA tankers which spawn at the northeast of the grid square and head slowly west
- There should also be a formation of Stalker Scouts and Stalker Frigates which spawn to the northwest and head slowly east.
- Neither will hail you unprompted, but the Stalker faction will cloak and begin attack runs on the CXTA if (when) the latter come within sensor range.
- Destroying sufficient Stalkers to have one of them drop a Telemetry Device artifact will permit you to analyze it, and deliver it to the Guild Trader to advance the mission. The analyzed artifact can then be sold to the Guild since you will have no further use for it.
- The mission can be turned in with any CXTA hauler.
Mission: The CXTA (continued)
- Completing the CXTA Stalkers mission will progress the The CXTA mission such that the option to trade resources and artifacts with them will be unlocked.
- You will need 100 Gold total to buy all of their ‘dead-letter’ undelivered cargo.
- Of the cargo, all can be analyzed and resold directly to the Guild except for Undelivered Cargo 6.
- Undelivered Cargo 4 makes a passing reference to the later Hidden Tomb / Tomb of Ock Juk mission.
- Undelivered Cargo 7 makes a reference to the Nimion and Kyrnan factions, if you have not yet encountered one or either.
- Undelivered Cargo 9 makes a reference to the Sepharial faction (see above)
- Undelivered Cargo 6 contains a CXTA transponder which will become useful to progress this mission even further.
- After a delay, your Chief Engineer will note some context around the transponder, where similar missions took place around a “full chariot” 
- The next trigger for this mission will be encountering a system and debris field similar to the Remnant Derelict (see above) but with only half of the destroyed vessel (and so referred to as a ‘half chariot’)
Mission: Pyramid Systems
- Pre-requisites: Inspect the western planet of the lone star system to the south of the main east-west part of the Guild space constellation.
- Starting and passing the Engineering skill check will both power the Portal at the opposite end of the system
- This will also prompt some Devout Ermyr to emerge from the gateway to investigate.
- For this reason, you should carry enough copper (130 to 200) to cover both the equipment repairs (and skill check failures) plus the following encounters and dialogue options.
Encounter: Ermyr Convert
Pre-requisites: Start the Pyramid Systems mission
- Do not surrender your ship (this will instantly end the game)
- The Ermy Convert will turn hostile, forcing you to destroy them
- If there are Guild-allied Second Legion Ermyr within comms distance, they will hail you after a short delay.
- Exhausting the dialogue options will permit you to opt to hire the Second Legion Ermyr against the Ermyr Converts
- Ermyr Converts (both ships and Devout-aligned space stations) may now randomly spawn in any system in Guild space.
Encounter: Kyrnan
Encounter: Nimion
Mission: The Missing Diplomat
- Encounter the Nimion
- Respond to the Nimion Anax (“Captain,” Nimion, masculine) and offer to help
- Visit a Guild Trader
- Engage in dialogue regarding the missing diplomat
- Purchase the location clue
- Use a gateway to travel directly there (the gateway marked with The Missing Diplomat) mission title
- Scan and survey planets generally
- Explore the grid square until you come across a derelict: the Nimion Diplomat ship
- Exhaust all three dialogue options in searching the derelict, before optionally destroying it
- The first dialogue option will unlock a re-survey of the desert planet roughly in the middle of the system.
- You will be introduced to Anassa (“Captain,” Nimion, feminine) Jari who will attempt to explain her presence on-world and also the state in which the derelict was left.
- Best results appear to be obtained from accusing her of lying
- Return to Nimion space. (At this time, the Nimion faction should be in Allied disposition with you unless something has gone wrong).
- Hail any ship or station to be granted the option to return the diplomat to her people.
- The mission will auto-complete at this stage
- You have the option of revealing to the responding Nimion all of your findings, or selectively developing amnesia about the Anassa’s treason.
- Regardless of which option you choose, the Nimion will respond with information about Remnant artifacts and the Fallen Empire. This will mark a map location with a further gateway location and start the Fallen Lab mission. You will also gain the A Diplomatic Mission achievement
Mission: Imperial Flora (continued)
- If you are fortunate enough to find an eligible Oceanic world to scan and survey, you may find both a resource bonus of Iridium and something more helpful – a Imperial Flora Blight artifact
- On analyzing it, your chief Medical Officer should announce a possible solution for the problem facing the Aquarian Colony, provided they can obtain some information on the Fallen Empire’s flora.
- Locate any Guild Trader, and request to purchase their database.
- Return to Celaeno, and research the Imperial Blight technology in the Research lab. The cost is 15 RP, but if you lack this it’s not difficult to get as many points as these just by scanning planets, encountering random anomalies, etc.
- Having completed the research, return to the Aquarian colony and deliver the Blight
- The Aquarians will now also offer the Imperial Container item for sale.
- The mission will auto-complete when you have done so.
Suggestion:
- The pricing for resources in the Aquarian Colony will now be substantially better than it was.
- You may also note that the Aquarians pay a large premium to buy Iridium from you.
- You may recall that the Guild use Iridium as their reserve currency, but also pay a premium to buy Platinum.
- Platinum happens to be the Aquarians’ reserve currency.
- From this, you can experiment and deduce that now (after having completed the  Imperial Flora mission) you can trade these resources in a closed loop, with a net positive return on your investment (roughly 10% per two trades).
- If you are fortunate enough to have a Guild Trader parked near the Aquarian Colony world, this is a way to rapidly make resources from nothing.
- At a rough estimate, once you have traded to 3500-4000 Iridium at the Guild Trader, you essentially have enough wealth built up that you can outfit a ship however you like (assuming a ship made of a dreadnought’s worth of Adamantium).
- If you’re a gaming purist and you mind exploiting this aspect, you can still rely on resource harvesting from debris fields, hostile ship loot, etc. The game will still be adequately challenging
- If you’re a gaming purist and you don’t mind exploiting this aspect, you should be able to complete the build-up from a small amount of Iridium to the required 3500 in … no more than 146 trades (much less than 146 trades, if you start with more than just 12 Iridium and strategically harvest Platinum to sell to the Guild, and Iridium to sell to the Aquarians, both on the side). 
- If you’re almost a gaming purist and can recognize a shortcut when you see one, you might as well save your fingers and your controller by directly editing your cargo. 
- For those familiar with in-memory editors such as Cheat Engine(™). The developer and the author of these pages disclaim any risk or consequence from your use of a memory editor. 
- It’s safer and more straightforward just to edit your save file. You can do the following:
Save your game (use a new name, and note the name so you can find it later)
Locate your save file’s .JSON file and open it in a text editor
Search for the “playerResources” key
NERD CONTENT: Note that the playerResources key is actually an array of other key:value pairs, one for each resource.
Edit the value for the resource IRIDIUM to equal some new value (3000, 4000, whatever you like)
Save the .JSON file and reload the save (you do not need to quit the game for this to take effect)
Resist the temptation to give yourself thousands of every resource. The supply/demand effect that the game has from trading rare resources is noticeable. This ‘money exploit,’ if you will, between the Guild and Aquarians is only feasible because it involves two reserve currencies. Using it solely within the game’s trading UI for any other resources (e.g. Aluminum) will artificially inflate or depress the prices, depending on what you’re buying and selling, so: it’s arguably time-saving to give yourself an arbitrarily high amount of Platinum or Iridium ; it’s arguably cheating to give yourself any other resource for free.
Mission: Fallen Lab
- Quantum Container artifact
- Analyze it
Found an old lab, but whatever was in it was recently removed, presumably by the Kyrnan
- The Fallen Lab system is one of a very small number of systems which has a Kyrnan outpost (assuming you do not destroy it). 
Mission: Kyrnan Treaty
- Pass within hailing distance of a Kyrnan station or ship, after having completed The Missing Diplomat
- Trade with the Kyrnan ; purchase their Remnant artifact
- Ask the Kyrnan about the Remnant artifact
- The mission will automatically start when you have done this. You will also receive a map marker for a gateway, possibly near the Nimion homeworld
- The Remnant Device artifact does not need to be analyzed for the mission to progress, but it does provide free RP.
- The game’s story will not progress unless you start this mission, although you have the option to give the Kyrnan a wide berth and continue exhausting other missions, grinding for resources, etc.
- From the gateway, proceed east through several flingers
- Pass by an inactive gateway, and continue east to a neighboring star
- The star has one Terrestrial-class planet, which is the Nimion homeworld. The station in orbit is not essential to the mission, but you will need to scan and send down the survey team for the next part.
- The mission progresses with a Kyrnan flotilla appearing to the southwest, and immediate weapons fire at range between them and the Nimion
- You have the option of hailing either faction, but depending on your choice of outcomes you may not be able to hail the other faction after making a selection.
- From this outbreak of hostilities it is difficult to remain neutral and retain both the Nimion and the Kyrnan as neutral-aligned trade partners. The dialogue choices are very narrow:
Communicate with the Kyrnan and opt to ‘consider their request’
Communicate with the Nimion, do not feign ignorance, and instead select the option to surmise that the Kyrnans sold you the Remnant Device to breach their defenses and cripple their communications.
Do not select the following option to declwaare neutrality. Instead, select the option to consider the Nimion request for aid (effectively, deferring the decision indefinitely).
- Unusually, having bladed the Kyrnan in your Nimion discussions and committing to neither side, the Kyrnans will remain neutral toward you, and the Nimion will remain allied.
- Allying with one faction will instantly and irrevocably make you an enemy of the other (no further dialogue will be possible).
- There are trade and tactical benefits to allying with one faction or the other, depending on your playstyle.
- For example, allying with the Nimion will grant you a technological artifact which is missile-centric, along with bonuses if you selected the appropriate conclusion to The Missing Diplomat
- Allying with the Kyrnan will grant you a technological artifact which is laser-centric
Mission: Kyrnan Treaty (continued – opt to side with the Kyrnan)
- Kyrnan become neutral
- Nimion become hostile (permanently)
- Kyrnan may grant you an Aperture Penetrator artifact and possibly a Fission Warhead artifact
Mission: Kyrnan Treaty (continued – opt to side with the Nimion)
- Kyrnan become hostile (permanently)
- Nimion become allied
- Nimion may grant you a Fission Warhead artifact and possibly an Aperture Penetrator artifact
Mission: Kyrnan Treaty (continued – opt to remain neutral)
- While your decision is pending with the Kyrnan faction, you cannot trade with them.
- Return to Celaeno. Dr. Rama will offer insight into the Remnant Device, and extract from it the location of a further gateway. This will start the Kyrnan Gateway mission.
Mission: Kyrnan Gateway
- This system also has one of a small number of Kyrnan stations
- The Nimion in the system to the east (when & as they spawn) will communicate with you for the purpose of warning you of the presence of Sleeper Mines (unless they are hostile to you)
- Otherwise the Kyrnan will warn you of the same hazard
- The “Recent Wreck” anomaly can be found on the planet closest to the debris field
- There are several artifact drops from the debris mixed into the minefield
- Investigating the Nimion Guardian Wreck will gain you a clue for this mission.
- The stationary, derelict ships in the minefield are of a different logical faction than the live Kyrnan and Nimion who are in a shooting war. They start off as the same alignment as you and the ‘real’ Kyrnan and Nimion when the system is entered, but you can investigate them, or destroy them at will, without penalty. The Nimion Guardian Wreck is also a further neutral faction (from even the Nimion frigates making up the derelicts in the debris field)
- The nearby system which consists of a brown dwarf star has one lunar-class satellite, containing a Listening Post anomaly, and can be scanned & surveyed for a critical clue relating to this mission.
- The Nimion Guardian Wreck clue is optional ; the Listening Post clue is required to progress the related mission.
- The skill check associated with Listening Post can be failed with only a minor penalty – you still get the mission clue and log entry, but will be attacked by a small number of Red Guard ships
- The star to the north may have a small number of patrolling Nimion or Kyrnan ships, but should have an inactive gateway. A further gap separates this star from a blue-grey nebula containing a cluster of stars and planets.
- In the nearest star of the blue-grey nebula cluster, multiple Red Raider (not the Red Guard, but the previous type of ships) ships will attack from an outpost in the nearest system.
- The Sunken City anomaly will not give up its artifact without the precondition(s) being met. The survey of this planet will add an entry to the Fallen Empire mission, however.
- The other star will also have Red Raiders and an outpost
- North through a flinger to a further star, many Red Raiders and two stations will be encountered
- If you have completed the Dusty Trails anomaly this will be a sufficient clue for the Sunken City location to produce an artifact for you to analyze
- Retrieving the Sphere in Jade Cradle artifact will end the mission
Discovery: Pale Iris system
- If you explore generally near the Nimion homeworld, you may have a blue star appear on sensors. On examination, it has two orbiting planets (one of them icy and far from the primary).
- The Discovery / Anomaly Nitrogen Lakes will appear if you scan this icy world.
- Having the clue from the Listening Post anomaly will hint that there is an artifact to be found here.
- If your command crew can pass the necessary skill check, an artifact will be recovered.
Encounter: Ermyr Wreck
- Starts the Hidden Tomb mission
Mission: Hidden Tomb
- It’s not possible to get hopelessly lost in this anomaly – the tomb has a finite number of rooms and passages
- You can map out the entire tomb using graph paper, or you can follow the steps below:
South (enter the tomb proper)
East (this is the tomb entrance & exit)
South
South
East
South
East
<This tomb location will grant you resources and a map>
West->North->West->North->North->West will bring you back to the tomb entrance ; from the entrance you may go:
West
South
South
East
(this location has a triggered trap) ; go back
West
West
South
(this location has an untriggered trap, and a skill check will be needed)
West
West
West
South
(this location has a combat encounter. Hold your ground twice in a row)
South
East
South
South
(this location grants the Ornate Scepter artifact and returns you to the lander)
- The Ornate Scepter is analyze-able.
- The Hidden Tomb mission will not end immediately, but will grant +5 XP rather than the usual +1 XP
- NERD CONTENT: The mouseover text on the map for the planet containing the Hidden Tomb is named Colossal Caves. This is an allusion to the Colossal Cave Adventure of 1975-1976 by William Crowther, and what he wrote was the first version of what is widely regarded as one of the earliest examples of an adventure game and ‘interactive fiction’ game for computers.
(The computer in question was a Programmed Data Processor (PDP) model PDP-10 mainframe. Fully upgraded and ignoring certain temporal or practical considerations, the 36-bit PDP-10 would support a maximum of about 35 megabytes of memory and run at about 1 megaFLOPS per second. Power and space considerations aside, a PDP-10 would weigh approximately a short ton).
Later the game would be expanded upon by Don Woods. Despite this being a landmark in computer gaming from half a century ago, the game, Mr. Crowther, and Mr. Woods are all still around. 
Hidden Tomb will complete only if you hail one of the Second Legion Ermyr and inquire after selling the scepter to them (and accept their offer). This will grant the Tomb of Ock Juk achievement
Mission: The Starlance (continued)
- Acquiring the Sphere in Jade Cradle artifact will unlock a dialogue option with Capt. Dolson.
- Capt. Dolson’s dialogue will unlock a research item in the lab at Celaeno.
- Research the technology
- Speaking to Dr. Rama before leaving Celaeno will further expand on her concerns about restoring the wormhole to Starcom space
- Make your way to the Starlance
- Activate it.
- After a delay, your command crew will observe that there are no more periodic emissions from the first of the Polyhedral Artifacts you discovered (the one emitting amber particles)
- This mission auto-completes when you move to the location of the Polyhedron (which has been replaced by an open wormhole) and enter for the first time. This also grants the No Place Like Home achievement and starts the Primordial Universe mission.
Mission: Primordial Universe
- This is a (relatively) short mission
- Scan and survey the nearby planet
- Head roughly due east
- Your Astroscience officer will point out the limitations of your travel in this universe. Namely:
NERD CONTENT: 
- Nearer than about 800 AU from the Yellow Superstar (‘megastar’) you will take constant solar flux damage from the star itself, until your hull collapses.
- Further out than about 1800 AU from the Yellow Superstar (‘megastar’) you will emerge from the heliopause into the interstellar medium, and begin to take constant radiation damage until your hull collapses. (‘Interstellar’ hardly has any meaning in a universe with only one observable star, but the brave Commanders among us may go searching for a second star at their convenience)
- Incidentally, you can get even closer to the core of the megastar for a bonus scientific Discovery, at approximately 200 AU, but whether you will have enough time / hull strength / Battlestations margin to return to the ‘safe’ part of this universe in one piece – that may take some doing.
- To the east of the megastar, inside the ‘safe’ zone, is a further planet capable of being scanned and surveyed, but it is guarded by a small Devout fleet and a Cathedral station.
- Combat is no more difficult in this universe, but aggressive maneuvering may put you outside of the ‘safe’ zone and subject you to additional damage.
- Surveying the planet will have you acquire the Probe Storage artifact
- If you have collected all artifacts and resource / research bonuses from this universe, you may head back to Celaeno. Remember to analyze the Probe Storage artifact.
- On emerging from the wormhole back into Unknown Space the Aletheia may begin to move in your direction at speed. She will not stop until she hails you, and only then will she return to patrolling near Celaeno. Her dialogue will indicate to you an intercepted Devout communication and start the Devout Message mission.
- On docking with Celaeno and interacting with both Commodore Yu and Lt. Milton, the mission will end.
Red Star, somewhat between the Full Chariot and the Derelict Refinery
Anomaly: Second Factory
Anomaly: Half-Chariot
Mission: The CXTA (continued)
- Your Chief Engineer will observe when the CXTA transponder powers up, at which time he will estimate that the parent ship is within about 1 sector. Brake hard, so that you’re not overshooting your mark.
- Subject to interpretation of what your Chief Engineer means, the target may be in any of:
A box centered on your ship, the size of a grid square (5000 AU on a side)
A circle with a diameter of that of a grid square (so, radius 2500 AU)
A circle with a 5000 AU radius (putting the target “one sector away” at most)
The same or the eight-surrounding grid squares as the ship & half-chariot
- Consequently, your search will not be very long.
- Your Chief Engineer will notify you if you move within 2500-3000 AU of the target.
- From that, you can deduce that the target is also within 2500-3000 AU of your ship.
- Plot two circles – one of radius 2500 AU and one of 3000 AU, and the transponder’s target is definitely sandwiched between those circles
- Be mindful if you encounter a random (procedural) derelict during your search – it will likely not be the CXTA ship you’re trying to locate.
- Your Chief Engineer will notify you if you’re getting closer
- Your First Officer will notify you if the ship appears on sensors.
- Investigate the CXTA Derelict to obtain the CXTA Talonian Fragment
- Analyze the fragment to conclude the mission
- Bonus: Read carefully back through the log entries
- “Have collected cargo 8813802 from client who specifically requested straight-line void route to destination.”
- “Pick-up was close to massive half chariot derelict. CXTA-95003 reported an earlier pick-up at full chariot derelict, similar instructions. This route is much shorter, expect no difficulties. Should arrive at client destination in (unknown time reference)
- If you assume that the CXTA Derelict was traveling in a straight line from its pickup (the half-chariot) to its destination, you should be able to extrapolate what direction it was traveling. Continue that way to encounter a new star or two.
Encounter: Goryr Starbase
Silver Antenna anomaly
Pyramid with stone base on the patterned after the other pyramids previously found.
“228 excavation” no more than a year old
- If you have a matching communication from another pyramid or a burst relay, this will cause you to wonder
- There is an inactive gateway in this system
- There is an active Portal in the system
- Curious, as the Goryr mentioned that the Heretics had fled this part of the galaxy and took the secret to the Portals with them. All the other portals encountered so far had been dormant.
Incidentally, there is nothing to find between the full chariot and this star system (though you’d be justified in searching)
The Portal in this system takes you back to the Portal near the half-chariot, if you hadn’t taken the chance to activate it.
This half-chariot Portal, in turn, takes you to the Lone Antenna system where you first encountered the Portals
Mission: Hello World
- Visit the Terrestrial-class planet in the marked system, and scan and survey it.
- Search the system for an early space-programme satellite (should be within 2500 AU or so)
- Investigate the satellite (Viral Primer)
- Your command crew will calculate the approximate location of where the satellite received the foreign signal from.
- On visiting the location, you will encounter the Posguul faction
- The Posguul will hail you if you come within range
- They explain their actions ; you have the options of protesting their actions or threatening them, but they will not become hostile to you unless you fire first.
- Their space consists of two unconnected but close stars ; one of these has an inactive gateway.
- You can optionally destroy all the Posguul ships, in defiance of standing Starcom orders and directives
- The mission will end when you depart Posguul space and put some separation between you
Anomaly: Evacuated Pyramid
- Survey of a desert world with an inactive Portal nearby ; reward is a modest amount of Chiralite and a Burst Transmitter artifact
- Analysis of the Burst Transmitter will align neatly with some of the previous surveys you’ve done of abandoned Pyramid structures on desert worlds, especially those with Portals nearby.
- Having discovered one evacuated pyramid and a burst transmitter, the mission Evacuations will start.
- After this point, you may encounter Burst Relay artifacts floating in deep space in the same way as derelicts or other deep-space anomalies (technically, they are space stations as they are ships with finite hull strength, but no engines). They provide story clues and can usually be broken open by weapons fire to give a small Chiralite reward. 
Mission: Evacuations
- The first Burst Relay will add an item to the mission
- A subsequent evacuated pyramid will also add an item to the mission
- A subsequent encounter in deep space with a Burst Relay which is malfunctioning will point to a system where the mission can be resolved
- Evacuations will complete when you begin a survey of the marked planet.
- Unusually, this terrestrial world (Quldar) is one of the few non-Desert-class worlds in close proximity to a Portal
Mission: Legend of Wiskamug (continued)
- Through exploration you may encounter a diamond-shaped constellation of stars (the diamond is more broad east-to-west than it is tall north-to-south. 
- Stars within easy sensor range of this diamond (or inside the diamond) are fair game for inclusion in this mission.
- Various planetary anomalies will be encountered mixed among random anomalies.
- The ones to be on the lookout for are:
1.	Lost Luggage (which provides story clues relating to the story)
2.	Desert Antenna (which describes a desert antenna on the world Ryxag II. Also orbiting Ryxag is a wrecked Devout Cathedral in a co-orbit with Ryxag II, which can be inspected for clues about Wiskamug, then destroyed).
3.	Makeshift Lab (which contains an anomalous laboratory, worthy of further investigation outside of this specific mission. This also grants the Archive Databank artifact)
4.	Defended Well (which describes a small colony which is (through a play on words) well defended. The anomaly grants a small discovery bonus and further story clues regarding Wiskamug
5.	Fortress of Wiskamug (The northernmost star in this constellation should have an inactive Gateway but also the fortress on a Terrestrial world)
- The Fortress of Wiskamug anomaly can be entered with the assistance of a questionnaire.
- Two of three correct answers are essential (the clues needed are in Defended Well and Desert Antenna).
- The third answer can be deduced by relating the Abystar incident described in the Lost Luggage anomaly to a different anomaly, Military Debris. The clue from Military Debris is that Colonel Jyrakk’s ship is named Terminus
- Whether Wiskamug took command of Terminus after Colonel Jyrakk or not, or Wiskamug is Colonel Jyrakk is not clear.
- Entering the Fortress successfully will grant the Wiskamug Fragment artifact, and complete the mission
Anomaly: Makeshift Lab
- Having completed Legend of Wiskamug or not, the lab will not be usable until a skill check is passed and a further artifact is obtained. The skill check, if passed, will start the Neural Retrainer mission
- The other artifact is the Black Sphere from the Sterilized Pyramid anomaly.
Mission: Neural Retrainer
- Supplying the Black Sphere from to the makeshift lab planet will complete the mission
- Thereafter the Makeshift Lab anomaly can be used as many times as desired, to respec the allocated command crew skill points.
- The neural retainer also refunds earned skill points, so while your command crew still have their specializations (e.g. the Xenoculture officer still starts with a +2 for Xenoculture) and their secondary skills, all they retain from this process is their rank.
- This is not only useful generally for fine-tuning your command crew’s specializations, but it also makes it easier to complete the Trial by Ordeal anomaly if you have maxed on command crew level but do not have an eligible officer skilled enough to complete the ordeal on even the best dice roll.
Anomaly: Sandstorm
- A survey of a desert world with a skill check may produce an artifact called the Altar to the God’s Bones
- The artifact should be analyzed.
- After a long delay, your Xenoculture officer should make an observation that starts the Bones of the Dead God mission
Mission: Bones of the Dead God
- After a delay, your Astroscience officer will deduce that the astrolabe artifact is pointing to a location solved by a four-body LaGrange system. The star will probably be K-type, and there will be exactly four planets in orbit (one large, three small), arranged in the same distance from their parent.
- NERD CONTENT: Stellar classification involves both spectral (color) considerations, and luminosity (brightnesss). The older classification systems of Secchi, Draper, and the many Harvard systems were eventually replaced by the Morgan–Keenan classification (M-K). A K-type star is an orange dwarf
- You may ignore the star’s classification by simply searching for a star with that number and arrangement of planets.
- If you have already scanned and surveyed such a world, it will become re-surveyable at this point.
- A clue from searching the ship’s log entries reveals – if you’ve already visited it and examined its various bodies – that this system also contains a silver comet due to the LaGrange effect
- In any case, your Astroscience officer will report back “This system looks promising.” if you have entered the correct one.
- Surveying the world in question will permit you to collect the Brass Connector artifact.
- Collecting the artifact and analyzing it will complete the mission, and grant the Bones of the Dead God achievement.
Encounter: Guild Envoy
- A Guild-allied scout craft will hail you if you explore the furthest system (but one – this will be the second from the last system) and come within comms range. They will alert you that you are nearing Sepharial space.
- Sepharia is identified as the system through the flinger to the west.
- This will start the Sepharial mission
Mission: Sepharial
- The Envoy will offer advice, but no trade opportunities (their position being that of a Guild Envoy, not a Guild Master). Their advice will emerge if they are sufficiently induced.
- If you do induce the Envoy to speak on the subject of the Sepharial, it emerges that they may be in possession of a Talonian fragment.
- If you meet the requirements of their proposal, you can secure the Envoy’s help or withhold a decision for the moment.
- The mission technically has three approaches, fittingly all of them worthy of an RPG:
Parley: The Envoy will agree (for 100 Iridium up front, and a further 100 Iridium on delivery), to steal the fragment for you. A delay (visiting Celaeno, for example) will be necessary to permit the Envoy to visit Sepharia and return. Configured how it is, and despite the Talonian fragments being generally indestructible, the game will not let you wait for the Envoy to obtain the fragment, and by destroying their ship obtain either your initial payment back, the second installment, or the fragment itself.
Battle: You can, if you wish, combat your way to Sepharia and scan and land on the Sepharial homeworld. (At the minimum difficulty level, this is still a challenging combat, and on the highest difficulty level it is practically impossible).
Tips & tricks include:
- The Sepharial Ophian ships rely on fixed guns and plasma cannons on their warships, and fixed guns, plasma cannons, and lasers on their stations. Their plasma cannon range is approximately 350 AU, so they arguably outrange all but your best missile or fighter weapons.
- The attack of between 1 and 4 patrol ships will be difficult, but their ships will survive each of their two engines being blown off.
- If the ships are immobilized, but not destroyed, the game will not respawn them and the rest of the system can be approached
- The Sepharial Throne stations can be attacked at their soft points – a focus on the triangular ‘points’ of the stations will take out their lasers and fixed guns. Their plasma turrets which remain can be tolerated so long as they are taken out in turn. Thereafter, the station needs only two of its three reactors destroyed before it will suffer hull collapse.
- The single Sepharial Immortal is aptly named – it has a Mk2 plasma turret, warhead launcher, and a laser weapon, all armored from front attack, and has three regenerator modules (which can regenerate a hull module blasted free by weapons fire). The missile launcher fires only a single, powerful warhead on a fast fuselage, but cannot be ignored. The laser and the plasma turret are a tough decision at practical combat range. The regenerators, meanwhile, will select and replace a missing module according to their own priority, but have a long cooldown time. The only solution is to apply flanking fire against their exposed hull modules, exhaust their regenerator charges, and then start focusing on taking the regenerators out as well. By juggling which of the weapons & which of the regenerators you are taking out, you can eventually wear down the station enough to destroy it.
- The other solution (if so desired) is that the Sepharial Immortal will slowly drift back to its holding station above the planet, but will only prevent you from landing the surveyor craft if it is within ~ 350 AU. As the Thrones are over 350 AU away, you can brute-force your way through this dilemma by pushing the Immortal out of place long enough to snag the Fragment and leave.
Stealth: You can pay attention to the Envoy’s admonition that the Sepharial will destroy any ship but theirs. If you have the correct tech research conducted (Chromaplate, Large Bulkheads, Scanner Mk1) you can build a Scout-class ship of the same shape, and paint it in Guild livery. You will know if your ship’s color scheme and hull configuration are adequate if the Envoy complains about your infringement on Guild trademark. Thereafter, you can bluff your way past the Sepharial ships and stations to steal the Fragment from them.
- Also note that the system contains a long-period comet orbiting in an elliptical orbit ; possibly far enough from the star as to permit you to scan it without being at risk. The comet is one of a required number needed to obtain the last & most beneficial Major Discovery regarding comet evolution, and is the hardest to reach.
- The mission conclude when you have obtained the fragment.
- If you obtain the fragment without the Envoy’s help, the Envoy will have disappeared by the time you return to their usual hangout.
Mission: Void Disruptor
- Your first voyage through deep-deep space (deeper than a direct-line journey from your usual travel routes to the Cepheid Variable earlier in the game) will eventually lead you across a device which emits a powerful void distortion, slowing your void effect from near 100% down to 5%. Approaching it will start the mission. There is nothing to gain by analyzing it, so it can be destroyed for a Neutronium bonus.
- Your second encounter of a void disruption will reveal that the disruptor object in deep space is accompanied by a cloaked Void Stalker starship (the ship class is that of a Void Reaper, a cruiser-dreadnought of quite dangerous potential
- If you cannot effectively battle the Reaper, you can destroy the Disruptor, which will cause the Reaper to break off their attack. The mission will end (for now)
- If you can destroy the Reaper, then the mission will still end (though you may still encounter a third Disruptor in deep space, later in the game)
- If you have not destroyed the Reaper in this encounter, you will encounter them at the third Disruptor.
- You can avoid the Reaper at the third, fourth, etc. Disruptors in the same manner (technically harvesting infinite or quasi-infinite Neutronium as you go)
- Destroying the Reaper grants the Fear the Reaper achievement
Anomaly: Trial by Ordeal
- Commemorative plaque and bragging rights, plus some Research Points as a bonus
- Your Observation, Biomed, or Tactics officer may attempt the Trial, but they should have some skill point contributions in all three categories.
Anomaly: Multimodal Cepheid
- This star and a surrounding cluster may be found in deep space
- Close-to, the star resembles a yellow-orange dwarf star, with purple or pink flares in the corona.
NERD CONTENT: Purple and pink color-emissions are not normally encountered in stars occurring in our universe. Gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet light, visible light biased toward the indigo & blue, toward the yellow, orange, or red, dim red, so infra-red as to be glowing more brown than red, completely infra-red, etc. The color mixtures appear (to our eyes) never to produce green or violet because of the mixture of chemical elements and the high temperatures involved. White light from a star is balanced evenly from all colors (red and blue ends of the spectrum), as if you made a rainbow and then mixed the colors together evenly.
- This star has the lowest rate of damage to nearby hulls, except possibly for brown dwarf stars.
Anomaly: Sterilized Pyramid
- This is encountered around a star named Kor (which will not be named on the map)
- From the pyramid can be obtained a Black Sphere artifact
- The log entries tie this encounter in with both the Lost Luggage and Military Debris anomalies
- The artifact itself can be used in the Makeshift Lab anomaly & the related Neural Retrainer mission
Anomaly: Neural Interface
- A failure or a success at the skill check in examining this anomaly will either start the Derelict Dreams mission or directly grant a skill bonus to another command crew member.
Mission: Derelict Dreams
- After a few days, your Chief Medical Officer will allude to a desire to visit a specific location in space, after their experience with the neural interface.
- At this location, the Neural Derelict can be encountered.
- After a delay, your Chief Medical Officer will report having no more ‘derelict dreams’ but will gain a skill bonus in Astroscience.
Anomaly: Legacy Facility
- Usually an Ancient orbiter station in orbit (2x fighter bays, multiple Mk1 plasma turrets, not well-armored)
- Two more in procedural worlds near the periphery of the main game
- Give insight into the Fallen Empire were using genetic enhancement 
- After the third such facility, a suggestion to speak with Capt. Dolson will be raised.
- Capt. Dolson will provide some context about Fallen Empire history, granting an RP bonus
Topic: Void “dark” nebulae and the two procedural walls in the game
- Intended to stop the player from traveling directly out from Celaeno and to parts of the game where later missions take place, until they are ready.
- The wall which blocks off the space to the west and south is not infinite, but prevents the late-game from being encountered early.
- The wall which blocks off the space to the north and northeast is not infinite either, but prevents the midgame from being encountered early.
Mission: Devout Message
- Destination system has nothing worth surveying
- The Portal is inactive but can be activated easily
- The system into which you emerge is that of a brown star in a green nebula, surrounded by (initially) neutral Devout who will turn hosile after a short delay and start threatening you.
- The system has a Devout Parish, Temple, and Cathedral, and at least one Gerarai-class heavy frigate and several Purger-class scouts.
- The mission ends when you have eliminated all the hostiles in the system
- Note that there are still sleeper mines near the northern planet & that part of the sector, and near the flinger exiting to the southwest.
- In addition to their usual weapon complements (plasma cannons, swarm warheads, fixed guns, lasers, fighter bays) you will also see the first use of a Devout EMP torpedo. These can be detonated at range like their hard-radiation missiles and other warheads. Unlike their missiles, they do not do hull damage or crew damage, but reduce your reactor output and drain your energy reserves. If your defense strategy consists of maneuverability, shields, or weapons fire, you may experience some difficulty.
- You may encounter (in this part of the universe) multiple Devout prison anomalies. These provide clues, but none of the prisons need be breached through a successful skill check to progress a mission.
Devout Gerarai
Devout Purger
Goryr Cruiser
Parish
Temple
Cathedral
Adjunct
If you suspect (what with Starcom having three vessels in the universe, and of that only two with engines & one of those occupied fighting for its survival) that Celaeno might be in danger, you'd be right.
Returning to Celaeno through the gateway at the southeast of this patch of green nebula would be advisable
Keres
Post- "Devout Message" if you return to Celaeno and fight off their attack fleet, as well as the reinforcements which follow through the gateway shortly afterward as a second wave, you may still not have an active mission left. You will likely have recovered a Devout Remnant Interface artifact, and a data tablet containing information about the <REDACTED>
Anomaly: Crystal Palace
- A skill check may or may not result in command crew injury
- In either outcome, a Fractal Ice artifact will be obtained
Mission: Mysterious Damage
- After analyzing the Fractal Ice artifact from the Crystal Palace anomaly, you will (after a long delay) take damage while travelling at full throttle through space.
- After another long delay, you will take further damage during a combat.
- After a third instance of mysterious damage, you'll be prompted to return to Celaeno for a hard-reset of the ship computers. Dr Rama will have the dialogue option to perform this.
- Do not delay. It's possible to destroy the ship if this is not resolved.
- After the dialogue with Dr. Rama, exit Celaeno and your command crew will perform a brief validation before the mission ends. Bonus RP will be granted.
Anomaly: Dry Canyons
- This anomaly will begin the Frozen Algorithm mission
Mission: Frozen Algorithm
- On the ice planet orbiting this star (reachable via the gateway specified in the coordinates & turned into a map marker), 
- The recovered algorithm isn't an artifact, but can be delivered to Dr. Rama at Celaeno for analysis
- Dr. Rama will unlock a dialogue option to execute a quantum erasure of the technology tree. This will end the mission
- Unlike Neural Retrainer, this respec action can only be executed *once*
Tech drop:
Burnt Capacitor
Advanced Engine Component (both from Gerarai ?)
Anomaly: Devout Log
Mission: Archive Crystal
- When prompted, you may begin searching in the green nebula for a trail of debris fields (roughly southwest, in a line)
- The Generation Wreck mission will start if you pass close enough to this anomaly
- The trail continues past the wreck, and you may encounter unstable cores (which should be avoided)
- and also a wrecked Keres-class Devout ship
- The Arkadian Ruins anomaly will provide an update to this mission, but no end just yet.
- You will need to hail a Goryr ship to get information on this suggested artifact
- The Guild will (as suggested) have the Archive Crystal artifact for sale. The price is quite high (~ 60 Iridium)
- Your Xenoculture officer will provide a preliminary analysis of the contents, then suggest speaking with Capt. Dolson.
- Capt. Dolson will provide further information critical to your investigation, at which time Archive Crystal will end
Anomaly: Keres Wreck
- Investigating this ship will start the Redacted Missionz
Mission: Generation Wreck
- The wreck must be investigated to progress the mission
- Generation Wreck will conclude if you pass within detection distance of the Singularity
- Passing close enough to the Singularity to collect preliminary sensor readings will start the Singularity mission
Anomaly: Black Boxes, shielded
- Four or five of these may be present near the Generation Wreck
- If destroyed, they usually drop some Xenium and also the possibility of a data cube or Field Reflector artifact
Mission: Redacted
- Further unstable cores will lead to the southwest
- The void effect will rise slowly as you depart the brown star's influence, but then sharply drop
- A further brown star and/or blue star may be detected at the edge of sensor range.
- At the completion of Archive Crystal, and after a delay, you will receive an update from your command crew regarding the information from the Archive Crystal analysis
- A map marker to the south of the explored green nebula will appear
- At extreme sensor range, a star and further green nebula will appear
- Begin scanning and surveying in this new constellation, combatting as you progress
- The constellation is roughly kite-shaped
- Three Trinary keys may be obtained as artifacts from various encounters
- A random Devout ship will drop Trinary Key 1 on being destroyed (this can be in either the northern or southern green nebulae)
- The Key Cruiser anomaly will grant the Trinary Key 2 artifact
- The Devout Command Post anomaly will grant the Trinary Key 3 artifact
- The three keys are essential to accessing the Chariot in orbit of the ringed Chariot Lab anomaly planet
- The Gravity Lab anomaly will grant some resources and a technological clue for later use. After a delay, Lt. Milton provide you this dialogue option at Celaeno
- The Intact Chariot, once investigated with three analyzed keys, will appear to need a power source.
- After a delay, your command crew will suggest that the unstable cores are the necessary power source.
- Using the gravity gun or a front-mounted yoke, push three unstable cores to the chariot
- The chariot can be boarded for completion of the mission once three cores have been delivered
- After a delay, based on the warp equation obtained, Lt. Milton will also unlock the warp drive technology.
- A conversation with Commodore Yu will start the The Chariot Returns mission
Mothership
Devout Warper
Mission: Singularity
- Your Astroscience officer will suggest getting close-range sensor readings from the Singularity. Your chief engineer is not without valid concerns.
- One approach is to just brush the edge of the phenomenon and have Battlestations active as this is done. With luck, the minimum distance needed will be achieved and the hull damage will not be catastrophic.
- After a delay, your Astroscience officer will suggest running the findings past Dr. Rama
- Dr. Rama will provide some context on the Singularity possibly being a collapsed wormhole, but also that it will not lead anywhere (or do anything other than gently crush & spaghettify any object which comes sufficiently near).
- This will end the mission
Mission: The Chariot Returns
- Fight your way to the repositioned Chariot and pass within interaction range
- Return to Commodore Yu with a tactical analysis of the situation
- Wait for Lt. Milton to summon you for a conference
- This will start the Strange Matter mission
Mission: Strange Matter
- After a brief delay, approach a Goryr within hailing distance and wait for them to hail your ship
- This will start the The Lost Goryr Mission
Mission: The Lost Goryr
- Analyze the Goryr Encoder for free RP
- Navigate to the map marker where the lost Goryr surveyor was last seen
- On the way, investigate a derelict craft
- Your command crew will note where the derelict was attacked
- Proceed to where the lost surveyor was last seen, and search for the ship before delivering the encoder
- Any nearby Goryr will report the delivery of the encoder and the recovery of the undetonated EMP torpedo
- You may need to move within hailing distance of the Goryr patrolling at Celaeno before you will get the notification of unlocked technology (not a hard task, with three cruisers patrolling around Celaeno at any given moment and probably one near the gateway on your return).
- Researching the EMP Resistance technology will end the mission
- You will still have a map marker for the region where the derelict non-Goryr Goryr ship was attacked
Whichever way you elect to approach the map marker, your command crew will provide some obervations about the Goryr and their recent ship deployments and assistance rendered.
- At the marker, you will encounter a sealed container, which can be blown open to collect the Flight Recorder artifact
- This is a good a place as any to search for Xenium or Strange Matter, so continue to scan and survey uncharted worlds.
- In this region, you may intermittently hear a sound similar to that caused by a Void Disruptor. Do not be alarmed.
- Stalker Frigates and Scouts may be encountered nearby. If you cannot avoid them, combat may be inevitable but you will not be penalized for any ships you destroy
- The Abandoned Settlements anomaly will provide a useful log entry for later
- Another Abandoned Settlements anomaly will provide a useful map for later
- If you are stuck for how to progress your remaining missions, the metallic nebula to the east of the stars in this region is a good place to try
- On discovering the Collapsar, note the updates from your command crew, and use your weapons to intercept and blast open six stellar fragments as they are ejected
- Don't forget to do a close pass to the Collapsar for a sensor scan and bonus RP.
- Return to Lt. Milton. In addition to the six Strangelets, you will need 4 units of Xenium
- Confer with Commodore Yu to receive your next orders
- Strange Matter will complete, and you will start the mission Home. Dr. Rama will disappear from Celaeno's Operations room
- At this time, The Chariot Returns should still be active.
Mission: Home
- Entering the wormhole back to your home universe will conclude The Chariot Returns automatically
- If you take a (brief) moment with your advanced armaments to clear the debris field associated with the mission Cargo Spill, you will be granted the Unfinished Business achievement
- Head for Merope station at the map marker
- Dock with the station, and report to Rear Admiral Eridani while Dr. Rama attends to some critical research
- After delivering your report, follow RAdm. Eridani's orders to hail the ship at the map marker
- Return to Merope station and report to RAdm. Eridani again
- If your ship needs outfitting, Merope has both a research lab and a shipyard, and you're at liberty to use either or both
- Check with Dr. Rama before departing
Mission: And Back Again
- Return to the wormhole near Maia Beta ; travel through when you can
- There will be a significant Devout presence at Celaeno as you return there
- The Goryr may have enlisted the assistance of the Ermyr Second Legion for base defense
- You will also have the assistance of either the Kyrnan or the Nimion, if you have allied with one faction.
- When you have cleared all the Devout from near the station, the gateway, and the Chariot / wormhole, you may return to Celaeno for a report to Commodore Yu
- Dr. Rama delivers her findings, which will conclude And Back Again
- For the reasons she outlined, the CIE device is now off-the-table for use.
- Commodore Yu will need your assistance in planning an alternative strategy.
- Irrespective of how you conclude your dialogue with Commodore Yu, you will have a thought to hail the nearest Goryr for their recommendation(s).
- Vacuum Decay will start
Mission: Vacuum Decay
- After conversing with a (nearby) Goryr ship, you will unlock an item which can be researched at Celaeno -- the Spacetime Censor
- Your ship can now traverse *into* the Singularity without being damaged, but prepare your ship before you depart.
- Vacuum Decay completes when you enter the Singularity, starting Unstable Space and granting the *What lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed* achievement
- “Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.”
― Stanisław Lem, Solaris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)
Mission: Unstable Space
- Move slowly, to give your crew time to update you with discoveries, or observations.
- Check your map view to assess if there are any celestial bodies nearby worth examining
- You will likely pass by a Guardian ship on your way to ... wherever you're going. The Guardians are not open to negotiating, so fight your way free if needed.
Guardian Scout
Guardian Construct
- When you come within sensor range of the Guardian Tri station, plan your approach carefully
- The station can be approach like the Sepharial, if you chose to combat them previously -- though the Guardians are much less powerful
- The Guardian Construct ships have one regenerator module, and will be painfully difficult to deal with, but they have some weaknesses --
- They are comparably slow
- The regenerator can be taken out with precise weapons fire
- Without their engines, they will not respawn and cannot close with you
- Their sensor range appears to be quite short, so you may benefit from approaching the Guardian Tri station from the opposite side of any ships.
The Generation Ship anomaly cannot be investigated until the Guardian Tri is destroyed
- The Guardian Tri has four regenerator modules (one at the core, three on the outer structure) ; however
- It can only regenerate one hull module per regenerator charge ; and
- As you can target weak spots and blow off more than one hull module at a time, you can eventually wear away the station's outer structure
- Once you have cleared all hostiles, investigate the Generation Ship. Unstable Space will complete and Chariot Takeover will start
Mission: Chariot Takeover
- Within sensor range is an inverse singularity (a 'whitehole') which will return you to Unknown Space
- You may emerge from the Unstable Space universe with Devout in sensor or weapons range ; you do not need to fight them if you prefer to evade.
- You may dock with Celaeno before proceeding to the Chariot again
Fanatic
- Devout stations which warp in nearby the Chariot (while you are stuck within 300 AU for a period of time) may now have a single regenerator module in addition to their current enhanced weaponry.
- A single Devout Divinity-class superdreadnought will warp in as the final 'boss' and has all weapon types available, in addition to three regenerator modules.
- Its weak spots seem to be similar to that of the Keres -- blasting through their connectors and severing the port & starboard nacelles drops their hull below collapse level.
- After the last transmission from your ship to the Chariot completes, a single Keres may warp in to attempt to stop your plans, but by this time it is too late.
- Your command crew may observe that your weapons are having an effect on the Devout as if encountering them for the first time -- no buffs to their hull strength at all.
- Chariot Takeover will complete 
Mission: Home Again
- This starts when you interact with the Chariot. You can escape from dialogue with the Talonian early, but consider exhausting its dialogue options at some point. You may first check in with Celaeno first.
- Commodore Yu will confirm that the Devout threat is over, and that you are ordered back to your home universe.
- Select the option to take care of other tasks first -- he will permit it.
The following have dialogue unique to your departure from Unknown Space (though they will all permit 'normal' dialogue after you clear these (e.g. Milton will still offer free resources from the Refinery Derelict as they arrive)
- Lt. Milton
- Capt. Dolson
The Talonian's Task mission is optional (not required to win the game), but can be completed before you return to your home universe.
Mission: The Talonian's Task
- The Talonian 
- Including the first fragment (which you applied to the Talonian to restore it to working order) there are a total of eight in Unknown Space. You can unlock additional dialogue with the Talonian if you return further fragments to it. The following dialogue options will be unlocked -- questions you may ask the Talonian.
Who are you? (1 - first fragment)
What happened to you? (2)
You mentioned a task? (3)
What does the wormhole need to be restored? (4)
What happened to the Arkadians who returned aboard the Chariot? (5)
How can we communicate with the Arkadians? (6)
By that count, you may attempt to complete The Talonian's Task with only seven of the eight fragments
Mission: Home Again (continued)
- You will need some clues from the Collapsar portion of space to start searching for the Arkadians.
- The planets in that portion of space are described as actual Arkadian settlements (all abandoned) but there were two clues left:
- The catalog of binary identifiers and named entities ; and
- The kite-shaped map
- Rotating the kite-shaped map and comparing it to known constellations will reveal that the constellation is the one in the southern part of the green nebula -- where you found the intact Chariot
- All except for one star. It is not in the surveyed portion of the constellation, and can be found to the southwest
- Possibly within sensor range of the southwest corner of the 'kite' is a void nebula (a small one)
- Deep in the nebula is a brown dwarf system with two planets
- The world with the Watch Tower anomaly will be instrumental in finding the Arkadians
- The Watch Tower appears to be programmable with binary codes
- The catalog of binary identifiers and named entities can be experimented with, in this case
- For example, inputting the code 010111 (binary for '23') will summon an Emissary and open a wormhole to the system with the blue comet & Remnant ring structure
- (a ring being an endless arch, after a fashion)
- The 'Data corrupted' entry is between 27 and 29
- Inputting 28 into the Watch Tower (in binary ; 011100) will summon an Emissary headed for the New Reliquary (whatever that is)
- If you input a different or invalid destination, the Watch Tower anomaly will recharge after a delay -- visit Celaeno and return, if you wish
- You will emerge near a star at the extreme west of Arkadian territory. If you have met the mission requirements (i.e. the Devout have been routed) then a station will be present in the system.
- The Arkadians in the New Reliquary will respond favorably if you use the Talonian's cryptographic key and communicate with them the Talonian's name
- They will give you the Talonian Eye artifact, which you must analyze
- Travel to the blue polyhedron near Locoan space(the Amber Jewel, such as it was, is now gone in favor of the wormhole opened to the Primordial universe)
- Investigate the polyhedron
- Return to the Talonian to report success, and the mission will complete.
You may complete any other side- (non-essential-) missions before deciding on your next move. Choose carefully:
*** The 'standard' endgame is to communicate with Commodore Lee that you are ready to return to Starcom space. You may also check in with Dr. Rama and tell her of your success at the Talonian's Task -- she will give you her usual level of praise and indicate that she is accompanying you to Starcom Space as well, instead of remaining in Unknown Space.
--> And then depart through the wormhole
You will emerge (as before) near Maia Beta
You are not constrained to immediately head for the map marker and Groombridge ; you may linger a bit.
Traveling east, for example, will have you encounter a Probationary Scout-class vessel with a new commanding officer ; they will ask for your guidance before departing
Merope Station, Palladium, the Starcom Battlecruiser from before -- all are where you left them
The flinger to Groombridge 1618 is now functional -- enter it at your leisure
Switch to map view and note the star names as you pass by
At Groombridge 1618 you will be cleared by a private contractor from NeoLogic, staffing the Starcom Outpost at the flinger's exit point
Before you report to the Morningstar Research Lab, consider flying to the southwest and visiting Sol
Scanning Earth grants the Pale Blue Dot achievement
Scanning the Galilean satellites of Jupiter (of which only two are instantiated in the game) will reveal an easter egg
Scanning the (dwarf) planet Pluto will grant a further easter egg
Returning to Morningstar and docking, after which you are to deliver your report to Admiral Brunton, you may enter the nearby portal to the east, which takes your ship and your command crew into the unknown again. The achievement The End will be granted, and the closing cinematic will play.
The 'secret' endgame is to communicate with Commodore Lee, and Dr. Rama
--> And then return to the Singularity.
Having re-entered Unstable Space, you can traverse the debris fields in the same way as before,
Only to find that the intact Generation Ship has gone
And the 'whitehole' no longer forms a closed topology with the Singularity. You have no option except to follow the Generation Ship -- and the Chariot -- into the unknown.
This will grant the Secret Ending achievement and play the secret ending cinematic (credits plus an axial flyby of the Chariot and Generation Ark). Congratulations!
Talonian Fragments
Owing to how they were introduced in the game's plot in separate missions / mission-families, the naming conventions are not quite uniform but they're easy to list:
[spoiler]
There are eight fragments at the time of this posting (you give the first one you find to the Talonian as & when you complete that portion of the game).
You can give up to an additional seven in the course of The Talonian's Task mission.
The eight are:
1. LAST_TALONIAN.Anomalies/FirstPiece", "Brass Pillar",
- Survey the worlds near the Talonian Wreck anomaly. This is not necessarily the first fragment you may find, but that's its tag. Its descriptive name remains Brass Pillar regardless.
2. "BONE_TALONIAN" / "Brass Connector"
- Complete the Bones of the Dead God mission ; should be near the Island Traders region
3. CXTA_TALONIAN "CXTA Talonian Fragment"
- Complete The CXTA mission ; should be some way south of Locoan / Island Traders space, near the half-chariot ('other') Talonian Wreck
4. FROZEN_TALONIAN / "Frozen Talonian Fragment"
- Progress the Nimion/Kyrnan conflict missions like The Missing Diplomat, Fallen Lab, etc. and eventually Kyrnan Gateway. There are clues which will point you to the related planet near Nimion space.
5. GUILD_TALONIAN "Brass Joint"
- Once you complete Trade Guild you can just buy it from the Trade Guild
6. RINGWORLD_TALONIAN "Ringworld Talonian Fragment"
- Complete The Aletheia mission, and progress both The Emissary and Talonian Wreck mission. If you interact with Capt. Dolson she will relate to you the map clue which pins the location down. It's on the The Ring / Ringworld anomaly which the Emissary probe usually teleports you to first, if you follow it through a wormhole.
7. WISKAMUG_TALONIAN "Wiskamug Fragment"
- Complete the Legend of Wiskamug mission. All the puzzle clues are in your log or in that diamond-shaped constellation south of Celaeno
8. SEPHARIAL_TALONIAN "Sepharial Talonian Fragment"
- There are three ways to obtain this from the homeworld in the Sepharia system
a) Barter (which carries no risk but costs a fortune)
b) Stealth (which requires you to be clever and pass as the Guild Envoy's ship)
c) Battle (clear sufficient ships and stations from the Sepharia system to survey that planet).
[/spoiler]
I *think* -- and perhaps @justkevin can confirm this -- by my tally of the dialogue options in The Talonian's Task mission, you don't need all eight fragments to complete that mission, just seven. If that's the case, then which one you skip is up to you. 
For me varies from playthrough to playthrough. e.g. #8 is hard to get but straightforward ; sometimes I've scoured the galaxy repeatedly and don't encounter the anomaly to progress enough to complete #2.