Tutorial walkthrough

The early missions in the main campaign form a tutorial. This is what you can expect.

## 1. Open the map. Fly to the pulsating ship

What you'll learn: routine map usage. Routine travel. Basic "lock and fire" combat mechanic.

It'd be useful if they also showed: panning and zooming the map. Selecting travel speed.

Don't be distracted by the ship that's near you when the game starts. That's not the ship you're going to rescue. It's just window-dressing.

At the destination you'll encounter three class-1 interceptors, which are the weakest enemy ship type and the only type without shields.

### Rewards

* You'll have reached pilot level 1 and have a skill point you can apply. Most people would choose to apply it to Energetic Weapons Damage, but it's your call. You'll need to pull up the menu and find the Skills and Reputation panel to apply a skill point.

## 2. Fly to the Orion station

What you'll learn: basic combat against shielded enemies.

What you're supposed to figure out for yourself: you need to be close to the target for your plasma weapons to be really effective (check the color of the distance readout in the HUD). Firing your plasma weapon in short bursts lets it recharge more quickly. Don't fly into anything hard, like the space station or other ships -- that requires high vigilance when your target is zipping in and out around the station.

You'll encounter three class-1 fighters, two class-1 heavy fighters, and a class-1 bomber.

### Rewards

* You'll get 250 credits when you've dispatched all of the enemies.
* You'll have reached pilot level 2 so you get another skill point to apply. You can't upgrade Energetic Weapons Damage again until you make level 3, so you'll need to pick a different skill. Most people would probably choose to reduce upgrade costs (which you'll encounter soon), or perhaps bargaining skills to reduce commodity purchase prices or charisma skills to get better contract offers (also coming soon). A few people will go for critical strike. Choose whatever you want.

## 3. Dock on the Orion station

What you'll learn: docking, either manually or automatically (whichever you prefer). You can explore the services that are available when docked.

You don't need any of the station's services right now, although it's possible you might need repairs if you ran into something. Topping off your fuel isn't necessary unless you're compulsive about those things. You should have plenty of fuel left, and there's a quantity discount on fuel.

You should get into the habit of checking the Skills and Reputation panel in the Menu item to see if you've gotten any new skill points that you can use.

### Rewards

* The other stations in the Solar System appear on your map so you can check them out and travel to them. Only one of the four ground bases on Earth appear at this point.
* This is the first time you're docked so it's not technically a reward, but you can change your ship's colors any time you're docked.

## 4. Dock at Green Farm on Earth

When you undock from Orion, your cousin will send you to Green Farm. This task begins a bit of independent speculative trading.

### Rewards

* Your cousin will loan you a T4 Gorilla transporter ship. It's really a gift because he never asks for it back.
* He'll also give you 250 credits.
* The other three Earth ground bases appear on your map.
* Not technically a reward, but having a transporter ship means you'll get the "Best trading deal" notices from the Trading Office in your inbox.
* The next time you dock, your inbox will start receiving contract offers from your Delta representative (Troy Stone at this point).

## 5. Gather 600 credits

What you'll learn: speculative trading.

It'd be useful if they also showed: checking your inbox for contract offers.

Your obvious best bet is to buy 4 units of Nutrients, which is what Green Farm produces. Your cousin will suggest that you use the "best deal" mail in your inbox to decide where to take it, but that deal doesn't take into account fuel costs or whether there's anything you can buy at the destination that you can make a profit off of.

Instead, take those Nutrients to Red Core on Mars and sell them there. Buy 4 units of Minerals and sell them at CFF Deimos (which is really close). That should give you the required 600 credits. If not, buy 4 units of Nuclear Fuel to bring back to Red Core.

### Rewards

* Your cousin will give you 300 credits.
* Your inbox now receives contract offers from all three sources: Delta, Motus, and the Syndicate, both directly from their representatives and indirectly through the Independent Job Market. Contracts are the lifeblood of the independent pilot.

### Non-campaign activity

This is a good point in the game to just play around if you want. Besides, you can always use some extra money in the upgrading step that's coming next.

You probably don't want to spend *too* much time fooling around with speculative trading because it's not very profitable. Instead, focus on contracts. Doing goods order contracts (Transport and Smuggle) is the real path to making money. Doing combat contracts will help get you skills points, which are accrued *very* slowly from trading activities.

Don't immediately dismiss contracts offered by the Syndicate. Syndicate "smuggle" contracts involve merely delivering routine supplies to one of their ships, with no combat or negative ramifications, and the Syndicate offers unbeatable prices. In addition, there are a few nice side benefits of getting in good with Craig Baxton, the Syndicate's representative.

## 6. Dock on the Parabellum station

What you'll learn: ship upgrading.

Parabellum has a shipyard where you can upgrade your Cobra. You'll want to upgrade before the next mission.

You'll probably need to refuel at this point. If you need repairs, you might want to go ahead with those.

Your cousin recommends mounting either rockets or ion cannon on the Cobra's hardpoint, and that's good advice. Which you choose is a matter of personal taste. If you go with rockets, you should consider upgrading the ammo.

If you've got enough credits left over, you probably should upgrade the Weapon Generator to allow your plasma cannon (and ion cannon, if you bought that) to fire longer bursts. You might also want to upgrade the Shielding. It's your money, so spend it however you want.

You *could* upgrade your T4 Gorilla, but there's not much point. Transports aren't well-suited to combat, and the only reason to take them into combat is for scavenging. If you're going to upgrade it, go for shielding.

## 7. Destroy the MTS Optimus

What you'll learn: destruction of a large transport ship. Optionally, salvage of cargo from a destroyed transport ship.

It'd be useful if they also showed: the Squadron Command panel and the ship's energy management system.

When you undock from Parabellum, you'll be sent to Liber to destroy the big transport ship MTS Optimus, which has been taken over by terrorists.

Learning how to destroy a transport is mostly a stepping stone toward learning to deal with capital ships. However, it can be useful on its own because the Syndicate will occasionally ask you to destroy a transport ship.

As soon as you arrive, open the Squadron Command panel and instruct the T4 transport either to retreat (the U-turn button) or to not engage (turn off the button on the far right). The reason you might want to keep it around is to scavenge cargo from the Optimus when you destroy it.

Next you should adjust your ship's energy distribution to send all energy to shields and weapons, because you won't have much need for boosters with the slow-moving transport ship. This isn't a vital step, but it's good practice.

You'll need to destroy all of the weapons and all of the engines on the Optimus. There are probably two top-mounted weapons and three engines. Take them out in whatever order you like.

### Rewards

* You'll get 350 credits.
* You'll probably gain another pilot skill level.
* If you salvaged any cargo from the Optimus, dock right there at Liber and sell off anything they like. Liber produces chemicals, metal parts, and nuclear fuel, so they don't need any more of those, but your next stop wants them.

## 8. Dock at New London

At New London, you'll be given a B-1 Doom Rider bomber. This is the last free ship you'll get.

You should consider upgrading the torpedo ammo to Antimatter Torpedoes if you can afford it.

If you had any leftover salvaged cargo that Liber didn't want, you can almost certainly sell it here.

The Ships Shop will invite you to come browse their many shiny (and pricey) offerings. The one at New London isn't the only one, though. The four gas and ice giant planets all have stations with a shipyard that will sell you ships or buy a ship from you.

## 9. Liberate Bastille station

What you'll learn: destruction of a capital ship.

The final tutorial mission is to take on a capital ship with your new bomber. You'll be facing two class-1 interceptors, four class-2 fighters, and a heavy frigate. You need to destroy all of them, and it's usually easier to start with the small fry.

As soon as you arrive, open the Squadron Command panel and instruct the T4 transport to retreat and the B-1 bomber not to engage. There's no point in letting them get beat up while you're dispatching the interceptors and fighters with the Cobra.

When all that's left is the heavy frigate, open the Squadron Command panel and switch to flying the B-1 bomber (you can do this with shortcut keys, too). Switching all energy to the shields is a good idea, because the frigate is slow-moving and you won't be using energy weapons.

Tactically, it's best to come up on the frigate from behind, lock onto the first target point you can, immediately fire a torpedo, then break off. Don't get greedy and try to take out multiple target points in a single pass. You might get away with it on this particular frigate, but it's a good way to give the target ship time to lock onto you and unleash some heavy weaponry. It's also a good way to accidentally send two torpedoes at one target point, which is a waste of a torpedo. Hit one target point at a time, and when enough are destroyed, the frigate will break up.

### Rewards

* You'll get 400 credits for completing this mission.
* You'll probably gain another pilot skill level.

## 10. Dock on Bastille

What you'll learn: what the main campaign is all about.

*This is actually the first mission of the campaign proper.* When you dock, pay attention to the dialogue. This is where you learn what the campaign is about. It's really easy to zip through the dialogue screens here, then later on realize that you don't fully understand what's going on.

### Rewards

* Two wormholes now appear on your map, but there are no stations you can dock at on the other side until the main campaign is complete. Going through a wormhole to an unknown destination will damage your ship by 50%, and there's nowhere over there to get it repaired. You certainly can go through one, but there's no point except to satisfy your own curiosity. If you're going to do it, take only the Cobra in order to minimize repair costs when you get back.

## What's next

This is an excellent time to let the campaign slide into the background for a while. Go do a bunch of contracts, earn some credits, upgrade your ships, maybe buy new ships, and build up a bank account to cover the combat expenses you're going to be racking up when you get back into the campaign.

Unless you're pushing forward with the main campaign, it's usually advisable to park the B-1 at this point. You probably won't be needing it, and there's no point dragging it around and having to pay for fuel (and possibly repairs) for it.

Once you proceed with the main campaign, the Syndicate will no longer offer you any contracts until you've completed the main campaign. Syndicate smuggling contracts can be a big money-maker when you're first starting out, and losing those contracts will slow your financial progress.

Another reason to pause at this point is that as you get farther into the main campaign, missions tend to become time-critical. Up until now, you could take on the next task or mission at your convenience. But when a mission involves intercepting an enemy fleet that's in transit toward a target, you need to get there in time.

## Related Pages

* Game Introduction
* Combat
* Levels and Skills
* Weapons
* Trading
* Contracts
* Travel
* Shipyards
* Ships
* Cobra
* T4 Gorilla
* B-1 Doom Rider