Trying really hard to enjoy it here.

[qiraz]

I played some version of this game about 7-8 years ago and had fun with my RL buddies for a little while before we went on to some other game. I don't remember much about how it was then.

Trying to play now is an exercise in frustration. Every single time I leave the newbie galaxies I am killed, unless I have newbie turns. Then if I happen to blink and run out, I am killed. I've managed to get around a little bit very late at night when there's only 1-2 other people online.

Today I bought a combat ship for the first time and started trying to arm it up. I had my 100 newbie turns and figured I could make it to at least a couple weapon shops before running out. Along the first leg after outfitting the ship I ran into mines in just about every sector, probably 9/10 had mines. I had newbie turns so all this did was eat my turns and make it impossible to move. These sectors also had a screenfull of scouts. I tried to check online status of most scout owners. I saw one online, but figured my newbie turns would keep them away. Combine that with constantly being pushed back and forth from current sector to local map view and I missed that two or three people had gathered on top of me.

I had two newbie turns left and had already spent several of them running circles around mines in the same sector I was still in, I thought maybe I could go one sector and still have one newbie turn left. Nope, I was instead instantly killed. Before ever even getting a weapon.

This is fun? People say "play when nobody else is on". What's the point then?

Being paid for a new ship is pointless when I can't use it, or even get to the shop to buy it.


Edit:
"Every top trader was caught and many fear us big and stop trading when we are on-line." From the so-called victorious alliance. That to me sounds like saying "We're so awesome we make other people stop playing"

If getting other people to stop playing is the goal of the veterans of the game, why should any new people be interested in staying around?

[N.ator]

i totally agree witht you. this has been a problem alot lately, but have not yet come up with a "good" solution.

[Kahless_]

Yet another reason why we need newbie games so new players can experience all the game has to offer and then when they do step into the vet arena they can use ships good enough to match vets.

[qiraz]

Here's me trying to get to a ship shop after my earlier death.
At this spot it's "26 turns" from from pod-central. As you can see it's taken 44 turns to get this far. It took 11 more turns to go 5 sectors to the next warp. I got my ship with 19 newb turns left. Without the minefields I would have had 54. So with a fresh armorless ship I've got 19 newbie turns to get armored.



I was finally able to grab a jump drive and jump to home territory with only a few mines blowing up on me. There were so many sectors full of mines that I'd never have made it anywhere else from where I was.

And NO I normally don't carry around 50 million!

[Purify]

First of all, i'm curious as to how you have 50 armor and don't have 50 shields, can't think of a way you coulda done that (or its too late to think of a way)....

Secondly, when heading out to the neutrals its best to do more than just plot to where you're going..... noobs or no noobs..... you have to check which warps you're going through and figure out the best way to do it..... if you read the news you can see that the 1975 / 2365 gets a lot of action.... and thus at any given time it can be full of mines... Here's what i woulda done.... (however i am unsure of your relations with the other races as it seems you are all now at war so i'll do it with lasers i guess)


First i woulda bought a Deal Maker.... It has 2 hardpoints and is a fast ship so fewer turns are wasted getting the Fed-Ult

Next i woulda gone to get my level 4 weapon to fit the 2 hardpoints... or... (1554 for the HPL)

Next i woulda gone to 2305 and bought my Fed-Ult

Next i would get my level 3 weapon or LPL...... which is only 4 sectors away

Next head to Salzik for my Jump drive 1842... and PPL 1851

And somewhere along the way pickup a decent level 2 weapon (they really aren't that important as to which one you get)

Finally jump to a CA and filler up...


This course although covering a lot of warps does not hit the highly hunted 2365 area...... however, there will still undoubtedly be mines so i would write where i'm going down so I can quickly plot it.... this is what i do when i'm arming everytime.... if you don't, you're bound to get a pod.... my good friend Trigek tonight was lazy and did not right down where he was going to get weapons ahead of time.... he stopped along the way checked his MGU as to where to go and when he refreshed the screen he was dead... Point is, even the best of us can get nailed arming...

The key to arming safely is to plan ahead of time...

[Baalzamon]

hm....maybe i should try a vet alliance one day, then maybe i would have known about this way of arming up before now...

But still, I'm glad you came onto the message board and told us about this, its good to know that there are people out there who will take the initiative to go to the people killing them and complain about it to both them and everyone else.

This is why we need newbie games, even if they are single galaxy, or just racials and a neutral, we need newbie games. They would help the playerbase grow and build up on the game to the extent that we would get more people active in the game.

If getting newbie games to work is the problem, make them small, make the galaxies small. make it a 1.5x so its fast pace, make it reset every month. make it so that you can't join the vet game until you're ranked fledgling.

recruit vets to help out teaching the newbies, and have those vets make new accounts like the NHL, so that the newbie games don't pad the stats of the helpers' main accounts.

This is something that SHOULD NOT be a problem, and its a sad day when a new player comes and registers in the message board not to get involved, but to complain about the way the game is played.

[Ardbeg]

After his pod, this player was given a lot of advice that he has chosen not to share here. My basic tips ifor arming would be:

1) Get MGU and plan your arming route.
2) Have plenty of turns to spare when you go to arm your ship.
3) If you find yourself getting into a minefield (anything more than the occasional sector), back off and consider alternate routes.
4) If you are determined to get through these mines and will lose your newbies doing it, make sure the scout owners are not online when you do.
5) If you are an inexperienced player, it is worth simply messaging the scout owners asking them to help you out. If you had done this yesterday, I would have made sure we got you safely where you wanted to go.

[N.ator]

After his pod, this player was given a lot of advice that he has chosen not to share here. My basic tips ifor arming would be:

1) Get MGU and plan your arming route.
2) Have plenty of turns to spare when you go to arm your ship.
3) If you find yourself getting into a minefield (anything more than the occasional sector), back off and consider alternate routes.
4) If you are determined to get through these mines and will lose your newbies doing it, make sure the scout owners are not online when you do.
5) If you are an inexperienced player, it is worth simply messaging the scout owners asking them to help you out. If you had done this yesterday, I would have made sure we got you safely where you wanted to go.

its alot harder said then done. of corse for us, we are used to it, but being a new player that has NO CLUE how mines work, its hard! its alot easier to say back up and then go AROUND the mines....im currently teachin my friend how to play smr and he is having big trouble with mines. he doenst fully understand how mines work or what to do when you encounter mines. he thinks that you can just blow right threw them, but obviously we all know you cant. maybe we should make a tutorial of just about mines. serisouly in my opioion, mines are the trickest thing about the game. look even some of the top vets even die from mines.

[Infinity]

Qiraz, I feel for you, really, it gets tough sometimes, but that's how the game, universe works.

You joined this round pretty late, and by that time Armory got a hold of Manton, HC owned Livstar and so on.

I would like to add something to Ardbeg's advice - when you're buying an expensive neutral ship (FU, DC) try not carrying 50 mils on you, but plan a visit to a bank somewhere near the ship shop.

And always PM a vet player to help you out, there's many people out there that will gladly help.

Edit::

Finding out which sectors are heavily traveled is possible from 'Rankings' page, and the 'Sector kills' link on the top.

[Harry Krishna]

I hope that qiraz is getting the point here that buying a ship and arming isn't a walk in the park. You can't just plot and go without some planning. Remember: It's space travel and it's cold out there. You do have to plan and be prepared for disaster at every turn.

There are many defensive techniques that an experienced team can teach, some of which are covered in the manual, some in the newbie help sections of this board, some on independent websites. And asking for help ingame never hurts either