Outer Lanes

outer lanes

Docked at

Bodies

Galactic chart

Zoom

Fuel rangeFreeport: trading fee, no customsUnlit sightingsUncharted outpost you have found

Ship destroyed

New commander

Name your commander

Every pilot on the lanes has a name. Keep this one or choose your own.

Commander name

Help

View

Show a distance scale on the scanner Show the docking zones round a station on the scanner Show the frame rate and quality level

Flight controls

Turning speed

Flight assist: the ship stops turning when you let go (off, it keeps turning) Invert pitch Minimal control UI: smaller buttons that show only their names

Touch stick

Sound

Master volume

Effects

Music

Play The Blue Danube while the docking computer flies

Commander name

Start over as a new commander: 300 Cr, a basic ship, galaxy 1, and no discoveries. Your settings are kept.

The HUD

SPD is your speed, ALT your height above the planet, FUEL your hyperspace fuel and HULL your ship's health. HOLD is the tonnes you carry out of the most you can (it says FULL when there is no room), and your record, Clean, Offender or Fugitive, is under the flags. The scanner shows stations, ships and rocks around you, out to 6,000 units; with a long-range scanner, R or the scanner button at the top right switches it to 9,000. B or the Rear button looks behind the ship: the laser fires that way too, while steering, the scanner and the compass stay as they are, facing the ship's nose.

Scanner key

Flags

CR means Cruise is on and DC that the docking computer is flying. ML means mass lock: something big is close, so Cruise will not engage.

Docking

Head for the station and line up with its slot. Match its spin, stay level and keep your speed down. Or press C and let the docking computer do it.

Cruise and hyperspace

Cruise is fast travel inside a system. Hyperspace jumps to the star you plotted on the chart.

Fuel and range

A jump burns fuel equal to its distance in light years. Refuel at any station. The chart shows how far you can go, and tells you about any system you select, your own included.

Contraband and the law

Some goods are contraband. Strict systems will not buy them and customs may search your hold. A bad record makes that likelier. Your record is Clean, Offender or Fugitive. A customs find, and a patrol you fight, run from or settle with, make it worse, but it cannot grow without end. Each hyperspace jump, and each bounty you earn from pirates or the Unlit (up to a limit on each arrival), makes it better. Fugitives are refused in strict systems until it fades.

Pirates

Pirates want your cargo or your credits. Weak governments breed more of them, and a rich hold draws them in. You can fight, run, pay them off or hand over some cargo. Beating them earns a bounty, but only where there is a government to pay it: not in anarchy or feudal systems.

The Unlit

The Unlit run dark: no lights, no transponders, and no interest in talking. They can drag a ship out of hyperspace. Every government pays a bounty on them, and the chart rates how often they turn up in each system.

Distances

Distances are in units. The scanner shows 6,000 units out from your ship in every direction, or 9,000 at long range with a long-range scanner. With the distance scale on, its rings are 1,000 apart with the distances written on them, and a station with docking control has its zone, hold distance and lane shaded round it. Each can be turned off in Settings.

Other ships

Ships come and go around every station, and they steer clear of you. Near a station they wait for you rather than turn aside. If you hit one it costs hull, more the faster you were going, and throws you both clear. In lawful space, hitting ships again and again is a crime: it goes on your record, and a patrol may come for you. The scanner shows which way each ship is going.

Docking control

Near a station, docking control gives you clearance for the one lane in to the slot, and says hold, with your place in the queue and about how long, when a ship is in it. Wait outside until you are cleared; the docking computer does this for you. Go in uncleared and you get a warning, then a fine, and at a lawful station the station's guns. A ship leaving goes ahead of ships waiting to come in, and launches automatically when it is cleared; you can cancel. The better a station is run, shown as Docking speed in its details and set by its tech level, the quicker it turns the lane round. An enhanced docking computer asks for clearance further out, puts you ahead of ordinary ships and docks faster. A queue-jump transponder puts you first in line, but a lawful station may see through it: a fine, a mark on your record, and perhaps a patrol. A freeport asks nothing of you.

Freeports

A freeport charges a trading fee but has no customs, and it pays well for contraband.