Thanks for reading my guide! I hope this helps you when you're trying out Entropy. If you find something confusing or missing, or I've missed something on the known issues list, leave a comment.

When you first launch the game, you'll be asked to pick a server. This is only for your first character, and you can pick any of the servers on your following characters. Pick the one closest to your physical location, as Entropy's combat relies on having a reasonable ping.

Next, you're asked to pick your gender. This page also has the Random and Reset buttons. You can return to this page at any time without losing your character's look. Random will randomize all aspects of your character, so be careful when using it.

The next page is where you design your character. While many options like hair and outfits are very limited, you can change the face with a high degree of creativity. Just make sure to click the Advanced tab to find the sliders that allow for fine control. You can click and drag the head to look at it from different angles.

The fourth page is where you take your portrait. This is what other people will see when they look up your profile in-game. This cannot be changed, so make sure you like it.

Next is choosing your background. Each background grants you a couple starting skills. Hover over them to see which skills are granted. Most miners will want the Belter background, most traders will want the Trader background, and most combat pilots will want the Colonist background. The corporate background may be useful for some PvP players, but I personally prefer Colonist.

The next page is where you choose your starting ship. You cannot acquire the other ships at this time, so make sure you're satisfied with your choice.

Miner: You start off with the Auger, a ship that already comes with a mining beam and a 54ton cargo bay. If you are planning on mining, this is the best choice, as you save 100k credit that would otherwise be needed to buy a mining beam. The Auger can also escape from combat easily, with its max speed matching that of the combat pilots.

Merchant: You start off with the Brighthelm, a ship with a massive 90ton cargo bay. This is essential for traders, allowing you to trade low profit-per-item goods much faster than the other starter ships. It does move 20% slower than other starter ships, so escape from pirates (especially players) can be a tricky proposition.

Contractor: You start off with the Mule, a jack-of-all-trades ship that can't really match up. While there are benefits to this ships (mainly in its command modules), it is not a good ship for a starting player. Unless you know what you're doing (or you really have no clue what you'll like), I'd recommend passing on it.

Combat: You start off with the Witch, a miniscule ship with four weapons slots. For combat, there is no better option. Even if you plan to go with the Razorwasp, you'll still want the 3 free railguns that come with this ship.

The final page is name selection. If your name is already taken, a message will pop up. Enter your name and you'll be taken automatically to the first tutorial mission.

• On 32-bit OS systems, after character creation, your game will crash after loading. There is a workaround posted here, but I would be cautious using it.
  
• If you cannot click Continue on the name screen, try restarting the game. If this does not work after a few attempts, try going through the character creation fast.
  
• If you get only a light blue screen with 610eu in the topleft corner on booting up the game, check the forums. If many people are getting the same issue, it's a login server issue and you'll just have to wait it out. If not, it's a problem with you connecting to their servers and you should post a bug report about it.

First, before you read the rest of this guide, I highly recommend you read the game's manual located here. The manual is essential reading for any new players, introducing controls and gameplay mechanics the game will tell you nothing about. This guide will continue assuming you have read it.

When you first start, your ship will be stuck in place. A window will shortly appear asking you to move towards the blue marker. Instead, turn either left or right about 90 degrees. You'll want to test out your movement and aiming. You'll also want to get the hang of Engine Killing, as it is one of the most important ways you'll stay alive.

Once you feel like you've got a good hang of the controls, head towards the blue marker. A short cutscene will play out, and then you'll get your first taste of combat. Remember to use Engine Killing to your advantage, and to adjust your shields with [ and ]. If you find your shields running low, use the Basic Shield Battery by hitting 1. You should be able to kill the enemies in short order.

Once you've killed them, a box will pop up asking you to loot them. Hit R to do so. You'll find some railgun ammo. I'm going to take this time to walk you through reloading your guns. Lasers do not need to reload, so this is only for the railgun users.

First, hit alt. This'll put you in cursor mode. Then right-click your weapons in the bottom left. You should see the ammo show up there. To force it to reload, right-click the ammo. Do note that this will use up the entire clip, so unless you're very low on ammo, it's best to let the game do the reloading for you. If your guns run out of ammo and you have none in your cargo, you'll have to reload them manually once you've purchased ammo by doing the same process as before, but left-clicking the ammo.

If you really want to be sneaky, you can put some of the items in your cargo into your secure cargo. Secure cargo does not drop upon your death. Some ships might not be able to hold an entire stack of an item. To split a stack, hold shift, click the item, then drag it to secure cargo.

After a short cutscene, the game will ask you to investigate the tower. Head to the blue marker. Once you get within ~1500m, a second cutscene will happen, then the game asks you to shoot a drone. Shoot one of them (it might take a bit, they're fast and small) and enjoy your free ride to Arenev Station.

• On Macs and some Linux machines, alt will NOT make you enter cursor mode. There is no workaround.

You'll spawn in Arenev Station after getting blown up. This is the Renon Corporate HQ, which means nearly all modules and munitions are available for sale here from the NPCs. Once you check your mail, you'll find a letter telling you that your ship was insured. All ships are insured. You will never lose your ship because you died, nor will you ever lose modules. You can safely delete the message.

Open the hangar. You'll find that you have three hangar slots here. You get one extra slot in Arenev to start with. Most systems will only have two slots unless you buy more. This is also (I believe) where you redeem your bonus ship if you bought one of the more expensive packs. Put simply, the Raven is for mining, the Photon is for trading, and the Razorwasp is for combat. The regular and prototype version are identical except for the skin currently. If you want to fly it right away, you'll need to fill it up with fuel. To do so, buy fuel (either regular or refined) on the market, and place it in the cargo bay of your bonus ship. Then right-click the fuel and select Refuel. Regular fuel gives you 50 fuel in your ship, and refined gives you 100. You need 100 fuel in your ship's tank for each jump you make between systems. Starter ships do not require fuel.

Once you select the ship, you'll get another mail. This one will ask you to bring medicine to Hetol. You can safely delete the message once you have the mission. Open the market, then under Goods>Consumer, look for Vaccines in the Supply section. I recommend putting it in your secure cargo. Make sure it's in your cargo and asking you to undock before you undock.

When you undock, you'll get a short cutscene. These also happen whenever you dock or go through a jumpgate. To skip them, hit space. Once you're in the station's sector, you can exit by clicking the globe or hitting N. Alternately, you can go and annoy players by bumping into them. There are few better things to do with your time than watch as players shoot at you, doing no damage.

Once you've left the sector, you'll find yourself on the system map. Here you can see various ships flying around, as well as planets, the jumpgates to other systems, and any permanent sectors the system has. Most ships are NPCs, but if you click and see a unique name, they're a player. You'll want to head southeast towards the Hetol gate. Once your ship in on it, click enter. Do not spam click, since if you click enter more than once, you'll get stuck in a loading screen bug.

Once you're in Hetol, head towards Hetol Station. You may be intercepted by pirates on the way. As long as your vaccine is in secure cargo, you can choose whether to fight them or run away. If you fight them and lose, you'll respawn at the nearest station, in this case Hetol Station. To run away, make sure you're moving the second the sector loads. To get out as fast as possible, use your overdrive until it's above max speed, then release it and quickly hit C. You should also flip around so that your front shields are facing the pirates.

When you enter the station's sector, you'll want to look for the red landing strip lights. These lead you to the entrance of the station. To enter, fly into the hangar the lights lead to. You might need to watch out for player pirates. Hit tab to scroll through the players in the sector. If someone is red, they're a player pirate and will likely kill you if given the opportunity. Make sure the vaccines are in your secure cargo. Once you've docked up, open the market and look for the Demand for vaccines in the Goods>Consumer section. Sell to that and you'll finish the mission.

• If you hit enter on an interception, you will be stuck in a loading screen. You'll have to exit the game via alt-f4 and log back in.

This mission starts with a mail from an unknown. It'll ask you to buy a salvage beam. First, you need to head back to Arenev. Undock from the station, leave the sector, and go back through the Arenev gate. Once you've docked back up at Arenev Station, open up the market and go to Modules>Weapons. You're looking for Salvage Beams in the Supply section being sold by Arenev Trade. They cost 92k (96k with taxes) credits, which is a large sum for a starting player. You can abandon the mission if you feel that's too pricey.

Once you've purchased the beam, make sure to move it from the market warehouse to your cargo first and not put it on your ship directly. If you've done it right, it should ask you to go to an unknown sector. Head to the system map and look for an arrow pointing towards Old ship remains.

You'll likely see various other sectors along the way. There are three kinds you'll see: NPC encounter, Find the thief, and Pirate killer. NPC Encounter sectors are unfinished, and will always be empty if you enter them. Find the thief and Pirate killer sectors are both for missions. As of right now, missions don't work, but when they do, people will be directed to these sectors to complete their missions. Find the thief sectors will be empty unless entered by the mission runner, but Pirate killer sectors will have a few NPC pirates in them. If you kill them, the player whose mission it is will not be able to complete their mission, so please don't run them. Instead, you can hunt down interceptors or kill pirates in permanent sectors.

Once you're in the old ship remains sector, aim your crosshair at the blue marker and hit R. Then get within 500m (but at least 100m away), aim at it, and hit 1 to finish the mission.

• If there is no arrow to your old ship remains, your sector has likely either been bugged or stolen by someone else. It may respawn if you wait, but no promises.

So you've finished all the missions (or had them bug out on you and given up), huh? Well don't worry, there's more to the game.

Mining: Read my mining guide here!

Shooting: Shooting is an inferior method of making money, but it's a lot more fun than mining or trading. To find things to shoot, you can find exploration sectors (called Combat Encounters) by flying around a sector, head to permanent sectors (like Hanna in Arenev) which have pirates spawn in them, or look for interceptors flying around the system map.

If you want a more structured experience, there's generic missions. You can find them in the Mission Board when docked up. If the station you're in doesn't have missions, keep trying. Many of the stations near Arenev will be emptied out by greedy players, since missions are global, not per person. There are also two types of missions you can do, Pirate killer and Find the thief. NPC Encouters are always empty! Pirate killer will direct you to a sector and ask that you kill everyone in it. If you personally do not kill all the pirates, you cannot complete the mission. Find the thief requires you to head to nearby yellowspace and look for a thief. The sectors can be spread out across any yellowspace, and likely aren't even in the same system, so avoid these missions unless you're really desperate.

KNOWN ISSUE: If you don't see a pirate killer beacon on the system map (even after opening your mission journal and tracking it), chances are high someone stole it.

Trading: I could write an entire guide just about trading, so this is gonna be the basics. What you want to do is find a station whose NPCs sell something and a station whose NPCs buy that same thing. Then you buy that item, put it in your ship, and fly over to the station that buys it. For more info, look up Natjur, he's one of the richest traders and also a forum regular.