The Flatspace galaxy is a large and dangerous place. Many new pilots find themselves lost amongst the wealth of options, not sure what they should do and often meeting a swift and brutal death in their first dogfight. In an effort to preserve their lives a little longer, I've put together this guide to getting the best start in your Flatspace life.

If you need to look up any controls, use the F1 key to bring up a list. I've referenced the default keys for some options in this guide, but note that these may be different if you've customised your controls.

The first decision to make is - who are you going to be? Are you human or Scarrid? If you're not even clear what a Scarrid is yet, you may want to play it safe and choose a familiar human player. Both races use the same equipment but they have different ships. However, the biggest difference is that Scarrid players also have a different social structure - there are no Scarrid police, for example, and trade is less common. You'll learn faster playing as a human to start with; you can always start a new game to play the other side.

Second, choose your starting career. This will affect your starting equipment, but you are not forced to stay in that career. There's nothing stopping a merchant from bounty hunting, or a scavenger from running a taxi service. However, if you do have a career in mind, the right start can save you a lot of time getting established.

Not sure what to go with? If you're looking for a quieter game, a Human Trader is a good option. You will start with some cargo and a little cash, and your starting ship is fast enough to escape most bad guys. A career in the police force is also a good starter if you're looking to get straight into crime fighting.

Finally, you need to choose your game options. I'd recommend as a new player that you switch from "Death means Death" to "Undead" - you can always reload a saved game for an undead character, so you won't lose all your hard work over a simple mistake. "Death means Death" is for hardcore gamers and those that want to see how long they can last. Saves in this mode are deleted when your character dies.

You can also set the difficulty by adjusting the damage scale. Hardened players wouldn't dream of anything less than 100% damage, but your odds of surviving a first encounter with a hostile ship are much higher if you turn down the difficulty. You can go as low as 10% if you're particularly nervous, but that may be a little too easy...!

Now you're all set up, let's play!

Okay, now what?

You should be looking at your starting ship in the middle of the screen. Take a moment to get used to moving around - the mouse is the easiest way to fly. The right mouse button fires your thrusters, and the mouse itself steers. Be careful with the left mouse button - that fires your main weapon!

Since you'll frequently need to fly for extended periods, you can "lock" your thrusters on by double clicking the right mouse button. Click it again to unlock. Take a moment to fly around a little and get the hang of steering and thrusting. Note that larger ships can take longer to turn and fly slower than small ones.

Flying is all very well, but where are we going? We need to find a base. Fortunately we don't need to fly around searching for them - you can cycle through every base in the sector with the B key. There should be a base in your starting sector - press B and a target symbol will appear. Now you have something to fly towards.

When you get close to a base, you can radio it for docking permission. With the base targeted, press R to bring up the radio, then choose the appropriate numbered options - first 2 to radio the base, then 1 for docking permission. When permission is granted, a colourful docking ring will appear near the docking bay. Fly so that the middle of your ship is within the ring, and press D. The station's tractor beam will take over.

You can also target asteroids, ships and other things with the T key. This will target the nearest object in range. If you have multiple targets in view, the comma and full stop keys (, .) will cycle between them. It can be fun to follow other ships as they fly through the sector. Be careful not to accidentally shoot them.

There's not a lot to do in the starting sector. It's time to go explore the galaxy! Bring up the galactic map with the space bar (you can do this in menus or in flight, but you cannot steer while the map is open so you might want to turn off your thrusters first).

At first, most of the map will be a sea of grey question marks. Whenever you visit a sector, however, the map will reveal that sector and the four surrounding ones, and you will be able to see which sectors contain nebulae, asteroids and space stations. Police, Tradestation and Scarrid stations are always revealed; however, Independent Tradestations (which are more secretive) are only shown if you visit that sector directly.

Plot your routes. Most ships can only jump one sector at a time, maybe two, and then need to recharge the hyperdrive between jumps. It's quite possible for a mission to take you a long way across the map, and that could take a lot of jumps. Your hyperdrive is fully recharged when you dock at a base, however, which is a good excuse to visit them along the way.

If you're worried about piracy, you may want to choose your jump destinations carefully. Sectors with Police Stations (the blue symbols) are nearly always safe unless you've got a bounty on your head. Sectors with Tradestations (yellow) are safer than those with no stations. Sectors with Independent Tradestations (pink) can still be risky.

One thing to bear in mind is that a hyperspace jump can be an effective way to escape from danger. If you can avoid your pursuers long enough for the drive to charge, you can give them the slip entirely with a tactical withdrawal. Just remember that you are still vulnerable as you make the jump!

One of your first priorities in Flatspace should be to earn some money. A good supply of cash will allow you to experiment with bigger ships and better equipment. But how do you get rich in Flatspace? There are four routes to wealth, and you are welcome to try any and all of them. Some players may find they prefer some methods over others but there is no "best" way.



The choice of the merchant. This method needs a little starting capital, but it's possible to make some quick profits this way. All you need to do is go to one base, buy some cargo, then go to another base and sell it for more than you paid. Naturally, having more cargo space can boost the potential profits.

If you want to earn some cash through trading, you should try to find a pair of bases very close to each other whose imports and exports are mirrored - for instance, base A imports agricultural stuff and exports industrial goods, while base B is the other way around. You can then buy up exports from one base, sell them at the other and buy their exports for the return trip. You can sometimes find trios of bases that work in a similar fashion, cycling from A to B to C to A. Trading scanners can make this a lot easier.



For these, you will need a scoop fitted. Mining is the most common method: find an asteroid field, blast the rocks into tiny pieces and scoop them up. Rock fragments are common, but more valuable crystals, ores and metals can also be gathered. You can also collect cargo jettisoned from ships this way (or left behind when they are destroyed). Sell your salvage at any suitable station and pure profit is yours. Just be sure you have the cargo space available.

You can also salvage people, if you have a scoop designed for the task (and the passenger cabins for them). Lifepods are yellow/black striped tetrahedrons. Rescued passengers will sometimes be grateful and reward you when delivered to a station; criminals, however, can be handed in at a police station for a reward. And unlucky passengers can be sold at independent stations as slaves... or worse!

Be sure not to mix up your scoops. Mining scoops will kill passengers, while passenger scoops will lose cargo and asteroid debris. Some scoops automatically refine rocks into higher value cargo - or turn your potential passengers into meat! There are some dual purpose scoops out there that can collect both cargo and passengers, but these can be expensive.



You can pick these up at bases (under "Look for Missions"). They are very similar; one is delivering cargo, and the other is delivering passengers. You will only be able to take these on if you have the cargo or cabin space, and they are automatically completed on arrival at the destination. They're a great way to make some starting capital as all you need is a ship with some free space.

Courier missions (of both types) work best when you can do a number of them at once. If several people want you to take them/their packages to a bunch of sectors close to each other, you can complete a lot of missions in a short space of time. This is particularly worthwhile if you're travelling a long way. Short hops are quicker to do but don't earn as much; some pilots prefer longer journeys, often with a lot of stops along the way. Fortunately there's no time limit on courier missions.



The most exciting and dangerous way to become rich. A bounty hunter needs a decent fighting ship, a scanner that can identify rewards and - for the true professional - a means to track a target through hyperspace. However, even a beginning player can earn a few credits by taking out small pirates. Flatspace has a curious legal code - shooting on an innocent ship is piracy, but blowing up wanted criminals is entirely legal. A scanner that can identify the difference is therefore very useful! You can also earn a bounty by hunting aliens, though the $350 per kill is a little low for earning fast cash, and there's always the risk of other alien ships in the sector ganging up on you.

If your scanner has tracking ability, you can take on missions from Police Stations and Independent Tradestations to hunt down specific victims. For the police, you will always be asked to capture them alive; independents may want them alive or dead. Note that it's possible to fail these missions if the target is eliminated before you reach them - but don't worry, as there is no penalty. You can also track enemies on the top most wanted list - note that these can have different capture/kill rewards.

Live captures are more complicated, and may be best left until you are more established. You must first stun the target ship (look for stun weapons or missiles, usually on sale at police stations, which will disable their power generator) and then demand the surrender of captain and/or crew. Scoop up the target - did I mention you need a passenger scoop? - and take them back to the station you got the mission from. General criminals, including the Most Wanted, can be delivered to any police station.

One of the first things new pilots want to do in Flatspace is get into a fight. While this is enormous fun, it can lead to some very quick deaths - your puny starting ship will be easily outmatched by some of the pirates out there. Until you've got your space legs and sorted out your ship, you are best avoiding getting into fights. If attacked, you may be better running away than fighting back.

But sooner or later you WILL get into a fight, and it's better to be prepared. Here's a handy guide. I would also recommend that you spend some time in the combat simulator, accessible from the main menu, where you can practice your dogfighting skills against an increasingly deadly array of foes.



There are a vast number of weapons in Flatspace, all with their charms and their drawbacks, but we can divide them into three rough groups.

Some use ammunition - machine guns, cannons, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, etc. Many starting ships come with a machine gun, and these weapons have a huge advantage - they don't require power. In the middle of a fight, with your shields, engines and more drawing on your generator's capacity, you may need all the energy you can get. The disadvantage of these weapons is the need to buy ammunition; not usually too expensive, but often hard to find.

Then there are energy weapons - ion cannons, lasers, plasma guns, etc. These have no ammunition constraints, drawing on your generator power instead, and as such can fire an infinite number of shots. The larger the weapon, of course, the more power it will drain. Keep an eye on your energy levels. If you're pursuing mining as a career, I'd recommend trading in that machine gun for at least an entry level ion cannon.

With ammo and energy weapons alike, a good combat strategy is to use short, controlled bursts. Wild blasting is both inefficient and risks you accidentally shooting innocent vessels... or worse, the police. Alternatively, you may want to consider a smarter, more deadly form of weapon...



Missiles are "single shot" weapons, though this category also include mines and a few non-homing rockets. Expensive but powerful, missiles are best used in an emergency against more dangerous enemies. To use a missile, you must select your target (with the T key, or Y to target the nearest hostile) and then use the M key to arm your missile. If you have several missiles on board, the M key will arm each in turn and finally disarm. Fire the missile with your left mouse button. Note that some missiles and all mines are unguided, so they will simply keep going until they hit something.

Most missiles have some homing ability - some better than others - and will track their designated target until they hit. However, missiles will detonate prematurely if they hit something else in the way (such as an asteroid, a flare, or another ship). They will also explode by themselves when their fuel runs out. This is a safety feature to prevent old missiles accidentally destroying something several million miles away should they lose their target.

You can improve your missile success rate by (a) facing your enemy, unless your ship has a side-mounted missile launcher, (b) avoiding obstacles such as asteroids or other ships, and (c) launching from as close as you can, to minimise the likelihood of successful countermeasures. Naturally, if you are on the receiving end of a missile, you should reverse all these steps. You should also invest in and deploy countermeasures. You will know when a missile is on the way as a red alert will sound - act quickly and take evasive action!

ECM systems (electronic counter measures) come in many flavours, but you can only have one fitted at any time. The cheapest and simplest is a flare launcher; each comes with a set of six flares, though reloads are available if you can find them. Press the E key to throw a flare out the back of your ship; if you are lucky, the missile will target the flare instead of you. Higher level launchers can outwit higher level missiles. Advanced players often prefer flare launchers, however, as even a missile too smart for the flare to fool can still be detonated if you hit it with a well timed flare.

If you encounter a lot of missiles and your flares keep running out, you may want to invest in an EMP. Firing off a pulse will destroy all active missiles within the immediate area, including yours. EMPs are capable of frying the brains of most missiles, but you have a trade-off between size and efficiency with EMPs - the smaller the device, the more power it uses.

Finally, there is the Xox Reprogrammer. This is an expensive but fun system that hacks into the targeting systems of approaching missiles and redirects them towards your current target. If your target also has a reprogrammer, a game of "rocket tennis" can result.



All ships come with a certain amount of armour, divided into four quadrants - front, rear, left and right. It is possible to boost this by purchasing additional armour from shipyards that stock it, though this is at the cost of some cargo space. Note that stations will repair your standard armour for free on docking but do not repair additional armour. If you are being attacked, you will last longer by rotating your ship so that damaged armour is kept away from enemy fire - but the best defence is to avoid getting shot in the first place. No amount of armour will protect you forever.

Players may wish to invest in a shield. The majority of shields are by Tetron, and they come in a variety of sizes. Even the smallest will provide protection against stray shots and collisions, and shields recharge when they aren't being blasted. You should consider saving up for a small shield one of your first priorities in Flatspace.

Shields do have some disadvantages. For one thing, they take up a fair amount of space. For another, they drain your energy supply as they charge, leaving you potentially vulnerable if your generator cannot cope with all your systems drawing on it at once. However, the safety provided by a shield usually outweighs these drawbacks.

• Stay on the move at all times, and keep changing direction. This will make you a harder target to hit. Asteroid fields can provide useful cover.
  
• Conserve your firepower. Ammunition is scarce and energy weapons can drain your batteries surprisingly quickly. Your enemies can easily get carried away and forget this - when they start to falter, they are vulnerable to a counter strike.
  
• Have ECM on hand in case of missiles. For a smaller ship, you only need to be hit once and it's game over. Even mid-sized ships can be crippled by a missile strike.
  
• Pick your battles. If an enemy proves too strong, it's better to run away into hyperspace than be vapourised.
  
• If you can't run and you can't fight back, why not radio for reinforcements? A general distress call can have mixed results, while a call to the police is a safe bet but could take longer for help to arrive. You can sometimes take advantage of friendly fire by hiding behind a bigger ship...
  
• If you're going to get into a lot of fights, invest in shields, a radar, ECM and some decent firepower.
  
• Sometimes a little ship is a better combat vessel than a bigger one. Speed and agility are powerful weapons by themselves.
  
• Taken damage? You can repair equipment at a base for a fee, or crew members with engineering skills (and engineering robots) can eventually fix stuff. If you're stuck out in the void with a crippled ship, however, you may need to call for help. Note that not all ships carry remote repair equipment.

This section will be more useful once you're established in Flatspace, as new ships are generally expensive. However, bear this advice in mind for when you're ready to trade in.

There are a lot of ships out there and you should be able to find all of them on sale somewhere in the galaxy. Larger ships have more room for equipment but tend to be slower and less agile. If you're looking to destroy enemies, you may find that a very large vessel is not as effective as a smaller, faster one. However, traders will generally find there are obvious advantages to a larger ship with a bigger cargo hold.

Ships have several aspects to consider:

• Mass - bigger ships move and turn slower than lighter ones, but that mass also impacts on their hyperspace range. A tiny hyperdrive is fine for a fighter but may not get you out of the sector in a bulk freighter. If you want to jump long distances, you may want to invest in a bigger drive and sacrifice capacity in a smaller ship.
  
• Cargo Space - this will impact on what equipment you can carry as well as the space you have left for cargo and courier packages. You'll need to fit a hyperspace drive and generator in there as well as any weapons, scanners, shields and so on, so the more space the better.
  
• Crew/Cabins - larger ships can carry additional crew members. These are useful - medics heal injured passengers and crew, engineers fix damaged systems and security keep passengers in line. You may want some security on board if you routinely transport captured criminals. You can have additional cabins beyond your maximum crew, for instance on the Space Taxi. If you want to ferry passengers or capture bounties, you'll want a ship with some room to keep them in.
  
• Missile Pylons - some ships cannot carry any missiles. Some only hold one or two, while others can carry several. If you're planning on using a lot of missiles, a ship with plenty of capacity is welcome. Remember that missiles still take up cargo space!
  
• Turrets - some bigger ships include weapons turrets that can fire on enemies automatically. Turret weapons are different to regular versions and must be fitted separately. You will need crew members assigned to turrets in order to fire them.
  
• Fighter Bays - some very large ships can carry fighters, which can be purchased from station shipyards. Assign crew members as pilots and launch the fighters to provide instant reinforcements in battle. You're not likely to be able to afford one of these vessels for a long while, however!

You can buy a new ship from most stations, but the range on offer can vary enormously. Ships are sold "as is", with an assortment of weapons and equipment fitted, and the price shown is a trade-in price for your current vessel. You can view the fitted equipment within the shipyard. Ships marked as "(new)" are equipped only with a hyperspace engine, thruster and generator, allowing you more freedom to fit them out.

When trading your ship in, you will lose any equipment already fitted to that ship. If there's anything on board that you want to install on your new ship, you should remove it first and add it to your new ship afterwards. Don't leave the sector without refitting that equipment, or it may be gone when you return!


You do not need additional crew on any ship - it's entirely possible to fly even a Battlestation singlehandedly. But crew do provide a number of advantages - you can hire engineers to fix damaged systems (this can be expensive when done at space stations), medics to treat injuries among passengers and crew alike, and security personnel to ensure passengers behave. If you regularly transport criminal types on your ship, expect them to sabotage systems or injure or even kill their fellow passengers unless you have security trained crew on board.

You will, however, need to assign crew members to any fighters or gun turrets on your ship if you intend to use these. You can't do everything by yourself.

If your ship has limited crew space, you can purchase robots to carry out all these functions. But robots take up cargo space, and they have a much higher initial cost. On the other hand, crew members take a wage from your bank balance every time you dock at a station.

Crew members (and passengers!) carry out one more useful function - if your armour is penetrated, there's a chance the next blow will kill them rather than the pilot (you). Basically, your crew can function as human (or Scarrid) shields.

There are hundreds of different pieces of equipment on sale in Flatspace, and this is no place to list them all - besides, trying them out is all part of the fun! Aside from weapons, covered earlier in the Combat section, there are several other kinds of equipment:

Hyperdrives - every ship looking to leave their current sector needs one of these. As a general rule, the larger the drive, the greater the range - but the size of your ship will impact on this.

Generators - essential for every ship. Again, there's a direct correlation between size and capacity. Aside from the regular generator, you can purchase solar generators that charge more slowly but take up much less space. If you favour energy weapons, a bigger generator is a must. A ship with a damaged generator is a sitting duck; stun weapons deliberately target the generator to force surrender.

Thrusters - the engines that move your ship. Each ship has a set thruster size, so you can't simply fit a bigger one, but most sizes come in at least two variants. The XL thrusters are more powerful than the VL ones and will give you more speed, for a corresponding energy drain. Very small ships can even be fitted with racing engines, but mind you don't crash into things too often!

ECM - electronic counter measures, largely covered in the Combat section earlier. Flares, EMPs and the Xox Reprogrammer all fall under this category.

Scanners - an enormous range of scanners exists, all with their own advantages. You don't need a scanner at all but they can help a great deal - trading scanners can tell you what imports and exports a base trades in; tracking scanners allow you to follow enemies through hyperspace; the Predator scanner is favoured by pirates wanting to know what cargo a ship carries; bounty hunter scanners report what price is on a ship captain's head. Whatever you're looking to do, there's a scanner out there to make your life easier.

Radars - without a radar, you can only see (and target) what's on the screen. With a radar, you'll have a sense of where other objects are around you, though they can vary enormously in range. Radars can help you to find and capture - or avoid - other ships within the sector.

Robots - ships with limited space for crew, or pilots unwilling to pay a regular wage, may find robots a useful alternative. Robots that specialise in security, medical and engineering skills can all be installed; some robots can even provide all three.

Scoops - used by miners, pirates and bounty hunters. Scoops come in a range of types; some harvest cargo, some refine minerals, some rescue (or mince) people. Large scoops can even capture whole fighters. It takes a bit of practice to scoop up fast moving asteroids - holding down the button constantly is not always the best method.

Shields - they come in a range of sizes; the bigger, the more protection they offer. Shields take time to recharge and will not withstand a constant barrage for long; do not stay in the line of fire! At least a small shield is a recommended purchase for most pilots.

Armour - additional armour plating for your ship, in exchange for cargo space. Only really useful for combat specialists.

Escape Pods - if all else fails and your ship is destroyed, an escape pod can allow you to slip away. It's considered bad form to attack escape pods - but this will not prevent the more unscrupulous from doing so. A basic escape pod can get you to a station in the same sector; more advanced models have hyperdrives and can even carry simple machine guns. Not particularly useful for undead players (reloading an old save is less costly) but, if you play with permanent death, it might keep your game going a little longer.

Other - there's a whole host of other items out there, ranging from messages (giving you information about the game) to pets. These items are "useless" in that they don't do anything, but collecting them can be its own reward if you have the time, money and patience. One advantage of having extra equipment on board is that it increases the odds of enemy fire damaging them instead of something more important - such as you!

The following tips don't fall into any particular area but are worth remembering.

Save often! There's nothing quite like the pain of losing an hour's progress because of an unlucky pirate encounter. Of course, this assumes you aren't playing with permanent death...

If you're in a battle and it's going badly, you may decide to retreat into hyperspace. Go into your ship menu (Esc key) before you call up the map. In the menu, the game is paused; in flight, your attacker will still be firing on you while you're choosing a destination and unable to maneouvre!

You may have noticed the Guilds in your save/exit menu. To start with, these will all have scores of 0. You will gain points and ranks within each guild by carrying out relevant actions - for instance, selling goods at a profit will score points in the merchant guild. Special restricted equipment can be purchased in some bases, but only to guild members of the specified rank or higher. Want to buy it? Score some points!

Explore the galaxy early on, when you're pretty much unknown. As you score points you become a more attractive target to all the pirates and aliens out there, so take a little time to map out the surrounding sectors and see what bases are out there before you start making a reputation for yourself.

As you explore, make note of stations selling useful equipment. Bases selling ammunition or boxes of flares are always worth remembering, and if you see somewhere that stocks the Tetron Shield you want, you can come back later when you have the cash to buy it.

Criminal bounties are often higher if you can bring them back alive. If you're flying a police ship, you can sometimes get them to surrender just by radioing and asking them. The odds of this working are slightly higher if you switch on your sirens (the I key by default). However, stunned ships are still much more amenable to demands...

There are two different alert sounds - learn the difference. A yellow alert sounds (complete with yellow warning triangle) when enemies target your ship, and a yellow indicator will show which direction the foe is coming from. If this one sounds, take evasive action and get ready to fight or flee. A red alert sounds when you are targeted by a missile, and is a much more urgent noise. You can activate a red alert whenever you like with the A key, though it's purely for your benefit and won't affect your crew if you have one. You can also turn off an existing alert with the same key if it starts to get annoying. Note that turning off an alert will not stop any missiles heading your way - you will still need to do something about those.

Experiment! What happens if you use a tractor beam on another ship? What does this missile do? Should I stick with the machine gun or switch to an ion cannon? Hey, this is your Flatspace adventure. Try it and see what you think! Can you take down Public Enemy #1? Can you destroy an alien base? Can you find all the secrets? It's your game, and your story. Only you can find out how it goes.

Good luck, pilot!