Warning: This Guide is going to be purely text, I believe Images aren't necessary for one to learn and they can destract from the useful text.
You start off in a Zebucart in the middle of a place swarming with space rats. The hard part is killing them. You must select these vicious wee varmints with either your mouse or the tab key before you can fire upon them, then it's a matter of aiming with the WAD keys, and pressing space, and hoping to hell that their dung pellets, (which oddly enough come from the FRONT of the rat) will splatter harmlessly off your shield and leave you relatively safe, but traumatised.
Shakilly, you might want to make your way to the station to get either some missions, or to blissfully drink booze until you forget your battle to the death versus the game's interpretation of Agent Smith, dock by travelling at a speed of 8, or using your right click to stop directly ont he station by pressing the R key. But steady on there champ, there are some missions at the base! You might have to go out and kill space rats some more! There are missions where you get to flay and gut these poor defenceless little fellas so people can make soup out of their innards. They'll give you a scoop when you complete the right mission for it. You can use this by pressing the C key after you pulverize more helpless vermin, scooping up the rations, guts, and carapaces that drop. Ooooh lovely.
Ok, once you have the hang of this, you're now no longer a noob, you're a person to be reckoned with, if the Greeters are patronising and giving you grief, or in stifler's case asking for money, tell them to leave you alone or you'll vaporise them. This should send them screaming for help, but they can't touch you because you're invincible! Thanks to the PVP restriction yay.
Saunter over to the next galaxy, which should be called system as in star or solar system, but I digress. Here there are two bases where a friendly miner will teach you how to mine for a living, in order to start his trial you'll need to learn how to access the old purchasing tabs, so dock at the station, press the trade tab to the top left, then look for weapons, you'll buy the mining laser that is a tech 1 weapon off an angry looking man with three arms and no neck, but you can trade it with your miner friend for a better one.
You might notice that the AI in this area are called mini Volcoms. These are nasty little fellas, and the best way to beat them is to aquire a core power energy and a pulse gun weapon, or get a laser type weapon and fly out of their range as they trie furiously to splatter you with faeces they stole off of space rats. Yes these pirates are the real deal and steal everythign they can! Oh what fiends!
Soon you'll get a mission to go kill an outpost that these vicious pirates balong to! Oh the humanity, you may think, but your trusty Ion Peashooter can outrange the outpost and the pirate's radars are so bad/they're just to drunk to care. Scoop the glowy remains and peg it back to the base!
Explore for a while the nexus, and you'll quickly need to learn what Augmenters are. They're little gimmicks that improve the smexiness of your ship. All ships have a maximum augmenter ammount, like the Zebucart has three, whereas the Phunka.dll has only one, but is way more phunky. Now you can equip augmenters equivalent or below the tech of the ship hull, Ie, you have a rosfire, tech 8, you can equip a Zeta Aug, tech 7, a Seargeant Enforcer aug, tech 8, a Hestia, tech 0, but not a Dionysis one.
Level up against AI enemies, and level up your different skills in nuro training, woo! I do love the smell of elecrically fried brains.
Some ships have better stats for doing things than others. Zebucarts have inbuilt damage bonuses that make them very deadly as fighter slaves. But what do YOU want in a ship? It's up to you, I'm not gonna tell you how to play, I'm an idiot, what do I know? You're now probably much better than me and probably able to take on stronger foes.
When you get to about level 8-10, the Nexus will have probably tired you out. There are keys to killing things in the nexus easily, Ie, the outlaw's volcom should be avoided, it's not worth it, use mining or energy types on the green paxy things, and use magcannons on everything else. Oh, and avoid that place with the purply/browny/blue ships, it's not worth it.
You're now a force to be reckoned with. You're a survivor! Survivors of the deadly nexus (of deadly death and doom) are often put off by the next oart int heir journey to the full game, this is throguh a cleaverly placed minefield to scare off people that don't have a clue wat they're doing, which will slow down the ammount of new players incredibly, but you know better because you've read this guide! So you need to know only this. The stations in "Deepspace" give off auras to speed you up the suns slow you down. You can TAB around to find refuelling drones, and autopilot o them with the V key, you can allso use Q to choose the nearest drone so as not to get caught int he gravity well.
Once you're out you're ready to kick some ass of every nasty that'll come your way, look to the top left and check that safety is on, safety must ALWAYS be on, because if safety isnt on you are not safe and will die a horribly painful death to the cops/players/possibly even space rats. Safety first!
You now need to know about AI in the newer areas. You'll be around 8-10, so I'll tell you what to kill and what to avoid Quickly, and what weapons to use.
KILL
*Flyswatter Maggots, to level 10, use energy weapons and their poor agility will be their downfall, either that or use a ranged magcannon/laser.
*Flyswatter Flylets, same tactic, to level 12,
*Flyswatter Flyboys, same tactic, to level 20,
*Monochrome tints, are very weak, avoid the torpedos and the laser, use range on them. from 15-30
*Roswell, kill with extreme predjudice anwhere. They have a lot of shields, and arent worth it.
AVOID
*Bulk Traders, these have pesky fighters that'll nip your shields to death, they are tough, tough cookies.
*Wingships, these guys are stupidly hard to kill. they have energy and laser diffusers, so use a physical type weapon on them if you have to kill them.
*Rosfires, travel in groups and will mob you with crappy mag weapons.
You'll now be an awesome player, and probably have gotten a Hotrod, a Hotrod+ (10X the cost for 10% better) with 5 augs, a truly awesome ship, an Enforcer, protective strong ship good for all round levelling with a lot of hullspace, or a Space Blue Alpha if you havnt got any friends, and find one at an AI base.
Then BAM! You'll hit level 20. Then you'll need to pay a measly $9.99 a month to fuel your cravings for more playing, or four months for the price of three, a groovy deal if ever there was one. Once you've paid, you'll be able to get past 20. Then there are some simple rules, and you can stop reading, well you'll have to because I'll have stopped typing.
Rules:
1: Slaves should not be killed, these AI begin with an S then a Number then a Name. Players will get angry and hunt you and they might be tougher/have mroe friends/bigger dads than you.
2: Be nice to everyone and help low levels, you never know when they'll become better than you.
3: Buy things from bases if you don't trust people.
4: Be honest about things you get ingame it helps.
5: Don't Scam, people will remember you.
6: People's names in Teal are Admins, they are nice but don't like to be interrupted when they're intoxicated with power. They might get Smitey.
7: ALLCAPS IN ANY FORM OF CHAT IS MUTEABLE BY A MOD.
8: Cybersex/talking of goolies and other naughty bits is also muteable.
9: Only trade in trade chat.
10: Be friendly and meet everyone with cheer.
Well this is my contribution to the best game ever programmed, in my opinion, though the lag could soemtimes be better. I hope you have a good long stay, and get awesome. Stay Smexy!
Alex
Ps: Feel Free to PM me ingame if you want advice on anything but stations and colonies, colonies and stations are a pain int he neck, and I'm clueless.
