© Jason Compton
lemon 64 - tips -  home
Here are some tips for success:
  • Don't touch the joystick. Use the keyboard as your sole interface. (Notice how every command has a unique first letter?) It's MUCH faster. The backspace (inst/del) key backs you out one menu level, the slash key acknowledges communications.
  • Don't use auto-acknowledge. You SHOULD make a point to read messages, but it can be very annoying to have the data readout blanked by a fairly unimportant communique. You can always hit the acknowledge key rapidly if you need to clear through the routine messages to get to the important one.
  • Don't leave the spacedock until you've got the shield batteries charged to full and the emergency batteries well-juiced (at least 60 seconds worth.) Use the Engineering Priority function early and often. Make it your friend. It will save your life.
  • Speed is king. The faster you're moving, the faster you'll get to your destination, and the less time the bad guys will have to shoot at you. Of course, the most direct routes are sometimes the most dangerous, so be prudent.
  • You can't have your cake and eat it too, so you'll have to disable some ship systems in order to achieve maximum speed on a regular basis. Obvious choices are the weapon(s) that your gunnery officer is weak in, and the info scanner (see below), but you'll often have to run with at least one shield down. If you're really good, and your engineer is fast, you can shift your shield "hole" to avoid the point the bad guys seem to be attacking the most.
  • I find the info scanner to be a luxury you can rarely afford. Disable it for most of the flight, but get juice to it every so often so your navigation officer can update the risk assessments, and adjust your course accordingly.
  • If you've turned off the info scanner, there's no good reason to have your scanning officer keep scanning a ship once you've established a target lock, so cancel scans as soon as you get a "y" under target lock.
  • The scanning status chart is the most useful chart to have on screen, unless you're working on something else (in other words, when things are relatively quiet), because it lets you know what's going on outside, and helps
  • Don't be afraid to adjust your course every so often when things get too hot (see above), but course corrections slow down your overall journey, so try not to do it TOO often, or you guarantee a late arrival, and have to spend a lot more time in space being shot at.
  • The ship cannot be completely blown up. The game ends when you're out of cargo. This happens if the pirates board and steal it all, or if the cargo environment systems stay damaged and the cargo spoils. Keep that in mind when looking at a huge repair manifest.
  • Losing a crew member means a stiff monetary penalty at the end, plus feelings of guilt, but more importantly, the ship's computer does a really lousy job of replacing your humanoid crew. Don't let them die.