Pardus/Walkthrough
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NOTE:This guide is written for players to begin with. It will not include choosing a faction or any faction equipment. If you wish to choose a faction at the beginning, see one of the following guides:
The advantage of being Neutral
Being neutral is the ideal for not feeling restrained. It's generally for the person who feels like just doing what you feel like and not having to worry about things such as the wars. It also makes you unhackable from the faction pilot database in the black market allowing pirates to be unhackable. It comes at a price however, you can't join any faction aligned alliances, and you can't get any of the equipment and ships from the factions.
[edit] Beginning
You've just finished the tutorial, and all you have is a sabre, about 5000 credits, and a few pieces of basic equipment. Right now, you're either at a planet called a homeworld which is where you end up every time you die, or at a random Class M planet in the cluster you've chosen. Although you might be eager to go around killing everybody or maybe a sarrencia, this isn't a time for fighting and dieing in your ship. Your sabre is a weak starter ship. It'd be useless to even think of putting any equipment on it besides an impulse laser, you'll be getting out of it rather soon. Now, go into the planet and look at the ship equipment. Make sure that you have
- Auto-refueler
- Fuel-scoop
You should have a mining laser in your inventory now, you can choose either to sell it for the extra cargo space and the money, or keep it as a cheap defense against space maggots (SM) and for mining. If you can find asteroid fields while you're going around, mine some off of the tiles over 250 (mining under that is considered stripmining) and sell them to smelting facilities which will probably be nearby if there are asteroid mines. But for now, you need a few basic things before you can get a lot better:
- More credits
This will let you buy things such as weapons and commodities, useful when stocking high level production building.
- A better ship
Your sabre is just a basic ship with the bare necessities. You will never be able to do anything professionally and well without a better ship.
- Equipment
Nobody got anywhere stocking without a high level engine and teleporter. The same thing goes with fighters too. You can't kill lucidi squads with a mining laser. If you're going to do stuff, you need the right stuff for the job.
- An alliance (not needed, but very helpful)
When you're in an alliance, you're taxed a small amount each day (0%-1%). In return, you get the alliance chat where only your alliance mates can chat, financial help from the alliance, and access nooks zoned off by the alliance. The tax is incredibly minimal for the amount of help they give to you.
Now, we need to make some money. Around the planet will be various buildings, and you can make a profit by buying commodities from them and selling them to buildings that need them. One of the simplest and easiest ways to do this is with medicines and liquor. However, you'll need some fuel. If you're at a homeworld, then the area around you will be very heavily stripmined, likely to the point where you can't mine it anymore! If you're at a homeworld, move a few tiles away from the planet and try mining it. If you can't, you're going to have hard time there. Look around for fuel collectors and buy about 10 fuel from there before doing anything else. If you aren't at a homeworld, chances are that the area around you is somewhat low on fuel, but still minable. Now, look around for a brewery or a med lab then fly to it. Enter the building, and buy the liquor or medicines. Check that the prices are normal, it should be around 675 or less. Now, go back to the planet and sell them back. Make sure that the average for it is fairly higher than what you bought it for. You can probably do this for a while, but soon the stocks of liquor andmedicines will run out, or the planet will stop paying enough for you to make a profit. In the next part, we'll take a serious approach to making some more money. This will involve stocking buildings, running FWE, and getting into a rustclaw.
