Star Control: Origins – Detailed Beginners Guide

1) While traveling in Hyperspace, you can see undiscovered Space Stations only in your Minimap, but not in the Global Map. They will become visible in the Global Map after you dock and activate them the first time. Same rule applies for solar system travel.

2) Minimap zoom depends on how good your installed Sensors are. better Sensors will mean the minimap being more “zoomed out”, allowing a greater view of travelling Ships and undiscovered Stations.

3) You can only see other Ships’ icons in the Minimap, but not in the Global one.

4) Using the Autopilot function to reach another Solar System will allow you to pass through planets, stars and also other solar systems eventually on the way. It is way quicker than manually avoiding all these things. Hostile or hailing ships will still block your path even with Autopilot.

5) You will not consume fuel if you stand still while in Hyperspace.

6) Fuel consumption in Hyperspace is calculated per-meter traveled. This means having a faster Hyperspace Device will not consume more or less, but will simply consume fuel faster as the distance will be covered in a shorter time.

7) Every time you visit an undiscovered Space Station, a new part will unlock in the Station Shop to be purchased. Such parts will also become available to purchase in all other space stations and most traders.

8) Some traders will offer unique items sold only by them. Even if discovered, such items will not be available in other places, but only from that specific trader.

9) Going inside stars while navigating a solar system will not damage you: you will bounce off or scan the star if on manual drive, or pass through if on Autopilot.

10) If you run out of fuel while in space, a friendly spaceship will be called and eventually rescue you, but this will take some time, and while this happens some less friendly ships may come to you.

11) The damage inflicted on a Lander when failing to land in the “safe area” while attempting a planetary descent, is proportional to the distance you landed from the safe zone. A landing quite near it will knock out some crew members, while a landing very far will destroy the lander in most cases.

12) You can mark important places on your Global Map using markers of various colors, and even rename them, by clicking the “crosshair” icon when selecting a solar system. They will be collected in a handy list on the right side of the Map. This function is extremely valuable in marking planets with rare resources to get later on, traders, and other things. Frequent use is suggested.

1) If a planet has low value (Blue, Red, or deep-purple-ish icons) resources only, just don’t waste time landing and collecting them. They will never be needed for any quest, and have a value of only 1 per unit, resulting in miserable profit. It is more efficient to land on planets with at least moderate value (5 per unit) resources.

2) You can see the value per unit of a resource found on a Planet by hovering the mouse cursor over that resource in the list on the right when orbiting said planet.

3) The environmental danger level of a planet can exceed the value of 10, but the interface does not show it: this means a planet you think is safe to land on because of your protections are a total of 10, can instead be deadly. Always check the numeric value, by hovering the mouse on the environmental threat bar, before landing, when you see a planet with Threat 10 of either Toxicity or Heat.

4) Planets with greater dangers often result in greater material amounts and rarity.

5) The only types of resources you will need in Quests are Rare Radioactive (Green icon), Ultra Rare (Gold Icon) and Mythical (Bright Pink Icon). All the other types you will never need.

6) You can see the type of Crashed Spaceship on a Planet from the orbit. Rotate the planet with WASD or Arrows and look at it: if you know it is a not very good spacecraft and the planet is dangerous, just leave it there.

7) Always land on planets with Unidentified Structures: they can lead to powerful modules or large quantities of money instantly. Also quests, of course.

8) Fast lightning strikes on planets will actually not damage your Lander. Electrical Storms (the large ones, with area-of-effect persistent duration) WILL damage it, do not confuse the two.

9) Do not land on planets with volcanoes unless forced to. They are immensely dangerous and random: a single volcano fireball will always destroy your lander in 1 hit, and there are lots of them around every moment.

10) Unless forced to, always skip past Security Drones or Turrets when a planets contains some: they are not worth destroying and are never needed in quests that i know of, and also very dangerous. Same goes for wildlife.

11) If you find a planet with Mythical resources but you do not need them for a present quest, unless you really need some money, mark it on the map and leave it there for when you will need them. This because Resources cannot be sold partially, so it is impossible to save some when trading them.

1) A good tactic to hit your enemy if you’re having trouble, is to wait until he comes straight towards you from a distance, and fire a volley of your long range rapid-fire weapon of choice in advance: he will most likely not move and several shots will hit.

2) Touching the green edge of the combat area will deal damage over time to anyone, you and also the enemy.

3) Crashing into asteroids will sometimes deal 1 damage, but not always. Better avoid them if on low crew, otherwise just smash them.

4) Any spaceship traveling between two ends of a Wormhole assumes the form of a beam of light, and is invulnerable for the duration of this effect. It also cannot attack while in this state.

5) Combat is always to the death: there isn’t a way to escape a started fight that I know of.

6) Ramming enemy ships will not deal damage.

7) Knowing what weapons the enemy has is very important to decide what strategy to use. You will become more experienced about this as you fight many battles, and there is also a section later that will talk about this.

8) Avoid fights if possible by simply evading a pursuing enemy ship. Fights actually result in very poor money gain most of the time, and give no additional rewards at all. There are a few exceptions but are quest-related.

9) Some weapons such as the Super Nuclear Missile will explode on mouse-click release and just continue traveling while mouse is kept pressed down. If some weapon keeps exploding for no reason, maybe this is why.

10) If your Flagship (the Vindicator) is destroyed in combat, then you get a game over, but if any other Fleet ship is killed, you will just select the next one and continue the fight.

1) Do not buy Fleet Ships from stations: they cost a lot of money and you can get them in other, free ways. Asking any allied-faction ship or Homeworld will probably result in them giving away to you 2-3 ships for free before refusing. Also, derelict ships can be found on planets and added to the fleet for free.

2) Some ships are outright bad or very situational, while others are all-around decent or very good. This goes to personal taste to a degree, but when considering what ship to acquire, the first stat to cinsider is Crew (green dots), which is HP, and is definitely the most important as it determines the resistance and therefore the DPS a ship can deal before defeat.
Weapons are also important: always favor long-range (missiles, lasers) or rapid fire ones (beams, short range lasers) over support devices or gimmicks like mines or drones, as they are just a lot more effective. There are a few exceptions to this, but I will leave them to you to discover.

3) Since your flagship can equip unqiue modules such as deflectors to receive a lot less damage, use it generally for your standard combat, as it is overall a great ship and has a lot of crew and energy, so you won’t risk losing fleet ships for just a mere skirmish, and save them for major battles.

4) Sometimes, having in your fleet a ship belonging to a certain species can trigger hostility from other ones not liking said species. Consider this and change your fleet composition if needed.

5) Ships gained in events or quests that cannot enter the fleet because there is no space left, will be stored in Space Stations and be available to buy at zero cost.

1) Deflector (flagship only) damage resistance WILL stack with Fleet Deflector (global) damage resistance, but the same type of Deflector or Fleet Deflector will NOT stack with other ones of the same type.

2) Lander Thermal, Toxic and Physical resistance upgrades CAN stack together, so putting on your ship 5x 20% Heat Resistance for example, willr esult in 100% (Level 10) Heat resistance.

3) It is always more efficient to put one strong upgrade instead of several lesser ones to obtain the same effect (like in the previous tip). It may cost a lot more, but the saved space you get for putting other upgrades is invaluable.

4) Don’t save 90k+ money for buying the best Fuel Tank in the game. It’s not needed as you will find a certain type of upgrade allowing to expand your fuel capacity more without a new fuel tank. It’s really not worth the immense amount of grind to make 90k money.

5) Hands down, the best weapons for your Flagship are in general any Earth Missile (Nukes) and as Secondary, any long-range laser weapon (Dual Beam, Gatling Laser, Heavy Gatling Laser, and similar). In general always have a high-damage slow one to 1-shot lesser ships, and a rapid-fire, possibly long range one to deal massive DPS to bigger ships.

6) Hyperdrive and Engine upgrades are nice, but hardly fundamental, you will just take a lot more time to explore and arrive anywhere, that’s the only real difference: speed. Also, with lesser Hyperdrive / Engines it will be harder to avoid enemy ships. Choice is yours, either approach is viable.

7) consider your flagship also as a supprot vessel, and fill it with the most fleet-wide support modules, such as Fleet Deflector, you can find. It will make a great difference in the long run.

8) Ideal cargo capacity should be around 2000, more is just unnecessary.

1) Space indipendent Traders will offer common items on discount. Landers can be found at 375 instead of 500 price for example, and sometimes also fuel can be gained cheaper than normal Space Station or Planet rates.

2) The selling rates of all materials are the same everywhere.

3) Space indipendent Traders will accept buying Meat and Live Animals, they are the only trader that accepts this type of items.

4) You can get free fuel refills at a friendly planet found very early in the game, and quite close to Earth itself. Absurdly, Earth itself will make you PAY for fuel, but instead, this friendly alien planet will give it for free, you just have to ask. This is a great way to save money.

5) An efficient way of grinding money is doing so in a cluster of solar systems with a Space Station or Trader nearby, to quickly sell stuff when needed and resupply quickly without having to travel far.

6) You can fast travel between discovered Space Stations at no fuel cost, and instantly, when you are docked in one of them. This is a great way to save time and money aswell, so discovering a lot of Space Stations is critical.

1) A quest will ask you to find a “living weapon” in the “nearby area”. This description is misleading as such thing is not in the nearby area or even near, but in fact a bit far. Do not waste time looking nearby when you encounter this quest, but sail to the stars and explore!

2) A quest will ask you to “listen to a certain conversation” – this is also misleading. Do not overheat your brain scrambling around contacting everyone, as the solution will present during another quest-line of another faction.