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Star Control: Origins – Useful Tips and Tricks

Useful Tips and Tricks

* 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.

* 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.

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

* 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.

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

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* Not all planets are equal. Planets full of gray and blue resources are not
really worth messing with.

* Generally, planets are worthwhile if there’s something else on them.

* Your ship is, well, not really cut out for interstellar travel. As you will soon learn, we humans in 2088 aren’t really ready for it. Use the Precursor starbases you find to help you. You can upgrade your engines, your thrusters, your weapons, and everything else about your ship and even your fleet. Make use of this to make your ship more powerful.

* You can use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. 1,2,3,4 are the camera hot keys too. 4 zooms all the way out. 1 sets it to auto zoom.

* If you are going to install the module that has the AI fight your battles for you, pick a ship that is well, good. Early on, your ship is well see #3.

* All of your dialog choices matter in some way or other even if it’s not obvious. Under the covers, the game keeps track of those choices and it can affect whatother choices might show up. But choosing A won’t mean that later on option C comes up but rather choosing enough of a certain type of reaction is likely to result in gradual changes to how the universe treats you.

* Planets are not your main source of income. There are plenty of aliens who want help or lost treasures or things to salvage. If you do find a planet with lots of green or purple minerals on it, then that’s great! But otherwise, there should be a reason to land on planets unless you just enjoy collecting stuff.

* You can enter a star system’s name in the sector map. We recommend setting a thumbtack on that destination if you think you’ll be going back there.

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