I know the space stations and ship building are the highlights and everyone is talking about them, but I just wanted to share my love for some features that I seriously appreciate but aren’t really talked about:

First, I’ve always complained about the standing system being completely pointless. Even when Outlaws came out and gave us the ability to reset our standing, I kept thinking there was no point for it, apart from like one mission being locked off, it genuinely felt like the numbers you saw in your catalogue were completely detached from the actual gameplay. So I’m finally overjoyed that it has a genuine purpose now with discounts! Prices in station shops reflect your standing with the race and it tells you by how much! It’s a start I’d say, but a really impactful one too!

The guild now also has a physical presence and no longer feels like some imaginary concept that was also entirely detached from the game and only existed as a number in your catalogue. Now they’re actually in the game (I still haven’t figured out what determines which one of the 3 appear in stations) and raising standing with them is actually really encouraging since they give you some really useful items either for free or at a discount. Increasing standing with them is also much easier now with the new donation mechanic rather than doing missions.

Next, the frigate expeditions once again always felt like an imaginary thing; you sent them out on expeditions, waited a few hours, and they’d say what happened and you had to pretend it was true while they gave you the loot. Now there’s an actual consequence that you get to be involved in. Instead of the whole thing being a passive money making thing, they occasionally ask you for advice or help protect them from enemies. One time I was asked to warp to their location and land on a frigate so I could read a message they found and they asked me what to do… turns out the language I knew directly affected how much of the text was readable and I could make an informed decision, so knowing the language has more meaning as well!

And lastly, the trading. It was something I knew existed but 100% ignored. But now the economy scanner has a new function where you can choose to detect economy surges and it’ll tell you which system to invest what in, and it’s on a timer so it’s like a little mini game to get rich. Trading is actually kinda fun now that there’s an actual guided mechanic around it.

So…I finally got the nudge I needed from one-too-many people saying “but the wall of text is just TL;DR!”

So…I made my first Tutorial video instead.

https://youtu.be/BZtf1BujkgY

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Including the original Wall-o’-Text for posterity.

Step 1: Get both the Economy & Conflict scanners from the Anomaly’s Ship-Tech vendor. You’ll need a Walker-Brain for the Conflict Scanner.

Step2: In GalaxyMap, sort by Conflict, and choose the red stars. THEN you’re looking for the stars with the pirate symbol (that’s the skull). Travel to that system. You’ll want a bunch of those systems (15-20).

Go to Pirate Systems.

Buy Banned Goods from the vendor on the far-left if you’re looking at it from the Teleporter (under the yellow junked ship).

Buy tech & weapons packages from same dealer (not the next dealer over that sells ‘em for nanites).

Go to a NON pirate system by cycling through one of your bases (you can’t go directly to a Non-Pirate space station from a Pirate system or vise/versa). Sell off the Banned Goods immediately, don’t just fly around with that stuff (a system Scan will get you popped & chased by sentinel ships).

Open all the tech & weapon packages. Sell those to one of the Tech Dealers across on the other platform for nanites.

Lather/rinse/repeat.

Hit a few Freighters IN THE PIRATE SYSTEMS ONLY for more banned goods to sell, to keep your $$$ headed north…so you can keep buying those tech packages. Don’t hit the free-floating Cargo Pods or you lose Standing with whatever Race is dominant in that system.

Develop a LIST of Pirate systems & hit them regularly, they’ll regenerate their inventory for you to buy again about every 30 minutes to an hour. I’ve got 20 in my list. It takes me 30-45 minutes to go through the whole list & nets me about 50k Nanites per rotation.

I keep track of which ones I’ve done by going through the whole list of pirate systems (while in pirate systems, ONLY Non-Pirate systems will say “unavailable” something to that effect), then cycling back to sell off.

That keeps them in order so I can go back for another run later.