1 (edited by Ank 2012-05-23 16:47:07)

Topic: Game guide - basics

Ok, so you decided to play Hostile Space Revived. Welcome smile
After you installed the client and created your brand new character, it is time to connect to the server.
First contact
Your game loaded up for the first time, it might be a bit confusing but let's see it step by step:

- you are prompted to choose a class, which are as follows:

    - Pyrokinetic - Psionic class, good damage, most spells are for improved damage ( and a defensive spell ), needed for bossing
    - Telekinetic - Psionic class, moderate damage, very useful for his ability to greatly increase ship armor and gather group members, a must for bossing
    - Telepath    - Psionic class, good damage, crowd control abilities, regenerating spells, highest entity ( companion ) in game, moderately needed for bossing
    - Mercenary   - Power class, your regular tank, moderate damage, it has increased hull and crew, a must for bossing
    - Engineer    - Power class, healer, low damage, pretty much keeps anyone alive, a must for bossing
    - Smuggler    - Power class, good damage dealer, ability to cloak and ambush ( best 1 hit damage ), bit squishy, moderately needed for bossing

- you are prompted to choose a race:
- Eschar - power regen bonus ( good for power classes, especially smuggler, otherwise not recommended )     
- Terrix - offense bonus ( good for damage dealer builds, all classes )
- Gi'pok - crew regen bonus ( good for bossing characters, esp. mercenary and engineers )
- Human  - psi regen bonus ( good for psi classes, if you plan to keep fighting without stops )
- Kalarix- defense bonus ( good for all classes, defensive builds, esp. mercenary, engineer)
- Tekorus- hull regen bonus ( good for all classes, regenerative builds, esp.engineer)

- you are prompted to choose a faction, only one active right now, so can't miss it tongue
- choose an avatar you like.
Screen
At all times, your ship will be in the center of the screen, top-down view (yes, this is a top-down view game).
On the lower part of the screen, you'll see the HUD, where you can find all types of info about your ship, skills, commands, psions and
also game settings. ( You can show/hide this HUD at any time by pressing TAB or shift+I )

Ship tab:

Left side: you see your ship, with slots for weapons and systems.
Middle side: there is the cargo of your ship, where you
carry items while navigating around. Now you can see couple weapons and fuel there( hydrogen ) as well as some ammo. Try and equip them,
see which item goes where on the slots. ( As of now, you can only equip 2 weapons).
Middle right: If you select one item, on the right side of the cargo you will see information about that item. Read it to learn about it.
Far right of your HUD you will see a scanner, which shows you at all times surrounding ships and points of interest ( docking locations, looks like flashing red rectangles).
Enemy ships are marked with red triangles, friendly ones with white.
( If in close enough range, you can select them on the scanner, the info available will appear on the info screen where
you studied your items). Click on the Scanner button to activate it.
Info tab:
Here you will find all your available (or not) skills.
On the left side: you see information about your character, including class/race you already picked.
Wealth you earn as you sell items, it is always noted in the 50k0 format ( that means 50.000), eg. 2million credits will be 2000k0.
Under you see your main stats, strength, intelligence and dexterity. These ones you will never be able to change so choose wisely.
Strength - affects how much crew you gain per level, chance to interrupt an enemy and be interrupted by one. ( Important: if you run out of crew, your weapons won't fire and you won't be able to cast any ability )
Intelligence- affects how much psi you gain per level (mana in other games), affects skill gain rate, affects fabrication (crafting) chance of success (1% chance gain for every 5 int stats)
Dexterity - adds offense/defense per stat point.

You may want to read specific class/builds guides (coming soon) before raising those stats or just go for it if you know what you want.
Middle: Here are your character skills, based on your class choice.

Actions tab:
Here you will find all your available commands and psions.
White ones are not consuming any energy, blue ones are power consuming, pink ones are psi consuming.
White are the same for all characters, only ones that differ from class to class are blue and pink.
As you level up and increase your skills from the info tab, more actions will be available.
Options tab:
You can turn different options on and off here. ( Hint: leave shouting channel always on, so you can interract with others via general chat )
Quit tab: pretty obvious.
Take your time and learn the HUD, it will help you alot thru your HSR journey.
On the top right side of the screen you will see regenerating bars (power,hull,psi,crew) and your avatar. As you play the game, always
keep an eye on these bars so you can time your actions right (and not end up dead) tongue
Top middle, there a live ping bar (bugged) and under it you will see at times the coordonates you are flying to.
Between the ping bar and your avatar, there is an experience bar where you can track your leveling progress.
Moving:
You can move around with the WASD keys or with the mouse: hold both buttons pressed and move mouse.(hold right click first then hold left click)
Pressing Num Lock will auto fly towards the direction your ship is pointing. Press Num Lock again to stop.
If at times you get stuck in a wall, hold Shift key then right click some free spot to move.
If map fails to load, try using the /reload command.
Communication:
Before you can type anything, you must press Enter every time you wish to do so, then again Enter to send the command.
There are several channels to communicate with others:
- shout channel, use /s text eg. /s Hi, i'm new here
- auction channel, /a text
- faction channel, /f text
- clan channel, /c text (only after you are invited in a clan or created your own one)
For private conversations, use /tell nickname text , also for quick reply to last message you received, use /r text
For a list of players online , use /who , for those you can group with , use /whogroup
If you want to see which players are connecting (maybe you are waiting for a friend) use /chan connect on
Fighting:
Now that you've learned a bit about the interface and exchanged some words with other people, it's time to fight smile
Check again the Cargo tab, see if you have weapons equipped and other systems. If you equipped a launcher too, be sure to equip the
missiles too (launchers and fighter bays require ammo to function). After the red timers on them finish, press Shift+P or type /powerall to power them up.
You are located now in the starting academy. To find the first enemies, navigate up while keeping an eye on the scanner for the red triangles (turn it on if you haven't yet).
All weapons and abilities have a certain range so choose your enemy, right click on it. If your weapons are not firing, try getting closer and/or hold right click bit longer
on the enemy. (You need to face target to shoot)
Weapons alone won't do much against enemies, so go to Actions tab, select a blue or pink action (left click once on it) then press a number from 1 to 8. That will assign the
action to the actions bar above the HUD. You will be able to use it in fight by pressing the corresponding number. If you are not sure what an action does, you can use
/ask action (eg. /ask fire bolt, /ask fortify etc). Now try an enemy again, see if it goes easier smile
Using actions (abilities) will increase your skills, so everytime you see one skill going to a round number ( eg. You improved in Pyrokinesis(3.0) ) check back the Actions tab to see
if you received any new ability. (them will appear top most of the list, scroll up to check)
Assessing mob difficulty:
There are different mobs around, some of them easier for you to kill, some harder or impossible. Most of them are level based, so if you press F1 (that will select self) you will see in
the info window your level, try not to go for mobs higher than 2-3 levels above yours. (You can see your level in the Info tab too, left side under your class)
Try selecting a mob with your mouse, left click on it. Mob info will appear in the info window, study it. You will see mob's power,crew,shields,hull and level.
Now, if you press the Alt key (or F10), a coloured ring will appear around the mob. That colour has some importance as follows:
- green - very easy to kill mob, yields no experience
- light green - easy , very little experience
- blue - moderate easy, little experience
- white - normal, decent experience (normal means you are in the right level range, there will be times when white mobs will kill you easily if your ship is not decently equipped so be careful)
- golden - moderate hard, good experience
- red - very hard, very good experience
The experience bar is divided in 1024 points, so mobs give you experience as follows: blue-35,white-50,golden-65,red-80. (eg. you need to kill 21 white mobs to earn a level, compared to only 13 red ones)

PS: need to tweak it, so any suggestions are welcome

Magic  T9  Merc   75
Anka   T9  Engie  75
Spin    T3  Smug  74

Re: Game guide - basics

Pretty fucking thorough.  Props for taking the time to write these up.  Even I learned a thing or two