Time limit on starting hand-coded missions?

[scowie]

I've restarted a few times recently too after doing a bit of tweaking of the exe. Btw, if you wanna fix the unarmed attackers issue, download my ffe editing package, it includes instructions on how to do that.

I am pretty sure you have to do the Wiccan Race at the very start of the game. According to the news articles, you have to get to Old Curie on Hope by midnight on the very first day. You can do it in the Saker by doing 2 jumps, via Soholia. You may not expect to be the fastest ship, but you can win it doing it that way. It may help to fly manually, which I tend to do myself when time matters (i.e. full thruster half way to your destination, turn around, full thruster in opposite direction to slow down). According to the news article that appears at the end of January, the winner only wins cos the leading ships wipe each other out in a massive battle (whether you win or not). I am not sure how it determines whether you win or not. I have done it by 16th Jan in a Saker and won, but failed when I have done it in the faster Eagle Mk2 by 14th Jan (There is one of these at Turner Town on Hope).

Btw, there are 3 delivery missions from Hope to Alioth that you can do at the same time as the race. One for about 2500 credits at Old Curie and another two at Turner Town, one of which nets you 11,000 credits! You get the attention of some Mafia enforcer for taking the 2500c one, but no one seems to come after you for the 11K one, even though you are acting against the military on that one.

The other hand-coded mission that's available at the start is the Achenar to Beta Hydri "removals" service. This one has such a tight time limit on it that you probably wont be able to do it if you do the Wiccan Race, unless you do it this way...

At the start of the game there is a Falcon, on Hope at the Turner port (not to be confused with Turner Town). This is the fastest ship you can buy and will get you to Alioth in one jump, but even after selling all your Saker's upgrades you will still be nearly 2000 credits short of the money you need. But don't worry, you don't need to cheat. You can make this money by trading certain goods between ports on Hope. You can take Nerve Gas from Turner Town and sell it at Old Curie for profit. Then take Precious Metals back to Turner Town, and repeat. When the Nerve Gas runs out you can take Luxury Goods instead. In a few hops you'll have the 5200 credits you need (I think) for the Falcon and a tonne of Military fuel. You should sell all your upgrades except Atmospheric shielding before doing this trading, so that you get enough capital to work with.

You can then get to Wicca World by 9th/10th Jan (manual flight), and you should be able to get to Achenar by 18th Feb to collect the Duval artefact. You even have time to do some federal delivery missions from Eta Cassiopeia to AC+97^3888 on the way. It is then 3 more jumps (via Epsilon Eridani) to Achenar.

Btw, don't fly into Eta Cassiopeia with just a single tonne of military fuel, as you are likely to get stuck there, as military fuel is a major import and they probably wont have any to sell to you!
Oh, and remember to dump your Radioactives in space when you get to Achenar, since they are illegal.