Newcomer / Intro My first week + Engine Boost + Station Walls = Great Time (warning to fellow noobs)

[Sentience]

For my first post as a newly minted pancake captain (read on to get clarity on this), I will share useful advice I've learned from a series of unfortunate incidents while playing the game in my first week as a space pancake.

For all other noobies like me:

#1. Do NOT bind Engine Boost to any key that's near a thruster key.

Short story:

I grinded my first couple of days in a sidewinder doing bounties to buy a Viper. My pride and joy! For some absurd reason I decided to bind Engine Boost to my Ctrl key, right next to Shift (thrust down) and Space Bar (thrust up).
Last night I sat at a nav beacon for an hour killing pirates until I amassed a sizable fortune in bounty vouchers. I flew back to a station, got clearance, approached the opening a little high, reached for Shift to make a small correction downward...

...and mashed Ctrl.

Rocketed into the station at 300 knots or whatever and pancaked into the back wall. They had to scrape me off the bulkheads with a spatula.

Lost the bounty vouchers, and was now 25,000 credits in debit with the creditor, but at least I had a new Viper!

Went back out for another hour, amassed 164k in bounty vouchers (yay no more debt!), and came back to the station. Got clearance, approached the opening, again a little too high, reached for Shift to make a small thrust correction (do you see where this is going?)...

...and mashed Ctrl.

Pancaked into the back station wall. Maintenance had to pull out the spatula. Again.

Lost the bounty vouchers (again), and I'm now 60k in the debt hole!

So, my advice is, put Engine Boost ANYWHERE except near your thrust keys. Actually just put it as far away from common keys as you can. Better yet, put your landing gear down before approaching the station opening.

#2. Don't accidentally shoot friendly players while shooting at pirates. I accidentally did this and instantly got a 200 Cr bounty with a nice red WANTED status, plus the local police decided I was an immediate threat and engaged me with extreme prejudice.
I quickly supercruised out of there and headed back to the station to pay off the bounty, and some newbie Sidewinder player decided to interdict my Viper (he succeeded) and opened up on me with his dinky starting pulse lasers.
I could have erased him with my autocannons but didn't want to get a bad reputation (after all, he was just doing his galactic duty to terminate WANTED players...he had no idea my bounty was worth only 200 credits).

I easily outran his sidewinder and made it to the station to pay off my bounty.

Hopefully these short stories will help new players not become strawberry colored smears on the back of station bulkheads or unwilling criminals with peanut bounties.

 

[Ancipital]

Sadly, almost everyone has boosted into the station clutter at some point. It's laxative, but almost inevitable. Don't feel too bad about it.

 

[CrispyLeper]

Sadly, almost everyone has boosted into the station clutter at some point. It's laxative, but almost inevitable. Don't feel too bad about it.

True! I boosted into an NPC Anaconda while exiting the letter box and bounced off into the station wall... KABOOM!!!
I laughed about it...
...eventually!

 

[Dommarraa]

I have done many stupid things, but not this one. I always had my gear down when in a station, you cannot boost. Nowadays, I DC

 

[SlackAlice]

You simply cannot progress to 'Elite' without making some small mistakes on the way

Just don't get clever like me

Was chatting away on TS and forgot I was using Voice Attack, just before deploying landing gear I said the magic word 'Boost' and Kerboom on the letter box. Just before my death managed to scribble my initials on the stations walls.

 

[andyraptor]

best docking tip ever ............

lower landing gear 2 - 3 km before getting to cage on slot

with gear down.... you cannot boost

 

[sbdags]

Rite of passage

 

[djbordie]

awesome post.

but a stick certainly would have eliminated the first issue haha.

i found myself full of confidence after a few days with the stick, so I thought I could boost through the opening, pull a nice u turn/slide in to my parking spot....but ya that didnt work...kaboom

 

[p.opus]

As long as we are talking about foolishness

100K bounties are not winning lottery tickets. Just because you physically can accept the contract doesn't mean you should.

I accepted a 150K contract to kill a particularly bothersome pirate. I had just gotten my new Cobra Mk 3 and added the cheapest available gimballed pulse lasers and gimballed rotary cannons.

Should be enough......

I investigated a Unidentified Signal Source in the system he was hiding in only to discover that he was an Elite Pirate travelling around in a fully loaded anaconda. He opened my shields like a zipper and put approximately 30% hull damage in his first pass, and I only escaped by turning flight assist off, boosted in a random direction and shut down everything except life support. Luckily before he could turn around for a second pass I had turned into a cold rock in space.

Also, no contract...NO CONTRACT is worth going to Hutton Orbital in Alpha Centarui. If you have a full tank of gas, an extra hour of your life to burn and several thousand credits to burn on ship integrity repairs, then you should stay away.

No, I'm not joking...Google it.

My Cobra sustained 28K ship integrity damage to complete a 5k contract. That is the very definition of foolishness.

 

[Sentience]

As long as we are talking about foolishness

100K bounties are not winning lottery tickets. Just because you physically can accept the contract doesn't mean you should.

I accepted a 150K contract to kill a particularly bothersome pirate. I had just gotten my new Cobra Mk 3 and added the cheapest available gimballed pulse lasers and gimballed rotary cannons.

Should be enough......

I investigated a Unidentified Signal Source in the system he was hiding in only to discover that he was an Elite Pirate travelling around in a fully loaded anaconda. He opened my shields like a zipper and put approximately 30% hull damage in his first pass, and I only escaped by turning flight assist off, boosted in a random direction and shut down everything except life support. Luckily before he could turn around for a second pass I had turned into a cold rock in space.

Also, no contract...NO CONTRACT is worth going to Hutton Orbital in Alpha Centarui. If you have a full tank of gas, an extra hour of your life to burn and several thousand credits to burn on ship integrity repairs, then you should stay away.

No, I'm not joking...Google it.

My Cobra sustained 28K ship integrity damage to complete a 5k contract. That is the very definition of foolishness.

I read a guide that said a Viper with military grade hull and shield boosters / shield cell could handle the 150k contracts...if a Cobra can't do it what ship are you supposed to use for these?

 

[cmdr lowest]

Yeah, I've had a few close calls with the back wall but succumbed to that yet.

I have however boosted into the front of George Lucas station before using too much complacency and not enough stopping power in my Cobra... I think I said "yeah, take that Lucas, that was for the Midi-Chlorians!" as I exploded...

 

[tricky]

I read a guide that said a Viper with military grade hull and shield boosters / shield cell could handle the 150k contracts...if a Cobra can't do it what ship are you supposed to use for these?

If you know what you are doing then you can take it on with a Viper.

For first timers I would suggest you make sure the police are there, let them take some of the heat whilst you back off to 4km to recupperate. Also target the power plant. Once you get that to 0% then you set off a chain reaction in the core and it will go boom, even if the hull is still at 80%. Targetting the thrusters will stop it being able to escape, targetting the turrets will get rid of the laser show of death, and never EVER let it point it's nose at you.

 

[p.opus]

I read a guide that said a Viper with military grade hull and shield boosters / shield cell could handle the 150k contracts...if a Cobra can't do it what ship are you supposed to use for these?

Did I mention that the only upgrades I did were to add the chain guns and gimbal the pulse lasers which actually lower their power.

Had I been able to get on his six and stay on his six, I might have done it, but one more frontal attack would have ruined me. And I didn't want to risk the replacement cost of the cobra on that chance.

 

[toretorden]

I've also boosted into walls and the like, but I (luckily) haven't had my ship blow up because of it yet. The shield on my viper seems to handle it fairly well. I assume that with bigger mass, the probability of complete annihilation by crashing goes up.

 

[T4nk83]

Me too

I have boosted into stations walls.

Hell I Cruised to another star, walked away and next thing I know I am flying into the star and taking heat damage and kaboom...

Ahhh that first session is what got me hooked!