Newcomer / Intro Out of fuel, what do I do?

Comojo

C
I plotted a course heading towards SOL as wanted to start my adventures that way rather than stuck in the outbacks far away. But I made a mistake and have now landed in a system with no stations just a sun and a baren planet. I am out of fuel or very low but not enough to make a system jump.

What do I do?

I have been gathering my funds very slowly and only have 20k which probably isn't much for some people but that has taken me several days of play albeit at a slow pace.

Thanks in advance, (next time will plan my routes more carefully)
 

Vampyre111

V
If you have no fuel scoop and not enough fuel to make it to another system, you may have to restart the game. I had to restart 3 times before I got the hang of it..

It may sound like bad news but it's really not that bad. If you want to make your way towards Sol, you may want to replace one of your cago bays with a fuel scoop. The first oNe is really cheap but it will keep you from getting stranded as long as there is a scoopable star in the system.
 

Commander Edison

Commander Edison
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but in your right hand ui panel there is a self destruct button. Press it, and you'll be thrown out in your escape pod and start up again at the last station you docked at, iirc.

There used to be, and hopefully will be again, a distress beacon for just this kind of jam which was removed due to exploits and whatnot. Hopefully the devs will sort a workaround at some stage.

I hope you haven't spent too much on upgrading your ship so insurance is minimal, and consider fitting a cheap fuel scoop next chance you get to avoid having this problem again. While it takes up valuable space you'll never end up dry again.

Fly safe! (After self destructing.:D)
 
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Universal Evil

Universal Evil
If you "only" 20K of credits changes are that you also "only" have a sidey and therfor you'll be able to Rebuy your ship by insurance(you have an option to loan up to 200K of credits to reclaim you ship) and until you get a much more expensive ship those 200K should be enough. So if you want to keep you progress you can just go to the last tab-menu on you right panel and select "Selfdestruct" (I think it's one of the last ones at that fan) then you'll automaticly get to where you can reclaim/Rebuy your ship and be back at the last station you've dock at....

good lock with it Cmdr... :)
 
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Comojo

C
Thank you all for your responses. I suppose the best leasons are those learnt the hard way :)

A fuel scoop will save some time and something to look into. There is so much to learn and thankfully a nice community to help ease back into the game after not playing the series for so long (child hood)

Thanks again.
 

HarlequiNQB

HarlequiNQB
Well, a fuel scoop would take up one of the slots on the Sidewinder, and those slots are rather precious on that little fella (as there are so few). An alternative would be to not run out of fuel. No, not being snarky, just in the Sidey you need to make frequent stops, which means planning them more carefully than you need to later. Also, when plotting a route on the map, it will draw a yellow line between the systems the route will take you - if the line is dotted, you won't have enough fuel to make that jump unless you refuel prior to it. So making sure the last star before the dotted lines begin has a station is pretty vital.

One last thing - if you're new enough to the game that you have 200k in the bank, then you most likely won't have a permit to visit Sol anyway - you get it as part of the federal missions once they trust you enough.
 

paul1828

P
Its tough exploring in a sidey.....but possible .... You need to plan , I always stopped at starports about halfway to my destination. Don't chance running out... Try to find somewhere safe with short profitable trade routes.. Max out your cargo .. and make enough for eagle as soon as poss... Good luck
 

Kafka1

K
I did exactly the same thing - I was trying to run before I could walk.
So just used Sidey for trades and a bit of light bounty hunting at the Nav Beacon for variation.
Made enough to get an Adder (loving it), still trading to make enough to upgrade it, then will try exploring, but I think essential for exploring will be fuel scoop and high spec discovery scanner.
I too was fixated on getting to Sol, but not bothered now - plenty of other stars in the sky :)
So key lesson - the Sidey is great and fun (I'm keeping mine for the fun), but know your limitations :)
 

Feldspar

Feldspar
If you use the galaxy map to plot a course, when the route changes from a solid line to a dotted line then you will not have enough fuel to go any further, make sure you refuel before then.
 

kallen

K
As others suggested a fuel scoop is handy if your set on exploration, also ensure that you tick Fastest Route under the Navigation tab of the galaxy map as it tends to default to Economical which is always longer. If you plot a route your fuel will cover only as far as the fixed line between systems, so its handy to check the last few systems prior to the line breaking for any stations for refueling. Some times wonder if they couldn't add a refueling ship players could purchase as their would be a ready market of players needing to refuel their craft when no station is nearby :).
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Ozric
Ophion said:
I remember there was a destress option. Why did they remove it, I don't know.
Click to expand...

I could be used for an exploit and as at the time it was only used for getting fuel they decided not to put it back in. I'm hopeful that it can make a return because it could be used for many good and many underhand tactics :)
 

Tiamat

Tiamat
Ophion said:
I remember there was a destress option. Why did they remove it, I don't know.
Click to expand...

According to one of the M's (Michael I think) it was a placeholder mechanic that was only intended to be used until fuel scooping was added as until then explorers had absolutely no way of getting fuel other than docking. It was a fairly clumsy implementation (his words, not mine!) so I can understand why they removed it.

They did say cleaning it up and re-implementing was one possible option but they were looking at others such as players being able to carry fuel to stranded Commanders.
 

carlisle

C
I think the problem was people using false distress signals to lure in would-be rescuers, and then killing them.

While this should be a perfectly valid tactic, the fact that people responding to the signal have no information to go off means that it could just be purely random chance whether or not you get blown out of the sky when responding to a distress call. The universe should certainly be a risky one, and false distress signals fit in nicely with that but whether you survive or not being reduced to a dice-roll with you not able to know how likely it will be that you'll be tricked and outgunned isn't a great game mechanic, and would just result in nobody ever responding to distress signals.

The problem is that a clean player could be a cold-blooded murderer, it just may happen that they're in an anarchy... or they paid off their bounty. What would help distress calls work better would be if there were some way to get an idea of how risky responding to a distress signal might be. Perhaps a fourth reputation type, notoriety, would help. Committing crimes makes you more notorious, your notoriety follows you around and while paying off a bounty may make you clean again, it won't reduce your notoriety. Going straight will gradually reduce your notoriety over time. You could throw in some extra factors so it doesn't make it too easy to tell whether a player will attack you but something like this might help.
 

skazz

S
I found that a good way to earn money in the sidewinder was to pick an economical route through some grey-text stars (which are unexplored) to a destination which clearly has population and therefore a space station (as seen by a white-text name in the galaxy map). Then travel through each grey system using the discovery scanner to find unexplored planets ( Max 500ls range to the scans, so keep scanning as you fly between planets) and select each one in turn, fly close enough that you see "scanning" come up on the left hand target view and wait for the target star or planet to be given a name, move on to the next one.

you need to put the discovery scanner on a weapon group using the right hand menu. I placed it as group 2 and mapped switching weapon groups between the lasers and the scanner to a joystick button.

first upgrade for the sidewinder was a better jump drive to take jump range up above 10 light years, that makes travel a lot easier.

a few 30 light year trips like that got me enough for an Adder, which has more cargo space and a spare slot for a fuel scoop. Then the Galaxy opens up since you no longer need to plot routes between stations. But keep scooping every star you get to, in case you hit a few jumps in a row with stars which can't be fuel scooped.
 
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