Lost in space?

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-REBEL3-
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Lost in space?

Post by -REBEL3- »

I've been playing Vega Strike for a while now, been having fun killing everything...

Sadly, I've made the Confed mad. For some reason, they don't like being blown up...

My question-I'm in the Aeolus system. How do I get to Aeran space? I've tried using my nav computer, and it dosn't help much.

Thanks for any help.
Last edited by -REBEL3- on Mon Nov 16, 2009 7:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
eracc
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by eracc »

Well, attacking folks does tend to tick them off. ;) Maybe you can work on building up your relations with the Confed instead of running from them. One way to do that is to hunt Luddites, and only Luddites, for a while.

Regarding Aera occupied sectors. As far as I know each Vega Strike universe is different. In your game the Aera may now have different sectors than that which they occupied at the start of your game. Unfortunately I, nor anyone else, would know which sectors they now occupy. IIRC there is a core set of sectors in which the Aera start, but I do not know where those are nor exactly how to get there.
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Genghis Prawn
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by Genghis Prawn »

You can always purchase a shroedinger and under the sneakiness of active cloak just go exploring and find the aera. To get a star map and figure out routes you can try the vstrade application talked about in these forums. The game star map is limited to where you have visited. This application allows you to find any place in the vegastrike galaxy maps and then plot a route to get there. It doesn't show you where the aera are but you can select a destination and plot a series of jumps and see what you pass by. It can be fun doing a little exploration and find what is in out of the way places I would never come across by just my standard playing style.

link to the VSTrade posting
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... =20&t=6286
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by Rattan »

The navigation computer isn't bad for what it is, once you get used to it. But it's not really the best for who and what is where. Back when I used to play Elite and Starflight, I used to have index cards and notebooks with planets and coordinates and prices scrawled on them, just places I'd found by exploring.

Something like a "Captain's Log" function would be nice in VS. Maybe if there was an option on the "Mission Computer" screen for "log this planet" and a text box could pop up so you could add a few notes on good prices or what was good about the star system it was in or etc so you could refer to it later.

But a 50 cent memo pad would work. Or a notepad in another window, or on a spare machine. I have an old laptop that I keep nearby when playing VS on my desktop machine so I can make notes, check the manual or useful posts I've copied. I like taking one of my smaller ships and exploring and seeing what I can find. If I find a really rich system to run trade in for a while, then I can pay to get my bigger cargo ships brought in. I find it relaxing to put on some tunes and wander space for a few hours sometimes. Put VS in a window so I can put up a small chat program to talk with buddies online while wandering, and it can be a pleasant evening.

But once you know the system, then the navigational computer built into the game is useful enough for finding the route to get where you're going. I've never had any luck getting the vstrade application to run on Ubuntu and after trying for a while, I decided it wasn't really my style of play to use it anyway.
-REBEL3-
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by -REBEL3- »

"There is a core set of sectors in which the Aera start..."

Does anyone know what this core set of sectors is?

Or, for example, the news says the Aera are in Aruru. How would I hack my savagame to get to Aruru? I've tried hacking to get there, but I end up in a huge empty system w/ no jump gates, 1 planet, and no other ships.

With regards to VSTrade, I tried it. It doesn't seem to work well on Mac... :(
Last edited by -REBEL3- on Mon Nov 16, 2009 7:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by Genghis Prawn »

For VSTrade you need to have the Sun Java JRE installed. Since the mac runs a form of BSD you will probably have to run it via command line. Look at the instructions for Linux.
I put the VSTrade folder right next to my vegastrike folder so it is easier to set the path to the vegastrike data folder (which it needs to set up properly). That is done once you start the vegastrike application. One of the tabs will allow you to navigate to the proper folder. From there it will load all the information it needs.
athomic1
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by athomic1 »

-REBEL3- wrote: Or, for example, the news says the Area are in Aruru. How would I hack my savagame to get to Aruru? I've tried hacking to get there, but I end up in a huge empty system w/ no jump gates, 1 planet, and no other ships.
I think one of two things happened here.

Originally, I was thinking that changing your system to one you'd never visited might have bypassed the game's process of populating a new system, thus landing you in an empty one. I figured the game hadn't even had the chance to add the jump gates from its reference map, but now that I think about it, I'm not so sure it would have missed that. Now, I'm thinking it's something a little simpler: you changed the system, but didn't change the sector.

Every system is actually part of a sector, and if you look at your saved game, the first line includes BOTH their names, separated by a slash. It turns out that Aruru is in sector Maeell (found it in /usr/share/vegastrike/universe/milky_way.xml :mrgreen: ), so the VERY FIRST line in your save file should start with "Maeell/Aruru". If it's any other sector, VS isn't going to find an entry in its reference map, so not only wouldn't it know where to drop you, it wouldn't find any jump gates to put in with you. Thus, you wound up in a completely empty sector, with one lonely planet, and no way out.

I'd be very interested to hear what happens if you decide to try fixing the hacked save. Meanwhile, I have one or two suggestions for finding those Aera planets in game:

First of all, I'm not sure how much of the news reflects "actual" events. You might make your way to a site of reported heavy Aera activity, only to find no Aera vessels at all! That said, you SHOULD be able to have the navicom plot a course to any system you have a name for. Unfortunately, you can only do that in flight, so you'll want to write down any system name that catches your eye on the wire.

You'll probably do better looking through available missions. Cargo missions, and probably most others, will tell you which factions control the space you'll be going through. Look for anything that mentions Aera controlled space, and you're in business! You might have even better luck talking to fixers in the bar. They tend to offer higher paying missions, which one would expect to entail longer journeys and higher risks. Those COULD move you closer to Aera territory a little quicker.

Finally, your navicom itself can be some use. Aera systems are shown bright green, which stands out rather well from most of the others. The comp should also show you who's in charge of any neighboring system, that is, any one with a jump gate directly from your current one, whether you've been there already or not. Thus, if you just strike out on a fairly straight path in what looks a likely direction, you should be able to find who's running things across a ribbon of territory about three systems wide. AND, of course, if you take a lot of long-haul cargo missions to places you don't remember visiting, you can cover a LOT of territory! :mrgreen:

One final note: I noticed early on in my game that an Aera system seemed to lie a little ways from Cephid 17, just past Barnard's Star. It's been noted that everyone's game is different, however, if they start out much the same, I figure there's a good chance the initial Aera territory lies not far off in that direction. Where it is NOW for you is anyone's guess, but it might be worth a look. Another flip through milky_way.xml puts Aeolus in Sol sector... not far from where I've been plying my own trade, actually. :mrgreen: At a guess, unless the Aera have been making some amazing inroads, you're probably deep in Confed and allied territory. I would probably head back out towards Cephid 17, and Barnard's Star beyond that. That's where you'll most likely find the Aera.

Good luck!
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by -REBEL3- »

And...
It worked. As you surmised, I forgot to copy the sector the last time I tried to hack. This time, when I hacked, it put me in Arean space.
BUT...
I checked my radar when I started: Nothing in the area. As in, nothing. No bases, no Area, nothing. However, there were lots of Area, and lots of bases in the area. When I jumped out of the area, there radar started working again. Curious...

The news appears to reflect the events fairly well. For example, when the news says the Area have captured a system, they have managed to build a base in that system.

Now, to help the Area make some amazing inroads upon the Confed. :mrgreen: If only resource depletion were working...the Area would have won long ago.
athomic1
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by athomic1 »

AHHHhhh, very interesting! So, what you're saying is, when you put in a valid sector/system combo, it worked, as in... what? You said there were no bases, no Aera... ships? Since you said you jumped out of the area, I presume there were jump gates? What about planets?

It sounds like both of my guesses were sort of correct. Obviously, you need a valid sector/system combo to wind up in a "real" system, but it also sounds like the game won't actually populate it until you jump into it. Cephid 17 is clearly an exception, but I think that one may be prepopulated from a startup dataset.

Have you tried jumping back to the sector where you originally put yourself? I'd be curious to know whether that might add the bases and stuff that was missing the first time. On the other hand, I've noticed the majority of systems in my campaign are pretty dull as it is. There's usually just one rocky, one volcanic, maybe a gas giant or two, and no bases to speak of. You might have just hacked yourself into a backwater system to begin with, but like I said, I'd be curious. I suppose I could try that stunt with one of my own games... but I'm a little reluctant to screw with the galaxy like that. :mrgreen:

Thanks for the followup!
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by eracc »

I can confirm that in at least one game I have going here that the Aera (not "Area") are out past Barnard's star. Just jump past there and look for "odd" names and jump gates that are that greenish-yellow, or is it yellowish-green, Aera color.
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-REBEL3-
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by -REBEL3- »

Here's what I meant:

When I loaded the game, I loaded in the middle of a space battle. A HUGE space battle. Right next to a planet, a moon, and a jump-gate. However, the ships in the battle did not show on the radar map. There were lots of ships (and planets) in the system, I verified that by going through the list of them, and spec driving to a few. The radar did not work, for some reason (perhaps b/c it still thought it was in the other system? IDK :? ) However, when I jumped out of the system, the radar started working fine. I haven't looked at the code for how the radar works, so I don't know why it didn't work (it normally works fine). I would think it would have the other ships "tell" it where they were, and just render the locations, but...is it perhaps more complicated then that? :?

As for the backwater system idea...well, the Aera have about twenty starbases, mining facilities, etc. in this system. Along with a couple Leonidas cap-ships. Which do not like the idea that the Confed have build a bunch of bases several light-minutes away from their bases. :mrgreen:
athomic1
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Re: Lost in space?

Post by athomic1 »

AHhhh, I see! So you actually got a very well populated system, but your sensors weren't working! Okay, I can't really say what might have been wrong with your sensors (or the code that drives them, actually), but I've noted sensor problems in other situations. Specifically, if you go into a nebula, you'll get "interference" from the gas cloud that makes the bogeys all jittery, but it doesn't go away when you leave the gas cloud, even if you dock, repair, or even replace your sensor system. You have to shut down the game and restart to get rid of it. BUT, that's a whole 'nother topic! :D Anyway, that sounds like anything BUT a backwater, so it sounds like you're in the right place! :wink:

I think there's just two different greens, and the brighter one's Aera. The darker one appears to be Dgn. I mistook one of their systems for an Aera one a few days ago, and had to take a closer look at the map when I saw not a single Aera in the area.

How the Dgn manage to hold even one system, I won't even try to guess. :mrgreen:
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