The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Pardus

[Masterchief]

(aka Pardus for Dummies)
-brought to you by everyone's favorite Imperial who likes to post randomly on the Triad forums from time to time: Masterchief

Disseminate the forum link to your members and encourage them to read and follow it, especially if they're straight out of the academy and future Triad hopefuls or anything hopefuls really.

*Recommend you follow the forum link, as it has colors, pictures, and stuff formatted for the Pardus forums*

Can be found here: (Main Forum)
http://forum.pardus.at/index.php?showtopic=20171

And here is the plain text version below:

The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Pardus

Take the guess-work out of starting your new life in the Universe! Follow this easy step-by-step guide and you'll be on your way to a fulfilling career in no time!!

Once you've finished Pilot's Academy (the tutorial) you'll find yourself in a random sector within your chosen faction core space, in a Sabre with default equipment.

With a nuclear engine moving through open space will cost you 10ap's per tile, the cost is higher when moving through energy, nebula, asteroid fields, and exotic matter.

You'll start on a planet. On the left hand side of your navigation screen click on 'Land on Planet'. Once you've done that on the planet menu, select the Faction link (Union, Fed, Emp). Now scroll down, and select join.

Note: It is a good idea to pick a faction and stick with it. Your choice of faction core when you created your pilot should indicate what faction you intended to join.

The Union is known for shields, cloakers, and other special equipment that makes up for *shortcomings in their ship designs. *Don't tell that to a Unionite!
The Federation is known for cheap and efficient ship designs as well as enhanced drives.
The Empire is known for unique weapons and missiles, which when combined with proper skills can pack quite a punch.

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Now, you need to make some money, about 15,000 credits. (You should already have 5000 credits)

To do this you'll need to do what's called FWE which stands for Food, Water, and Energy. The best thing to do is find the nearest class M planet.

Don't know where you are or where you're going? Take a look at this map:
http://butterfat.net/pardusmapper

Welcome to the joys of Strip-Mining! But...someone got here before you. You won't find energy, gas, fuel, and asteroids in large supplies like there were in the Pilot's Academy. Instead, sector economies rely on player owned buildings.

Class M planets produce cheap water and if properly upkept with energy will produce cheap food as well. Starbases and PSB's (Player Owned Starbases) produce cheap energy. Most player owned buildings require food, water, and energy to produce commodities. Move around a bit, and when you land on a few buildings, look at how much they are buying and selling their commodities for.
You want to make sure that what commodities you buy, can be sold for a profit somewhere, another building, planet, or starbase.

Note: Buildings have mins and max's. Min is how much of a commodity that the owner won't sell. If the min is 5, and the building has 5 or less of that item, you can't buy it. Max is how much they'll buy. If a Max for an item is 20 and they have 5 already, you can only sell 15 to the building. Also, look at the free space in the building. The building can't store any more items when the free space is at 0.
Always check the prices when buying commodities! First, make sure you're not buying the upkeep, some buildings will set the upkeep to very high prices, and if you buy those upkeep items (what the building needs to produce) it will cost you a lot. Also, some buildings like Fuel Collectors, may sometimes charge ridiculously high prices, and if you don't pay attention you may end up spending all your money on fuel.

Note: Buildings 'tick' 4 times a day, or every 6 hours (refer to the tick clocks, linked in this guide for when). That means they use upkeep and produce commodities. That's usually the best time to buy from a building, and to in turn sell upkeep back to it.

You want to buy Food and Water from a planet or a Space Farm or Recyclotron and then sell it to a building or a starbase that needs it.

Note: Planets and non-PSB's have variable buying/selling prices. The more of an item you buy from a Planet or non-PSB the more that commodity will cost. The more of an item you sell to a Planet or non-PSB the less money you will get for it. So, the more stock they have the cheaper the cost, the less stock they have the more expensive it is.

The advantage of trading with a PSB is that their prices are set, and only change when the owner decides to change them. For an established PSB the prices will rarely change.

Note: Keep tabs on your fuel! You should always keep at least 10t of fuel on your ship at a time. You can buy fuel from Fuel Collectors, sometimes from planets, starbases, or Trading Outposts. At the worst, if you need to, you can buy fuel on a Planet or Starbase's black market (Starbases must have 30,000+ population for a black market and there are no Black Markets in the Pardus Contingent) for 200 per unit.

Don't try to kill anything yet! If you accidentally land on an NPC or are ambushed by one, then click on retreat, and pray that it works. After a successful retreat try a different route. Keep in mind, npc's can hide under buildings.

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Now buy about 20t of Food and 20t of Water. Sell the food and water to player owned buildings, or a Player Owned Starbase or non-PSB. After you have sold your food and water stop by a starbase or a Nebula Plant or Energy Well, and buy as much energy as you can.

Note: Nebula Plants produce larger amounts of energy than Energy Wells.

Now, take that energy and sell it back to buildings, or a planet. Watch the prices on what you buy and sell. You may not make too much money in the beginning but, as you progress and upgrade your ship, your earning potential will also increase.

The best time to sell to or buy from a building/planet/non-PSB is right after the planet/sb/building ticks. You can see when the ticks occur here:

http://stud3.tuwien.ac.at/~e0326004/par ... clock.html
or
http://shortstories.125mb.com/pardus_clock.html

These online clocks may not be 100% accurate but, should be close enough.

Repeat this process until you have at least 15,000 credits.

Most pilots can manage this on their first day.

Great, you've got the credits. Now, you need a ship!

If you want to choose the trader's life the best ship to start out with will be the Rustclaw.

You will need 645 exp to purchase a Rustclaw. You get exp every time you buy or sell anything, whenever you kill something, or whenever you successfully complete a neutral or faction mission.

The easiest and safest way to get the exp for the Rustclaw will be to buy or sell a commodity one unit (or what is called tons or 't' for short) at a time.

Alternatively, you could try completing some package missions which will make you exp, money, and rank but, that will involve a little risk.

You don't want to stick in a Rustclaw your entire life. As you gain exp or faction rank, you will be able to buy better ships, which will be much more profitable than what is available to beginners.

For a Rustclaw start out with x1 armor, small shield (optional), and a 5mw impulse laser (recommended) or a mining laser. Shields increase your survivability and decrease the chance that you can be tele-robbed by another pilot. The lasers are optional, if you simply want to trade, you won't need them. Keep in mind, most asteroid fields are already stripped so, it will be easier to buy Ore than to try to mine it yourself.

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Don't worry about buildings yet. At this point, it's not necessary and will most likely cost you more than it will make.

For beginner's the easiest way to quickly gain faction rank, and thereby upgrade to a better ship, will be to buy a new ship.

Note: If you have chosen the Union, you will need rank 2 to purchase a faction ship, the Rustfire. If you are Union, do some faction package missions until you reach rank 2.

For Imperials and Federation pilots, you have the Ficon and Wasp respectively both available to new pilots. Go to a planet, Starbase, or PSB (Player Owned Starbase), and purchase your new ship. Everything you had on or in your old ship will be sold at half value, which will be deducted from the price of your new ship.


Note: Ships and Ship Equipment are often cheaper at PSB's but you must make sure that the PSB actually sells those ships, weapons, or equipment first!

Here's how to equip your new fighter:
2x 1mw impulse lasers (12000 per laser)
Note: buy 5mw impulse lasers if you can afford them (28000 per laser)
Small shield (8000 credits)
X1 conventional armor (6000 credits)

Buy an Escape Pod as soon as you can (recommended). They cost 10,000 credits, and if your ship is destroyed in combat, you will only lose a small amount of skills and exp.

If you don't have an Escape Pod when you die, you will in addition to skill/exp loss, also have your skills halved for 24 hours, and will lose one random piece of equipment.

With that setup you'll be able to take down Space Maggots and Young Space Dragons easily enough. Bio Scavengers are also easy prey. If you feel lucky
and have full armor/shields you might try an In-experienced Pirate.

Note: Pirates can fire missiles and if you get hit by one, they can do a lot of damage. One good missile hit, can send a young pilot to their death.

Just keep careful tabs on your shield/armor/hull points.
It is best to retreat when your armor gets low and repair, then return to finish the npc off.

If you have the credits or later make them, x2 armor will greatly increase your survivability against these NPC's.

All of the above NPC's take about 10-13 minutes on average to respawn in the same general area after they are killed. So don't despair if you don't see one, where it is shown on a map. Also not all space maggots can be seen, some hide in the asteroid fields or under buildings near asteroids. This is similarly true for other npc's as well, i.e. pirates cloak in energy.

If you're unsure of how you'll fare against one of the above NPC's try 5 rounds first. Once you feel confident, generally go for 10 rounds at a time. Evaluate your ships condition, retreat and repair if need be, or continue fighting 5-10 rounds at a time.
Remember, with ship repairs better safe than sorry!

Don't worry about missiles just yet. The Wasp and Ficon can't carry any and generally at this point if you are in a ship that can carry missiles, they will cost you more credits than you will make using them.

When you start out, keep an eye on your armor and hull condition. Think of your armor as aluminum and your hull as paper. Your armor offers some protection but, once your armor is destroyed, you will take greater damage when your hull is hit.

Fear not, as long as you're not too far from a Planet or Starbase you can retreat off an enemy and repair your armor and equipment.

What happens when you die? You lose experience points and lose 1000 ap's. If you have less than 1000 ap's when you die, you will have negative ap's. If you have an escape pod, you will lose it when you die. If you don't have an escape pod, your skills will be halved for 24 hours, and you will lose one random piece of equipment (that is not your engine). At the time of your death you will be returned to your homeworld.

Note: Keep an eye on your AP's! You should generally end your day with at least 500 ap's to spare. It's also best to end on a planet (dock if you are carrying goods to avoid being tele-robbed) or starbase. If you run out of ap's in open space, you can't be attacked by other players (while under protection) but, if an NPC spawns in that space while you're offline you're likely to get attacked and killed.

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Now, that you have a decent fighter, 'stack' kill missions from planets and starbases.
You will see either missions that say 'Kill 2 Space Maggots' or 'Kill a Space Maggot at Sol (17,3) <--- Sector and Coordinates (check your Butterfat Map!)

For beginners, try and stick with one type of NPC unless you have full or near full ap's.

Try and collect about 5-10 missions to kill space maggots. Try and hit 2-3 different sectors stopping at planets and starbases to collect missions. Make sure you don't take missions that are spread far apart. Consult the Butterfat map, look where the missions are asking you to go, and also look for good ranking routes. A good example of a good ranking route is in Orion Ska-Adaa-Olbea, through those 3 sectors there are 2 planets and 5 starbases to collect missions from.

If you have 10 missions to kill 2 space maggots, you don't need to kill 20, you only need to kill 2 and you will complete and be credited for all 10 missions.

It's usually best to stick to package missions or killing missions. However, if a killing mission is on your way to deliver a package, or visa versa you may want to take it as well.

Always keep in mind your AP usage. If you fail missions, get killed, run out of time, etc. then you will lose, rank, skills, and experience.

Continue to do this and make money on the side for a while.

For Imperials you will probably want to strive for a Spectre, which is a decent trader and fighter, or the SSC which is a pure fighter.

For Federals you will probably want to strive for a Thunder-bird, which is a decent trader/fighter, or a VDC which is more of a pure fighter.

For Unionites you will want to strive for Maruader (a decent fighter) or a the Junker, an excellent trading ship but, not so great a fighter. You can fly a Rustfire for quite some time though, it is a decent trader/fighter.

For standard ships the Interceptor is a decent fighter and the Harrier (while ugly) makes a decent trader.

If you have progressed past your initial trade or fighter-ship to one of these ships mentioned above you should by now, have a decent grasp on the game.

When you have attained 1000 experience points, and have played more than 50,000 ap's you can apply to join an alliance. Try to join an alliance in the areas/sectors you plan to make a living in. Also, look for an alliance which shares your goals, trading, fighting, or what have you. Look for a well established alliance, with a good number of members.

These alliances usually help out young pilots and can offer good advice on progressing your pilot career, and may also be able to direct you in creating some profitable buildings as well.

If you have any questions feel free to pester me (Masterchief).

Cheers and Good Luck! (you're gonna need it)



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Useful Links and Tools:
http://www.pardus.at/index.php?section=manual_intro010 (Official Pilot's Manual)
http://www.pardusdv.com (Pardus Data Vault)
http://kornecke.de/pardus/enemies.html (NPC Guide)
http://kornecke.de/pardus/links.html (Great Collection of Links and Tools)
http://www.butterfat.net/pardusmapper (Butterfat Pardus Map and Firefox Plugin)
http://stud3.tuwien.ac.at/~e0326004/par ... clock.html (Online Tick Clock)
http://shortstories.125mb.com/pardus_clock.html (Academy Online Tick Clock/Calculator)

Masterchief's Trading Guide for Beginners:
http://forum.pardus.at/index.php?showto ... ding+guide (Orion forums)
http://forum.pardus.at/index.php?showto ... ding+guide (Artemis forums)

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Note: I realize there are many different ways for new pilots to start their careers in Pardus. This is simply what I believe to be the easiest and best way, initially for new pilots. There are many other things I could get into but, I'll save that stuff for another guide. This is just to get a young pilot started. We don't want to try and cram too much stuff in their at once!

I'll be working on a more advanced guide so stay tuned for that.

Feel free to link to this in your profile, or to direct young pilots with questions here.

[Slam Ruler]