Tips

[MS]

I am very impressed with that game. It has this true old school RPG feeling to it. Reminds me of the times I played the classic Fallout, as a junior high guy. But it is equally difficult to handle well. I guess a good ship is of paramount importance. But actually, asking for a tip, is there anything I should mind first of all, like what to focus on to give me a good start?

[MS]

Whoops, I guess that goes for ASCII Sector, but got interested in the Hidden Asset as well!

I ask the mod to move this thread where appropriate.

[4000 Ants]

Hello!

I haven't played hidden asset, but a good place to start with ASCII Sector is in trading commodities at the exchange. Most of it makes sense, like refineries want iron and tungsten usually and sell advanced fuels for cheap.

Additionally, if you pay attention to trade news you can get some super high profits off of only a tarsus's load of commodities. One time I had a refinery that had a nuclear reactor made and a base in the same system that sold uranium and plutonium. I was profiting about 600 credits per plutonium.

Another thing, when you upgrade your ship it's nice to know what you're actually buying. You can only glean so much from what the ship dealer tells you! There's an ASCII Sector wiki and in the manual that downloads with the game all of the ships are listed with their statistics in relation to other ships.

Lastly, I wouldn't recommend taking on many missions that aren't in systems controlled by friendly factions until you've bought a better ship. The guilds take a large amount for a new player to buy into, and the fixers give awful payouts for the amount of time it takes to complete many of their missions. Once you have a ship that could survive a few pirates you should consider signing up for guilds and taking riskier missions because the combat controls are pretty unforgiving and a starter ship can't outmaneuver anything else.

Happy Privateering!

[MS]

Hello @'4000 Ants'!

Thanks for the tips! Aye, I have found missions given by the Fixers an awful lot of work for a very small payoff, especially when they point you to systems controlled by pirates, without any warning. Knowledge of the map and current political situation is important. That is why, I find it lacking to be unable to preview the map on point of deciding whether I want to pursue given quest or not, having instead to escape, check the map, then renew the discussion. Not a big deal, but certainly a little bit of a chore, especially that it is repetitive. The lack of item descriptions in the stores also give little confidence about what to purchase best, but such as you say, there is the wiki page, which instead could be consulted, I guess? Hope it is fairly complete.

For the Hidden Asset, it is a difficult game, but I enjoy it, as it gives me the kind of Commandos flavour, only having one protagonist to focus on, rather than a handful of.

I do hope Christian Knudsen does come up with some more ASCII games in the future, he seems a very talented designer and ASCII style promotes function over presentation, which is a good formula for one man studio, although ASCII games rarely do grab massive audiences.