Welcome to X Rebirth VR Edition. X Rebirth VR Edition is a sandbox space game in the Home of Light X universe where the player is given total freedom in a living, breathing universe. XR VR is designed for a SEATED VR experience, but can also be played without a VR headset. The player can switch between the two experiences while playing.

• Interactive VR cockpit experience with pointer device:
  Many complex activities such as trading, building, or remotely commanding your fleet happen through a system of menus. In VR, these menus appear on a side monitor in your cockpit, just to the right of your seat. You can operate menus with gestures, much like a virtual touch screen, very intuitively.
  
  
• VR / non-VR live switching:
  X games are played for hundreds of hours, and while we want to provide the perfect VR experience, we also want to allow players to leave the VR experience and continue playing on a monitor without any delay. Thus, live switching is supported whereby it is possible to dynamically switch back and forth between two very different experiences simply by putting on or taking off your VR headset. The User Interface automatically adapts to whichever mode is active.

• A large sandbox with a living, breathing universe.
  
• TRADE: Trade with large fleets of ships across the entire universe. Many methods of making money give you the resources to upgrade your player ship, the Albion Skunk, or buy many more ships and even build stations and factories.
  
• FIGHT: Play missions or freely explore the universe. Fight individual enemies or large fleets. Additional ships can be added to your fleet and controlled remotely as part of an ever growing economy or as a battle fleet.
  
• BUILD: Build your own stations and factories to compete with NPCs or take over parts of the economy.
  
• THINK: Play missions, discover exciting new technologies, explore the outskirts of the universe, and craft new weapons for your unique ship.

The videos accessible through the video index below explain X Rebirth features in general. Note that, far from being a simple adaption to VR, X Rebirth VR Edition is set in a heavily modified universe. However, many features of the game and some of the more complex activities in the game elaborated in these videos still apply to XRVR:

These videos are also accessible in-game through the Start Menu under a submenu called “Video Tutorials”. This activates your web browser and directs it to the above-linked videos on YouTube. Don't forget to take off your VR headset so you can see your browser!






There are tutorials available within the game that can be useful for learning about the various activities available to you. These are accessible via the Missions section of the Sidebar.


A list of official documentation and videos for both X Rebirth and XR VR Edition is available at:

X Rebirth Wiki[www.egosoft.com]

If using Vive or Oculus Touch controllers, please make sure that your controllers are active before starting the game.

Make sure to reset the view for a seated experience by pressing the VR reset button.

In the start menu, select “New game” and then select the “Restoration Project” gamestart.

Once the game has started, you will have a short explanation of the Home of Light system running on the monitor to your right. You can end this introductory video via:

There is a tutorial mission offered on your event monitor (front view to the right). Point at it and press the following key to open the mission description on the menu to your right.

You can then accept this tutorial by pointing towards the ACCEPT button and pressing the “Accept, Confirm” key described above.

In-game tutorials are available from the Missions section of the Sidebar.

We suggest that you then fly towards the nearby highway (animated tube structure) and fly into it. This will help you fly around the Home of Light system faster and get a better idea of how the civilized parts of the star system are laid out.

You can display the map on your side screen by accessing the Quick Menu and selecting the Map on the right side of the menu.

In the map, you can see your ship and the sectors around you. It is also possible to drag the map on the monitor or to select objects for investigation.

Leave the highway near large stations and fly around those stations to find mission offers, collect information (stored in your shipboard computer), and collect trade offers (visible in the trade menu).

The Albion Skunk is controlled by changing the ship's attitude via yaw and pitch controls, and applying forward thrust.


The yaw and pitch controls yaw the front of the ship left or right, and pitch the front of the ship up or down.


The throttle controls the speed with which the ship moves forward along the attitude set by yaw and pitch. It is also possible to completely cut the throttle thereby making the ship stop, and to apply reverse throttle to move backwards.

The throttle is not used to directly control the amount of thrust applied onto the ship, but rather is used to set the resultant speed desired for the ship. Automatic systems on the ship then apply thrust as appropriate to attain the desired speed at the set attitude. (See the subsection on Flight Assist under the section Flight (Advanced) for more details)

Accelerate / Decelerate

Pressing a button mapped to the Accelerate control increases the desired speed. Pressing a button mapped to the Decelerate control decreases the desired speed.


Analog Throttle Control

The Analog Throttle Control sets the throttle to the level set on the input device. With controllers where this is the default method of controlling speed, a button is defined to apply full speed in reverse as long as the button is pressed.

It is also possible to map the throttle to a control with an input range such as an external throttle device.

By default, this device would then control your full range of linear motion: moving the throttle control forward along the defined axis applying forward thrust, moving it back applying reverse thrust, and resting the control at the center of its axis to stop the ship. It is possible, however, to make the entire range of motion only apply to forward movement, thereby making the ship stop by pulling the control all the way back. This is done by toggling the Bi-directional Throttle setting in the Controls submenu of the Options menu to Off.

If Bi-directional throttle is off, how do you move the ship in reverse? It is possible to map a control to invert the axis controlling the throttle. With this key held down, moving the control forward would apply full reverse thrust rather than full forward thrust. At the moment, this is only mapped for the Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog stick.

IMPORTANT: Remember that bi-directional throttle is a setting that is used for all of your input devices. So if using a joystick which requires bi-directional throttle off (such as an analog throttle device with no center notch) with another input device that requires bi-directional throttle on (such as a gamepad or the Oculus Touch), your configuration settings may conflict. For example: if set to off, you would move a throttle device to the very back of its axis to make the ship stop. However, when activating the Oculus Touch at this point, your ship will start moving forward at half-speed.


Strafe controls apply the ship's thrusters to directly move the ship up, down, left, or right without changing the ship's attitude. These thrusters are completely independent of the ship's engines, and can be operated while the ship is already in motion.


Roll controls roll the ship around its spinal axis. While it does affect the attitude of the ship, it does not affect movement and is mostly useful to regulate your own sense of up and down relative to everything else around you.

X Rebirth VR Edition is a very complex game with multiple simultaneously active systems, all acting in concert. Because of this, most controls are always only applied to one of three contexts. Which context it applies to changes dynamically depending on what you are doing at any given moment.

Flight

If you are in the cockpit of the Skunk, with no other menus open, controls apply to the ship itself, controlling the attitude and movement of your ship.

These controls are remappable and are available in the General Controls submenu of the Controls menu.

Platform Movement

If you are walking around on a station or a ship, controls apply to the movement of your character.

These controls are remappable and are available in the Platform Movement submenu of the Controls menu.

Menu Navigation

If, while in one of the above two contexts, you access a menu, controls apply to the manipulation of that menu.

These controls are remappable and are available in the Menu Navigation submenu of the Controls menu.

Please note that, by default, if using the Vive Controller, it is only possible to manipulate menus using the pointer. As with most controls, however, it is possible to map these to buttons on the Vive Controller. This is discussed in more detail in the Major Differences Between Various Controllers section below.

General

Some system controls such as accessing the Options Menu (ESC on the keyboard) or activating QuickSave will always do those actions regardless of which context is active.

These controls are remappable and are available in the General Controls submenu of the Controls menu.

A Note on Remapping Controls:

If a key is already set to a function in a given context, setting that key to some other function in the same context will replace the existing function. However, the same key can be set to different functions in different contexts.


If you have the Oculus Touch Controller and/or the Vive Controller installed on a system along with their requisite Virtual Reality headsets, there will be separate General Controls, Platform Movement, and Menu Navigation submenus for the different controllers.

The VR Pointer (Vive Controller, Oculus Touch, or Mouse)

If using the Vive Controller or the Oculus Touch Controller, there is a pointer which acts like a mouse cursor which can be used to select objects or menu items.

With the Oculus Touch Controller, the pointer is activated by pointing with your index finger. You can use either index finger to activate the pointer.

With the Vive Controller, the pointer is always active. Which controller (right or left) controls the pointer can be changed in the Controls menu. By default, when using the Vive Controller, menus can only be manipulated using the pointer.

It is also possible to control the VR Pointer with the mouse. This functionality is active by default. To deactivate the Mouse VR Pointer, toggle the setting "Mouse VR Pointer" found under the Header "Mouse" in the Controls submenu of the Options menu.

Gestures (Oculus Touch or Vive Controller)

If using either the Oculus Touch Controller or the Vive Controller, it is possible to physically move a controller to change the attitude (change the Yaw, Pitch, and Roll) of your ship.

With the Oculus Touch Controller, this functionality is activated by resting your thumb on the Right Thumb Rest.

With the Vive Controller, activate gesture steering by clicking the APPMENU button on the right controller. With the feature active, you can then steer the ship by moving the hand that you do not use for pointing.


Mouse Steering

With the Mouse VR Pointer active, it is also possible to change the attitude of your ship by using the mouse. In this mode, the ship changes yaw and/or pitch to orient on the VR Pointer while the mouse is active. The amount of thrust applied to change the ship's attitude while in this mode depends on the distance of the VR Pointer from the targeting reticle. Activate by:


Note that it is possible to change the amount of lateral thrust applied depending on mouse movement by changing VR Mouse Sensitivity. These settings can be found in the Mouse: Sensitivity submenu accessible via Options->Controls.

Note on the Vive Controller:

Clicking the trackpad of the controller where the pointer comes from always activates whatever the pointer is pointing at. This is referred to in this manual as “Pointer Click”.

Note that the cardinal directions and the center of the trackpads of the Vive Controllers have two controls:

• touching the trackpad in a direction activates one control,
  
• while pressing down activates another control.

The trackpad of the controller that is NOT controlling the pointer always has five regions: up, down, left, right, and center. Clicking one of these regions activates a control. They are referred to in this manual as “Trackpad Up Click”, “Trackpad Down Click”, “Trackpad Left Click”, “Trackpad Right Click”, and “Trackpad Center Click”.

Also particular to the Vive Controller is the fact that the two triggers each have two functions. Depressing the triggers without pushing them all the way down, referred to in this manual as “Hair Trigger”, controls throttle (Left Hair Trigger) and the firing of your guns (Right Hair Trigger). Pushing the triggers all the way down, referred to in this manual as “Trigger Button”, is a different control. By default, the Left Trigger Button activates Boost.

Note on Joysticks:

In addition to the default input profile for joysticks, XRVR now also has default profiles for the Saitek X52 stick and the Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog stick and throttle. When loading these default profiles for joysticks, make sure that your devices are enabled:

1. From the starting menu, select "Settings", then "Controls".
   
2. Select and activate "Manage Controllers/Joysticks".

This will open a menu listing the devices that are active. If your joystick is a single device, make sure that it is the first entry in the list. If it is two devices, such as a stick and a throttle, make sure that the first entry is the stick, and that the second entry is the throttle.

To load a default joystick profile, or reset your profile to default, scroll to the bottom of the Controls menu, select and activate Load Profile, and load the default profile of your choice.


It is possible to switch between different controllers on the fly or use them in most combinations.

If switching from either the Oculus Touch Controller or the Vive Controller to a different input device, it is possible to automatically hide the controllers from your view until you use them again. This is set by toggling "VR Controller Auto-Hide" in the Game Settings submenu accessible through the Options Menu.

It is also possible to switch in and out of VR on the fly by simply putting the headset on, or taking it off.

As of version 4.30, default input profiles for the Saitek X52 and the Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog are now available in addition to the generic default profile for joysticks.


For those of you who already have existing input profiles and do not want to risk losing these profiles when trying out defaults, it could be a good idea to back up your existing profile. You can do this by scrolling to the very bottom of the Controls submenu of the Options menu and activating "Save Profile" to save your existing profile. You can later load that profile to restore to an input state that you are reasonably satisfied with.


Before loading the default profiles for joysticks, use "Manage Controllers/Joysticks" to make sure that your input devices are active. If using an input method comprised of multiple devices such as some stick+throttle combos, make sure that the stick is at the first position, while the throttle is at the second position. If using a stand-alone stick, make sure that your stick is at the first position.


If you prefer, or have to, use a throttle device's entire range of motion to only control forward movement, such as when using a throttle with no center notch, you could deactivate the setting "Bi-directional Throttle". Note, however, that this can cause problems with other input devices such as gamepads or the Oculus Touch controller that expect this setting to be active.


With automatic target selection on, targets that are directly in front of your ship are automatically selected. In 3D mode, this automatically selects what you look at. The default joystick profiles were designed with this setting active, but since buttons are also mapped to other methods of selecting targets, this can be safely turned off.

If automatic target selection is on, it is useful to have a control mapped to "Toggle Target Lock". This locks your currently selected target so that looking at, or facing, other targets does not change your selection. Toggle target lock again to allow you to switch targets via automatic selection again.

It is sometimes desirable to dock at a station or at a ship. Possible docking locations are station docks and landing pads on Large (L) or Very Large (XL) ships. Note that docking is a privilege, and permission to dock can be denied outright.

To initiate docking:

1) Locate and select a dock at your destination (these are marked by icons on top of the docks themselves),
2) Interact with the dock (see section on Interaction),
3) If allowed to dock, select Dock.

If docking permission is denied, the option to Dock will be greyed out.

It is possible to skip steps 2 and 3 by simply selecting the dock and hitting the Dock hotkey.

Most ships have boost engines that allow them to accelerate to a very high speed for short amounts of time. These boost engines supplement engine power by draining shield energy.


Highways are energy fields where all particles inside are accelerated to a very high speed in a particular direction. Functionally, they are similar to boost engines, but require no energy from the individual ships to maintain their high velocity.

To use a highway, simply fly into it.

To exit a highway, either hit a wall of the highway or apply reverse thrust. Note that it is not possible to exit superhighways which connect Sectors to one another.


Flight assist is an advanced function that automatically makes small adjustments with your engines and thrusters to maintain the speed that you set in the direction that you point your ship to. Most notably, it applies reverse, and potentially lateral, thrust to make your ship stop if you set your throttle to zero, and to counter external forces applied on your ship.

While flight assist is active by default, it is possible to deactivate flight assist. This makes it possible to, for example, apply forward thrust, cut thrust, and turn the ship without affecting the ship's movement. This control is not mapped by default, and is accessible via the General Controls submenu of the Controls menu.


It is possible to remotely operate some drones and torpedoes that are equipped for remote operation. When this is activated, you receive a video feed of what that vehicle sees, and any flight controls act upon the remotely-controlled object.

While flying ROVs, it is possible to manipulate the display on the upper right corner of the screen. It is also possible to access many of your ship's functions via the Sidebar.


Capital ships have jump drives that allow them to instantaneously transport themselves to a distant location. Due to inherent inaccuracies in these jump drives, it is only possible to jump to a jump beacon in an adjacent sector in the same star system. Due to the extreme amounts of power involved in powering jump drives, they can only be equipped on capital ships.

Jump drives require fuel to jump. See the subsection on Refueling under the section on Ship Modification for details on acquiring jump fuel.


When they were still operational, jump gates used to make instantaneous travel between star systems possible. However, they suddenly stopped operating several years ago, and we have since been cut off from other star systems. Some jump gates have since come slowly back on line, however.

There will be times when shooting at things such as asteroids becomes necessary. As such, the Skunk comes equipped with a modular weapon system that can be upgraded with several types of guns and missiles. Note, however, that your ship is designed to fire only one weapon at a time.

There are two main weapon systems: guns, and missile launchers.


Firing

The following keys are used to fire or charge up the selected gun:

Note that if the VR Pointer is active, either by pointing with the Oculus Touch Controller, with the Vive Controller, or with the VR Mouse, fire is always directed at the VR Pointer.

The following keys are used to fire the selected missile:

Changing Weapons

The following keys are used to switch between the guns installed on your ship:

The following keys are used to select a different missile type:


Most weapons need time to reload. The amount of time required mostly depends on the weapon type.


All guns accumulate heat as they are fired. They cool down over time. If a gun overheats, it is temporarily damaged and requires more time to repair itself before it cools down.

It is generally useful to keep an eye on the heat state of a weapon, and to fire in short, controlled bursts to keep your weapon from overheating.

Many activities in the game are done by interacting with objects or characters.


Object interaction first requires selection of which object you want to interact with.

With VR, this is generally done in one of two ways:

- if using either the Oculus Touch or the Vive Controller, targets are selected by activating the pointer, pointing at an object, and selecting that object.

- if not using one of the above controllers, you can select a target by looking at it. It is then possible to lock a selected target using a gamepad via:

You could then interact with the selected object, thereby pulling up a context menu.

Note that targets selected using the Oculus Touch are implicitly locked. To deselect a currently locked target:

By default, this is only mapped for the Oculus Touch Controller, but can be mapped for other controllers as well.

With a target selected, some details about that target appear on the Event Monitor, usually to the lower-right of your forward view. This monitor can be activated to access one of a number of menus relevant to the selected object.

Note about stations: because of their complexity, stations cannot be interacted with directly. Icons are projected on the HUD representing different parts of stations, and it is these icons that can be interacted with.


Interaction with other characters is very important, being used to initiate activities ranging from purchasing a ship, to ordering the captain of a capital ship that you own to take you somewhere. Among other activities, it is used to:

• Issue Orders
  - for example, talk to the captain or the pilot of one of your ships to tell them what to do.
  
  
• Initiate Trade
  - for example, talk to a drone dealer to buy drones for use with the Skunk.
  - Please note that conversations are not used for Economy Ware Trading. Please see section on Trading for more details.
  
  
• Hire Personnel
  - for example, hire a captain for a ship that you own.

Similar to selecting objects while in flight, interaction with other characters requires selection of which character you would like to interact with. This can be done by:

• Remote Communications
  Access the Skunk's comms via the Sidebar to contact people in stations in your vicinity,
  
  
• Platform Interaction
  Dock on a ship or station to talk with people who are on that station face-to-face.

Accepting Calls

Individuals sometimes contact you directly or attempt to contact anyone within range. This appears as your Event Monitor (the monitor usually at the bottom right of your cockpit view) flashing. To answer the call:

Small Talk

When around other people while docked at a ship or a station, people around you sometimes want to engage in small talk. This takes the form of an extended conversation, often about the lore of the game or events happening around you, which you engage in by playing a minigame.


Quick Menu

By using the quick menu, you could quickly access functions that are often used. These functions are:

• the Property Owned menu – allows you to manage all of the ships and stations that you own,
  
• the Trade menu – used to initiate economy ware trading involving economy-produced and consumed wares,
  
• the Active Missions menu – a list of all of the missions that are currently active with functions to access their respective briefings, and set guidance for each mission on or off,
  
• the Comm Link – allows you to communicate with people in stations in your vicinity,
  
• Access the Public Bulletin Board System – contains advertisements posted by various individuals who want to get things done and are willing to pay,
  
• Dock – docks the Skunk at the selected docking platform if the dock is in range,
  
• Flight Assist – toggle flight assist on or off. (description of Flight Assist available in the section marked Flight (Advanced)),
  
• Activate Autopilot – have the Skunk automatically navigate to a selected object,
  
• Activate SETA – activate the Singularity Engine Time Accelerator, if available,
  
• Access the Map – access the Map depicting your immediate environs.

Drone Ability Menu

By using the drone ability menu, you could activate the various drones that are equipped on your ship.

Sidebar

The sidebar is a comprehensive interface through which you can interact with the various systems of the Skunk, making it possible to access a plethora of functions and information. The big categories accessible through this interface are as follows:

• Modes – dynamically changes your display and various aspects of the Skunk to different modes;
  
• Information – access various sets of information such as your Ship Status and the Encyclopedia of things that you have discovered in the game;
  
• Missions – manage your current missions, get new missions, and access tutorials;
  
• Navigation – access the map;
  
• Open Comm Link – allows you to communicate with people in stations in your vicinity;
  
• Trading – see what trades are on offer, and initiate Economy Ware Trading;
  
• Crew – enter Crew Quarters;
  
• Drone Abilities – activate the various drones that are equipped on the Skunk.

It is possible to change the size of the Sidebar by tweaking the UI Scale number. This can be found in the Game Settings submenu accessible via the Options Menu.


The map is a real-time 3-dimensional depiction of your surroundings.

The map enables you to do the following things:

• you can select a ship or a station around you for further interaction,
  
• directly issue orders to any ships that you own,
  
• look deeper into the details of any ships or stations within sensor range,
  
• and improve your situational awareness by seeing what ships are around you and, to an extent, what their intentions are.

There are two types of ship modification:


You can have modifications done to the Skunk by landing on a platform and talking with a Mechanic on a station platform. Note that the Mechanic has to actually perform changes to your ship, so this has to be done face-to-face while docked.

Not all modifications are available with all mechanics. However, mechanics always have supplies of everything that they sell, and acquisition of any purchased modifications is always assured and instantaneous.

Repairs

Over the course of play, it is possible to get your ship damaged. Engineers can repair the hull of your ship as well as bring any damaged ship components back on-line.

Engineers can be found by docking in Repair Docks on stations. Repair Docks are denoted by a wrench icon on the surface of stations.

Purchasing Engines, Shields, or Weapons

The Skunk has particular slots for engines, shields, or weapons. It is possible to purchase new engines, shields, or weapons for your ship.

Please note that if slots of a type are full, and a new component of that type is purchased, an old component of the same type is replaced. (If, for example, you already have two shield generators and purchase another one, the new shield generator replaces one of your old ones.)

Purchasing Software

It is possible to purchase software that extends your ship's capabilities in various areas.

Weapon Mods

Over the course of the game, you could pick up various weapon modification packages that were made by different people in the X Universe. These weapon modifications always apply a fixed set of modifications to a particular weapon type. If you have a weapon modification as well as the type of weapon that weapon mod can be applied to, you can have the weapon mod installed by a Mechanic.

Other Modifications to the Player Ship

• Purchasing Ability Drones
  Additional drones to expand the player's capabilities can be purchased from Drone Dealers. Please note that some drone types are illegal! Such purchases can be done by remote or by talking to Drone Dealers face-to-face.
  
  
• Purchasing Missiles
  Additional missiles can be purchased from Arms Dealers. Such purchases can be done by remote or by talking to Arms Dealers face-to-face.
  
  
• Recruiting Marines
  Marines can be recruited to board and capture other ships. They can be recruited by talking with a Recruiting Officer. Such transactions can be done by remote or by talking to Recruiting Officers face-to-face.

Modifications to other ships that you own are done by talking with a ship trader who trades ships of the correct size (Small ship traders for small and medium ships, ship traders marked (L) for large ships, ship traders marked (XL) for extra-large ships).

Note that modifications for these ships use resources produced in the economy. Therefore, the time it takes to apply modifications largely depends on the shipyard's stockpiles of resources necessary for those modifications.

Repairs

Engineers working aboard capital ships can gradually repair the ships that they are on. Please note, however, that, due to size restrictions, engineers cannot work on fighters and other small or medium ships.

It is also possible to have ship traders repair ships that you own. If ships are heavily damaged, this is often faster than waiting for their engineers to finish repairs.

Purchasing Additional Turrets

It is possible to purchase ships with less than a full complement of turrets. You can later contact a ship trader at a shipyard to have more turrets installed.

Purchasing and Equipping Additional Drones

Large and Extra-large ships can equip drones of various types. At shipyards, it is possible to purchase more drones, or replace a ship's existing drones with drones that are better, or have other functionality. Contact a ship trader at your local shipyard to see what drones they have on offer.

Purchasing and Equipping Additional Missiles

Unlike your ship, other ships have missile launchers that only fire a particular kind of missile. These missile launchers require ammunition of the particular types they need in order to fire. It is possible to order more missiles from ship traders.

Refueling

When using jump drives to travel between Sectors, capital ships use jump fuel to reduce the time needed to charge up their jump drives.

It is possible to set a ship's captain to automatically refuel via that captain's Details. (This option is inactive by default.)

It is also possible to tell a ship's captain to top off that ship's fuel supply immediately by issuing a “Refuel” command.

In the event that a ship is not authorized to automatically refuel, runs out of fuel, and has to jump, the ship's captain will ask you for your permission to refuel. If this permission is not given, that ship will proceed with the jump procedure, but will require a slower charge-up time of around ten minutes.

There are two main types of drone:


Player-Ship Drones are very small ships that can be equipped on the Skunk that serve to either expand your abilities or provide support. There are two kinds of ability drone: Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) which you can control remotely, and Unmanned Ranging Vehicles (URVs) which are pre-programmed and operate entirely autonomously.

Note that these drones are not produced using economy resources, and are purchased from Drone Dealers. They can be purchased remotely.

• ROVs
  Assassin – remote-controlled combat drone
  Beholder – scanning drone that enables a deeper scan than is possible from your ship
  Trojan – hacking drone
  Traitor – sabotage drone that enables the dropping of small limpet mines that attach to a target. These limpet mines are triggered via remote detonation.
  
  
• URVs
  Interceptor, Intrepid, Overrun – automated defence drones with varying flight characteristics and armament

These drones are all URVs that provide different functions for the ships and stations in which they are equipped.

The different kinds of Utility Drones enable particular functionalities, without which ships would not be able to engage in the activities that they enable.

Note that these drones are produced using economy resources. As such, their availability is subject to market forces such as the availability of resources, the ease of flow of resources between stations, and market demand.

• Utility Drones
  Cargolifter – transports cargo between ships and/or stations. Necessary for ship-to-ship, ship-to-station, and station-to-station trading
  Construction – used by ships and stations to repair themselves, by shipyards to construct ships, and by Construction Vessels to construct stations
  Surface Miner – used by big mineral mining ships to harvest solid resources such as the various Ores and Silicon
  Scoop Collector – used by big gas mining ships to harvest non-solid resources such as Hydrogen and Plasma
  
  
• Combat Drones
  Interceptor, Intrepid, Overrun – automated defence drones with varying flight characteristics and armament

It is very important to note that drones for the Albion Skunk are not compatible with other ships, and vice versa. So Interceptor drones that are used in the Skunk and are purchased from Drone Dealers cannot be used with other ships. Similarly, Interceptor drones that are used in capital ships and are purchased from Shipyards cannot be used with the Skunk.

Loot appears in three different kinds of crate:

• Small Crates can be simply picked up by running your ship into it,
  These contain things like missiles, inventory wares, and weapon mods which you can either use directly or that can be equipped on your ship.
  
  
• Big Crates have to be picked up by a transport ship using Cargolifters,
  These contain wares used in the economy.
  
  
• Lockboxes are locked, often trapped, boxes that contains many small crates.
  The locks on a lockbox have to be found and destroyed without destroying the box itself in order to release the small crates that it contains.

As long as the loot magnet is active, small crates that are in the immediate vicinity of your ship are pulled to your ship for easy collection.

There are three ways to acquire ships in the game:


Contact a ship trader and have a ship built to your specifications.

Note that ship traders only sell ships of the same size as the dock they are responsible for:

• Small Ship Dealers sell small and medium ships such as fighters and medium trading ships,
  
• Capital Ship Dealers (L) sell large capital ships,
  
• Capital Ship Dealers (XL) sell very large capital ships.

Any capital ship can be captured by having it boarded by your marines.

To initiate boarding, select a ship (see section on Interaction), and select “Board”.

Please note that boarding a ship with marines is considered a hostile act.

This option was only mentioned for the sake of completeness and as a purely theoretical exercise. The writers and publishers of this publication have no personal experience of this act and, even if we did, do not condone it.


Any abandoned ship can be claimed by sending a pilot to claim the ship (if claiming a small or medium ship) or docking and assigning a captain to command the ship (if claiming an abandoned capital ship).

To claim a small ship such as a fighter, select an abandoned ship and select “Claim”. Note that the option to claim only appears if a ship is abandoned and you have a pilot in your ship's lounge. The option will be greyed out if you have no one on board your ship capable of claiming the target on your behalf.

To claim an abandoned capital ship:

1. make sure you have an unassigned captain in the back room of your ship,
   
2. dock at the target ship,
   
3. contact your unassigned captain,
   
4. and tell him or her to “Work here”.

Economy Wares are wares that are consumed or produced by stations in production.

There are four types of economy wares:

• Bulk – raw resources stored in a mass such as Ice, Ore, and Silicon
  
• Liquid – raw resources stored in liquid form such as Hydrogen, Plasma, and Water
  
• Energy – manufactured goods that are packaged and stored in energy storage units such as Antimatter Cells, Energy Cells, and Plasma Cells
  
• Container – manufactured goods that are packaged and stored in large containers such as Food Rations, Microchips, and Fusion Reactors

Note that ships or stations you would like to store particular resources in must have storage modules of the same type as the ware you would like to be stored.


Inventory Wares are small items that are produced by individuals and stored in the inventory such as ID Cards, Tobacco, and Jewelry.

Please note that the production, consumption, storage, and trade of Inventory Wares is completely separate from that of Economy Wares.

See section below on Trading for more details on trading Economy and Inventory Wares.

Economy wares are wares that are produced and consumed in the economy by ships and stations. They are transported across large distances by cargo ships. Note that these wares cannot be transported by your ship, and are only traded between other ships and stations.

You need to own and designate a cargo ship to trade in these wares. This designation is done for every trade.

It is possible to queue a number of trades for each of your transport ships. While this number is very limited by default, there is software available that can increase the number of trades that can be queued for each of your trading ships.

Initiating Economy Ware Trading is done via the Trade Menu.

Keep in mind that, before you can start trading with a station, you first have to know what that station wants as well as what it's selling. To do this, you have to fly close to the station to find their trade offers. These show in your HUD as icons on the surface of the station.

A snapshot of the trade offers that you find are saved in your ship's computer, but this snapshot only applies to the offers at the time you found them! You are therefore not aware of any changes in these trade offers.

It is possible, however, to get a trader in a station to work for you as a trade agent, sending you updated information. To do this, you have to dock at a station and get to know the inhabitants of that station better by engaging in some small talk. When you successfully defend a station, the station's manager will, on occasion, contact you and voluntarily offer to send you trade updates, acting as your trade agent at that station.


Inventory wares are small items that can be carried in your ship. Trade in these items is always on a per-item basis.

Inventory Ware Trading can be initiated by contacting one of many Inventory Traders. Such trade can be done remotely, via the Comm Link (see section on Interaction for more details), or face-to-face after docking at a station.

Mining always involves a mining ship that can harvest the raw resources that form the building blocks of the various economies in the Universe.

There are two main types of resource:


Bulk resources are solids that are harvested from asteroids. This requires that asteroids with resources are found, broken down into smaller chunks, and harvested.

To break an asteroid down to smaller pieces, a weapon of some sort is necessary. While any weapon will do, mining lasers are particularly efficient at breaking down asteroids.

To harvest the broken-down asteroids, a mining ship needs Surface Miner drones to pick them up, and Bulk storage to store them.

Player-assisted Mining

You can assist in mining particular bulk resources by:

• scanning asteroids to find particular resources,
  
• breaking down the asteroids yourself by using the weapons installed on your ship,
  
• and tagging the broken-down asteroids for pick-up by a mining ship that is following you.

Automatic Mining

It is also possible to completely automate this process by simply ordering the crew of a mining ship that you own to mine a particular resource in a particular area. Please note, however, that it is possible that the mining ship will be unable to find any of the resource you ordered them to mine.


Liquid resources are non-solids that are simply harvested from an environment that contains those resources. These non-solids are then refined by the harvesting ship and are stored and transported in liquid form.

To harvest liquid resources, a mining ship needs Scoop Collector drones to harvest them, and Liquid storage.

Since liquid mining does not involve anything that can be broken down and tagged, player-assisted mining does not apply to mining liquid resources.

It is possible to organize ships into a squadron. A squadron is generally comprised of a commander which does what the squadron was ordered to do, and subordinates that escort and protect their commander.

Possible uses include:

• A small squadron of fighters escorting a trading ship engaged in trade,
  
• A single frigate watching over a mining ship mining ores for a station,
  
• A large, mixed squadron of destroyers and fighters controlling an area of space.

Assigning ships to squadrons

Talk to the captain or pilot of the ship you want to assign,
Select “Assign New Superior”,
Select the ship or station you would like the newly-assigned ship to work for.

Managing squadrons

In both the Property Owned menu (accessible through the Sidebar) and the Map, ships that command squadrons are shown with a “+” sign to the left of the name of their ship. Activating this plus sign expands the list of that ship's subordinates.


Squadrons are commanded simply by commanding their squadron commander. Any commands issued to the squadron commander will be executed by that ship, and their squadron will accompany the commander's ship and protect it.


The player squad is a special squadron of ships whose captains or pilots are directly subordinate to you. Certain functions such as station construction require ships of a certain type be in the player squad. If not given orders, ships in the player squad will try to stay in your vicinity and will protect your ship in case hostilities are encountered.


It is also possible to broadcast a command to any arbitrary group of ships. This is done by:

1. accessing the Property Owned menu (via the Sidebar),
   
2. selecting any ships that you own by ticking the boxes to the left of their names,
   
3. and clicking “Broadcast”.

Selecting the Albion Skunk in this way individually selects all of the ships in the player squadron.

Individuals around the X Universe sometimes opt to hire independent captains to do various jobs. To hire pilots, these individuals publish advertisements. These advertisements are accessible in three ways:


Most missions are advertised in the Bulletin Board System that has been maintained since before the gate shutdown. The BBS is accessible through the Sidebar.


Some individuals who want to stay under the radar shunt a beacon through the hull of the station that they're in. These ads display as icons over the surface of the station. It is possible to directly interact with these icons. (See Target Selection and Interaction under the section on Interaction).


You can also dock at a station and simply talk to individuals. If they are interested in hiring, the conversation will immediately start with the job offer.

People also occasionally try to contact you directly with mission offers or send calls out to anyone who might hear. These attempts at communication appear as a flashing monitor in your cockpit with an image of the person trying to contact you. To accept the call, select the screen that is flashing or:

Station construction requires:

• a Construction Vessel (a very large ship that can be purchased in most shipyards that sell XL ships.),
  
• and an Architect (someone trained in station construction who can be hired from most stations and assigned to your construction vessel. See the section on Interaction for details on how to hire Personnel).

Locations for new stations are regulated to assure that stations are not built so close to each other so as to collide or choke off shipping.


To have a station built:

1. Acquire a Construction Vessel,
   - make sure that your Construction Vessel has Construction URVs and Cargolifters
   - make sure that your Construction Vessel is in your own squad
   
2. Hire an Architect and assign him or her to work at your Construction Vessel,
   
3. Find a spot in space that has been designated for new station construction,
   - these designated spaces appear as icons in space that look like cubes in an isometric view
   
4. Interact with the build location icon (see section on Interaction),
   
5. Select “Build”.

The Construction Vessel needs certain resources to begin construction. You can provide these resources yourself, have the architect arrange for delivery of these resources, or some combination of the two.

Note, if opting to have the architect arrange for the purchase of resources, that the availability of these resources depends on their availability in the economy in the area where you are trying to have your station built! Your architect cannot buy Fusion Reactors if there are none to be found in that area.

It is also useful to remember that the station types that a Construction Vessel can build differ, and are limited to the blueprints that are in that particular vessel's database. These blueprints are hard-coded upon construction, so the particular collection of blueprints a CV has largely depends on where the Construction Vessel was built.

It is possible to scan ships and stations to reveal important information about them. The information that can be gained by such scanning mostly depends on the strength of the scanner.


Your ship has a scanner that reveals very basic information such as a ship's or station's name, their stated affiliation, and the nature of some of the larger station modules. These are uncovered simply by being in close proximity to the object in question and facing the object.


The Beholder ROV is a dedicated scanning platform that can perform much deeper scans than those possible with ships. This makes it possible to discover information such as ship armament and closely-held secrets involving station-based production lines. However, not even the Beholder can pierce through some sophisticated scanning shields protecting particularly sensitive data.

Drone scanning is initiated by:

1. activating a Beholder ROV,
   
2. flying close to the object you would like to scan,
   
3. interacting with the object to activate that object's context menu,
   
4. and selecting “Drone scan”.

Note that use of the Beholder ROV is illegal in most settled space.

It is possible to sabotage ships and stations by hacking them.

There are two types of hacking:


The Trojan ROV is a sophisticated electronic warfare package that can penetrate even the most vigilant security systems thereby exposing the control systems of ships and stations. By using the Trojan, it is possible to temporarily disable ship systems such as shields and engines.

Drone hacking is initiated by:

1. activating a Trojan ROV,
   
2. flying close to the object you would like to hack,
   
3. interacting with the object to activate that object's context menu,
   
4. and selecting “Drone hack”.

Note that use of the Trojan ROV is illegal in most settled space.


Rumor has it that an even more insidious form of hacking is possible by infiltrating a target station, finding various components that can be crafted into a security decryption device of some sort, finding a control panel, and hacking into that station's systems from within. However, this rumor has never been confirmed, and the effects, if any, are uncertain at this time.


Hacking in any form is illegal in most civilized space and can lead to serious consequences.