This is a manual made by SF comunity, it will be updated here
v1.2 28/7/07
Feel free to add or say or correct what I've written. Oh if this is in the wrong section by all means put it somewhere else~
Video uloaded, sorry I'm so useless with these things so it's pretty poor quality unless you watch it on original size lol /squint
Video - Mission 1 Solo (Adventurer the result, a rather short lived adventure) You will have an easier time as a Soldier class.
Video - Mission 1 Capital Ship assist
00 Intro
01 Weapons & Tools
02 Quests
03 Wingmen
04 Trade
05 Mining
06 Upgrades
07 Hacking & ID cards
08 Misc
00 Intro
No need for introductions, I'm a cat and I leave lots of hair on your bed, your chair and your clothes.
As a new player to SF:RU myself there were many questions since the demo release due to the steep learning curve, but gradually by exploring with a little patience I was able to grasp and work out the features.
Seeing as there were so many unanswered questions leaving dissatisfied players, some even to the point of frustration and shelving this amazing game. I decided to put something together for the new players such as myself who just simply want to get a head start into the game.
What I intended to cover are the basic features you will encounter and how to use them for survival. Yes there is quite a bit to read but that is entirely up to you.
In short this guide does not (nor will it ever do) cover the entire game, ships, weapons or story.
Eventually someone sooner or later somebody will probably make a list of all the ships with stats and weapons.
Note this is a single player POV and is similar to the demo in many ways, anyway to start off with... the nasty pirates at the very start.
The Pirates!
It seems as though each individual fighter has their own personality, I notice that some just too fast at evading and others just too slow letting you shoot them down with ease.
In this case the first two pirates will go gungho on you 
you can either attempt to do the following.
First option Solo
1 - Switch your primary guns to burst fire (hit comma , < key) I had a much easier time knocking down shields like this.
2 - Fly at max speed, crash into the targeted ship if you have to at least he wont know what hit him and youll get a few seconds to fire several bursts into him.
3 - If he turns sharply hit boost the directional strafe keys to keep chasing him, launch your missiles when his shields are down. Sometimes theyll use nano bots to repair, that sucks but so can you.
4 - With any luck youll kill one, then hit key R to lock onto your attacker and take him out the same way you did the first.
Second option Run away
1 - Soon as the pirates appear, lock onto one then turn tail and fly back towards the station, soon as you get close to any friendly fighters they will start attacking the pirates.
2 - Turn around and attack the pirates with the allied support.
First mission vs Pirates
Class: Adventurer (possible even with the hardest class)
Difficulty: Med
Try and clear Harmonia's pop up tutoral before engaging the pirates otherwise hitting space bar during combat will kill your engines.
It's a bit hard to see...
Tactic is to draw and lure their fire at the Capital ship. Lure them and make sure you stay in the Capital ships FOV, the enemy AI at times will lead you away from friendly fighters but with the long range and highly accurate beam from the Capital they won't go far.
Yes my flying is terrible!
01 Weapons & Tools
(the comma , < key switches between burst, normal shot and snipe)
See Veki's reference
Primary Guns:
I gathered that most of the complaints are the long fights with the enemy constantly recharging its shields. Aside from recharging shields at a faster rate than you, dont forget they come equip with nano bots to repair 
Unlike freelancer where you can shoot down anybody with ease regardless if your guns were terribly weak against their shields, SF:RU is considerably harder as one type of weapon just simply wont kill them all.
The variety of primary weapons at the start of the game will at least clue you in on the various types of shields and armour you are going to encounter.
While on the trade screen selection, hover over the image displayed (bottom left) and it should show up some damage stats against the type of ship plate/shield.
Faction - Shield : Plate
Makkanist Nano : Trans
Ord Nano : Trans
Alreani Trans : Nano
Ezodar Meta : Meta
EMD Trans : Trans
Pirates Nano : Nano
Draglon Nano : Meta
Chulta Olirion Nano : Nano
Yah an ra Quant : Quant
UF Meta : Trans
Collective Bio : Bio
Depending on the enemy shield your dog fight could take mere seconds or a few months. So equipping the right gun before a fight could save you some work.
You can replace the Turbolaser with the Massdriver since it's literally a complete upgrade.
Missiles:
Early in game replace your Soft Missiles with Ecstasy Missiles as the price difference is about 10 credits but the damage is about 60% more.
Use them pretty much as you would any other game, just dont be stingy on using them.
Snipe tool:
The sniping tool is pretty basic, once equipped select the snipe function with the comma , < key till you see a target icon at the bottom of your screen.
See Veki's reference
It deals 350% more damage with a slow rate of fire, effective at range (use the X key to zoom in) and usable in close combat but I'm a pretty poor pilot so I need burst fire to get some of my shots in
Damage Booster:
Increase your damage against capital ships, not sure if it works for regular targets. Once purchased can be removed and attached to another ship.
Mining tool:
Check mining section.
Hacking tool:
Check hacking section.
02 - Quests:
(update 28/7/07)
(quests in a space age game huh? lol)
Quests can be taken from any station you are docked in varying from hunting down targets to hacking structures. Quests cannot be cancelled once taken.
It's an odd way of doing it but think of the jobs coming from an employer that you decide who to work for. You may diplomacy may drop with allies if the job involves attacking that fraction but you can raise it back up with another job.
Green Text - These are jobs that are located in the system you are currently in.
White Text - These are jobs that are located elsewhere in the Galaxy (probably not wise to pick these up yet unless you don't mind wandering into enemy territory)
If you don't see any jobs in your region leave the station and dock again, sometimes new jobs will appear if not then fly to the next station and try there.
Decide what civilization to take the quest for (in order to raise your diplomacy with them, even with the enemy if you want) and a small fee to accept the job.
I don't think there are limits to the amount of jobs you can take on seeing as I had 7 at one point.
Types of quests
Head hunting: 4000 - 4500 credits
Pretty much self explanatory but a few things to look out for, usually targets will have several wingmen with them.
Unfriendly Groups - 2 or more then you want to stay at max range (red target cursor visible) with the snipe tool, you will with some luck draw each target away from the main group allowing you to dispatch with ease.
Friendly Groups - Distance doesnt matter with this one, pick your target open up comms (default p) and insult him/her. This will make your target hostile leaving you to 1v1 without interference from his/her wingmen.
You aren't doing anything bad these guys are evil just as the job description says, they just manage to put on a friendly uniform and pretending to be your friend. Insult them, use every wonderful language that orbits the sun and they'll show their true colour >:)
Destroy Buildings: 6000 credits
These buildings consist of a single structure and a few turrets, simply position yourself so the building is in between you and a turret. Shoot or ram the turret so it start's aiming at you then hide behind the building and sit back as the turret starts damaging the building, back out of there before the building blows as it will likely take you down with it. Quest complete with no diplomacy loss.
Thanks to JortoBadFingers for the above.
If there arent any turrets them shoot the building several times till it launches several fighters, pay them off (open comms P and ask to stop attack, youll lose about 100 credits which is a small price to pay) and then go back to shooting.
Patch 1.1 Smarter turrets and can't bribe base fighters! You are on your own now
Destroy Capital ships: 6000 credits
Capital ships travel with wingmen so it's best to use the head hunter tactic and pick the wingmen off one by one before trying for the capital ship.
Capital ships... they look dangerous but are nothing more than paper tigers. They only have 1 point of fire which is located near the front. Can you guess where its blind spot is?
With its wingmen out of the way take your time in its blind spot since its slow moving.
Reload Sat Data: 2500 credits
Pretty much fly to the satellites (there are more than 1) when you get close to one you'll notice a square blue icon on the left screen much like the docking icon, hit Enter/Return key when it pops up and watch the red bar charge up. Move onto the next one till complete.
I believe there are more than these 3 (4 if you count the 2 bounty hunting quests) I've been told there has been an protect cargo ship from attack job so don't feel let down if think these are the only type of jobs you can do since they are early in game
03 Wingmen
(update 28/7/07)
Patch 1.1 smarter wingmen and enemy fighter a.i means they'll have their own personal battles and won't target you unless provoked.
(the P key opens a comms channel with the fighter selected)
Wingmen fight by your side and are a must have, personally I believe it should be the first thing you spend your credits on aside from supplies.
Take on the cheap Satellite reload jobs for early funds, because when you encounter multiple targets let alone single targets you probably wont survive since this isnt freelancer!
Wingmen are simply additional firepower using both main guns and missiles taking down targets faster however they do not provide distraction for the enemy to shoot at.
They gain exp and rank up (strangely faster than you) they also won't leave you unless you dismiss or hit them one too many times.
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Find a fighter class ship (no traders or capital ships sadly) select them with the V or F key then open comms with P and select option 1 asking them to fly in formation.
Providing you have enough credits they'll join you.
When you select a ship you can see a small number on the upper left of the target this I assume is their rank number, which in this case the higher the rank the more they cost.
You can also check by hitting J (make sure your reticule is center on the target box) when a green box appears inside the target hit numpad 0 for a display with additional info.
Wingmen notes
You cant really count on their AI so during fights you may have to manually issue commands to attack your target.
Your wingmen will accidently hit friendly targets in a cross fire and thus causing allies to attack them or you.
Your wingmen will completely disregard your safety or life if you happen to be in front of them when they shoot or launch missiles.
Your wingmen will not apologize to you when they shoot or crash into you.
Your wingmen for some unexplainable reason crash and die in asteroid fields.
You wingmen will die in meteor showers!
Higher ranking wingmen tend to leave you at some point, It could have something to do with your rank being (and often) lower than theirs. Occurs mostly in crossfire when they had enough of you hitting them
Unconfirmed - The reason why your wingmen are rarely targeted or why they cannot play decoy is because your diplomacy against that attacking fraction is the lowest, would explain why enemy pilots always aim at you.
04 - Trade
(updated 10/6/07)
There are two news trade channels, one is a station broadcast I believe these are what the stations are interested in, the other is when you are undocked which could be what the traders want?
Youll notice in the trade screen several little arrows:
Red arrows representing profit loss, the trader is selling higher than the avg or your goods can be sold below the avg price.
Yellow arrows representing a stagnant price, meaning they will never change.
Green arrows representing profit gained, the trader is selling lower than the avg price or your goods can be sold higher than the avg price.
Buying from stations and selling them to the travelling traders seems to be the easiest way to profit according to Warspite2, as for system to system trading I dont really know since its not as friendly as Freelancer.
Apologies for stating the rather obvious.
-
At the start of the game for me and quite possibly other people, you wont be seeing those green arrows till a little further in the game. I cant confirm when the price shift happens but I only notice it based on the conditions of my character stats:
Your rank is high enough (rank 5 at the time)
Youve looted and sold x amount of cargo (there is an medal for traders selling about 20k cargo after all)
Youve visited another system owned by another civilization (from EMD I went to a Makkinists system which mightve triggered profitable trading) this seems to be the most likely one.
Trading seems to be sporadic depending on the ecomony sometimes they charge more for goods and other times they less. If you undock and redock at the station you will notice small price increase or decrease of the same items.
05 - Mining
(update 28/7/07)
(hold insert key to mine)
Buy mining tools fly out to an asteroid field (if I find one I usually bookmark them, hold down the Del key and press a number to mark your location)
Key Insert to activate the beam and wait till the rock shatters, normally a cargo icon will appear for you to transport if not then move onto the next rock.
Each successive mine will use up 1 tool.
Note - To tractor cargo from debris you need Energy upgraded to 20.
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According to Riff77 Command your wingmen to stay put while mining, which would explain their suicidal tendencies. Coincidently some of the cargo from dead wingmen contain narcotics...
The more mining you do yields more minerals and/or success rate.
Store your minerals in the repository. Repositories are usually located near the main station in a system they arent linked and act as individual storage so remember where you put your stuff.
Unconfirmed - Meteors in different systems give a higher chance of certain minerals? They all seem to be giving me the same random amount of minerals so far. False
Unconfirmed - The higher your energy upgrade gives you the ability to cut down those massive meteors? Seems unlikely. False
06 - Upgrades
Upgrades (power ups, boosters what ever they are called) are tools which give bonuses to your ship stats and provide the same benefits as upgrading your ship normally.
Infinate use can be removed and attached to another ship.
Check the Tech Lab tab when docked in a station to see the requirements, they range from +1 to +10 obviously the greater the upgrade the more minerals needed.
Chances are you wont be able to get some of the 10+ upgrades due to ship weight and cargo. The Weapon, Energy and Targeting +10 upgrades are easiest to get since they require less minerals.
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Paying a trader to view their special offers will sometimes offer these upgrades, I recently got a +9 Armour which wouldve been impossible for me to get at the time.
You can continue to make upgrade tools and sell them for profit.
07 - Hacking
(target object, center reticule on object hit key J, hit key O)
The Hacking tool once purchased has an unlimited use, can be taken off and attached to another ship.
- To Hack simply fly near a building
- Target it using F key or V key
- Place your reticule in the center of Target and hit key J
- This will display a green Target within the Selected Target
- Hit Numpad 0 for a informative display.
You will notice a min security detection percentage and a max percentage
- Hit Key O to start hacking
Two bars will appear, the top red bar is the security detection bar and will show a percentage, the percentage will go up and down each time the bar fills up but when it shows the max percentage the building allows before detecting, you can either stop hacking (key O again) before the bar reaches the end or continue to hack in which case you will be detected and the building defences will activate.
The bottom green bar is the amount of credits being stolen, when it reaches the end that means youve taken just about everything.
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Based on chance or luck you can still be detected if the hacking sequence is near the max percentage.
The more you hack the less chance of being detected.
Each successful hack gives you a small chance of getting id cards.
ID Cards: (updated 10/6/07)
The ID cards that you pick up from hacking or looking in special offers at stations and traders allow you to access a fraction's trader and station with low diplomacy.
You can trade and take on jobs as you would with your own friendly fraction.
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ID cards do not prevent enemy attacks.
ID cards are single use, as soon as you enter a station the ID card will disappear and you will have to buy a new one.
08 - Misc
Are your jump engines out of power? desperately trying to get to another system quickly? not to worry!
hit esc.
store profile.
reload profile.
resume game.
As if by magic you are at the system select screen.
