Do you mean the "crossed swords" icon next to stars on the star map? That indicates that Klissans are attacking that system or have already conquered it. If you are referring to something else, then I'm not familiar with it.

Yes Waltorious, thanks! So it's easier to find out klissans battles now.....!

It also shows when military or rangers are attacking a klissan held system, so if klissans already own the system and you see those crossed swords, jump in to help clear it (or scavenge some goods and bugger off quick).

Yes!!!
Now if I cooperate with other friend ships... I can give my contribution to the cause!

I've noticed that if the government mentions a Klissan attack and ends with, "a futile undertaking, don't you agree?", then it usually means that it's relatively safe to join in, take out a stray ship or two, and scoop up goodies. Just jumping in wherever swords are crossed could be suicidal if you don't have the gear for it.

Does that actually correlate to the severity of the attack? There have been times when I've gotten that message, and then flown to another planet nearby, and gotten the message that encourages me to go help ("please do this!"), referring to the same Klissan attack. So I assumed that these responses were simply randomized.

I don't know. I can't remember any time when a "futile endeavor" has either been successful in my absence or has been an overly dangerous attack when I dropped in on it. But I could have faulty memory.

The important thing is to enter in battle when other friend ships are nearby! Now my ship is quite powerful but i don't know if I'll ever defeat an entire klissan fleet by myself!!!

Hello fellow Rangers,

I recently have stumbled onto this awesome game. @waladom: thanx for this really neat trick - makes defense missions sooo much more profitable - just got 400 protoplasm "banked" - plus equipment :-D

My (beginner's) tips:

1. I don't bother with repair droids, scanners and shields at the beginning - to be honest - I don't bother with them even now (3005, 591 hull space). This leaves me with - drum roll - 301 cargo space.

2. Like already said, go for smaller items. At the beginning you can get good stuff in hyperspace (weapons, radar, fuel cells.

2.a Ah, I forgot: Up to this point I use two fuel cells with 24, now 26 fuel. Neat,
if you want to jump in and out again (attacking, then fleeing from klissan).

3. I went for strong weapons with range. You only need 2 weapons for hyperspace, but 5 are better for "real" battles. So: no photon cannons or zip guns, but industrial lasers, and now 5 graviton beamers, which make hyperspace battles a little more difficult,
but still no problem if you -

4. fly backwards, catch power-ups (esp. heal and power) first, and: using those tentacle thingies to trap enemy ships :-). Preferably with a weapon lockdown for them and homing weapons for me...

5. Go after defense missions and try your luck with attack missions. Best to follow military when you spot them, but they tend to wait a lot before actually going... At the very beginning I just flew in the wake, trying to have only one enemy ship in range and grabbing as much loot as i could...

6. You can keep flying in direction of the hyperjump gate. That way you can keep firing
while keeping the klissans at bay (so that only one can fire back), and still hyperjump
at any time. But fighting like that isn't quite profitable, as following ships
shoot all the spoils.

7. As said, hyperspace can be used to get better equipment / stuff to sell, to mine,
and to HEAL! Some time ago i liked mining, but now too much mass only slows me down, so...

8. And - in reference to that cool ctrl - trick - store stuff that's small but isn't
feasible right now. I did with droid junior, black slush, erimeter right now

(9. Doesn't need mentioning: explore black holes!!! gives either good stuff or good money
and that's what it's all about)

I play as human warrior (awful choice: bad starting equipment and worse skills. still)
I seldom do trading, more looting, when i need money, i do missions. It seems like all planets of a certain race offer the same mission at a given time, doesn't it? I sometimes can do hard missions when the target is only one system away...

Alright, time to cash that protoplasm again :). See ya!

PS: Versteht sich von selbst: Save game management: saving before and after each jump and mission

A tip for people that I just realized when playing SR2. USE THE SEARCH FEATURE IN THE NEWS SECTION!!! Click a magnifying glass and you can search for things you want. You want to know what planets are selling things for at that time, type in "plan" and a list of the nearest planets and their prices for all goods will appear. You need that low weight impact engine? type impact and a list of the Engines will come up with their weights. You want that big hull? type in they type of armor you want and a list of those hulls will pop up with their size. It's not perfect in that it sadly won't tell the tech levels on weapons or the prices of equipment, but it will save you a lot of time, make all your trips more profitable, and allow you to quickly make the switch from trading to kicking ass.

Secondly, when you think you are buying equipment you are going to be using for a long time or constantly, buy from the Galls, their equipment may cost a little more, but they don't wear out nearly as quickly as buying from the other races. Also go to their science centers when upgrading. They will raising the quality of your equipment more than the Fayeans.

Also, I forgot to mention that you must look at the colors at the bottom right of the equipment when buying it (mainly applies to weapons where the names don't change as they get better). The rainbow bar at the top of the shop menu tells you the order left to right from worse to best. You have to consider that when buying weapons, and not just size. In later stages you might have 5 graviton beamers, but it doesn't do you any good if they only do 5-10 damage a shot as opposed to the 40 something they could be if you bought a higher level weapon.

Also, unless you are doing a major upgrade in equipment tech level (two or more tech levels) or buying a much lighter version of the same equipment, just go to a science vessel owned by Gaals and get the best upgrade. they will make your equipment the equivalent of several tech upgrades better for much cheaper than buying equipment of that level.

This is true, but keep in mind that repairs on Gaalian equipment is a lot more expensive than repairs on the cheaper stuff. So it's more a matter of how long you want to go without maintenance being needed, rather than actually saving you money.

On the other hand, if you have some nifty auto-repairing items which will fix your equipment for free (over time), then having Gaalian stuff will help a lot as it won't break and the repair happens for free.

Wait, what? You can CHOOSE which part of a component they upgrade?!? How's that? I'd really love to be able to choose weapon damage for my upgrades but i keep ending up with range upgrades on my long range weapons which is frankly useless.

Also, I was wondering if there's a way to recharge a z-transmitter because I find them quite useful for dropping attacks on systems with both a ranger and research station so i can just rake in the research/ranger point boosts from a battle every once in a while.

I've already done that several times. It's really odd because sometimes i'll go straight to a research station just to see if i can get the upgrade i want on a new component but then reload the save from before I went there since there was actually something else I wanted to do first. Then when I finally get around to going back to the SAME STATION (though obviously as much as many months later) it gives me the other upgrade.

I had an aeonic blaster that was awarded to me long before even keller's phasors were being built as a warrior rank reward that I only recently upgraded because while the first time i went to a research station it gave me the damage upgrade, every other time it was giving me the range upgrade. It was far more important to me to rush straight to a planet with a new hull for me to pick up though (since in the attempt where i upgraded first the hull was no longer there when i reached the planet) so sadly I had to do without until now. It's still a great gun either way though.