If your being overpowered by Dominator's and bandits, you are in the wrong areas at the wrong time, you haven't traded enough, you haven't hired a co-pilot to help, you chose the wrong race or wrong ship, you were too impatient and tried to do too much too early and a million other things.

It's not a patch you need. What you need is to google FAQ's and Walkthrough's for this game and get some knowledge, because in this game it's you that makes the game hard and the enemies too strong! :)

Call me crazy, but I expect an "Easy" setting to actually BE EASY.

1. Wrong area at the wrong time.

It's impossible to know where the pirates or dominators will be, until it is much too late. The rare exception is an occasional report in the news. Since you can't look at the map at the same time the news is up, it's all meaningless blather. I have no desire to memorize seventy or eighty star names, and keep their relative locations in my head. The news is therefore useless.

2. Haven't traded enough.

Insanely, there is no function to record commodity prices on planets, so you either scribble notes ( a drag, a major drag) or you memorize prices (hyper boring pain in the ass, not gonna happen, ever). What trading I've tried, the profit is more than outweighed in fuel cost and most of all battle repair costs.

3. Wrong race or wrong ship.

If the choice exists as an option, it should be possible to at least survive, otherwise, what's the point of offering that combination? It appears as if all of the starting ships have a fatal shortcoming, or even multiple fatal flaws. None of them have enough SLOTS. You can have equipment to survive, or you can have cargo space for trade. NOT both. Thus, fatally flawed game design, as just trying to kill pirates does NOT work to earn you a living, and BEing a pirate is clearly going to prevent you from having anywhere you will be admitted to trade. You can't salvage the pirate cargo, because in order to have the equipment to kill them, you have to sacrifice all your slots for weapons and shields and engine.

4. Haven't hired a co-pilot to help.

I'm not sure what a "co-pilot" is......do you mean I can get another person on board MY ship? If so, how?

During the Drone task, a newbie appears and asks to learn by watching me, and I always agree to let him join me after the drone is destroyed. I have never had any opportunity to HIRE anyone, however. This newbie is pretty useless because he always fails to keep close enough, and frequently outright disappears when I jump to another system. After only a handful of battles, he's smoked by the pirates, every time. He's a huge pain in the ass to manage, having to be told to do every single little thing.

5. Too impatient, tried to do too much too early.

After attempting this game about twenty times now, it's obvious that it's an unfair race against time. YOU MUST do "too much too early" because the Dominators are snapping up star systems at a game-unbalancing frantic pace, cutting lanes. It is literally impossible to survive going into a Dominator controlled zone, just suicide. Also, every single day, the pirates become more numerous, stronger, and more aggressive.

Like all too many of these "Good Old Games" the difficulty is much too high. NYAH NYAH the game screams, you said fifteen thousand names, but you didn't say RUMPLESTILTSKIN!

Having to come up with the mathematically perfect and exact choices in this game is both unlikely and a huge drag. games should have more than one way to win.

Sorry to post twice in two different threads, but I hadn't seen this post until after I'd posted my other one.

I have a few things I can add to help you out:

1) You do not need to scribble things down on paper. The game has a function where you can save information to a log, and then view it later. You can do this with ANYTHING... trade prices, news stories, even radio chatter with other ships. Any time there is a window open with text in it, you should see a paperclip icon in the corner somewhere. Click that, and that info is saved for you to look at again whenever you wish. These notes are stored along the bar at the bottom of the screen. This is incredibly useful... if the game did not have this feature, I would totally agree with you about how annoying and boring keeping track of info would be.

2) To hire a copilot, you have to use your radio to talk to other ships. Pretty much anyone can be talked to on the radio. In Space Rangers 1, you do this by hitting the "T" key, which will change your icon to a radio icon, and then clicking on any ship within scanner range. This will open up a dialog box where you can talk to the other pilot. You can hire people as wingmen this way.

3) Not all equipment takes the same amount of space. Sometimes you'll find a gun that uses up 60 mass units, and sometimes you'll find the SAME gun but it only uses up 15 mass units. This is true for ALL equipment, not just guns... it's true for engines, cargo hooks, shields, etc. Always grab the lightest ones you can find, as this will leave space on your ship for cargo. Items' space requirements are listed as a number next to a picture of a cube. Once you learn to look at the space requirements for items, it makes upgrading your ship MUCH easier and more effective.

Knowing those things should help a lot, with pretty much everything in the game.

For advice on strategies, check my post in the other thread.

I hope this helps.

Waltorious, you beat me to it. There is so many options the OP does not seem to know, I was just going to suggest he read the manual and go to the 1C forums where there are huge threads talking about this game!

Yeah, the manual should be quite helpful in learning about useful features and options in the game. If the OP has not read the manual, there should be a PDF copy in the install directory. You can also download the manual separately under the "additional content" list (click on the Space Rangers 2 game on your GOG account page, you should see additional content listed on the menu that pops up).

It took me about 5 tried to get going. I already posted in one of your other threads, but here are some additional hints.

At the beginning, ignore the Dominators as much as possible. Yes, they do take system a lot, but the npc military also takes systems back almost as quickly. Just wait long enough the a given system will be free again. Eventually, the Dominators will start winning outright, but that will take a LONG time to happen.

Also, don't go after pirates at first either. What you should do instead is concentrate on planetary missions. Those will not only give you money, but also xp to level up your skills.

Once you've got some money, updated you offensive and defensive skills, and gotten a better hull and weapons, you can try going after pirates, if you so wish, just choose which one carefully.

As for trading, I don't suppose you noticed the icons in the trading screen telling you whether the price was low or high? I don't remember what they look like off the top of my head, but they seemed obvious enough to me. Buy low and sell high and you won't have to worry about counting the exact prices, which change as time goes on anyway. Buy what's low at a given planet, and when you come across one where what you have is high, sell it.

Economic bases will further help you out by giving you a list of profitable routes for a small fee.

As was said, you can save information you need which goes on the bottom left of the screen. There will be one such reminder at the beginning o the game anyway, telling you where the bonus equipment you choose at startup has been stored (it is not equipped automatically) as well as any active missions, but additional stuff like news items can be added too.

Speaking of those, look out for news about military bases asking for help in assaulting the Dominators if you want to fight them. Join in will give you a base in the hostile sector to repair from and many allied ships help. Just don't be afraid to flee if it all goes south.

Normally, GOG forum users are extremely polite and deserve polite responses. But to the OP, I say RTFM.

Well this is my first posting in this forum as I have only just bought this game myself, however I am loving every minute of it. Not too hard and defo not too easy. I know from experience that if you start attacking pirates or dominators from the get go, you will die. So the best thing to do is delivery missions.

My favorite way to start the game is by doing every single training mission, even if I have done them before. It will give you a nice boost to cashflow right away, for which you can purchase (if available) a fast engine and larger fuel tank. Once they have been bought, head to the science station and upgrade both if you have the cash to do so. Makes crossing sectors easier to do, and you can make the missions harder to earn more cash. Having nitro-boost also helps, however the more you use it the more damage the engine takes so be careful.

Once you have earned enough money you can start purchasing more powerful weapons, tougher hull's, shields and the like. I think that should help you start off. The rest is upto you. Hope I have helped in some way.

P.S
Choose your starting character carefully, paying specific attention to what faction is hostile to you and who is freindly. Also the type of character you want to play is important (Pirate, Merchant, Merc, Fighter etc) and the choices you make regarding starting equipment and skills. Trade and manouverability I mainly choose, and weapons I usually choose a Lezka and Missile thrower as you can sell them for about 600 a piece at the start of the game, or save them for later when your trading skill has been increased to make a greater profit.

I'm not sure if you're posting about SR1 or SR2, but here's some stuff I learned as I've played through both. (Really love these games!!!)

Pirates
- In SR2 if they can't scan you then they are far less likely to attack you. So if you want to avoid being attacked prioritize a high % shield.
- Similarly if you want to hunt pirates get a decent scanner and scan before you engage. Look at what % shield, droid repair rate and weapons they pack and know what to expect. Pick off the weaker ones, don't expect to kill every one you come across.
- If you aren't that strong, try to engage a pirate in a system where there are several battleships / transports / diplomats / liners in space. You can talk to these and ask them to join in for extra firepower.
- You don't need to go for the kill. You can weaken a pirate then ask for a toll from them. That will get you money (sometimes more than the loot would be worth) and will leave them poorer and less prepared for the next time you come across them. Or, if you're a scoundrel like me, you can ask them for a toll when they're nearly dead then destroy them anyway (remember to re-target them)

Being a Pirate (SR2) (Keep in mind I never played the game as a pure pirate. I did start as one, but didn't advance through piracy)
- Don't prey on everything and everyone you come across. Pick 1-3 races you will prey on and keep the other 2-4 on good terms that will give you planets you have access to.
- Remember all types of space bases (pirate, science, military, etc) will let you use their services regardless of your status with the various races.
- Don't go for the kill. It pisses off planets a lot more than if you just demand toll / cargo. (Weaken the victim, then ask if you want to succeed)
- Pirate bases offer the option to change citizenship. This resets your standing with all races to Good. It's quite cheap to do.

Dominators
- In SR2 on Easy they will not take over the whole galaxy so you could ignore them completely for years and years. In SR1 they WILL eventually take over the whole galaxy so you do have to keep focused.
- Don't take them on early, you will either die or waste a lot of time / credits running around or repairing. What you CAN do however is pop into a system the NPCs are sucessfully defending / clearing and get a few pot shots in (to get credit) and collect all the loot goodies. In SR2 bringing dominator parts to a science station and selling them to whatever department gives x2 price can be very lucrative.

Starting Out
- My personal preference is to start with a medium-big ship and a medium-fast engine. In this respect here's some of my fav choices:
Pirate Maloq, 270 size, 500/21 engine, slots 4w/2a, 2650cr
Fighter Peleng, 270 size, 500/21 engine, slots 3w/2a, 3010cr
Mercenary Peleng, 360 size, 450/19 engine, slots 3w/2a, 2460cr (* this is the 2nd biggest hull you can start with, paired with a good engine)
Corsair Peleng, 275 size, 450/19 engine, slots 3w/2a, 2490cr
Mercenary Freyan, 250 size, 450/19 engine, slots 3w/4a, 380cr

- At the cost of <900cr you can nix any starting penalties by visiting a pirate base and changing your citizenship
- Missile launcher is a nice weapon to choose to start with that you won't find in stores for several years
- Missile launcher, Lezka or Rethone sell for a decent chunk if you want to start with more money
- If you satrt with a 450/19 or 500/21 engine, upgrade it ASAP and pay for the best option. Being able to jump further is a massive boon in doing missions
- Shop around when you have the money you can get much smaller items to replace the starting stuff with

Overall I found that the most effective way for me is to start out with a great engine and upgrade it, buy/upgrade a fuel tank as needed, then pop in a good (small) shield to keep pirates from scanning me. Then I use my increased speed to do missions on Hard (if I can) to build up my funds. I don't worry about upgrading hull / weapons / etc till much later in the game and then I shop around for the smallest sizes.