Can anyone please explain to me how to pick up cargo drifting in space? I get within 30m of it and press o (to open cargo bay), yet it never gets tractored inside. I've already failed the tutorial twice because I can't manage to pick up the cargo.

Just fly into it.

Thank you, I managed to figure that out just now. Now I need to find out how to dock. I must say that this game's manual is not very helpful.

I flew to an equipment station, hailed them, got permission to dock and then was clueless. Ended up flying into the station and went BOOM! The no save other than in stations setup is not helping me to get a foothold in this game either, Thankfully I can at least skip the tutorial next time, but not that first interaction with the Teladi ship Phoenix.

Well, finally found those green positioning lights they were talking about. Let's hope it gets more intuitive from here.

Yep, I chose the logical, careful path too until I just fly into it.

When docking, everything must line up green. This is important to remember.

1. Don`t fly too low as you Dock. Come in about the height of the large number of the landing pad. Stop in a Hover.
2. Move your ship`s nose up or down until the circle in the middle goes green.
3. Then line up your wings level until the horizontel lines go green.
4. Then move back or forwards careful until the pointed lines at the sides go green.
5. Finally make sure the `V` lines up with the greyed V below.
6. Then hover straight down and you will auto-dock Done.

Much time was spent in frustration to finally figure this out. But it`s easy after that.

p.s. i`m sure you can save anywhere if you go in the options, but i`ll have to check.

That made me remember the time when I was playing "Elite" (the first one) on my old C-64. I rammed so many stations while docking until I finally could do it - and then I could afford a docking computer as the first and most important investment... But the music track burned itself into my mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-VJeVPeawk

The audio actually does say you should dock only when the green lights light up. Usually I too, am on the wrong side of the station and do not see them - so fly around to the other side. After a while you get used to the looks of the stations and see from a distance to which side you have to go for the docking entrance.

If you see the docking green lights and the hangar gates open you have to reduce your speed (red bar on the speedmeter) to below the limit (green bar on the speedmeter) or you crash into the statoin as you are too fast. Careful: If you are very close the ship may need time to decellerate to reach the lower speed.

Edit: Oh, and I heard rumours that the Paranid actually sell a docking computer that automatically docks the ship at a station...

Edit 2: The rumours are true. The Paranids DO sell a docking computer and it is much more powerful than the one in Elite - simply pressing D makes you dock, no computing time, no maneuvering by the computer, even if you press D if you are still more than 3 kilometres away from the staition - immediate docking... ^^

I have this problem. I can't seem to get closer than 20 m, and pressing 'O' opens the cargo bay but nothing else happens. If I fly into it it explodes. Some guides mention needing to have it near the lower part of your ship; I have yet to find an attitude that works.

Edit: Managed to get it to work. Seems like you need to be flying directly at it, with the cargo bay open. Being close to it at low speeds it must have missed the front part of the ship somehow.

The manual is rather vague on this point, as you have to collide with it to pick it up. I think I was also confused by the 'cargo hold' and 'cargo lock' terms. Fortunately picking up cargo is rarely a critical part of the game.

The English manual says:
If there is a cargo container nearby, it will be drawn into the cargo lock. After a few seconds, the cargo will automatically be transported into the cargo hold, and the lock is closed.

The German manual says the same thing:
Befindet sich ein Frachtcontainer oder ähnliches in der Nähe, wird dieser in die Frachtschleuse gezogen. Nach wenigen Sekunden wird die Fracht auto- matisch in den Frachtraum geschafft und die Frachtluke geschlossen.