 Hello and welcome to my How to “Open Space” guide 
in which I will cover the basics of the free roam mode and some advanced points that could make any player into a successful/rich explorer!
Let’s begin with the basics!
- Players (beginners) need to know that sectors are unlocked by visiting them once and after that you can insta-jump to any location for a small cost of 2 iridium.
- PvP and PvE modes are similar in some ways but in Open Space it’s different, the key element is survival. Don’t rely on survivability points , it does not show you your skill at handling difficult situations.
- In open space, you will encounter all sorts of NPC’s and players alike. Some groups are dangerous in their own way and should not be underestimated.
- Always avoid direct conflict in which you can be shot at from more than 2 different angles because you will never know when a random hostile patrol will fly by and join in.
- Balance your build on damage resist and focus on regenerative abilities, don’t roam the space with a ship that can’t regenerate shield or hull points (or both). Using local jump gates and jumps in general repair your ship but don’t reset your cooldown timers.
- In space, you can either explore , collect various ores, plunder or do daily missions. Exploring every sector and collection of trophies grant you several achievements, ores will be needed for making new ships and equipment and some daily missions even offer monocrystals as a reward.
- The Star Conflict universe is divided into 4 factions, Empire , Federation and Jericho.The newest faction is called Ellydium and features a hybrid thing between all factions and an extra - alien technology.
- All four factions are connected, players wishing to change the station they’re docked in can simply open the map and jump to other stations free of charge.
- Use the free jumps to plan your routes more efficiently without burning iridium unnecessarily.
- Campaign missions offer extra free stuff, never read the lore though just did the tasks, yolo.
- KARMA points record everything you kill in Open space, therefore, if you kill a lot of enemies you get to be the “good guy” with a nice amount of positive karma, but if you kill a lot of allied ships you’ll end up on the dark side of the force with not-so-tasty cookies meaning you will get negative karma and a permanent criminal status. While being a criminal , you won’t be able to dock safely at stations because the police patrol will shoot you on sight (they deal an incredible amount of kinetic damage, cca 10k+ per shot, nuts right?), small note to the mini-map on the upper right side of your screen -> yellow players don’t have station protection active, blue players have it enabled and red players are criminals by choice or mistake (mostly mistake due to missfire). Station protection aka PvE mode enabled is a vital part of your open space adventures because it offers protection from collisions and criminals (trigger-happy players) not being able to kill you. It can be activated MAIN(Esc)>Options>Game.
- Sometimes while flying in Open Space you can find containers named “pirate stash” that offer valuable rewards equal to spatial scanner loot, more on that later on.
- Each Open Space session gain is limited by the rank of the ship you fly. Meaning, your synergy gain is rank dependent. That does not mean you get less in lesser ranks or more from higher ranks, synergy gained has a specific limit on each rank. The limit on rank 15 ships per session is cca 250 000 synergy points and once its reached, the notifications shows you a zero synergy gain each time you kill a NPC. For the rest of the ranks lower than rank 15 its cca -20 000 per rank (example, for rank 14 the limit is cca 230 000 pts). The limitation gets doubled if you are using a Premium License , meaning, the max obtainable synergy for a rank 15 ship in one OS session is cca 500 000 pts and the lower ranks get cca -40 000 lesser limit (example, for rank 14 the limit is cca 460 000 pts).
Tip: Open space can be accessed through the MAP button><click-jump anywhere>. Once in space,“M” to opens the space map and “TAB” the current sector map.
More on Open Space tips and tricks can be found in [xXThunderFlameXx](< base_url >/index.php?/profile/255735-xxthunderflamexx/)'s [Basic OS Guide.](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/36221-new-basic-os-guide/)
The Open Space Map 
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Now that we covered the basics, let’s move on to the slightly advanced part!
Important Intro>>> In Open Space you can find a lot of awesome opportunities that go hand in hand with how dangerous they can get. Most players are searching for ores or simply a fast way to earn credits in vast amounts but end up being buried alive with cargo containers they don’t need. To be effective at searching, looting/plundering, stealing or anything similar in space, a player must learn to cooperate with one or more fellow players. The classic RPG’s tactic, one tank, one damage dealer and one healer is the best. Everyone gets what they desire with far less struggle, danger and time spent. Also, doing anything alone in excessive amount will lead to frustration in which you no longer desire to do it/play it anymore, it’s a multiplayer game, don’t go singleplayer all over it.
Cargo** Drones**
Surprisingly, some, if not most players, never thought that those small metal objects did anything useful since it didn’t show up on their radar. They are very useful, the cargo drones are there to help players so they don’t have to travel back to the station every single time their cargo hold gets full , but it comes with a small fee of 10% of the total value sent. Just a small FYI, cargo drones are hidden and you will have to search for them and remember their spawn points to effectively use them.
Tip: Returning to dock is free of charge and can be accessed via Esc button. It can be useful in case there is no cargo drone nearby and the nearest one is too far away.
TIP: How to eject useless cargo? Simply press enter to get into the free cursor mode, open your cargo bay with “i” and click the cargo you want to eject into space.
Under this spoiler you can find screenshots showing the position of each known cargo drone in Open Space. The screenshots were taken a bit awkwardly so you can relate to the objects and buildings to find the drones a bit easier, enjoy.
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Excavation site No.6
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PB-42
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Sorting Facility
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Iridium Strand
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Gas Harvest Station
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Mining Site
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Terramorphing Station
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Abandoned Outpost
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Station Mendes-IX
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Eastern Mining Station
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Derelict Stronghold
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Service Shop
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Ice Belt
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Research Center
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Smugglers Hideout
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Processing rig
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Alpha-7 Complex
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Water Harvest
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Station New Eden
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Northstar Crash Site
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Naberia-392 complex
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Raider Range
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Iridium Mines
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Station Guardian-17
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Ore Gathering and Transports
Transport farming is not a thing anymore, please wait for more info
Ore | Transport
Points of Interest
Odd formations of objects can give you a hint if it hides something of value, examples above show spawn points for sealed containers , pirate stash and other types of containers that can give a fairly nice reward for anyone with an eye for such small things. Far edges of a sector (far right in the third pic) are usually places of high value items, remember to visit them sometimes.
Here are some samples of what kind of ores/items players can collect in open space
Tip: Looting cargo containers can also give ores as well as other items that are end-products of refining one or combining multiple materials together. They may prove to be of greater value than other items, make your own priority list before scavenging the space for materials.
^^Some examples of boosters in open space^^
There are also some small colored booster packs which can be seen from a distance and they are hidden most of the time inside wrecks or between asteroids.
Depending on the color they give various bonuses:
green =hull repair
blue =invincibility
red =damage increase
yellow =maximum speed increased
light blue =shield repair
 Spatial Scanner 
Probably the best module in the game if judged by the income it could bring to one single player with at least some basic skill of operating it. If you want to spend real money, this module is the best (first) buy you’ll ever need. With the spatial scanner you can find hidden containers in any given sector and they contain the most valuable loot obtainable in open space such as credits ranging from 100K to 1M and several other valuable crafting materials.
For more info about DLC’s and GS items ** <<< **CLICK HERE!>>>
Tip: Tier 4 (rank 9-13) scanner can be used efficiently enough just as much as the tier 5 (rank 12-15) >>>WHY,HOW? Well, you can use it on ships rank 9-13 (which are mostly as strong as end-game grade ships) thus saving you some extra GS while still offering the same thing! Save up on GS for something else in the mean time, trust me, I’m a mammal.
Some examples on how the scanner works:
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_ Basics around the scanner: _
Press “X” to turn it off or on. The wider the signal is the closer you are to the desired loot. _ Color signal representation: _
green =random average loot
yellow =green loot with enemies close to it
red =enemies
blue =rare loot
light blue =rare loot with green loot near it
purple =rare loot with enemies close to it
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HOW TO STAY OUT OF TROUBLE
Avoid attacking multiple groups of enemies at once , especially in higher level danger zones, be smart, take them down one by one. Remember to use cover , never stay in one place for too long and time your active modules right. Take as less damage as you can, deal damage as much as you can, don’t leave an opening.
Tip: Your ship like any other in open space will deal 100% damage when you fire a frontal hit (4 gun turrets), 50% if you fire from sides (2 gun turrets) and 25% (one gun turret) if u manage to shoot behind you. Use that to your advantage when fighting NPC’s, same rules apply to the too.
Common problems/hostiles that may prove difficult to beat in combat: bounty hunters and aliens.
Lesser dangerous ones (but still not to be underestimated) are cybers and pirates. Their aggro range is between 2500m and 4000m.
Pirates
They are a bit more troublesome than cybers (cybers look like ordinary Jericho ships), they can be recognized by flame decals and skulls. Both cybers and pirates usually drop low credit loot (under 8k) and some ores of lesser value.
Tactics for cybers and pirates: Since they move in large groups most of the time, the best way to deal with them is from a distance with a weapon that has AoE damage.
Don’t let them swarm you.
Bounty hunters
Bounty hunters ( massive >EM< damage dealers ) are not hostile in some sectors, but when they are, be prepared for a difficult fight (depending on the danger level of the sector you’re in). Most common loot obtainable from bounty hunters are medium credit items (8k to 60k).
Tactics: They are usually hull tanks with massive firepower, just stay behind them , that is their blindspot**. They mostly use positron cannons and a cruise missiles** that can cover a fairly huge distance and deal thermal damage. Both can be evaded with some basic maneuvers.
Aggro range between 3000m and 4500m.
ALIENS
Aliens=biomorphs, scouts, hunters, predators and defilers.
Tip : From time to time a sector gets invaded by aliens, these aliens are much stronger than the default ones, it’s best to avoid them.
Biomorphs are the weakest ones and can be taken out relatively easy unless if they fly in high numbers. In that case quickly take one by one down before they get close. They use turbophasers >EM< and have no missile mounts. The damage is small if you’re not in a slow ship.
Aggro range between 3000m and 4000m.
Tip : There are two types of biomorphs, a derelict ship infected with an alien space virus and a much stronger full-fledged alien that appears only in a invasion scenarios.
Scouts are a nightmare for almost any beginner who made the mistake thinking they were semi-easy to kill, well, they’re not. They can take a fairly huge amount of damage before going down for their size and they should not be attacked head on, especially not if there is more than one scout. Sometimes they can be even stronger than the hunter. Best way to deal with them is to hit&run for minimum damage.
Pick one scout , spam everything on him and fly around until the actives are ready again, ignore/avoid the rest until the main target is dead, repeat for the rest.
Aggro range between 3000m and 4500m.
Hunters and Predators tend to fly together sometimes so be aware of that. In higher danger sectors they can deploy combat drones. ** Once in a fight with them, there is **** barely any ** chance to escape or hide.
Tip : You can use System Hack (ECM ships) to steal the alien combat drones for yourself
Hunters are semi-easy to kill, BUT it requires at least some skill not be blown to pieces when they catch you. Avoid going in front or back, they can’t shoot from sides , in that case they only use pulsar as a backup/defense maneuver which isn’t as lethal as their main EM weapon.
Aggro range between 3500m and 4500m.
Predators are hard to kill and without additional help or skill not advised to attack, they are tanks and high EM damage dealers. They have a pulsar much stronger than the one hunters have. Killing them solely on 1 versus 1 basis is difficult without hit and run tactics and using asteroids and wrecks as cover. Best possible solution is to pick something agile and small with high damage output, Predator’s main EM weapon deals tremendous damage and the projectiles are able to track the target but the trajectory is somewhat slow and if fast enough, can be easily avoided in most encounters. Avoid taking damage from the ** Predator’s **** pulsar, the damn thing never stops.**
Aggro range between 5000m and 6500m.
Defiler is a gigantic alien ship that has multiple turrets that kill anything that comes too close to it. Just don’t get too close which is ~6000m.
It can be killed only with a well-coordinated team. It’s not as aggressive as the other aliens until being too close to it.
Biomorphs and Scouts drop credit items ranging from 4k to 30k. Hunters and Predators are a bit better, they drop credit items ranging from 16k to 60k, in rare cases only Predators and Elite Hunters drop 100-150k credits. To kill aliens it’s best to use EM based weaponry and rely on EM resists as primary resistance with thermal as secondary.
For more trivia about aliens visit [Rangertre](< base_url >/index.php?/user/256049-rangertre/)'s topic [Aliens](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/29837-open-space-aliens/).
ALIEN SECTORS (unavailable still)
There are 3 Alien Sectors: Leviathan , Otherworld and Inverter. Once in an alien sector, aside from aliens, there are other objects of interest like alien hulls (remnants of dead aliens) and ores called Ultruite spawning all over the place. The alien hulls mostly drop items in a form of credits from 4k to 150k and in rare cases parts for manufacturing ships (which can be obtained elsewhere for far less effort/danger).
It is worth noting that the alien hulls tend to have a higher chance of dropping monocrystals than most items of the other sectors, except for the higher danger level sectors nearby Fort Muerto. Ultruite proved to be the wild card of all ores. Most of the time it will give you silicon, crystal and osmium in an equal number. Other ores are not excluded, just a bit less of a common drop.
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RECAP
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What ship to use in open space?
Depends on what you need and like, best starter ships are tacklers because they offer simple cloaking escape in difficult situations. For plain switching stations, recon’s special module is the best for fast travel, it’s fun, fast and saves a lot of credits and time. If planing on killing transports/NPC’s, long range frigates, guard frigates or in some cases even engineering frigates would do just fine, but it would be difficult to travel long distances with them since frigates are pretty slow moving and can’t just escape from combat like the rest. For fighting and missions, gunships and command ships are the best. Simple and fast ore collecting is probably best with ecm’s and covert ops due to their ability to get out of trouble, only downside is the cargo hold with 3 spaces as default, **premium ships have more storage (+2 storage spaces by default). **If purchasing premium ships is too costly for you, there are slightly cheaper options like the hull extender module which grants additional storage space. Destroyers , well, only con - they are slow (the federation destroyers are best for open space because of their speed and everything else a destroyer can offer), the rest are all pretty much pros.
Here are some helpful tutorials to get you started on your Open Space journey >spoiler alert<
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Thank you for reading my guide, I hope it was helpful!
 
Star Conflict, ver. 1.6.0.