Welcome to Tau Station
This is the short version of things you want to know when you start playing. There are many things to read to fill in the rest (e.g., the Tau Station Player's Guide). Also join the in game chat.
As a new player you may get a gift from higher-level players to welcome you. It will usually be a tier 2 weapon. You'll pick it up at the Shipping Bay in the Port, and can either keep it for later or sell it at the market to raise a few credits to get started. It may take several hours to arrive if it is sent from a station in another star system.
Advice for New Players from the Developers
Tau Station has been built as a world to live in. As in real life, you probably need to find a job, and it might not be enough to make ends meet. Therefore, take the time to look around for another way to make money. Take the time to talk to people. You might earn a few more credits and you might also learn more about the universe you are living in. Knowledge is power – never forget that.
While talking about knowledge, you might want to visit the University. With modern technology, knowledge is just an injection away, and it could mean the difference between life and death, wealth and poverty, or power and powerlessness.
And don’t forget to find all the ways you can train your stats. Unlike many other games, you don’t get more stats just for leveling up: you have to work hard to boost them. You might just find yourself at a very high level, but with lower stats than everyone else if you don’t put in the time to advance them!
And one last little tip: in a post-apocalyptic world, food and water are a luxury. Visit the Government Center and manage your rations well as they are the only way for you to keep up with the hardship of life on a space station. The good news for you is that Tau Station is a safe haven. “Safe haven” is a nice euphemism for “highly secure station,” but do not make the mistake of believing it’s the same everywhere…
Your first decisions
Play safe
- Can't be attacked on Tau Station (where you start), everywhere else you should hide in a Hotel Room in the Inn when not doing something
- If you are defeated you will be sent to sick bay (usually for 16 segments or almost 4 hours).
- Bordeaux Station and Caen Stronghold have no sick bay, if you die there you use your clone and lose any strength, agility, or stamina gains since you last leveled up or updated your clone. Stay away from those stations until you know what you are doing.
Careers
- Pick one of the 6 careers
- To be promoted in Rank you need to have a number of days in rank and do enough tasks
- Days in task is current rank^2, so level Rank 1 needs 2 days, Rank 3 needs 8
- When you have enough days and experience you need to do one task to force the promotion to happen
- Do easy tasks near the top of the list until you are usually successful, then try harder better paying tasks
- About /91:800 (summer) /95:900 (winter) each day (midnight in France) is payday for active career
- One of the best in-game sources of Bonds (premium currency)
- Can switch careers at will and not lose progress so you can do tasks from a high paying primary career for credits and still advance a secondary career as long as the correct career is active at payday
- Try to get promoted as soon as you have enough days in rank, extra days are just wasted and won't count. So do enough tasks each day to stay on schedule (25% career experience per day on rank 2, 12.5% for rank 3, etc)
Things to do
- Missions
- Discreet work
- Almost no experience gains on high level stations, more on lower level
- Good for increasing reputation with the local faction
- Reward are sometimes an increase in statistics, each station has 1-3 stats they increase
- Career tasks
- Side Jobs
- Advance the story, you should do each at least once (sometimes a prerequisite for future missions)
- Good for experience
- Fighting (Look for Trouble, Sewer, other players)
- When you reach level 6 and can use tier 2 weapons and armor which may be much better
- Three ways to get better and win more:
- Train in the Gym to raise your stats
- Take combat courses at the University
- Use better weapons and armor
- If you lose regularly avoid fighting until you have a change in one of the three things to get better
- Search for salvageable goods
- Sometimes find good stuff
- Usually find trade goods of almost no value. It is believed they will be useful in the future to make stuff so put them in storage
- Train statistics
- Train at the Gym, Hotel, University, or Lounge
- Minimum levels needed to train safely on a station, return to lower-level station if you are sent to brig or sick bay
- The minimum safe levels are not fully known yet, please contribute to the effort to find the precise values
- Higher-level stations are more efficient, so train on the highest level station you can
University
- Courses take a long time so you should Always Be Learning and plan to start the next one as soon as you can after the previous one finishes
- As soon as you start the course you are free to move about the galaxy, you don't need to return to a university until you start the next course
- After 6 days of play you should be Rank 3 in your career and earning 10 bonds/day, after 30 days Rank 5 and 20 bonds/day
- As soon as you can afford it (30 days) you should always speed up courses by 50% for 99 bonds for all but the shortest
- High Intelligence (at the time you start the course) will speed completion by 5%, Very High by 10%, and Excellent by 15%
- The needed values for Excellent are not known yet, please contribute to the effort to find them
- All Courses are not offered on all for stations with universities, so plan ahead
- Until you can afford to accelerate, here are the short affordable courses to get you started
| Module | Course | Level | Prerequisite | Duration | Cost | Tau Station | Nouveau Limoges | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Engineering | Introduction to Engineering | 1 | 10 | 20 | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Combat Basics | Combat | 1 | 10 | 20 | ✔ | |||
| Combat Basics | Close Combat Basics | 2 | Combat | 10 | 40 | ✔ | ||
| Combat Basics | Ranged Combat Basics | 2 | Combat | 10 | 40 | ✔ | ||
| First Aid | First Aid | 1 | 10 | 20 | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| First Aid | Medical Stims | 2 | First Aid | 10 | 40 | ✔ | ||
| Basic Engineering | Item repair 1 | 2 | Introduction to Engineering | 100 | 400 | ✔ | ✔ | Allows you to repair your weapons and armor (safest to do it in your hotel room) |
| Bureaucracy | Introduction to Business | 1 | 100 | 200 | ✔ | |||
| Leadership | Introduction to Leadership | 1 | 100 | 200 | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Space Navigation | Introduction to Spaceship Operations | 1 | 100 | 200 | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Defensive Tactics | Dodge | 2 | Combat | 700 | 2800 | ✔ | ||
| Defensive Tactics | Evasive Tactics Specialist | 2 | Combat | 700 | 2800 | ✔ | ||
| Basic Engineering | Item repair 2 | 3 | Item repair 1 | 700 | 4200 | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Combat Basics | Rifle /Short barrel rifle /Shotgun Specialist | 3 | Ranged Combat Basics | 700 | 4200 | ✔ | Choose for primary (distance) weapon | |
| Combat Basics | Club / Handgun / Knife Specialist | 3 | Close Combat Basics | 700 | 4200 | ✔ | Choose for secondary (close) weapon | |
| Anatomy | Healthcare Basics | 2 | First Aid | 2100 | 8400 | ✔ | Regain stats faster, use 99 bonds even if you are not earning them yet |
Travel
You start the game on Tau Station. Eventually you will want to travel someplace else.
- If your player level is not at least as high as the station level you won't be able to do missions, discreet work, side jobs, or fight in the ruins
- If your stats are not high enough for the local station you may be injured if you try to train. It is possible to train on a station where you can't do most things
- From the local shuttles in the port you can reach another station in your current star sytem
- From the interstellar shuttles in the port of the local jump gate you can travel to another system
- The express shuttles are listed first and cost 99 bonds, scroll down for the public shuttles
- Fares and travel time for public shuttles is constantly changing as the stations move in their orbits. Take the first one or book a ticket on a cheaper shuttle if needed.
- You can always take the Emergency Shuttle from the government center to return to Tau Station. You can go into debt and pay it back later if needed.
- Some missions require you to travel to another station. The reward when you finish will not cover your travel costs though it is still worth doing. Don't journey to the next station unless you have enough credits to get back.
- Eventually you will be able to buy your own ship. It will take a while to raise the credits needed so this topic is beyond the scope of this quickstart page.
Visas
- Needed to be on a Gaule station
- Get or renew at the Gaule Embassy on one station per system: Tau Station (cheapest), or at the Jump Gate in the other systems
- Can also get or renew at any Government Center if currently a VIP
- Valid for 10 days, can be renewed during that final 2 days
- If on a Gaule station without a valid visa you will be deported to the nearest available Consortium station.
- First Gaule station is Level 6 Nouveau Limoges so you don't need a visa until you go there