ehehe

Well, I can't really remember the start of FFE, but from memory I'd say the trip from Sol to Barnards Star, while boring, is quite safe 🙂

The lower tech levels are usually more dangerous.

And yes, it is safe to pick up radioactives.

Looking at the printed manual it says.

"Titican is another Alliance democracy so visiting here should be a breeze. No pirates, no anarchists, no floating squadrons of second Imperial Protectorate out for a bit of fun. Allegedly."

 

Maybe that FFED3D has changed it and it is now infested with pirates or it was always like that and the manual is wrong.

The key to surviving battles, especially at the start when you have no ECM and no shields, is making good use of your thrusters.  I recommend you set the up/down/left/right thrusters to the same keys that you would use for forwards/backwards/left/right in a first-person shooter, e.g. WASD (I use RDFG myself to have more keys to press with my little finger).  You need to edit the ffed3daj.cfg file to change these keys (don't forget to set usekeybinds=1).  Then you can thrust out of the way of a laser beam as it swings towards you.  It is also possible to avoid missiles by pointing your craft perpendicular to their direction of travel (which is obviously towards you to begin with) and thrusting forwards.  I recommend you set forward & back thrust to keys you can press with your little finger (I use S & X.  WASD users can use CapsLock & LShift).

Btw, I am assuming you are using AJ's updated FFED3D (v1.05a).  I dont think keybindings worked in the russian v112b FFED3D.  I had to use an AutoHotKey script to remap them.

It is also possible to simply run away from larger, slower attackers like the Lanners and the Imperial Courier.  Simply forward thrust away, possibly with a bit of horizontal/vertical thrust too, whilst looking at them with a rear view so that you can better avoid the lasers until you are out of range.  You then have to make careful use of the stardreamer to prevent them zapping right back onto you again.  Each stardreamer power has it's own automatic-intercept range within which ships effectively get teleported to your location.  You need to be about 20 km away before moving it up the first notch.

Thanks for the information guys.

I guess some prankster programmer thought it was fun to put swarms of pirates at the first planet the manual guides people to in the zip that was on the net. Will check some other planets. But now I know the prank is up, I guess all planets within reach will be a no-go area. No idea why some dude would want this for newcommers.... apart from the fact that the malicious do never need reason...

As far as I know, FFED3D v1.12b++ did just wrap the original JJFFE v2.8 code and there are no pranks being played!

I'm sure that I've diff'ed the assembly code several times against JJFFE 2.8 since picking it up, and there were no significant differences other than graphics related. JJFFE did fix a few things, so there may be some minor differences generally between it and FFE.

I'm not familiar with the tutorial and the system without loading it up, but as Pyros has suggested, the lower tech level systems are more prone to piracy. You're probably just being unlucky though - FFE always was quite unforgiving to start with - you just need to persevere, saving frequently until you can upgrade your ship/defences.

Also, Radioactives aren't dangerous to pick up, but do bear in mind that in many systems they may be illegal cargo - and if you dock holding any or dump them near to civilisation then you'll be fined and have a criminal record! You'll also generally have to pay to get rid of them at a spacestation/port so they're really not cargo worth the effort of picking up!

One tip I'd give is to save your position just before hyperspacing - especially when starting out. If you save -after- hyperspacing then whatever enemies/problems you encounter will be the same even if you reload that game.

As scowie says, Maximum time-acceleration is also more prone to dropping enemies in your way than lower settings. I'm not sure if that's a "feature" of the original FFE game, but I get the impression from my research that it's more likely that JJFFE 'fudges' the combat to bring ships back into proximity after you've escaped them and then used time accelerate.... something which I think that the Anisotropic mod then removed. (?)  I'm wanting to look further into this and maybe add the option to turn the 'fix' off on future builds if that is indeed the case. If anyone has more info/thoughts on this 'fix' that may help, then I'd appreciate hearing them!

am downloading the package from this site, and will check if there be pirates here too at the starting mission. will post soon to tell what's up