Well, let me try then to place some I've found (by inverse order, since i remember better the later ones)
1 - The "How to explore?" was the latest, and mainly missed the fact that the EVO is needed and now I know is really, really costly. Not the only player since found another new player asking exactly the same as me. And you probably already understood that by "explore" I meant "planet exploring", I only understood now that there is also derelict exploring, and information about one and the other is a little mixed in some places.
2 - NPC missions. The first ones are easy then we rapidly end up at a point where we can't do the one that is being asked but don't know where to find more. I found out about the NPC traker (the little java program) and set myself on doing some. Its nice to have some objetives when we are still too unsure to make ones for ourselfs, specially since if we do it ourselfs we never know if it is achievable in short or medium time or not.
3 - Factories are harder to understand. Only after I already had tried to place one I found the forum post that had the list of the resources needed for each item built by factories. So the first time I placed a factory had to buy the resources in a hurry, but it didn't worked badly. I still think that has a way to make profit selling items from an extractor gives more than a factory, Not sure about malls because I don't know the avarage of mall sales (haven't had the patient yet to collect the info to see how many items on average they sell). On higher levels I suppose they should be good to get the items needed for crafting or so, but for most players I still don't see the advantage (I still keep one because I already make the investment).
4 - Extractors, and drones seem easy. Malls are not that hard, we can more or less check what we can sell on them, only problem is that its hard to understand what is the difference from different malls except for the mega malls. The problem is that we have no idea of the expected profit of the mall, and no info that the higher malls give more than a simples kyosk, though I'm supposing they do.
5 - NPC missions are mostly short missions, we will rapidly get to a point where we have done the first missions and don't know enough to get a picture of the game and fill lost. On this respect my guild leader gave me some relly good advice that fitted in one msg (about a paragraph), together with some items (a great help for a new player). Some examples:
(a) - Use drone points by placing drones (good places to place)
(b) - Use structure points by placing extractors (good places to place)
(c) - Don't buy a ship right away: Liberator is a good choice for next ship (I know that it is a choice to do differently, but I decided to follow that).
(d) - Place a mall/factory to get some income (factory doesn't seem a good choice)
(f) - Choose a base of operations where we save items on CS and try to get things close by. (where to choose - following some advise I chose Descarte)
6 Finding the items we need. To a new player the best way to get an item is to buy it from a store (unless someone gives it to him, but that depends on the player interaction). CE Data Repository and Galatic Emporium have been the tool for that, and I had to limit myself to what exists, and what has decent prices and sometimes going to another galaxy to get it, but that is a good way to know other places
. Today I asked for the first time another player to craft me something, but that was more then a month after I started playing and I'm lvl 32 now. Getting something crafted requires knowing other players, and trusting that everything is ok. Is hard to know the prices of things that can be bought from players, although external sites that say the price based on the schematic are nice. An interface for crafting requests similar to GBM would be great, could even be associated to stores, since I suppose that many players won't produce some items in advance, but wouldn't mind placing in the "catalog" that they can make some item for some price (or by getting the items needed and some price). I suppose that would make crafting more interesting even.
7 Skills: IP is abundant in the beggining, we are advised caution and we get resets also, so it is all fixable, so its great there. Don't know if it is common but as a new player I couldn't decide, and probably still can't, though with the IP limitiations now i will have to make choices, on what to go for. I tried different things, but there are some that I had to let go. Some feedbacks on that:
(a) I still haven't crafted, the items that seemed usefull to craft (because their not easy to find) would need to much IP or/and alot of schematics and items to build.
(b) I mine with the first laser. For a long time I had no IP to invest, specially because I invested in scans for mine that really don't find alot more (how would I know?).
(c) I invested in scans for combat because I had to scan alot to find the ships needed for combat missions, just to realise that, at least for my current level, combat missions spend too much fuel for what i get from them. Better just attack ships without combat missions, or be really carefull with the place we choose the combat mission and then just do combat there destroying all types of ships and eventually we'll finish the mission because the right ones appear also. Currently I've choosen not to make combat missions, just hauling and FOM missions (and hauling for now is just to get ashar XP, since I have few cargo space).
(d) I took a some time in the begging to be able to understand all the requirements. Get the reactors for energy, get skills to place it, have the level required, but thats more or less normal I guess.
(f) Got my first cargo space extra after almost a month. Its alot of energy and skill to place and seem to give few space extra, but when I did placed it make some difference, and I really wasn't expecting or would do it sooner. With more cargo not only I can transport more on ashar trades and I could do many NPC missions I couldn't do before.
(e) Still haven't tried to get a cargo space for passengers. For a long time I didn't had the IP for it, and since I never run across a situation where I needed to do one is a little "out of sight out of mind". Don't have info to know if it pays of or not, but for now I'm waiting for the new ship and then probably try it. It would be nice for players to see the choices in front of them and to be able to decide, instead of depending on what they more or less randomly find in their information searches and their interactions... at least I think it would give a little better understanding of the choices in the game.
8 Chat and interacting with other players: Although there are fewer players using the chat then I though there would be (specially since I can see many players that I know that are login in and don't see them on chat) it was for me the thing that helped me most on the game. I got some great advises and answers to my questions there, and it was where I made my first contact to enter a guild (and got some help there). However, I actually think that it is much harder to understand the game without using the chat (at least login to read it) and that may be a problem for some players. There are some really nice tools that solve some problems without need of chat, like GBM and Emporium to get stuff, forum , FAQ and wiki for information, though with some problems; forum has noise ( searching globally in forum might not be a good idea and I'm still learning about that now, you get alot of noise with global search), FAQ is more limited and sometimes it may not be complete, wiki can actually have information that is not exactly correct or complete (though not that often and it has some information that FAQ does not and less noise than forum). Sometimes what is missing is something that gives you a general knowlodge of the game, a global picture, so then you can decide what to learn more and where to go, and that is somethign that is hard to ask: what to ask if you don't know what to ask?
Some other remarks:
A - Game seems a little bit lonely (I go for chat to solve that
. All the missions I have been doing are solo. GBM and stores are great to exchange items, and by talking we end up doing some trading, but at least for the "little" players there is very few oportunities to get to getter and do something togehter in the game. There is RAIDs and planet explorations, but those need more developed players. Even salvaging ships from other players is not for the new player, and new players could benefit alot from joint missions that let them learn things, even if it was transporting things to a common place, mining some items for a common objective or destroying ships in a place to reduce their number for some objective.
B - Seems also that Guilds could be more then they are. I suppose that this one is related to A since there could be missions for the Guild too. The forum can have some usefull info, but I think that most players don't check it oftem. It is a little hidden anyway, and with few other functions related to guilds, Most functions are actually in the Guild Office, so it seems natural that foruns gets forgoten. Much that is now done indirectly could be done from some guild funcionalities, like getting items from guild (that would get back to guild locker after some time or so, or at least someone could check it was overdue), or loans from guild, even guild objectives, announces for raids, explorations, and so. I would say chat, but I don't see that many players on global chat, so maybe the foruns or some message board would work if only there were more things to do together in the guild.
Actually I somehow fill that the best players to understant what is needed are those that have experience of helping new players (at least for those problems where their help is asken). Those players not only get in first hand the feedback of the problems, but also have the understanding of the game to know what is missing and the impact that that may have on that player experience. I do understand that for those players some problems might seem non exhistent based on their experience of the level they already are playing, and that some question might never arrive to them, but it can be a little confusing trying to explain what were the difficulties we have when we are still trying to understand somethings about the game. Well you probably already have noticed that from my confused explanations :$, sorry about that, but its registered and maybe with time I can explain it better.
