After all those years of recommendations and excited rambling all over the internet, urging me to acquire this game, I never thought I'd finally do it, play four hours straight and come out thinking only "Fuck, this is the most boring game I've played this year."..

What am I missing, folks? I flew around, did some training, some trading, attempted to get anywhere where I was told to liberate dominator sectors but they were resolved months before I could reach them, then I chased a pirate around a sector for four ingame months impotently shooting him while his AI was too weak to shoot back. Yet I couldn't significantly damage him without spending several years at it.

Am I meant to simply grind, playing these endless 'fetch quests'?

Is this a singleplayer WoW in space? :(

Well, I've only played the first game, but I believe they are pretty similar.

Early on, you will not be able to kill much, but what you can do is trade, fly government missions, and hunt pirates in hyperspace. All of these things will be lucrative and will let you start to upgrade your ship. Also, it's worth heading off to Dominator sectors not to actually help fight, but to steal all the tasty stuff the dominators drop. Once you start to get more money and a better ship, you can start tackling Dominators yourself, which is pretty awesome.

For me, the fun of the game is the openness, and the humor. I can fly around and do anything I want, meet weird aliens, and have random text adventures mixed in. In the second game you can even play some RTS battles on planet surfaces.

I wouldn't compare the game to WoW ,but rather to space trading games like Elite or the X series. It's all about flying around the galaxy, making money, improving your ship, and eventually becoming a badass. I suppose this could be considered a "grind" but it doesn't feel like one for me because the choice of how to proceed is always up to me, rather than some pre-scripted quests like WoW.

The game's probably not for everyone, but hopefully you will start to have some fun with it. I found this review on Eurogamer does a good job of explaining what's great about the game, check it out:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/r_spacerangers_pc

I'm quite enjoying it right now but I'm having a heck of a time getting a grip on it. I'm not so sure about all the quest involving flying across the known universe only to arrive too late with pirates chancing me all the way that I can't kill even though I have 4 weapons.

I do like that idea about scooping up other people's wreckage though I traded my ship for one with more cargo space and found out I cant use a grappler with it. I could have bought a better ship by now but I kept spending the cash on guns that aren't much use.

I think I have to go back to playing now, I've been hooked.....need to kill something.

Fighting things is going to be very hard until you get some high-quality guns. One thing you can do though is free up cargo space by finding equipment that takes less space. You're often able to swap out the guns you start with for identical ones that take up MUCH less space, which means you have more room for cargo and such. This lets you make money faster as you can carry things for missions AND carry trade goods to maximize profits. And if you are stuck somewhere with no good trade prospects, you can intentionally fight some pirates in hyperspace for the equipment they drop, which you can either use or sell later.

That much I figured out. I've even dumped stuff I don't need into storage so I will have more space (my guns wont save me so no need to have them taking up space.) I've lost most of my progress through bad purchases at this point, and the missions have been useless as they are just about impossible to get to before running out of time. For one I was 3 or 4 days short on my return trip with an item and now my rep with the race is soiled. Trading seems less frustrating but its slow going, and for some reason the government keeps trying to get me to by regular priced med kits that I end up loosing money on.

If running out of time is your problem,simply ask for "anything easier." This will give you an easier version of the same quest with more time and less pay. Once you get faster engines and larger fuel tanks, you should be able to switch back to the average versions.

By the way, Large fuel tank or two is key to moving fast. Stopping to refuel can take several days, so getting a spare or larger tank so you can make multiple jumps before refueling can make all the difference.

I'm assuming SR2 here, since I couldn't see where you specified.

You are likely correct, but for the record, your advice applies to SR1 as well.

It is SR2, and I'm starting to loose my affection for it. I've played a lot of games in my years and this has to be one of the hardest I've ever dealt with. I finally read something about a boost to your engines which made running from pirates actually possible. Of course I was in need of a different ship and so I managed to get one that seemed superior in every respect only to find it cant boost and appears to blow up even faster. I spent all my money on the thing and can't afford weapons yet. Which would be fine if some a-hole ubber pirate wasn't flying around the planet I'm docked on for MONTHS waiting for me every time I try to leave. I'm way too week and have nothing to give and I cant run. So getting attacked by a pirate is an automatic death sentence and since he never leaves he has effectively killed off my game.

I might not be so pissy about it tonight if last night I wasn't stuck replaying a text adventure over and over until I wanted to kill myself only to have to give up and have relationships with an entire planet screwed because I couldn't score first in an office competition. I like how the game doesn't take itself very seriously but man that seems a bit extreme. Quest seem like they just aren't worth the effort. I've put hours into the thing and gotten nowhere.

I want very badly to like the game more but its David vs Goliath and Goliath and Goliath's daddy, and Goliath's brothers and and and.

> Of course I was in need of a different ship and so I managed to get one that seemed superior in every respect only to find it cant boost and appears to blow up even faster.

Now you know to check for that option, the next time you're shopping for a hull.

> I'm way too week and have nothing to give and I cant run.

Can you at least afford a couple of rocks from the trading center? Sometimes, pirates will try to secure your cargo for a turn instead of chasing after you, so dropping a few rocks might let you reach the next system. This worked in SR1 fairly often; by the time I started playing SR2, I didn't really need to worry about pirates very often so it may not work for you, but it might be worth a shot.

About relationships, if you hate the quest that much, just let the quest fail. As long as the planet isn't hostile, it just takes some credits (or even other ways) to repair your reputation. In fact, even if the planet is hostile, there are ways to fix it.

If your game is really that bad, just restart and try a new game. But unless you're playing with weird difficulty settings, there usually aren't many situations you can get into where you're permanently screwed. For that to happen, you usually have to do something extreme like delete all of your games except for the one where you have 20 HP in the middle of a swarm of Dominators.

> I want very badly to like the game more but its David vs Goliath and Goliath and Goliath's daddy, and Goliath's brothers and and and.

This game is a throwback to two decades ago in that it isn't cutting you any breaks, ever (I've been attacked by pirates during the tutorial mission). But on the other hand, that just means that when you succeed, it is really your success, not just some event that was scripted in. So look forward to the time when you've figured out how the galaxy works, have become a millionaire, and can singlehandedly beat up the Goliath family and steal their lunch money, because that will be something you've actually achieved.

I had to start over. I though I had I nice ship but the punk chasing me could kill me almost instantly and I couldn't loose him. I made one big mistake early on in that I got a ship with more room but no grappler and as it turns out mineral farming is a good way to get money flowing again when you don't have any.

As for knowing what equipment I can use. Its taken me awhile to memorize where all the equip goes because if you don't you cant know what a ship will or will not take. The graphic is clear enough at a glance but its useless if you don't know what all the boxes do. From now on I'm saving before buying a new ship.

Strange thing is I haven't run into many pirates this time around. Not yet anyway.

Glad you're giving the game another chance... with SR1, I quickly discovered that I needed to use the easy difficulty setting at first as I was learning the game, because it is a very hard game. Another thing to consider when starting a new game is that the specific ranger you pick can make a pretty big difference on how your game will play... when I restarted SR1 I took the Maloq trader because he's on good relations with all races, and it turns out his ship has some decent cargo room too. His Maloq equipment damages quickly, but I had a much easier time making money due to my large hull.

Wait. That matters? Holy nuance batman we have more to think about. I've seen the race icons on equipment but I just figured it was for looks or something.

Yes it does... I also didn't know that when I started playing. I still like my Maloq trader, but I need to look out for more robust equipment as I upgrade. Anyway, the order of equipment from most delicate to most robust is: Maloq, Peleng, Human, Faeyan, Gaal. So it follows the general "tech level" of the races.

At least, this is true for Space Rangers 1. I am assuming the same is true for the second game.

Yep, true for 2 as well.

The one thing I'd definitely change: I'd seriously nerf the ability to land on a planet and repair every time someone takes heat. It just isn't cool how it's almost impossible to hunt pirates even if you radio for help from 5 traders. Maybe late in the game you get crazy weapons that do 8x as much damage or something, or maybe there's a way to hold your fire and lure them away from all the planets... but mostly this just needed a serious nerf, like some kind of alignment-based landing restriction when you've been in combat recently or something. They should at least have to outrun you before they can discretely land someplace with none the wiser for their antics.