the fighter (I can't remember the name) does amazingly well in the beginning game, don't be afraid to die, it won't be that easy for them to kill you, fuel is the only limit this early.
Yeah, that's the Wolfen class gunship. It's definitely my favorite. It dominates in the early game, though it's hurt by having only four non-weapon device slots (two of which are taken up by your shield and reactor). It can dominate in the late gate too, if you're careful with your equipment.
on that note, anyone else die stupidly by running out of fuel right next to the stations? someone needs to add a feature to allow friendly ships to offer you fuel if they spot you, I mean, how could you die instantly after losing fuel?
I've heard a lot of people complaining about dying from running out of fuel, but it hasn't actually happened to me, yet.
One thing to keep in mind is that death won't be instantaneous when you run out of fuel (there will be a timer), as long as you have some fuel consumables in your inventory.
shipping crap makes less profit than blowing up pirates. too bad they are limited (and dangerous).
Actually, the number of enemy ships you fight is completely unlimited. For one thing. killing station guards will cause reinforcements to jump in from the nearest gate, this will happen an infinite amount of times. For another thing, some systems will spawn invisible "dummy" stations that will give you infinite, infrequently spawned, station-less, encounters.
If you're smart you can "farm" some enemies for broken items that you can do custom work with at the Tinkers. Early in the game it helps try custom work on every item you find.
I hate those damned tiny laser ships, WHY are they more dangerous than their station?!
Ugh, Hornet class battlepods. Supposedly they were the ships used by the earth militia to defend against Ares aggression in the beginning of the Syrtis conflict, but I can't imagine why any sane individual would ever willingly fly one of them (this excludes anarchists).
From the players standpoint, they are easily one of the most annoying ships you can fight in the game. Even though they are protected by a single sheet of ultra-light titanium armor and no shield, they are so insanely fast and come in such huge numbers that they can pose a credible threat to any ship with beginning equipment. I'd be lying if I said that I've never died to them.
And, does the system with the arena have more than one gate (to an unexpored system)? I really don't like whats behind the only one I've found...
No, I'm afraid not. Transcendence has completely linear topology in the current release, though George is looking into the possibility of "side-quest" style branches in the gate network for future releases (think the dwarf mines from Nethack).
To be honest, changing hulls to something more badass looking later on would be cool in Transcendence. Only the yacht looks kind of cool but it terribly small compared to your enemy ships. The other starting ships look like flying bricks and for a while I hoped I could buy a new hull just to stop flying that disgusting orange freighter.
If you want to try flying around some different ships, you should take a look at the
Xelerus Ship (Player) list. Be warned that most of these ships aren't completely balanced compared to the vanilla ships.