Overview
A guidebook for everything Between the Stars
Introduction
Between the Stars is a story-driven, science-fiction role-playing game. You are the captain of your own ship. It’s up to you to navigate various story elements and events, both unique and randomly generated.
Under your control are your own character statistics, the makeup of your crew and their own statistics, your weapons and equipment. As well you get to choose the type and number of sidequests you want to partake in. Various minor mechanics such as upgrades and item quality, crafting, the medbay and research center supplement this system.
Take the time to appreciate the impact of your decisions. Most storylines have two major branching stories. What seem like minor decisions or actions might have little impact on your statistics or overall progress of the game… but a big one on the story of the individual characters.
As a rule the largely spoiler-free guide portions are mostly complete.
The walkthroughs, starting after the credits, are very lacking, I might remove them.
Avoid reading past the Credits and Ressources section if you want to avoid spoilers.
Don’t hesitate. You can leave a comment here or message me in the discord.
Prologue and Main Story
After choosing a save slot, you must choose between playing Normal or with Permadeath. It’s generally a good idea to play in Normal first to get a feel of what you’re getting into.
If you’re new to the game, prefer to enjoy the story in a linear order, would like to learn its mechanics in a safe environment or simply want to play the game “the way it’s meant to be played” then start with the Prologue from the main menu. It’s not necessary to understand or enjoy the main story.
When you play the prologue, you cannot die and you cannot fail. There is no hurry. You also cannot create your own saves as the game save for you at every milestone. It’s a good opportunity to see what you can do and figure out exactly how you’re supposed to do it!
You create your own character and choose a starting ship, as well as a loadout. When you play the campaign your choices matter to yourself and the characters around you. That being said, some things largely remain the same as in the prologue. Namely, there are no time limits on almost all your actions. In the rare instances where time is a factor your story won’t end. You cannot completely fail sort of the death of your character itself in combat.
When playing the campaign I suggest that you do a few sidequests before each mission objectives as well as regularly land on new planets. This will get you the experience and items you need to more easily progress through the game, get to know the lore and characters and understand where and how to look for hidden objectives.
As for the loadout the selection of cannons will tear at shields and hulls directly while the missiles option follow an indirect trajectory and bypass shields.
The next page will prompt you to create your captain, then press Select at the bottom when you’re done. At the top is the chosen name of your character while the little symbol next to it generate a random selection of character traits. The symbols and sliders are used to choose your sex and appearance. Take your time to appreciate your options but understand that character traits are not critical to your character and that they might be lost (or gained, or lost and gained, or gained and lost) during the course of the game. Green is always good, grey is give and take, red is always bad. If anything I would suggest focusing on accuracy and movement based traits, which can be noticed while you play.
Controls and User Interface
Direction of your ship: W / A / S / D keys
Roll left or right: Q / E (useful to evade projectiles in a pinch)
Up and down boosters: Control / Shift (you won’t use those much if at all)
Lateral boosters: Z / C (same)
Power to the engine: Mouse Wheel Up or +
Less power to engine until reverse speed: Mouse Wheel Down or –
Boost Engines at the cost of Shield: Spacebar -> Short bursts of speed whenever needed to be used with particular caution while in combat.
Warp Travel: G -> Used to fly between points of interest like mission objectives, planets and distress signals. If you ram asteroids at this speed with a weaker or unshielded ship you’ll have a bad time.
Right-Mouse button: Zoom
Let’s have a look at a typical ship view. Click to enlarge.
The various arrows and rectangle (1a to 1d) show points of interest and their distance. The planet itself is an unmarked point of interest. Planets can be landed on by getting near enough. If you land on a planet don’t forget to move all around it by click and dragging your right mouse button, you might find an event. Suns can be reached for a mild source of amusement.
Your targeting reticule at 2 is used to control your camera and target your shooting. More on that in the combat section.
At the bottom left 3 show your various shields all around your ship as well as the status of your hull.
Directly to the right is 4 and your activated abilities. All ships have at least 1 activated ability.
At the bottom right are 5 and 6. 5 indicate the various possible power combinations while 6 show you your current speed setting.
Finally in the upper right at 7 is your mission log. Can be toggled on and off by pressing the O key, as indicated by the shortcuts.
Skills, Attributes, Dices, Traits… oh my.
Aptitude. Leadership. Charisma. Luck. In order of importance those are the four character abilities in which you can assign the points you gain when you level up. They are tested occasionally during the course of the game’s many text adventures. As a rule, those stats gain in power when they reach 4, 6 and 8. Some traits help reach those thresholds.
Crew member have many abilities of their own. Specialists make your weapon stronger and help you find more loot. Engineer make your ship faster and stronger while helping craft and recycle better. Finally Scientist help you research, heal and shield your ship better. These, too, will be tested in text events, particularly Systems Upgrade and Medicine.
A dice check is indicated as, by example, “Charisma +4” and is tested against a number of dice determined by the skill level of the captain (or crew total for crew skill). With a total charisma of 8 a captain will throw 4 dice. If at least one of these dice is equal to 4 in the given example, the check is a success. All dices are ten-sided (1 to 10) and are never added together.
Note that since captain skills require a big investment of level points before they are useful, that they reinforce themselves through a few bonus trait which make them even stronger if they pass checks (and weaker if they fail) and that a captain will gain few levels (about 8 or 9 on average) during any one game, I would recommend leveling only one stat at a time.
Or “Perks”. Those are special passive abilities which your character gain and lose during the course of the game. As a rule of thumb, they are gained while acting on, and reinforce, a certain way of speaking and doing. If you are rude and selfish, you will gain rude and selfish traits. If you say you like missiles and praise accuracy, you will gain a missile perk and become more accurate.
Sometime if you have the negative version of a trait then gaining the positive version will simply cancel out the negative one. Sometime there are more ways than one to gain and lose those traits. Sometime being nice or doing the right thing will backfire with a bad trait. As noted above many traits modify their related stats, rewarding and punishing specialists and jack-all-trades respectively. I’d suggest to take them with a grain of salt, it’s a story based game, not a competition.
Systems and Upgrading
Opening your inventory (Default key: i) open up your system tab from which you can access the various tabs of your ships as seen below.
Click on the image to enlarge it!
This is from here which you will inspect your various items, equip and upgrade them.
There’s a lot of information on this screen so take a while to soak it in.
Keep in mind you can find a tally of your various ship statistics at the bottom of the screen, by example, your total “Shield” and “Shield RECovery“, among others.
You can upgrade your weapons and equipment up to 3 times by using acquired materials. This is different from Quality which is acquired when Obtaining, Looting or Crafting a item.
See Departments -> Engineering to craft new items and Weapons and Equipment for more information, respectively, in the index.
Departments and Crafting
Clicking the inventory key (default key: i) then selecting the “Departments” tab (at the top!) open your various work units, called Departments. Let’s take a look.
You can craft new items out of the materials you’ve acquired. The level of your craft, as determined by the Crafting skill level of your active Engineers, determine the quality of the resulting item. With a good craft level you can craft High and Superior quality items. Some randomness is involved. They will never come out upgraded. Click the “+” button as seen in the screenshot to craft a new item.
Take old items and pieces of scraps and turn them into ressources. Number of ressources gained is determined by the Scrapping skill level of your active Engineers.
You can reverse-engineer items in your possession to allow you to create those items in your engineering bay workshop. You can track your progress by clicking Information; 4 researched items are needed to create that item in the workshop. Alternatively, some items acquired during the course of the game will need to be researched for various reasons. Your Scientists Investigate skill is used here.
Crew Combat
Crew combat happen on your text adventures. Sometime avoidable, sometime not. Maybe you failed a dice throw to evade the guard. Maybe you choose to attack head-on instead of sneaking around. Either way, you’ll have to kill your enemy (or try retreating). Crew combat can be simulated in the station of the first system you start in at the Arena in which case you keep your crew items.
Crew combat happen in this order:
Dice Roll -> Expend some action points on equipment -> Resolution
Faces of the dice: Shield give you 2 shield randomly which each protect against 1 damage. Single target does half of the maximum amount of damage. Double target does full damage.
If you use an equipment item to kill a target then said target won’t do any damage. Big brain move right there. The game randomizer will spread the damage around your crew rather than kill them. Remember that you can’t use healing and resurrecting items after the fight. Plan accordingly.
Not quite sure what happens if you retreat or lose all your crew, I still need to test that.
Crew equipment has to be looted from combat or text adventures, but at least, you always have access to the gun, dealing 1 damage randomly. It’s better than nothing.
Ship Combat
Keep circling quickly around your opponent at a range and speed that allow you to dodge their projectiles. Install anti-missile equipment on your ships to destroy their missiles.
Keep in mind the emplacement of your turrets on your ship. Every turret is duplicated on your ship, usually on the top and the bottom. Angles of fire where many cannons and lasers can fire at once are very tight. It’s worth it to test them a bit to see what your ship can really do… or to just use missiles instead and save yourself some headaches ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Point and click when your autoaim system is turned off.
Automatic when your autoaim system is turned on.
The autoaim system icon is toggled with T and look like this:
Holding the right-click button on an enemy will scan it and also make it the target of your AAS system.
At some point you’ll probably want to attack your opponent with your weapons. Doing so expand your energy bar. Not firing let it go down.
Holding your attack button is not efficient. Tap it regularly instead.
The three stages of energy management:
All is good. ~1-2 second to reload to full. Oh crap. ~5-8 second to reload from overload
Try to keep your distance by using one of the two camera modes available to you, normal or turret mode.
While in normal mode, the camera angle are limited to a narrow cone in front of you but controlling your ship is easier. Ideal for close distance, when you need to move a lot in an accurate manner. Still, you can shoot outside your targetable area if your AAS is activated.
While in turret mode, you can move your camera all-around you. This is ideal at longer distance and whenever you want to shoot at increased angles manually, by example, by shooting behind you as you go forward.
Going from Weapon Power 1 to 4 reliably increase shooting speed by 25% or more. Speed and shield are also both fairly noticeable but need further testing.
Ultimately it’s probably best to use “two 3s settings and a 1” over either “all 2s” or a single 4 and two 1s. An example is provided in the UI section.
Weapons and Equipment
Weapon (and equipment) come in three quality level: Normal < High < Superior
Higher quality = More damage only for weapons and better effects for equipment.
The quality of an item is determined upon it being acquired or crafted and cannot be changed.
They can also have up to three upgrades applied to them.
Higher upgrades = All stats including damage are higher
Upgrade item from your Systems tab on the bottom right after selecting an item… if you have the proper materials for it of course! (More info in “Systems”, see index.)
are indirect fire weapons. They aim toward your cursor if your auto-aim is deactivated, otherwise your AAS target. If an enemy is scanned they’ll fire at it instead like most other weapons.
They ignore shields, do good damage and are the best “all-around” weapon. They synergize extremely well with each other. Some can be shot down by anti-missile defense but in enough number this is irrelevant.
come in normal and plasma variety, focusing on hull and shield damage respectively. They do the highest damage per second (at equal tier) but at the lowest rate of fire and accuracy. Can be superior to missiles if used wisely, assuming you can get enough of them and use them in a good proportion to shield and hull (either on their own or with other type of direct fire weapons).
It can be very, very hard to focus fire most of you cannons toward a single target however and long range firing almost require a radar or two. The weapons most likely to overheat your ship.
also come in normal and plasma. Not to be confused with artillery weapons. They do average-to-high damage per second and fire quickly with below-average accuracy.
are a normal Cannon of the Republic alternative with faster rate of fire but slightly lower hull damage. Extremely inaccurate without upgrade but with at least one upgrade gets a huge bonus to accuracy, above that of normal cannons.
only do half-decent damage against hulls. Accurate. Can’t be fired on cooldown (must hold for full damage) making them terribly energy inefficient. Bad weapons in general.
Worst all-around weapon. Best case scenario you’ll do a small amount of damage against very near target with their shield down, even with your ship entirely full of fully upgraded shotguns.
Allows you to turn an enemy against his friends. If the enemy has no friend at least they won’t attack you. The drone fly slow but is very tough.
It’s a nuclear weapon.
Equipment
Most pieces of equipment are self-explanatory. Flaks and laser interceptor shoot down missiles, the former doing it better. Engines make you faster. Shield boosters make your shield better and damage absorbers make you immune to damage for a certain amount of time. The EMP disable all nearby target for a certain amount of time.
Some equipment gain more than others from quality and upgrades. Damage absorbers in particular are equipment that I wouldn’t recommend at a normal non-upgraded level but which can last enough time to kill 2 or 3 ships at it’s highest quality and upgrade level while having short recharge times.
Radars are equipment pieces which make your weapon more accurate. Particularly effective at longer distance. See various amount in use against a moored ship. 0 / 50 / 100 / 175.
A Cloaking system reduce enemy accuracy in a similar capacity.
Tips and Tricks, Credits, Ressources
- Shops reset every 15 minutes
- You may want to wait until you have all 4 items needed until you research, as you might find a complete blueprint which would make the partially researched item wasted.
- Shipyards are found on planets
- Medals aren’t in the game
- Looking for a password of some kind? Hollow has this to say:
Phantom for initial trait research
FullMetalFox for the cover image
The Between the Stars team for making this game
Between the Star discord: discord.com/invite/4zZVsq2
BtS wiki: betweenthestars.gamepedia.com
Story
In-Progress but Useful
Searching the ship will give you its MAI core (minor text addition later only, I think).
Searching the bridge, if successful (Systems Upgrade or Investigation 8), gain Observant (+1 Aptitude)
Attend the council then go recover the ship. A few ships will attack it.
Take out the Phoenix by first killing it’s shield generators. Everything else can be ignored. Possible to not do enough damage so be prepared. Once that’s done the Admiral will send you off to find a scientist. You’ll find someone to guide you…
1. Be prepared for some crew combat. First you must decide if your new friend will accompany you. Surprisingly, he’s very capable. If you don’t, a separate story-branch will be used where you meet Catherine Jones, who will be your guide and contact.
2. Once you’ve rescued Banner things get hectic. The particular vary on your chosen storyline but running away to the ship will lead to a +8 Apt roll. Failing it earn you Wounded, which lower your xp gains. Or you can just serve as a decoy at the cost of a crew fight gaining yourself the Heroic, which increase it instead.
3. Kill some ships.
4. An icy reception awaits.
Meeting at the headquarters. Have a talk, maybe a cup of tea. Then go kill. Bring back the dead weight. The Admiral will say she wants to send Bradley with you. The way you respond determine if you get Sensitive or Insensitive (??? or less chance for on board events).
Defend the station. Attack the Station. The second one is a bit more tricky, needing 3 generators destroyed first, then landing to finish it off. Involve some crew combat. Finding another entrance remove Reckless, if you have it. An Apt+7 test will follow that will determine if you get Sniper or it’s negative equivalent (Good or bad aim).
A few tough choices will have to be made, some crew combat and a Apt+8 test will help a lot if you can pass it.
Choosing to hold your ground remove Strong. The story will branch depending on if you talk to Susan about your problem or not. You’ll soon be sent on a hunt for enemy ship in order to loot their decoders before coming back to the Whites.
Something something robot revolution. To test: Bring the sexbots along for this quest.
Talking to Susan lead to this mission. You must attack the station directly until it blows up.
Going straight to the HQ will skip some story but nothing more. You’ll have to pass a test (Apt, Char or Lead+7). Failing Aptitute test will get you Wounded (Gain less XP).
Events
This section is a work-in-progress and needs to be ordered, spellchecked and categorized. Could be of some use to some so I’m leaving it here for now.
Against a small fee, the rescued ship will reward you with a piece equipment or weapon. The ship can be destroyed after for extra… “rewards”.
Choosing to talk: ?
Choosing to keep it inside: Lose Fullness
Refusing one time give you Selfish (Crew sacrifice XP for the Captain). Investigating the “mystery” reward XP.
It’s worth it to investigate full each time for an XP boost.
6+ Apt roll for questionably reliable info. If not an ambush, gain 1-2 crew.
Board it -> Not a trap? Credit and Crew. Trap? Hurt crew.
Don’t ->
Repeating One: Choose between “Let’s try to contact them” or “It’s clearly a trap. Attack the ship.”
Make contact -> It was a trap -> Fight them off.
—Ephos Storyline—
No text, just a ship with a blue arrow. After some searching you (may chose to) find some Unknown Research Remains. 9+ System roll skip the password ?. You can research the Unknown Research Remains.
Req: Abandoned Children of the Sun ship. Leads to Dr. Rooms and her daughter, who can accompany you to Ephos.
Req: Guided Tour. Before doing this long quest it is best to make sure that you have at least some combat crew equipment as you will likely be fighting some crew battles.
1.At least two storylines on your way to your destination. The orphanage of Kiff (and its dark secret) which you get by avoiding directly asking for help. Otherwise you must deal with the scavenger problem (gaining evidendence against Kiff and maybe fighting a big scary worm).
2.Once this is done, you descend start looking for your sample, Exobacillus.
3.You go back to your contact. If you let Rose accompany you you lose the “bad” trait Selfish. On Rath’s side you can side with Rose for 2000 credits and an achievement.
Req: City of Ephos. This wrap up the sample adventure. Rooms will (may?) ask to join you on your adventure. If you accept, she join. If you don’t…?
—End of Ephos Storyline(?)—
Buy the slave or blow up the slavers. If you blow them up they’ll beg and give you the crew free. If you refuse: Gain Ruthless (Char-1). I you accept: Lose Ruthless (Char-1)?
Repeating. Asking for a reward is a Charisma 6 check for some mats. Saying it’s your duty reward with extra experience.
Those events just “happen” on their own, some of them repeating.
Two crews are in the medbay. Going to the sickbay … ?
Going to the bridge end event. I think it’s bugged and you actually avoid getting the first autoimmune sickness.
Req: Dining Hall. Do a med roll. If fail, sickness spread. If pass…?
Congratulate the crewman for the trait: Reckless.
Allow the couple to go on, don’t or ignore them altogether.
Gain Strict (Lead+1) or Permissive (Lead-1?)
Repair it or not. If you do, you lose some hull. If you don’t, you gain negative trait: ?
A stowaway has climbed abord the ship! Negative effect of failing 7+ Apt roll untested.
Req: Problem with the Registry. Defend (or not) the stoaway from her parent. Choose between allowing her to be a part of your crew or not. Choose her job if you accept.
A choice between the Heavy and Light weapons neutral traits.
Straightforward. Kill the baddies.
As the name imply.
Meet Dr. Chaos. Be sympathetic to his plight and he’ll ask you to buy him a sexbot. The robot store can offer a few model with a Char+4 throw. The model you bring him determine which achievement you get, there is a few including not giving him anything.
Siding with Merchant: Some credits.
Siding with Pirates:
Being neutral does nothing. Can still kill pirates for Merchant reward.
–Tablet Storyline. Obtaining the tablet will regurlarly give you good traits, remove bad traits and some experience–
A signal distress lead to an empty ship. After possibly looting the ship for a grenade launcher, you obtain a tablet. This tablet will gift with you positive traits and removed negative traits over time.
Req: The Tablet. Asking the cook if he changed proteins reward you with the Fullness trait which increase captain experience gains. Give option to talk about the tablet and gain the quest “The Antique Shop”.
Req: The Tablet. A crew member is bringing you some reports. He’s interested by the tablet and after a small scuffle, you find yourself Exhausted. The negative trait reduce your experience trait. Then rest, lose exhausted and you will gain your first of many traits. I got Strong.
Req: The Tablet. Entering the room gets the temporary negative trait Irridiated, increase the risk of crew injury. Untested: Waiting kill the crew but save you from irridiation?
Req: The Tablet and Problems in the Reactor Room(?). Another trait. I got Veteran.
Req: The Tablet and Problems in the Reactor Room. The Doc will remove Irridiated.
Req: Tablet(?). Gain Exhausted. Lose Exhausted. Gain Talent. I got Bargainer.
Req: The Tablet. Two baddies want your tablet. Blow them up?
Req: The Tablet. Asking the cook if he changed proteins reward you with the Fullness trait which increase captain experience gains. Give option to talk about the tablet and gain the quest “The Antique Shop”.
Pre-req Tablet event and Compliment to the Chef. The Antique expert will ask you to sell him the Tablet.
Pre-req: The Antique Shop. Consult the database and obtain a research journal which you can read from your inventory. If for some reason you already have the journal you get an item. I got a IL55 Laser Interceptor.
Req: Tablet. A crew member attack you. Two Apt rolls. Second save crew? If not, they die.
–I’m sure I’m missing a few things about it–
Traits
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Needs to be rewritten and updated to the current chapter, but for now, it’s at least something.
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Phantom has Between the Stars 30 May, 2019 @ 8:14pm
How to get assorted perks
Of note, just found out you can get perks removed by making an opposite choice on a similar one… Got boastful for saying it was a sharp spoon, came across the same type again said they were teasing her and it got removede
General rule of thumb – Being humble or bad choices for your loot = good perks, being a jerk or general vices (drinking, fighting etc) = bad perks
Neutral perks have an upside and a downside Ex. Modern if you want to do lasers and not missiles is awesome, if you want to do missiles its bad.
Bungler — Bad — From random flying – Your engines have issues – if you decide to use the hull to make repairs nothing bad happens other than some minor hull loss – if you decide to push the engines you get a permanent loss in engine power = less engine
Boastful — Bad — Planet inn (might have tbeen a shipment sidequest) – Talking about killing a man with a spoon – answer it was a sharp spoon = Aptitude level down one
Empathetic – Good(?) – Inform Mason using the softer line, something like “I’m sorry but I have bad news…” – More On Ship events, whatever that mean.
Found- Good – Modest – Same as above, say they were just teasing. Raise Aptitude by One
Boastful — Removed — Same deal in an inn don’t be boastful and it gets removed
Found – Bargainer – From the “Rest Quest” (related to the ambient quest event?)
Confirmed- Familiar — Good — First station, select to spend the day together at the park = Crew gets more exp
Found- Engineer – 3rd or 4th rest event
Fullness — Good — From random flying – The problem sleeping one, told the crew what the problem was = Captain gets more experience
Hard — Good — Prison break — Advanced do not hold position — Increases hull
Heavy Weapons — Good — Canteen debate pick heavy weapons are better = more damage for more energy
Confirmed- Heroic — Good — Serve as a decoy for the guards in a story mission = captain gets more exp
Humble — Good — From story mission, side with the lady and admit you share some blame = Charisma +1
Hungover — Bad — From Drinking game at station – Win or lose = less exp gained
Light weapons — Good — Canteen debate pick light weapons are better = faster fire for less damage
Merciful — Good? (its green, but reduces so bad?) — Ashley on the station, take the guys prisoner after the chain of text — Reduces the tactics level of the ship by 1
Confirmed Shooting – Nurturing — Good — Leaving the planet with the inn – Practice shooting, offer to help your teammate = + exp from events
**Also from – Suspicious activity – ship with manifest – inspect and pass the luck dice roll
Observant — Good — Suspicious mission — Look through cargo and pass check = +1 to aptitude
**Also from main mission about the ship ** Pass two roll checks and then say more to it
Permissive — Bad — From random flying — The other half of above, ignore the crew making out = Decrease something
Confirmed. Reckless — Good — From random flying – Praise pilot for dodging = ships more agile
**Can be removed by trying to find another route in artimis station mission
**Can be gained by selecting to talk to the admiral
Ruthless — Bad — Distress call, came across slavers, refused to let them go, blew one ship up, other offered me slaves to survive or I take them out, said nah they die… killing slaves with slavers = less charisma
**Can be removed from taking prisoners
Found-Scavenger Tablet Dreams about… flutes.
Found- Proud – Bad. “You guys have a good share of the blame…” to Bradley and Mason after coming back to their. Luck -1
Imprecise – Bad – Miss the shoot defending Malik – Weapon Less Accurate
Sniper — Good — Artimis station assault – Pass the shoot first aptitude test = increases weapon accuracy
Unfaltering – Bad? – Insist on an alternative to free Bradley all 3 times. Less chance for on board events, whatever that mean.
Solidarity — Neutral Good — Distress call – helping distressed ships = Captain gets less exp crew gets vemore exp
Strict — Good — From random flying — You hear a noise, select to care and investigate and reprimand the crew for making out in the halls = Increase leadership by 1
-Confirmed- Trigger Happy — Neutral Good — From random flying — Training drill that you lose with three choices – Picking fire faster gives this = Faster shooting speed less accuracy
Trusting — Bad — Trust the Drug addict = -1 luck
Veteran — Good — Random signal in space, listen to it over and over eventually you get this (got after end of EA story) = More exp gain
Strategist – Neutral Good — From random flying — Crew fails a defence mission – Picking the top choice of aim better will = Fire slower more accuracy