Complete guide to Avorion

Overview

A guide made with contributions from various people on the Avorion Unofficial Public Test Server.

Getting started

When starting a new game you will have to create a new galaxy. When creating a galaxy or playing the game creates a local SINGLEPLAYER server on your computer and connects to it directly. This is a private server only YOU can connect to. You dont need an internet connection.

When creating a new galaxy there are a few options.

• Name – Whatever you want to call the save
• Seed – What the game uses to procedural generate a galaxy. You can share it with other players so they can get the same galaxy, or reuse the seed on a new game to get the same galaxy. You can put in whatever name or number you want in here.
• Creative mode – gives you infinite resources.
• Collsion damage – The ammount of damage you receive when colliding with another object, based on the speed and mass of both objects. You can change this multiplier to reduce collision damage.
• Difficulty – How hard the game will be. (hover over the question mark next to the dropdown for speciffic info on difficulty)

When you will first spawn in the game, you always recieve 2 mining lasers and 2 chainguns, plus 10.000 credits (on normal mode). In order to found a new ship, you need at least 500 iron to build the core block, though it is recommended to get at least 4.000 iron.

You can still freely move around and use hyperdrive while being in a drone, keep that in mind if there is a lack of iron in current sector.

Minerals can be found in every asteroid, though the most efficient way of getting them is to mine ore asteroids. They have a distinctive look, with coloured, glowing spots.

• Iron – orange/Brown, can be found everywhere
• Titanium – White
• Naonite – Green
• Trinium – Blue
• Xanion – Bright yellow
• Ogonite – Deep Orange, (Can only be found in the core)
• Avorion – Red, (Can only be found in the core)

An iron asteroid

When looking for mining lasers you will need to look at multiple things.

-What material you are looking to mine? A mining laser will be able to mine its own tier of materials +1 tier at an reduced efficiency and speed. (e.g. A iron laser can mine iron and titanium) You can always mine lower tiered minerals.

-The efficiency of the laser determines the amount of actual minerals you get. (e.g. if the asteroids holds 12000 iron an 20% efficiency laser will extract 2400 iron)

-The damage output on the laser. as this directly effects the mining rate (all mining lasers have a 20000% damage bonus on rock)

-Bonuses on the laser. (e.g. +10% Efficiency)

-What type of mining laser to use? (Normal mining laser or R-mining laser)
There are 2 types of mining lasers:

• Mining Laser
• R-Mining Laser

Normal Mining lasers refine the materials mined from an asteroid directly, adding it to your stores immediately on pickup

R-mining lasers produce unrefined ore at a much higher efficiency rate, these however will need to be refined at an refinery. and to carry these unrefined materials you will need to have sufficiently sized cargo hold.

Mining laser type’s

Updated 24-01-20 -Armery[NL]

Pressing M button will open up the map. You will find yourself somewhere around the edge of the galaxy – the closer you will get to the galaxy core, the more you will find of rare materials but be warned: difficulty will rise. Tougher ships will appear and more unfreindly factions will reside there.

A star map

• Exclamation mark – distress calls and points of interest
• Purple links – Stargates and wormholes (WH), used in distance over greater distances
• Green flashing dots – Sectors with stations
• Colored zones – faction domains

To activate hyperdrive, you need to select coordinates first by rightclicking on a sector and selecting ‘Enter Coordinates into Navigation Computer’. Your maximum jump distance is determined by purple border. Be sure to check faction domains first, as you don’t want to go to enemy territories!

Relations

• Green – Admired (Very good)
• Light green – Freindly (Good)
• Light blue – Neutral (Towards good)
• Blue/purple – Neutral
• Yellow – Neutral (Towards bad)
• Orange – Poor (Bad) – Might attack on sight
• Red – Hateful (Very bad) – Kill on sight

Once done you’re done cauculating the position for hyperdrive, point with your front of ship towards blue marker with coordinates and press space to jump!

Hyperdrive marker

Note: Hyperdrive distance can be upgraded with Hyperdrive modules, starting from Naonite tier blocks.

When you have harvested enough iron, you might want to found your very first ship. Hold SHIFT to free up the mouse and click on the flag button in right upper corner. This will create a ship core (which you should NEVER* delete), and you can begin building your ship.

It’s recommended that you build your ship with X axis while you’re building the sides of it, as long the two pieces don’t intersect with eachother too much you should be fine. It will make the ship symetrical, more even to steer, save up time and won’t make it look like a brick. Go crazy!

Hold F1 key to display building key shortcuts

Building a ship with mirroring mode

Though while building, you might bunch of boring text – this is vital part of building your ship, yellow information warns you about changes you might want to do, and red information warns about crucial lacks of the ship, in example not enough power generated will result in your ship being very ineffective, so remember to pack some solar panels to your ship.

Note: Yellow information is usually caused by lack of engineers while building – this warning go away once you’ll recruit crewmen. Before that, you will move slower than your real maximum.

In order to attach turrets, press B and drag them onto selection bar, then click with them on any suitable part of the ship – material of the turret determines on which material it must be placed

Dragging a turret into selection bar

Once you’re done, head to nearby station and dock to it. Press MMB (Middle mouse button) to target it, and get close to it. Docks will appear, and then press F again to access station shop. Hire crewmen first as you don’t have too much money to buy professional crew at this moment.

Press P and access the crew menu by clicking three men, and select the ‘Auto Assign Crews’ setting – this will automatically adjust your crew to your needs.

Crew menu

* – Removing ship core will be prevented by safe mode, but attempting to delete the ship core will remove it without granting your materials back and will kill you. Use drone to destroy the ship core instead.

Ship reconstruction token’s “Insurance”

reconstruction tokens will allow you to completely restore a destroyed ship.
you can buy reconstruction tokens at repair docks, To avoid exploits, cargo and fighters (blueprints are restored!) are exempt from this. Reconstruction tokens cost about 20% to 30% of your ship’s value, and the first token of each ship is free on normal and lower difficulties.

you’ll be able to restore your ships at repair docks, either for Reconstruction Tokens or for your ship’s worth of money. Buying a Reconstruction Token will also repair your ship for free.

System upgrades – Chips

The most important part of making your ship really good and durable. Those often take a good chunk of ship’s power but give you (mostly) advantages. Some come without expense of the energy.

Tons of chips

The number of max chips that can be added is bound to ship volume (Space taken up by parts)- the higher it is, the more you can accomodate. You can upgrade chip maximum number by adding Computer Cores to your ship (Trinium block tier and beyond). Press P and select the circuit button to access those upgrades.

• Civilian Turret Upgrade – Adds max unarmed turrets to the ship
• Military Turret Upgrade – Adds max armed turrets to the ship
• All Turret Upgrade – Flexibly adds max turrets (i.e. 1 armed/3 unarmed, 2/2, 4/0 etc.)
• Hyperdrive l Upgrade – Decreases cooldown of hyperjumps or/and increases recovery speed
• Hyperdrive II Upgrade -Increases range, increases cooldown(NOT RECOMMENDED*)
• Trading Upgrade – Displays prices of goods without need of docking to stations, higher levels of this item display also trade routes that can profit player
• Radar Upgrade – Increases the range of green dots displayed on the map, deep space upgrades allow to detect hidden mass structures, more in section below
• Scanner Upgrade – Detects valuable items in the sector (Secret stashes, traveller’s stashes), higher levels highlight valuable items
• Mining Upgrade – Highlights valuable asteroids, higher levels display higher material tier asteroids
• Battery Upgrade – Increases speed at which ship battery recovers and/or max capacity
• Generator Upgrade – Increases generator efficiency (recommended for newbies)
• Shield Upgrade – Increases shield capacity and/or recovery rate
• Cargo Upgrade – Increases cargo capacity
• Engine Upgrade – Increases engine max speed/acceleration
• Velocity hack Upgrade – Increases randomly ship maximum speed at expense of generated power**

* – This increases cooldown by 100% in almost every case, the gain is inferior to the disadvantage of jumping less often

** –

Originally posted by Ygdrad:

It basically uncaps your max speed, removing the need for a large engine to reach high speeds. Since you can change the direction of your momentum instantly you don’t need good thrust once you’re going fast, once you’ve reached high speed, which is easy using boost, you can easily maintain and use that speed.

• Legendary – Purple
• Exotic – Orange
• Exceptional – Gold
• Rare – Blue
• Uncommon – Green
• Common – White
• Shoddy – Gray

Hidden mass signatures

As the name suggests, they are hidden from basic radars. In order to detect them, you need to install radar chips that increase deep space range. The better the radar chip is, the greater boost in detection will be.

After installing a proper module, they will start appearing in your proximity (determined by the deep space range) as yellow blips on the star map.

• Asteroid belt – plain
• Asteroid belt – huge resource asteroid
• Asteroid belt – claimable asteroid
• Pirate ambush
• Destroyed convoid
• Destroyed factory
• Smuggler’s base (will also reveal smuggler’s territory, even inside of a known faction’s domain)
• The M.A.D. Association’s ships
• The AI

Earning credits

Mining is easiest way to get credits yet the slowest – it simply goes down as mining iron/titanium and selling it to Resource Depot stations (an icon of three bars stacked).

The general rule of selling minerals is to sell them as furthest from the core as possible to freindly factions – this way you will earn the most. In Xanion/Ogonite sectors iron value drops below 1 credit per unit, while in Iron/Titanium sectors it’s usually around 6-7. Note that you can also sell higher tier minerals at Iron/Titanium Resource Depots and they pay even more, though it’s advised to keep selling only those two minerals.

This method is not steady and could be considered as a side job – but a very profitable one. You do not need any gear to go hunting for Traveller’s stashes/Secret stashes but it is advised to have at least a chip with Deep Space Upgrade and/or Scanner Upgrade, this way your life will be much easier.

Traveller’s stash can appear mostly in hidden mass sectors and secret stashes can happen anywhere. The Scanner Upgrade will tell you when there’s a secret stash (a long, metal, tube-like piece). To open them, simply fly by near them and interact. They often have more than 30k of credits and rare-exceptional tier items.

This method involves making your ship durable for more than two seconds of being shot – pack titanium armor and naonite shields and help out stations in defenses – you’ll earn chips/turrets plus credits.

Note that you can mererly scratch the pirate ship and recieve the reward, though it is advice is to fight them as you will recieve turrets from destroyed pirate ship and addiitonal chips. Those can be sold at Equipment Docks for a great sum of money.

This is the same as pirate hunting method, though it does not grant credits, it gives plenty of chips and turrets you can sell.

Running a mission is a difficult task, as it often requires hauling cargo over greater distances or bringing alot of goods for a station, hunting artifacts and lots more. Be sure you have spacious cargo compartment!

Hyperdrive upgrades also prove to be very useful while running supply missions. Note that if you wish to do resupply missions then it’s advised to know where to look for materials, as you will have limited time to do so.

This requires fairly a good offensive ship with cargo compartment, a Smuggler’s Hideout (found in hidden mass signature) and knowledge of trade.

Smuggler’s Hideout often make a faction within a faction

Before this step, remember to set cargo to pick up stolen goods
(P -> Cargo -> Pickup Behavior: Pick up stolen cargo)

Destroy cargo carriers by firing at their glowing parts (mostly they’re hyperdrive parts and reactors) to prevent them from running away, once destroyed they will drop their cargo.
Be warned, cargo is illegal – meaning any faction with a trait like Strict, Active have higher chance to check often ships for illegal cargo. If a faction suspects you, they will search your cargo. When this occurs, you have three options:

1. Hand over the cargo – You will lose the cargo and no relations
2. No response – Fight with faction
3. No response – Run

Once you got the hot stuff, you might want to rebrand it in Smuggler’s Base or sell it there for a small profit. Often rebranding takes the 50% of item value (i.e. item worth 112k will have rebranding cost around 53k, once sold you will profit less) but allows you to exchange ‘hot’ cargo to regular one which can be now sold to stations/vendors. Alternatively, you can sell instantly the ‘hot’ cargo for about 20% of it’s base value if you don’t know how/want to trade it with regular vendors.

Regular cargo and stolen cargo comparsion

You will occasionally find a scrapyard with drifting debris, however to mine these, you either need to buy a license, or do it illegally. As you might imagine, illegally scrapping these doesn’t do you much good on the reputation front. However, if reputation isn’t your concern, it will mean an increased profit margin as you won’t be paying for the license. (Credit to Joboling as for the previous sentence.) This will require salvaging turrets and/or fighters, thogh the Salvage Laser can only salvage materials one tier above their own. A low-health module should preferrably be salvaged with high-efficiency, though for the rest, it doesn’t matter as much. (Note: You don’t NEED a scrapyard to salvage something, but eh, less things to kill.)

Look up Trading section to read more.

Look up Claiming asteroids section to read more.

Trading

Probably the best way of getting lots of credits in game. Though it’s hard to understand at first, it’s really basic but requires often spacious cargo and good protection to be efficient.

Trading Upgrade might be helpful though it is not necessary.

It’s recommended to have spare 500.000 credits or more to start trading (you can start with tiny amounts, though it’s generally much faster to get & sell more at once).

This way is really profitable once you find two vendors that one produces the cargo the second one needs. You can access the table easily right below.

This link will lead you to Google Docs file with the vendor list[docs.google.com]

Remember though, some vendors like factories, continiously produce goods from their stock, so you can purchase produced goods and sell them to other vendors for better prices, you can set up your very own factory production chain by yourself by building your own specialised stations.

Claimable asteroids

Claimable asteroids are much bulkier than regular ones you might come across. They do not have any ore on them but instead their shape is much more complex.

Claimable asteroid from afar

In order claim one, you must get relatively close to it and interact with it. (0.2 km)

Claimable asteroid up close

After you have claimed an asteroid, you have two options to choose:

• Sell asteroid – The better relations are, the more you get, also improves relations
• Transform to Mine – This option is very expensive, although it gives a steady income of money

Selling an asteroid is a good way to earn money

Building a mine in an asteroid is expensive but profitable

Selecting an option ‘Transform to Mine’ will build a mine which will create goods over time, those can be transfered to ship cargo and sold to traders.

Note: Prices of transforming an asteroid to a mine may vary depending on the asteroid (unknown if it has any relation with its size, quantity or RNG)

Material Comparisons

Absolutely all credit for this goes to Reddit user Selenog

Mass 51 | HP 4 | HP/Mass 0.07843137255 | % Inc /

Mass 30 | HP 6 | HP/Mass 0.2 | % Inc 155.00

Mass 33 | HP 9 | HP/Mass 0.2727272727 | % Inc 36.36

Mass 21 | HP 13.5 | HP/Mass 0.6428571429 | % Inc 135.71

Mass 27 | HP 20.25 | HP/Mass 0.75 | % Inc 16.67

Mass 45 | HP 30.375 | HP/Mass 0.675 | % Inc -10.00

Mass 36 | HP 45.5625 | HP/Mass 1.265625 | % Inc 87.50%

Weapons

Im sure alot of you want what some call “Dakka.” Well, here is what I can find out bout the game’s weapons. Missiles, shield penning weapons, an large turrets with high damage + low fire rate were confirmed 1/23/17 on Reddit. In the same post, they stated that extremely large weapons may be added in the future. Anyway, onto the actual info. Miner efficiency indicates the percentage of an asteroid’s ore it can mine. The higher the efficiency, the more ore you get from an asteroid. Efficiency is better than damage in most cases, as you want to mine more ore, rather than mine a small amount quickly. So, here’s how you aim. Miners have two decent sized circles. When green, it means you are in range. With guns, extremely small circles indicate where the ammo will discharge. Ammunition does not necessarily go where your navigational crosshair is, so make sure you pay attention. Hold CTRL to aim your weapons without your ship turning.

NUMBER OF GUNS IN TURRET IS PURELY COSMETIC
Chaingun
This is the first turret most players will use. They usually dont overheat, do little damage, and have high rates of fire. You can find these anywhere.

Bolter
Basically a chaingun, with more recoil, lower rate of fire, overheating, and some decent punch. These can be found when distance to the center of the galaxy is below 450.

Plasma
These fire balls of, well, plasma. They are the first turret that uses energy you will find in most cases. Unconfirmed: Bonus Damage vs Shields. No overheating. Distance to find: 400

Laser
A literal beam of light. These do DPS (Damage per second) instead of damage per shot. They use energy. No travel time, and accurate, with a short range.. Distance to find: 375

Cannon
Fire large explosives that do area of effect damage. Fast overheat, slow ROF, high damage. Significant recoil. Great range. Distance: 350

Rocket
Shoots rockets. Projectiles move very slowly. Presumably does AOE. Distance: 300

Tesla
Constant beam, like lasers, uses energy, no overheat. Short range, high damage. Distance: 275

Lightning
Slow rate of fire lightning bolts. Uses energy, no overheat. Long range, high damage. Occasionally misses. Distance 275.

Railgun
Magnetic artillery. Extremely high damage, extremely slow fire rate, fast overheat, significant recoil. Great range. DIstance 250.

Mining Laser
Low damage, except against rocks, which give a MASSIVE damage bonus. Only turrets capable of extracting resources from ore asteroids. Can only mine one material above.
Faster against lower materials. Found anywhere. Efficiency affects how much of an asteroid’s ore it can extract.

Salvaging Laser
A mining laser for destroyed ships. Perfect for true militarists, who enjoy striking down their foes with their fallen comrades ships. Can only salvage one material above. Found everywhere.

Force Turret
Do no damage, work as a tractor beam or can be the opposite of one. Distance 425.

Repair Turret
No damage, can repair hull or shields of friendly ships. Uses energy. Distance 325.

Industry

Turrets can be build at Turret Factories, You can find these in populated faction sectors.

Every Turret Factory has different attributes applied to the weapons (e.g. Factory A makes Double Laser and has -20% energy consumption While Factory B builds single Laser with +25% damage).

The closer to the center of the galaxy you get the better and more weapons you will be able to produce. On the outer rings you might only be able to build chainguns and bolters made of iron, But along the barrier around the center you can find factories that produce Xanion and trinium turrets and are able to produce (almost) all turrets.

Factories can also only produce turrets made out of one mineral e.g. Iron (you can’t change this), If you want to make a turret out of a different resource you will need to find a different factory. When building turrets you can choose the quality (common-Exeptional) Wich give better statistics of the weapon, The higher the quality the more components you need to build them (note: Some factories are bugged and need less components to get better stats).

Turrets require components to build Turret Resource Chart[docs.google.com] Aswell as a payment in credits (you can find where to get these components here Avarion Vendor List[docs.google.com]

Factory A Common Chaingun
Factory A Exceptional Chaingun

Factory B Common Chaingun
Factory B Exceptional Chaingun

Hangars & Fighters

Fighters require hangars. These can be built starting at the trinium tier.
In order to deploy your fighters, you must create a squadron in your ship window. Afterward, you must purchase a fighter with a pilot. Give squadrons orders using buttons on left side of HUD.
They come in the same classes as turrets, and are generally slightly less powerful, more vulnerable, and are difficult to replace. They are strong in numbers, however. Provided enough hangar space, you can have 10 squadrons of 12 fighters, or 120 fighters. It is possible to pilot fighters yourself (God knows why you would) the same way you would your other ships.

Achievements

Hold Z/X until your ship does a full barrel roll.

When you encounter the pirate boss, scroll down, and keep choosing the “Is there a third alternative” line of messages

Create a mine on a claimed asteroid, or buy a Station Builder enabled ship from a shipyard. This will be a multi-million credit investment, and higher tiers have prerequisites, so start out small.

Destroy 1000 Xsotan ships

Destroy 500 Xsotan Ships

Destroy 5 Xsotan ships

Destroy 500 armed ships of normal AI factions or players

Destroy 100 armed ships of normal AI factions or players

Destroy 10 armed ships of normal AI factions or players

Destroy the mobile energy lab

Finish tutorial

Fly 10.000 kilometers with sublight engines

Find and fly trough a wormhole

Destroy 5 pirate ships

Destroy boss swoks

Why take a risk? travel trough 100 gates

Use hyperspace enginer to jump into 1000 sectors

Destroy a medium sized ship in under a second

Destroy or rob 100 civil ships

Destroy or rob 20 civil ships

Destroy or rob a civil ship

Destroy 100 pirate ships

Destroy 500 pirate ships

Destroy 1000 pirate ships

Beat the Smuggler

Mine and collect 100,000 resources

Own 1 million credits

Buy or sell 10,000 goods

Beat the Xsotan wormhole guardian without firing a single shot at it

Go a speed that no man has gone before

Beat the Xsotan wormhole guardian without help from allies

Own a ship with a firepower of OVAH 9000 omicron

Destroy 50 enemy stations

Overcome the barrier to the central regions of the galaxy

Travel a distance of 5000 sectors

Destroy a medium sized ship with a single shot [Nuke them from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure ;)]

Use your hyperspace engine to jump into 100 sectors

Get a teleporter key from the Haati

Discover 200 sectors

Destroy the AI

Destroy 15 enemy stations

Do another barrel roll. But in a fully functional battleship.

Fly to the very center of the galaxy

Discover 1000 sectors

In addition to authentic sound effects, equip your ship with shields.

Own 1,000,000,000 credits

Build a fully functional battleship.

Buy a teleporter key from a traveling merchant

Mine and collect Avorion for the first time

Destroy 3 enemy stations

Beat the Four

Good luck out there.

Space Stations

There are two main station types.

These are built on claimable asteroids. See CA section. NOTE: Produces trade goods, not ore.

Any ship from a shipyard can be converted to a space station if you enable STATION FOUNDER before construction. After you create a station, you MAY need to install a cargo bay to store manufactured goods. Space stations usually have prerequisite materials for their product, so start with the basics. These early stations will not require materials to make more expensive goods, but these goods can be put into higher-tier stations later.