Whether you've just completed your first ship, or jumped on the bandwagon and saved up for an ad shark, you're still getting slaughtered. You seem to instadie, even though you have the almost religiously hyped AMPERE. You try to bounty in center with your warbird, only to be easily wasted by a passing ship, or you try to minibase with your spider or levi only to instadie to a decloaking shark. You can't seem to figure out why. You need: GAR'S ULTRA GUIDE TO HYPERSPACE V. ARNK The first lesson that all new to medium players need to learn is that they are totally wrong. Let me rephrase that: YOU are totally wrong. Listen to this MasterCard ripoff. Repel: 19 dollars. Burst: 34 dollars. Tapping a key for invincibility or instakilling someone: Priceless. The money-draining consumable items that you avoid are THE key to winning. You get $30 for a noob kill, $60 for a medium kill, $ or $90 for a kill of a real maxed out ship. It's almost magic that this perfectly equates to the cost of 1, 2, and 3 bursts. Let me state this clearly for those of you who aren't getting the picture: Recharge doesn't matter. Speed doesn't matter. Thrust doesn't matter. Armor doesn't matter. Bombs definitely don't matter. For the most part, guns don't matter either. But Gar, you scoff, how can this be? And if so, what DOES matter? I'll tell you, friend! Guns don't kill people. Not yours, and not primarily. You think they do, and you fire them at people, and sometimes they die, but it's not because of your guns. Guns only kill 'in combination', either in combination with a dozen other guns in a base, or in combination with the enemy's energy drain from his own actions in center. You disagree? Then think back on the last time you tried to plain gun down somebody who was only running away from you with full energy. Did it work? Probably not. Was it fun chasing them all over the map fruitlessly until you got SoP'd? No. Like I said, guns don't kill people. You should pick your gun for what it's really supposed to do: complement the other things you do. Bounce is superior, multifire is useless. Level 2 guns are the best overall, because you really want guns that don't suck with low power drain (remember, the energy you use to fire guns just gets you killed). In the end, just stick with Pulse Laser. There's no reason to get any other gun unless you're just trying to be a jerk. Bombs definitely kill people, in a myriad of aggravating and inescapable ways. Wallbombing, shrap spamming, emp bouncing, thor storms... don't you freaking hate bombs? Because, of course, yours never do any of this. Only other people's bombs rape you. Yours explode harmlessly somewhere in metaphorical Siberia. Bombs still don't matter, though, because they're pretty much set for you. If you have type of ship X, you get bomb Y. In almost all cases, you should just get Salvo and be done with it. The extremely low bombdelay just can't be matched. Armor doesn't matter. Most of them are pathetic. Many of them are totally undetectable by human eyes. The ones that should be good, the signatures, suffer from fatal flaws. Solid Nutronium offers a ton of cool numbers in exchange for 100k and a slower ship. Guess what? You still die instantly to bursts, which all enemy ships have. Radiating Coils cuts burst damage by half, and nullifies shrapnel. Cool right? Not really. You still get wasted by guns and bombs, and, even better, you'll just die to two bursts instead of one, which come nearly simultaneously thanks to the aforementioned Salvo. I bet you're loving these signature choices. In basing, you usually just die instantly to m!@#$%^&* spam anyway. Speed, Thrust, Maxspeed, Maxthrust, Rotation... all that crap, doesn't matter. The differences are minor even in ships with great maneuverability stats like the Warbird. I drive a Spider (already the slowest ship) with -3 speed, -2 thrust, and -2 rotation. Total. Nobody can tell. In the case of the smaller faster ships, afterburners are what matter, so just get Maxwell Infusers and be done with it. Finally, all the maneuverability in the world won't help you in basing, which is what really matters. Which brings me to Energy and Recharge, the field of the fabled AMPERE!!11. You hear it every day. 'I have AMPERE!!11'. 'You got AMPERE!!11 on that thing? You're so tough to kill!'. The only thing you should know about the Ampere Imploder is that you wasted your money buying one. Remember how speed, thrust, and the like don't matter? That means Resonance Sphere is 8/1 and non-sig, while Ampere is 7/7 and sig. But Gar, you say, 7+7 = 14 > 8+1 = 9!!!! That's a huge difference, right? Except, the thing is, Recharge doesn't matter. Recharge the stat matters, but +Recharge bonuses mean almost nothing. Why? Because every ship starts with 1000 to 1300 Recharge already, and adding +10 Recharge (the max) only increases your recharge about 50% for any given ship. Recharge is the energy you gain back in 10 seconds, so the energy you gain back per second is your Recharge stat divided by 10. 1000 recharge means 100 energy per second. Using the Warbird (1000 recharge min, 1530 recharge max) as an example, add one recharge: 1000 becomes 1053. Divide by ten. 100 becomes 105.3. Wait, a point of recharge is 5 energy a second? FIVE?!?! On top of that, how many seconds do you spend mid-battle recharging, anyway? Answer: usually 1 to 4, if you're not instakilled. Energy, on the other hand, is immediately useful. For the same ship, the warbird, each point of energy is 75 more energy that you start with and that you can regen up to. So, each point of energy is 15 'stored' seconds of one equivalent point of recharge. On top of all of this, most ships have 4 to 7 recharge anyway without sacrificing anything. That means the benefit from focusing on recharge is actually very small. So in the end, Resonance Sphere's 8/1 non-sig > Ampere's 7/7 sig. Naquadah Gen + power strip is 6/6 non-sig, almost equal to Ampere's 7/7 sig. My current Spider gets 8/9 without a sig reactor. AMPERE IS A MYTH. Energy rules everything, and this is backed up by all the pros driving max energy ships rather than max recharge ships. So this brings us to the few things that do actually matter: Energy Repels Bursts Thors Thors are fun to use, but are mainly reserved for rich privs that can afford to waste an entire ship dedicated to thorstorming and $100 or $150 a life on the off chance they'll smoke a bunch of people. Energy is your survival. Get as much as you can. The real amount you need is easily defined: enough to use all your repels and bursts. Repels exist to give you temporary invincibility while you fire bursts. Use them alternating between Bursts (at Salvo speed of course). And the REAL secret that the pros don't want you to know! The pinnacle of individual killing ability comes down to Bursts. You've seen it on sharks that came in and ruined your fun, but thought it was gay. You didn't realize that the so-called 'pros' are really just 'joes' with Burst hotkeys! Follow this guide by buying Salvo, getting as much Energy as you can, and getting Repels and Bursts on your ship. I've whittled away all the red-herring signature items for you in preparation for your passage into manhood: the buying of the Combo Mount. This little doodad will bring your Repel total to 4 and your Burst total to 3. Obviously, if you're in a Shark, you can't get sigs, but if you're in a shark and using Reps and Bursts you're already a pro anyway. THE ULTRA GUIDE TO HYPERSPACE V. ARNK: Using your Energy/Salvo/Burst & Rep ship whose other items do not matter, approach Enemy X, whose ship setup does not matter, and use this strategy, regardless of your or his skill level: 1: Fly at him using your Pulse Laser a little bit. 2: Repel. 3: Burst. 4: Repel. 5: Burst. 6: Repel. 7: Burst. 8: Repel. 9: Die. 10: Resurrect from Antideath. 11: If any enemy remains, fly at him using your Pulse Laser a little bit. 12: Repel. 13: Burst. 14: Repel. 15: Burst. 16: Repel. 17: Burst. 18: Repel. 19: If basing, die. If dueling, laugh, as your enemy probably died back in step 5 or 15. 20: If basing, attach to friendly Lancaster and repeat. If dueling, gloat over skillful victory. There you have it. This is the ultimate key to being a pro in HyperSpace v. Arnk. I don't even need to wish you luck, as there is no way you can lose if you follow this guide. Remember, tap your burst hotkey 1 time for noobs, 2 for medium players, and 3 for vets, and they'll always explode with no chance to defeat your skill! Just remember your wise teacher, Gar, as you advance in money and exp until one day you buy a 2M Alien Tech and then immediately sell it again for Antideath.
