FRONTIER Help

FRONTIER HELP - MISCELLANOUS INFORMATION

1. Jettisonning Cargo
2. the Military
3. Asteroid Mining
4. the Mechanics of Space Flight
5. Control List

Jettisoning Goods

This is an illegal practice but is occasionally necessary. Certain goods are damaged by this act and this needs to be taken into consideration when salvaging such cargo.

The following changes will occur:

Live animals will become animal meat

Slaves die and are officially used as fertilizer but rumour has it that the bodies are finding their way onto the animal meat market.
Liquor, luxury goods, grain, fruit and vegetables are all turned into rubbish.

Sometimes containers will explode unpredictably when released due to irregularities introduced during their manufacture.

How to Jettison

Select the inventory icon F3 and cycle to the Cargo Inventory section, which displays jettison buttons (Fig 73). Activate the button next to the goods which will be ditched one tonne at a time.

Jettisoning is usually used for goods with negative price - radioactives and rubbish. Depending on how advanced the system is, you will have to jettison further out to avoid being caught.

The Military

Both the Federation and the Empire give military ranks for services rendered although these are known as titles in the Empire. An individual can gradually progress up the ranks even from purely mercenary missions, receiving promotions after sustained loyal service. You can hold rank in both the Empire and the Federation, as the ranks are not mutually exclusive.

To take up a military mission, go to an advert on the Bulletin Board from the Imperial Navy or the Federal Military. Note that these will only be available in some systems.

The screen will show a list of missions suited to your current rank. To accept a mission, click on the mission then say "I'll do it sir". Note that missions have to be completed in a certain time - failed missions count against you, so only take missions you can complete.

When you complete missions, you will get points towards a promotion to the next rank. The points needed for each rank are as follows:

Rank (Federal)	Title (Imperial)	Points Needed
None	Outsider	0
Private	Serf	1
Corporal	Master	16
Sergeant	Sir	81
Sgt-Major	Squire	256
Major	Lord	625
Colonel	Baron	1,296
Lieutnant	Viscount	2,401
Lt. Commander	Count	4,096
Captain	Earl	6,561
Commodore	Marquis	10,000
Rear Admiral	Duke	14,641
Admiral	Prince	20,736

Different types of missions become available as you progress through the ranks, as follows:

To start with, only Courier missions are available. These are similar to carying packages - once you accept the mission, you must get to a starport or space station in the destination system. The only difference is that you must complete the mission within an allotted time.

At the rank of Sgt - Major or Squire asassination missions become available. These involve destroying a certain ship at a certain starport or space station at a given time. To complete these missions, you should arrive slightly before the time of the asassination, then either shoot the ship as it leaves the starport, or, if you don't want a Criminal Record and a large fine (10,000 CR for Piracy and Murder), wait until the ship enters Hyperspace then use a Hyperspace Cloud Analyser to find out where it went, and follow it and shoot the target as it leaves Hyperspace. However, if you destroy the ship before the allotted time you fail the mission, as the intended target may not have boarded his ship.

At the rank of Major or Lord, Photography missions become available. These consist of photographing a base on a planet's surface and returning to the place that gave you the mission by a given time. Note that the time given is the time you have to get back by - NOT the time at which you have to take the photograph. Photographs are taken by flying within 20km of the base, facing it, and pressing the Camera icon on the control panel (or pressing D). An "excellent" photograph is taken by flying within 10km and taking the photo.

At the rank of Colonel or Baron, Bombing missions become available. You are given a Nuclear Missile, and have to destroy an enemy base within a given time - not unlike the photography missions. To destroy the base, fly within 100km of it, select it as a target, select the Nuclear Missile, and press the FIRE button on your control panel (or the M key). You must then return to the system where you took the mission.

Different missions are worth different numbers of points, as follows:

Mission Type	Points
Courier	2
assassination	14
Photography	16
bombing	18
'excellent' photograph	20

Your rank is not the only prerequisite you need to get a promotion. You have to own all the possible medals for earlier missions first. You get medals for:

1. the first delivery of an important item like gravitic detonators,
2. the first delivery of secret communication,
3. the first successful assassination,
4. the first successful reconnaissance mission,
5. the first reconnaissance mission with resulting excellent film and
6. the first successful bombing mission.

A strange side effect is that you must not perform all reconnaissance missions perfectly, because if you do, you will not get your fourth medal.

A list of medals is as follows:

Federation	Empire
Certificate of Valour	Crimson Brassard
Starburst	Black Polygon
Purple Omega	Gold Spike
Vermillion Crest	Platinum Cross
Blue Excelsior	Legion of Honour
Frontier Medal	Celestial Warrior

Asteroid Mining

Asteroid mining is the easiest and cheapest way of obtaining ore and requires you to have a 30 MW Mining Laser, Fuel Scoop and a Cargo Scoop Conversion. You simply blast an asteroid with the laser then fly over the bits of asteroid and the Scoop collects as much ore as you can accommodate in the cargo bay. Not all asteroids are mineral rich though, so you may end up with a bay full of rubbish.

The Mechanics of Space Flight

As starship designers through the ages have found, space craft have so many potential degrees of freedom they are impractical for a mere human to control to the full unaided. Logically a free flying combat craft has at least five independent directions (or vectors) to control, Those vectors are:

1. Facing vector (unit magnitude) F
2. Velocity vector V
3. Thrust vector T
4. Camera viewing vector C
5. Weapon vector W

It is clearly logical to combine some of these, but the more they are combined, the more functionality is lost, Faulcon de Lacy (and indeed most ship manufacture) combine (1), (4) and (5) and control (2) and (3) automatically, leaving the pilot to control only (1), with the option of disabling the automatic control of (2) and (3) when necessary. Even this seems a handful for a species evolved to move in only two and a half dimensions (up and down are very much secondary to north, south, east and west).

The pilot is assumed to have a desired velocity vector D along his or her facing vector, the magnitude of which is the desired speed s they have set.

Hence: D = sF
and thrust to achieve velocity D T = mf (D-V)

where f is a factor chosen for fuel efficiency and m is the mass of your craft

A maximum value is given to f (about 1). to avoid wasteful thrusting and possible oscillations. This is why your craft will slowly settle down over the landing pad even with a zero set speed. At higher speeds the limits of the power of the thrusters effectively restrict the value of f. The desired thrust is resolved into components along each of the ships working thrusters and if any of the these cannot provide sufficient thrust then the value of f is reduced appropriately (preserving the direction of thrust is more important than its magnitude).

Frames Of Reference

The problems of the fly-by-wire technique are further complicated when considering the frames of reference in which velocities are measured. When a vehicle moves slowly along a street, say, the driver does not want to know that both the street and the vehicle are moving sideways at many thousands of kilometres per hour (due to the velocity of the planet around the star, and the rotation of the planet). Indeed, if the vehicle were to face the way it is travelling, then its motion along the road would be almost irrelevant. What the driver wants is to face along the direction of travel in the frame of reference of the planet, which is both moving and rotating.

Hence D = sF + R

where R is the velocity of the frame of reference
and ideal thrust T = mf ( D-V )
T = mf ( sF + R-V )

Your on board computer automatically selects the body you are most likely to want to define a frame of reference for your motion. This is usually a planet or moon, but can also be a space station or large ship. It also decides whether it would be more intuitive to use a rotating frame or not. For space stations, it is only sensible to use a rotating frame in the docking tunnel otherwise your ship continually thrusts to attempt to move in a circle in time with a similar point on the station.

Choice Of Frames Of Reference

The body is used to define your current frame of reference is shown on the bottom right of your head up display this is chosen by a weighting function. For planets and stars this is based on mass, thus a star's sphere of influence generally extends way beyond its planets. For other bodies it is based on their dimensions.

You may notice your ship's engines suddenly starting to thrust when a different frame of reference is chosen. This is not a fault with your ship but is because your set speed has suddenly appeared to change as it is now measured relative to the new body.

Frontier Control List

General flight controls

A: tilt down
Z: pull up
>: tilt starboard
<: tilt port
Right SHIFT: reverse thrust
Enter: forward thrust
R: use radar mapper
F8: when possible, Hyperspace jump
Alt. + F8: when possible, forced mis-jump
+ & - : zoom out and in respectively
Cursor keys: when in external view, rotates ship
Right MB & move mouse: quick ship manoeuvres, pressing LMB fires lasers
Esc.: pause
?: use hyperspace cloud analyser
D: take photograph if military cameras are fitted or if mining deploys and loads MB4
H: hyperspace to your chosen destination

Others

C: Re-centre system map on your current location
Print screen: Save the current screen to the Frontier directory (a picture editor is needed to utilise this function)
No. pad buttons, 8264,: rotate ship, other + & - zoom
To move cursor without mouse: use Alt. And number pad or cursor keys
Insert: toggles screen in system map
Right Shift: speeds up scrolling in the system map
F keys: various shortcuts, see list
To use star dreamer without mouse: shift + F1 to F5.
Fighting controls
E: use E.C.M.
X: eject from ship (if you have an escape pod)
B: drop energy bomb
M: fire missile, when ready
SPACE: fire lasers

F keys shortcut list (some of these change when in the system screen)

F1: changes ship's view
F2: toggles galactic and system maps
F3: toggles commander profile, ship status, cargo etc
F4: the communications button (performs different but similar functions in a starport)
F5: toggles between scanner and H.U.D.
F6: when a system is selected this becomes the planet info button
F7: switches between manual control, Robocruise or engines off
F8: the hyperspace button
F9: lowers and raises the undercarriage
F10: enables/disables text such as planet names, ship registrations etc

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