PULSAR: Lost Colony – Things That You Should Know

This guide assumes that you have read the Manual and/or gone through the academy in-game. If you haven’t done so, now would be a good time.

The Manual is a tad outdated, but the basics haven’t changed much.

The Academy on the other hand is full of tutorials and NPCs that teach you the basics in a more direct manner, doorway behind reception skips to the roles.

Captain

This role is required to play, no ship can run without one.

Make sure to read experimental component stats and descriptions twice each, they all have some gimmick.

Combo processors are power-hungry beasts, and there is no way to limit only them, so make sure you avoid them unless absolutely needed.

You are the jack of all trades and aren’t limited to just your chair. Man a turret, fill in for sci/eng, repair, extinguish, or board as needed.

If you don’t want to, or can’t, extract anything from a boardable enemy ship, their reactor can be turned into a nuke by switching safety off and overclocking the reactor. Just make sure that they’re gaining heat, and that your ship isn’t in the blast area when it finally explodes.

You start with some food in your locker, hand them out to any human or sylvassi players that might need them.

There is a move order button (default is ‘F4’) that makes a visible waypoint that bots will move to, and players will be able to see through walls.

F1, F2, and F3 are the alert level keybinds for Red, Geel, and Green respectively.

Pilot

The important role is mostly ignored.

When navigating to sectors that overlap, it’s best to call out the sector number and confirm with your engineer will be able to tell when you are aligned.

Remap Component Screen or Pilot Ability off of ‘V’! It only affects a single unlockable ship currently, but having the Component Screen open while flying is not recommended.

Learning to use maneuver thrust can be helpful for tight places, or to dodge missiles in combat if you boost (learn that button too!).

Maneuver thrust can be combined with the main thrust and boost to quickly run away from a losing fight, allowing time to prepare for another attack or just warp out safely.

Ask science what weapons the enemy has, getting thrown about by a surprise defender turret is not fun. Along the same line of thought, make sure to know your own ranges.

Your turn speed is affected negatively by your forward thrust. If you want to turn quickly, cut your thrust. It’s basic, but easy to forget during the races.

Want to orbit a ship like a helicopter? Look in the controls for the “Direct Maneuver” keybinds, and set them up. That way to no longer need to enter maneuvering mode, you can rotate and strafe at the same time.

Wetenschap

The important role that has too much.

Modulate vs Static is important, tot 56% reduction, so make sure to communicate with others in order to better guess the damage type before it happens. The little bar above the buttons only shows the relative damage type of recent attacks, and as such is good for deciding which one to default back to during that fight.

Programs charge based on their order on the screen; Van links naar rechts, van boven naar beneden. The pips gained per warp or capsule is based on the Warp Drive, so double-check that before requesting 12 capsules. You can drag and move these programs yourself at any point using this screen tab.

The Sensor Screen exploits are powerful and should be used on every target possible.

Viruses have three methods of removal: Programs, restarting the ship, and the manual removal mini-game. The mini-game is the slowest but is always an available and low risk.

The Virus Removal Mini-game is opened by pressing the red button on the side of a virus and consists of a simple additive number pattern. The first number is the start, with the second, third, and fourth numbers being the pattern, from there you just continue till a number doesn’t add upright, and then click it.

Most sectors will have research material in, op, or near an object. This includes black holes.

Wapens

The important role that shoots things.

The Academy teaches that the main turret damage is boosted when the timing rings overlap. What it doesn’t say is that the weapon fully depends on the charge percent to determine the damage, 0% charge means you’ll do close to half damage. The only issue is that the game is currently bugged, and all main turrets assume 0% charge for every shot.

Turrets will cool down faster while overheating, take advantage of this whenever possible.

The Main Turrets have a pulse laser, usable by double-tapping right-click or pressing the pulse button (default ‘Q’). This laser doesn’t do much damage but is good for shooting down missiles, nukes, and mines.

Ingenieur

The important role that manage everything.

When you intend to charge your warp drive it will draw power from both Engineering and Science Lab. The Warp Drive Charge will fill based on Engineering power and talents, while the Warp Drive Calculation will fill based on Science Lab and jump processors. The final calculation can’t be sped up, but only takes a bit.

The Reactor is perfectly safe till it reaches a critical temperature, and only a risk to the ship if the safety is off and it reaches 0% long enough to meltdown. Technically it enters meltdown at -4%, but the screen only goes down to 0%.
Stability lose/sec is 2.5 x heat output, so it only takes a few seconds for everything to go wrong at low stability.

When limiting main systems it is good to know the general state of the ship, the Component Screen (default ‘V’) is helpful for this. Its recommended checking for any experimental components or high output requirements.

The main power bars move in 4% increments, met het laagste wezen 4%. (The 15th increment is missing)

Engineering power is usually fine to be kept at ~64% but should be increased when racing or charging warp in combat. This system is your ship’s ability to move and can lead to a quick death if neglected.

Science Lab should never be lowered below 20% power and is recommended to be maxed out if possible. This system touches almost everything depending on processors and is how you are able to find and target other ships.

Shields only take power when damaged, so try to find a good spot that lets your shields regen without taking too much power for combat and maxing them out in warp. When in Infected space you may want to cut all power as shields can’t regen there.

The weapon is a tricky system to limit as a whole, as the different turrets may vary wildly. Echter, unmanned secondary turrets will only use half power.

Engineering, Science Lab and Weapons each have a sub-system control screen. These screens are located in the respective area of the ship and are used to fine-tune the system’s power usage.

Overclocking will give you +70%, +20% if you have no reactor, boost to output. The downsides are 20% more heat gain, ~80% less passive cooling, en +2.5 stability loss per second when critical.

If you have issues with cloaking taking too much power, try reducing it on the sub-system. The cloak only needs 75% power to run.

So long as you don’t have a Thermocore you can run high coolant and overclock the reactor to have high power while cooling slightly. This will quickly drain coolant though, so is best saved for emergencies.

Algemeen

When boarding it is not recommended to shut down the ship, as this makes it impossible to remove the enemy claim until restarted and the screens are back online. Instead try shooting sub-systems, or steal engineering screens and lower power.

Headshots exist.

Biscuits are powerful buffs, and you can stack multiple of one type for a longer time.

Humans and Sylvassi get healed by food but hurt by Engine Sludge. Robots can’t heal from any food except Engine Sludge, which heals them 80 health instead of hurting them.

Bounty and relic hunters use your ship’s combat level to determine what ship layout to use and will default to a boarding type if none are in range. Bounty hunters are 80-120% of your combat level, and Relic hunters are 120-150% of your combat level.

Short bursts of the jetpack can save fuel and allow you to go farther and higher.

Slight Exploits

The following things can be labeled as exploits, so will use spoiler tags.

Beam rifles, healing included, hit through walls, spelers, vijanden, enz.

If you drop a weapon that has ammo, it’ll have full ammo.

If you time things with other players you can stack actions, like upgrading an item or entering a dice table in the casino.

Some things don’t break the cloak. For Ships it’s the Flamelance and Biohazard turrets, and for players, it’s the Splitshot and Spiker.

The Spiker prototype can be used to cool a reactor, and each shot stacks the cooling rate.