'Interplanetary Travel'

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Oooooh!

The preceding story mission was: ‘Speedy Escape Strategy’

The following story mission is: ‘Facilitating Corruption’

Now you’ve got an Afterburner it’s time to try a little space travel. Nothing too taxing, just down to the shops and back really.

Jake Rattenbury tells you that the cargo you picked up in ‘Ore Smuggling’ needs to be delivered to Axiom. Bill Darius helps you use the star map, though he annoyingly doesn’t explain that use of the F8 key brings it up without having to click on the Nav-comp. You then get your first view of the Vega system, perhaps your first view of any system in PG. It does give you a good idea of the scale of the game, up to this point you’ve just seen the orbit and square surface map of Kalabesh.

Now you have to send off your first probe to explore the route to Axiom. Thankfully it only costs 5 crystals and takes 2 minutes so it’s not a great hardship. Once the route is explored you can make the jump. I love interplanetary travel. The visuals are great and there is a nice feeling of speed and stress on the ship. This is a short trip but usually this is where I check the ladder, clan notice board, profile messages etc. Good for a Pinkle Pause too, as our German friends say.

So you enter the orbit of another planet and you get to see Axiom’s red orb burning beneath you. Nice change from Kalabesh. When I arrived at Axiom I gained enough experience to reach Level 4. I noticed that my energy cap hadn’t increased, still at 1,000.

And that’s it. If you manage to stuff that up then I’d love to know how. 24 crystals for old rope, even if you have to spend 5 to get them. This approach does introduce you to interplanetary travel earlier on in the game compared to the old Vega system. That may be a smart move if impatient players felt restricted on Vega 2 early on.

So now you’re at the home planet of the Colonial Administration (Boo!) and the next task is to go down and deliver the ore canisters. Maybe the real action is about to start.