Asteroid Hunter

Contents

Lore

Instructions

Asteroid screen

Core components

Vessel Damage

On-screen buttons

Support modules

Shop screen

Wealth

Your vessel

The shop

Key commands

Playing tips

Lore

Starbase Safehaven pays for rocks and they want a lot of them. You have a vessel. It’s not much of a vessel - but it has a mining laser and you’re short of cash.

It seems to be a perfect marriage. You mine rocks. You seel rocks. You mine some more rocks…

Instructions

You are a lone hunter. You hunt asteroids. You pilot your ship around a dense asteroid belt looking for the sweet motherlode floating ore that will let you retire. Your biggest challenge is the environment and piloting your vessel in that zero-g environment. You will begin each journey from the starbase and drift towards the asteroid field. At the start, you can’t see any asteroids until you approach them. You’ll need to map each rock before you can mine it with the mouse button. The more you drift and explore, the more you’ll see and map.

Find the asteroids, mine them, fill your cargo, return to base for profit. Easy.

Asteroid screen

Core components

Your vessel is composed of a number of key components. These components are of different quality and you’ll want to make efforts to upgrade components in the shop (star base).

• Oxygen lets you live. The bar shows all the oxygen in your ship tanks and space suit tanks. If this bar is empty, make sure you have an oxygen generator to keep you breathing.
• Fuel powers your rocket engines. You need this for moving in any direction. Without fuel, you will drift in zero-g vacuum.
• The cargo bar shows how many rocks are on your vessel. Rocks = profit. Try to fill your cargo hold often.
• Battery displays the electricity stored on your vessel. The battery powers the mining laser and oxygen generator. If the battery fails then your oxygen generator will fail. Best to have a space suit when that happens!

Vessel Damage

Colliding with objects is bad. You’ll do it a lot at the start but try to avoid it. Asteroid Hunter uses a complete physics engine and damage is determined by

Your speed + the speed of the object you hit

Your mass + the mass of the object you hit

You can probably scrape small rocks at a slow speed without too much damage. Playing a game of full-speed chicken will mess up your vessel.

Losing the chassis (vessel body) = game over.

On-screen buttons

Sometimes the alarms get a little annoying. Press once to silence the alarms.

Space is dangerous and sometimes you just get stuck with no options. If you run out of fuel or you think you’re going to run out of oxygen then hit the SOS button and wait for a rescue. You did buy a SOS beacon - right? This component is available if purchased.

When things really aren’t going your way then run to the escape pod and eject! Your escape pod will be flung towards the starbase and to safety. WARNING: the pod has no engines and no steering ability. If an asteroid is between you and the starbase then you’re in for a bumpy ride! This component is available if purchased.

Support modules

You can buy a range of components that increase your chances of survival or just provide conveniences to a hard working pilot.

• The O2 tank lets you store extra oxygen in your vessel. You will draw from this tank if your oxygen generator fails to work.
• Solar panels recharge your batteries. Very handy.
• If your vessel’s cockpit becomes compromised (no oxygen) then you’re going to need plan B - a space suit provides limited oxygen - sometimes just enough to return to base.
• The stabiliser will work to stop your ship spinning round and round. Zero g can be an annoying thing without stabilisers.

Shop screen

Docking with “Starbase Safehaven” is as simple as colliding with it. Just turn your vessel towards the starbase and run into it - at any speed.  :)  You’ll then be presented with the shop that is on the starbase.

Entering the starbase will automatically refill your fuel and oxygen tanks - for free.

Wealth

Earn wealth by mining rocks and returning them to the starbase for sale. More rocks = more profit.

Your vessel

This shows all the components you own and are installed on your vessel. Each component has a number of attributes:

• Title and health: if your component is damaged then it will be highlighted in red. Click it to repair it (if you have money)
• Description: helps you work out what each component does.
• Size: this is the physical size of the component. Smaller size is ALWAYS better.
• HEALTH: how much damage that component can sustain. More health is ALWAYS better.
• Capacity: how much it can hold of an item or thing. More capacity is ALWAYS better.
• Thrust: the power of the engine. More is better.

The shop

If you have accumulated some wealth then you can purchase a component. You’ll see all the modules and the quality on offer. Try to buy new components to make piloting easier, or upgrade existing components with better statistics. Get good at the meta and you get good at piloting.

Upgrading a component you already have will give a small refund on your old item.

Key commands

Playing tips

• You start the game without any brakes and you can’t see the location of any asteroids. Thrust forward slowly and anticipate a really long time to rotate and thrust away. This takes time and patience and you might get this wrong a number of times

• With more rockets you can maneuver faster. You can then embrace the zero-g environment. Learn to effortlessly drift knowing you have bought brakes and can move left and right.

• Thrust slowly and carefully and earn money to get better quality components.

• The asteroids are invisible to you until you start to map the field. Proceed with caution! You can map asteroids that are in front of you. You can’t map asteroids to the sides or rear.

• You start with small fuel tanks and small batteries. Start with small trips, upgrade your vessel and then try longer trips.

• Your vessel starts with no stablisers. If you turn clockwise, your vessel will forever turn clockwise. You will need to turn counterclockwise to cancel the turn. This takes practice.

• The game starts hard and then gets easier. Use small thrust, practice turning, buy upgrades and then enjoy the zero-g asteroid hunting.

• Bumping into asteroids will set them drifting and they will move forever. The asteroid field becomes that little bit more dangerous.

• Some asteroids are made of different ores. Try to mine the bronze, silver and gold ores.

• Your ship will physically grow and shrink as you buy and upgrade components. A small ship fits into tight spaces and is easier to maneuver.

• Always look to upgrade your vessel. Smaller size components are ALWAYS better. More health is ALWAYS better. More thrust is ALWAYS better etc. There is no downside to improving a stat.