Open Space

"Undock into open space, full of mercenaries, pirates and loot."

What is Open Space

Open space is the open world "sandbox mode" of Star Conflict, and is at the heart of the game. After choosing a faction, a player can undock from their current faction's station and fly wherever they want, to do whatever they want. Options include:

Completing missions and side errands.
Fighting AI enemies, such as Aliens and Pirates.
Fighting other players or teaming up.
Looking for resources and crafting materials.
Moving to another faction's station.
Player-to-Player "private trading" (via dropped cargo).

Overview

Quests: Players may be given Quests from NPC's in the station, which reward credits and ship synergy.; Players also have access to several daily quests, which are activated when entering the quest zone. These appear as blue exclamation marks (!) when viewing the galaxy map. There are about three quest active at a time, and completing one or more will activate new quests.

Enemies: Player ships will appear in blue if station protection is active, or orange if not.; Friendly ships will appear as blue.; Unfriendly non-player ships will appear in red. These will engage you if you get too close.; Alien ships will appear in purple. Again, these will engage you if you get too close.

Navigation: All zones are separated by warp gates. Travelling via the warp gates doesn't require fuel anymore.; You can warp to any of the sectors directly from the map view if you unlocked them. However - only to faction home sectors it is free. To any other sectors it costs 2 iridium.; TAB to view zone map, showing all ships in sensor range, quest objectives (!) and warp gates to adjacent zones.; M to view sector map.

Power-ups: These will appear randomly all over the map, usually in some dark corner of ship wreckage. Just like in other game modes, green power-ups will repair your ship hull, red ones will increase your damage output, and yellow ones increase your ship's speed for a short time.

Station Protection (PVE Mode)

All ships enter open space under station protection, unless disabled by the player.

Station protection prevents all damage from other players and including collision damage.

Station protection is switched OFF when the player warps to a PvP zone. This means other players can attack & destroy you. Warp gates will show DANGEROUS ZONE when they lead to a PvP zone. Station Protection will be re-enabled when warping back into non-PvP zones.

Ships NOT under station protection will appear in orange to others.

A ship NOT under Station Protection cannot be attacked by a player WITH station protection, and vice-versa. Both players need to have Station Protection OFF in order to damage each other.

Karma

The player starts with +0 total karma, and may then permanently increase this value by attacking and destroying unfriendly targets (pirates, cartel ships etc.) or decrease it by attacking friendly ones.

Damaging a friendly AI or another player will temporarily make you an "aggressor". This highlights you in red to other players, and you are able to be killed by other players that have the 'Station Protection' removed (OFF). Aggressor status will wear off after 30s if you don't shoot any further.

Destroying a friendly AI or another player will mark you as a "Criminal". Players with Criminal status can also be attacked by any players with the 'Station Protection' removed (OFF). In addition, police AI will engage you if they are in the system and attempt to destroy you. The faction turrets, missile batteries, and Station Defenders will all attack you as well. Criminal status will wear off after 300s if you don't kill anyone else.

Aggression System

Learn the Open Space Aggression System in details.

Loot

'Loot'

There is a lot of junk floating around in space! Much of it is valuable, though: Loot items are rocks, crystals, spaceship parts, or containers that you can collect and place in your ship's cargo bay. Some enemies drop weapons/modules when they are destroyed. Loot containers can be looted within a 300m radius for interceptor and fighters. For frigates the range is 400m and for Destroyers 900m. To pick up a piece of loot, fly close to it until the prompt appears ("press C to pick up ____")... and press [C]. You will have to wait a moment while your ship's tractor beam tows the cargo to your ship. When this is done, the loot appears in your Cargo Bay.

'Cargo Bay'

Each ship has space used for carrying whatever treasures you discover in Open Space back to base for credits, loyalty, or crafting materials. Each ship class has a limited number of cargo slots:

Interceptors have 3 slots
Fighters have 5 slots
Frigates have 6 slots
Destroyers have a whopping 12 slots

Premium ships have two additional slots in comparison to their non-premium versions. Also you can add cargo slots using Extended Hull module, that adds three additional slots. The maximum number of slots is 16. If you run out of space, or you don't want a particular piece of space junk, you can jettison it by activating the mouse cursor and clicking on the object in your cargo bay (which can be shown by pressing [ i ]). You can pick jettisoned cargo back up if you want. If you destroy another player in Open Space, they will drop whatever they were carrying in their Cargo Bay as loot containers. This is the essence of Open Space pirating.

There is loot protection, only a player that destroyed the ship can pick up the dropped container.

Loot also randomly spawns in fixed locations in zones.

'Farming': This is the term describing players staying in/around a location for a long period of time in order to collect a large amount of resource, whether that be credits, karma, or crafting materials.

'Mining': This is the term describing players searching around asteroids in a zone for randomly-appearing raw materials, used for crafting. Some zones drop only specific type of ore - i.e Iridium Spines drops only Graphite ore.

'Cargo drone': Some zones have a cargo drone that will return the contents of your ship cargo to the station in exchange for 10% of their value. These drones will return to their location shortly after being used. They are used as an aid to farming a location without having to return to the station when the players' cargo becomes full.