Open Space

Global map. Click on the sector to know details.

"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. Structurally, map divided into zones of influence of 3 main factions and neutral sectors. 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

Contracts: Contracts are a good way of earning resources by doing them in open space. The execution of the contract is due to the performance of a specific task. This may be the destruction of ships, activating objects and scanning of ore. Well, if the task is too complicated, you can call a friend or ask for help in the chat. Especially because when you are required to destroy one or more ships, it is not at all necessary to apply the final shot. A small amount of fire assistance will be enough for the contract to be credited.; Contracts are given to pilots every 3 hours (1:00 GMT, 4:00 GMT, 7:00 GMT, etc.) in amount of 3-4 tasks and active for 6 hours.

Adventures: Special tasks, that can be taken from the coordinators in locations of the 3 sides of the conflict in Open Space.; Tasks are often multi-stage and with good rewards.

Enemies: Player ships will appear in blue if station protection is active, or gray 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.

Special enemies

The Alien Destroyer:

The Destroyer appears in a random location.
The appearance of the Destroyer is reported in a notification at the location where it appeared.
It may take several hours to destroy the Destroyer.
The Destroyer has a single durability bar for all locations.
As a reward for the destruction of the Destroyer pilots will get exceptional Seed-chips.

Now, thanks to the mercenaries, Alien attack has been stopped and their Destroyer has no longer been seen.

Pirate Destroyers:

Special pirate destroyers were detected in Open Space. Faction officers urge mercenaries to destroy this threat.

Destroyers appear in locations, attacked by pirates, at random times.
In return for destroying the Pirate Destroyers, players will get special and exceptional Seed-chips.

Navigation: All zones are separated by warp gates.; You can warp to any of the sectors directly from the map view if you unlocked them. However - only to faction home sectors (and to sectors owned by your corporation) it is free. To any other sectors it costs .; 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.

War with Aliens: Alien base ships were detected in the systems. Using them as outposts, they prepare attacks on locations. If they take over the systems — there will no longer be any resources available. If the pilots cannot recapture the enemy’s locations, after some time the Aliens will begin to capture neighbouring systems.; In order to prevent Aliens from capturing the neighbouring locations, mercenaries need to fight back by completing special tasks.; If Aliens completely capture the location, it will not be available for Sector Conquest and some contracts won't be available.; Now, thanks to the mercenaries, Alien attack has been stopped.

War with pirates: The Artuga pirates statred a large-scale offensive. If they take over the systems — there will no longer be any resources available. If the pilots fail to recapture the locations, after some time the pirates will begin to capture neighbouring systems.; In order to support the pirates or a legitimate faction in battle, pilots must complete tasks and destroy enemy ships.; If the Pirates take over the entire location, it will not be available for Sector Conquest and some contracts won't be available.

Races: Illegal races have appeared in the open space. Become the fastest pilot! No shooting, only speed.

The race may start during the pilot's stay in the location.
The pilot must arrive at the start area.
Races are held within one location.
Races start with intervals.
The race track is marked with rings.
You can't skip rings.
The first pilot to get through the ring gets a point.
The pilot with the most points wins.

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.

Karma level simply reflects your karma value:

Karma level ±1 is reached at ± 1 000 karma points.

Karma level ±2 is reached at ± 15 000 karma points.

Karma level ±3 is reached at ± 50 000 karma points.

Karma level ±4 is reached at ± 150 000 karma points.

Karma level ±5 is reached at ± 500 000 karma points.

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 30 s 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 300 s 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 400 m. and for Destroyers 900 m.

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.; Some asteroids can be drilled in search of valuable resources. A suitable asteroid can be found with the help of a “Spatial Scanner”. To extract resources, an asteroid must be destroyed. Any weapon/equipment capable of dealing damage will work. While dealing damage, you will see the asteroid's temperature. The higher the temperature at the time of destruction, the more valuable resources can be extracted. If the temperature reaches 100%, the asteroid will collapse, but valuable resources will become inaccessible due to overheating.

'Cargo drones': 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.

Cargo Drone Locations