Gameplay
Flight
"I keep crashing!"
This isn't a question, but it comes up a lot anyway. Basically, fly slower and if you feel lost press X on your keyboard to tell the autopilot to stop your ship. This should give you some time to think. You can also pick up higher thrust engines from the upgrade shop which will help you stop and turn faster, but they all come with their own tradeoffs. Check out our section on thrusters and thruster upgrades for more info. You can also upgrade to higher-end avionics / autopilot systems to provide visual feedback such as collision alerts etc in your HUD that should help keep you safe.
"Why is the ship so slow?"
Mostly because it weighs 30 tons and is being pushed around by boiling water. You can fit a higher-power reactor and more powerful thrusters, but it's good to remember that the K37 is a hundred year old space tractor powered by a nuclear kettle and carrying tens of tons of propellant. It isn't a racing pinnace.
Mining
"Where are all the minerals?" / "Why are other ships telling me I need to go deeper?"
The outer edge of the ring is quite sparse, so you won't find much out there. Once you're 10km down or so, the mineral density becomes a lot higher and you'll start making real money.
"I barely break even on a flight!" / "Why are repairs so expensive?"
Rule of thumb: don't bother picking up iron. It's there in the game because it's there in real life, but honestly it's pretty worthless due to its abundance. You're better off trying to mine Beryllium (look for relatively large chunks with blue crystals) or Wolfram/Tungsten, which is normally in small, bright silver chunks. A geologist is an excellent first hire, as they will provide estimates of mineral chunk prices while you fly, which will help make sure you don't pick up garbage. Also, don't fly into stuff and wreck your ship. Take it slow.
"Why do the blue minerals shoot off so fast when I crack an asteroid?"
The blue mineral is Beryllium - a very low density metal. ΔV tries to model the kinetic energy of the minerals that are left behind when you crack an asteroid, which means lighter minerals will shoot off at higher velocity than dense ones. Also in a gameplay balance sense, it's a bit of a high-risk:high-reward mineral - harder and a bit more dangerous to chase down, but worth a lot.
Crew
"What benefits do crew bring?"
Mechanics increase how much you can repair your ship and how effective your in-flight jury rigging is. Pilots will provide automatic bullet-time before collisions to give you a better chance to evade. Geologists will predict future mineral market prices, and provide estimates on mineral chunk values when in flight Astrogators track locations of Points Of Interest in the rings allowing fast-travel
Damage control & Repairs
"What determines how much I can repair a component at Enceladus?"
Mechanic crew members with higher experience can repair parts to a higher level.
Near-future versions of the game will have tooltips for these damage types, and there are too many to describe quickly here so for now check out the Wiki pages for each subsystem for more info on what each damage type on a system is.
Your crew can slap duct tape and zip ties on parts of your ship to effectively trade one form of damage for another. For example if a thruster is very choked, you can trade off misalignment or wear to try and dechoke them. Don't try to think too hard about what they're *actually* doing with the bolts and wrenches though, the simulation isn't quite *that* precise!
Equipment
"What's the best ship/equipment?"
The answer is...it depends! More expensive ships and equipment are not necessarily better for your playing style, because each comes with its own benefits and drawbacks. Some drawbacks are not easy to understand from the stats alone. You can always buy it and try it out - if you don't like it, sell it back! You always get a full refund, minus any damage or wear, so feel free to experiment.
"Can I tweak my equipment? What do the tuning options do?"
Yes, the Tuning menu allows you to adjust many details of how your ship and gear works! Weapon power, thruster power, station transit speed, autopilot behavior, nanodrone behavior, and a few other options can be adjusted in various ways. A full breakdown can be found here. All equipment should work well for most people on the default settings, but if you are running into an issue check this screen first. You should also review the tuning of any recovered derelict ships before flying them!
Non-gameplay
Features
"Multiplayer when?"
No.
"Can I have [insert technology with no grounding in real science or engineering here]?"
No.
"Can I have [insert technology with solid grounding in real science or engineering here]?"
Possibly. We've already added numerous ship upgrade including new reactor types, propulsion systems, drones and more based mostly off of players' proposals for how we can apply known engineering concepts. Of course, the more stuff we add, the narrower the niches for new upgrades etc become!
"Why are all crew members human?" or "Where are all the aliens?"
ΔV has no time for magitech like FTL travel, so there's next to zero chance of encountering actual real live aliens. The ΔV universe has fully sentient AI so we can probably expect to see them in future, but there probably won't be any little green men.