Rebel Galaxy Outlaw Beginner Guide – For New Outlaws

Welcome. First off, did you complete the Flight Training tutorial from the game’s main menu?

No? Go do that, I’ll wait…

So now you get how the basics work, insofar as I trust you can at least not fly yourself into the side of a station or asteroid. Good enough. Now I’m going to expand on what they taught you, and better yet, stuff that they utterly failed to mention.

If you’re remotely familiar with arcade flight games, then you probably already picked up on Rebel Galaxy Outlaw’s (RBO from here on out) two stand out gimmicks; Autopersuit, and Inertial Dampening.

Autopersuit is going to be your bread and butter in RBO. The game really wants you to play from the cockpit view, while also saddling you with an often largely obtrusive interior layout that hogs the screen, and a tight field of view (FOV) that effectively prevents any peripheral vision. Autopersuit will keep you glued to the afterburners of whoever you have targeted once you get close enough, leaving you to largely deal with adjusting your aim to account for projectile travel time (i.e. leading your target), while managing your power levels and ECM Packages.

Inertial Dampening is the other trick, however it is of rather niche application; so much so that you’ll probably forget you can do it by the time you get far enough into the game to be in a situation where it could be useful. When is it useful? Really, only when attacking stationary or relatively stationary targets. When will you find these? The defense turret platforms guarding supply depot missions, and the gun turrets on capitol ships (frigates, cruisers, and the like). Smart use of Inertial Dampening can allow you to keep yourself as a moving target, while maintaining a bead on a relatively slow moving and easy to hit target, without having to fly straight into it.

Missiles with homing capabilities, especially the swarms that some units can fire, are one of the largest threats to you and your ship. Effectively countering them is crucial to your survival, as the deck will quite frequently be stacked against you and your continued survival. Too bad the game never teaches you how to deal with them effectively. As the old saw goes, indeed the best defense is a good offense. Prioritizing enemy units that are equipped with swarm launchers, such as the Adze, Revenant, and Barghest, really helps to kneecap the amount of missiles flying your way (or towards your allies). After all, it’s kinda hard for them to operate a swarm launcher when they’ve been atomized into space dust.

The next best trick, at least for the early game when funds for upgrades are limited, is to quite literally shoot the homing missile down with your hardpoint weapons. This can be done a few different ways, and it helps to have rapid firing weapons for the task. If your ship turns aggressively (like the 110 degrees/second turning of the Sandhawk), you can just turn or use Inertial Dampening to bring your forward facing hardpoints to bear on the offending missiles. Some ships with turret mounts (such as the Sonora and it’s single rear facing turret), can be quickly swapped into and used to target and destroy missiles. If however you find yourself eating missiles to the face while playing chicken with enemy craft, I’d suggest going into the game’s Settings and scroll all the way down to the second to last option from the bottom, Aim Assist Only W/ Autopersuit, and set that option to YES.

This does exactly what it says on the tin, allowing you to disable auto-aim by letting go of the Left Trigger and exiting Autopersuit. This can allow you to quickly pick off incoming missiles without your forward facing hardpoint weapons auto-targeting the ship that fired them instead. This can also be useful in capital ship battles when you are attacking a specific weapon turret, and find it easier to just eyeball the needed lead for your weapons fire, rather than fuss with selecting a target in the heat of battle.

The final defense are ECM Packages, which are a defense system all ships can equip that allows them to launch decoys in the hopes of throwing off the homing system of the incoming missiles. This is a seperate piece of equipment, and crucially, it must be activated manually (R3 by default). That being said, the only ECM package really worth the effort is the final one, ECM Package 3, so skip the earlier two and just save up for that.

Then, once someone does launch a missile at you, simply click your right stick in and deploy your counter-measure. The same ship voice that warns you of impending enemy missiles will also tell you when a ECM has managed to successfully decoy. ECM Packages have a reload time, but don’t otherwise have or use expendable ammo, so use them early and often once you get a hold of one.

This is probably going to be one of your most used tools, as it gives you quick and easy access to most anything you want to do or know. So let’s give it a quick rundown, starting at 12 o’ clock, and moving clockwise along the menu.

Targeting Mode

This is probably what you’ll use this menu for the most, if you’re anything like me. When you open the Command Menu, the game slows to a crawl, but doesn’t stop. However accessing Targeting Mode freezes the game, and gives you access to a zoomed out view of your surrounding area, filled in with the information your ship radar and scanners currently display. When you’re preparing to go into a fight, or in the middle of one, checking this regularly is very helpful in maintaining situational awareness.

At the start of combat, it’s good to know who is actually targeting who, as indicated by an orange line when you move the map cursor over a unit. Doing so will also display the unit’s faction, ship type, any outstanding bounties, and current cargo; in addition to drawing an orange line from that unit to whoever they are currently targeting. At the start of a fight, it is good to know who is potentially targeting you, how many of them there are, and where they are coming from. It can make the difference between rushing headlong into a single fighter to blast them to pieces in a game of deadly chicken, or dumping all power into thrusters and shields to put distance between you and a swarm of enemies until they find something better to do than dogpile on you.

Photo Mode and Capture Film

Have fun messing around with them if you like, but they’re fluff options.

Outside of showing that the engine and the developers can indeed implement a dynamically adjustable camera FOV, but stubbornly refuse to implement in the game proper, there’s not much I’m interested in here. You certainly won’t lose a fight cause you don’t know how to operate Photo Mode.

Local Map

Probably the thing you’ll use the most when folks aren’t shooting at you. It opens up a 2D map of the local system, allowing you to quickly see all the relevant points of interests, in addition to any mission waypoints or map markers you’ve placed.

Crucial for knowing where you are, and where you need to go. Be sure to stop in every friendly and neutral station you can while in a system, and check their commodities market, so that economic information can be populated into the game’s Sector Map (the one you use to navigate between the various systems). You can place custom waypoints anywhere on the map, and they can be used as targets for your ship’s Auto-Pilot or Sublight navigation.

Transfer Power to Shields

This is the big one. How the game failed to mention this, I have no idea. This tool, when used correctly, can help save your ass in an emergency, or otherwise take the edge off a bad accident or mistake. This allows you to drain your energy reserves and give your shields a kickstart to regenerating. It seems like there is a slight delay before you notice shield levels return, but dumping your reserves certainly helps you get your shields back faster and stronger. This is why Powerplant size, and energy management, are crucially important resources to manage. If you have a mixed hardpoint loadout of ballistic and energy weapons, have good trigger discipline, and have an upgraded ship Powerplant with a large reserve, you can more easily take bad hits and keep rolling with the punches. These are some of the keys to being a successful, and alive, outlaw.

Transfer Shields to Power

Same as above, but far less useful. The only situation where I can think this might be useful, would be if you’re already in rough shape with a damaged Powerplant that has trouble supplying enough power to let you operate the ship. So if you’re trying to limp back to a station after a near death fight, this can help you use your shields as an energy reserve, to potentially dump into thrusters in an effort to outrun a fight if you get ambushed. I cannot think of any other situation where you’d be in such a desperate need of energy as to risk draining your shields for it.

Sector Map

Just a shortcut to the same map you can access from your Mission Menu. It shows a map of the whole of RBO’s systems, allowing you to see how they are connected, and their planets and stations. It also gets updated with economic data as you visit the various system stations and check out their commodity markets.

White lines are normal Jump Gate paths, while red lines represent unstable Jump Gates; these require the Shielded Jump Drive to use safely, otherwise your ship can incur (potentially severe) damage upon using the gate. Your active mission will be displayed with the yellow icon, and the most direct and safest path to it will be displayed in yellow lines. A personal path that you set, or just the path to system your cursor is currently hovering over, will be displayed in blue, and will turn to purple where it overlaps with the yellow lines.

Closest Mission

Does what it says on the tin. If you have multiple missions in system, it’ll make the one closest to you the primary one and change it’s UI icon accordingly.

Clear Waypoint

Yep, clears your custom set map waypoint.

Scan Area

This is another important tool in your arsenal, and will save you quite a bit of frustration from time to time. This pulses out a scan that can highlight other ships and points of interest far beyond the limited range of your combat radar system. Not only can this be used to scan the area for potential threats or bounties from a considerable distance, it can also likewise be used to find and hunt down mission important units that have gotten far away from the mission area (like a convoy protection mission refusing to complete when all immediate enemies are defeated, cause one lone pirate somehow either spawned or flew way out of the engagement area). It gives you a better idea of what is going on around you. It can also be combined with the Targeting Mode to see things just beyond your combat radar, useful for gaining intel before engaging with the enemy, and especially so if you find yourself in a situation where you need to try and bait out a few units from a much larger force.

Closest Station

Just sets a custom map waypoint on the nearest available station. Useful if you want a faster escape without bringing up the Local Map.

Power Management

Not part of the wheel menu, but still accessed from the Command Menu screen, power management is displayed on the left side of the screen. Balance is controlled with the D-Pad, where pressing. Each of your three ships systems, Engines, Shields, and Weapons, have their relative levels managed here. There is only so much power to go around, so boosting one system can only be done at the expense of one or both of the other systems.

The easiest way to think about this is that there are 6 points of energy to go around, and Balance gives all three systems 2 of those points. Just tapping on one will raise it 2 points (to 4) at the expense of lowering the other two to just 1 point, and a further boost can make one system cap at all six while lowering the others to 0. You can likewise also get 4, 2, and 0, or even 3 and 3, depending on the order you try to adjust the levels. 4 Engines, 2 Shields, 0 Weapons is great for evading amushes, while 0 Engine, 4 Shield, 2 Weapon (or 3 each) works wonders for trying to take down capitol ship turrets.

Get familiar with the system, and use it frequently. Even without an afterburner, just dumping everything into Engines can get you the speed you need to outrun some early game encounters.

Break for Distress Signals

Hey, do you want Auto-Pilot to stop when you detect a distress signal? No? Then toggle this option so it says Ignore Distress Signals with a red exclamation icon.

Call Buddy

You can find various NPC’s in the game that, if you help them with their troubles, they’ll return the favor. What this basically does is summon that Buddy to your location in their ship, and they’ll follow you around for 10 minutes. They’ll follow you around, can go on multiple missions, but entering a station will dismiss them early. You can also give them orders from the ship intercom system (the same one you use to hail other NPC ships), including the ability to dismiss them early if you want.

Once they’ve been dismissed, they have a 10 minute long cooldown before they can be summoned again. If you’ve helped out multiple folks, you can potentially have more than one Buddy willing to help out. You can pick which one you want to be your lifeline by going to their home station, and there will be a menu option as part of the station options (like Commodity, Missions, and the Guilds). Also, if a particular Buddy needs your help with something and is waiting on you with an active quest, they won’t be summonable. So either go help them out pronto, or swamp them with a different Buddy till then.

RBO’s progression system is, in a word, rough. It’s options are limited, and their importance varies greatly. Also, some systems and upgrades are hull limited, while others are not, leading to a very lopsided design that ends up gutting the utility and access to mid-tier options. Generally speaking, your best bet is to make do with what you got, until you can afford the best available option your ship can handle.

The Platypus is a Platform to Learn and Experiment On.

While on one hand it is entirely underwhelming, the stoic Platypus is quite adaptable (even if it is a flying garbage truck). You can use it to mine, trade, or fight; and get a feel for what you’re gonna enjoy doing going forward. It can equip everything you need to throw down, haul ass, and dig for riches. It can also accept up to Tier 2 Shields and Powerplants, ECM Package 3, the heaviest Duratanium Armor, and the full selection of hardpoint weapons.

Mining for Fun and Profit!

Probably the best option for early game money making, with big payouts and relatively low risk. It just takes some startup investment (Mining Laser, Mining Scanner, Tractor Beam, and the biggest Cargo upgrade your ship of choice can handle, and probably an Afterburner). Fly out to asteroid belts, nebulas, and other points of interest. Use your Area Scanner, and it’ll highlight resource deposits. Fly over to them, get close, and hit ’em with your mining laser. Hoover up the resources with your tractor beam, fly back to the closest station, and kick on the Afterburners in case of trouble. Rinse and repeat until you can afford whatever you want. If you want the most efficient way to grind up to afford an end-game ship like the Durston heavy hauler or the Coyote fighter, this is how you do it.

Picking a Ship that Fits the Bill

Having the right ship for the right job will make your life easier. While you can haul some cargo in a Coyote fighter, it’s gonna be tight and very limited. Sure you can outgun anything interested in your measly 5 to 9 tonnes of cargo, but that really limits your trading options. Likewise, the flying behemoth Durston can haul between 24 and 44 tonnes, but with an anemic turning speed and a top speed that makes the Platypus seem spritely, probably not the best option for duking it out with your local Pirate Lord.

Unfortunately, here’s where the game’s limited roster rears its ugly head. The game only has 12 ships, and of those, fully half of them are end-game ships (being able to equip both Tier 4 Shields and Powerplants). Not only that, but 4 of them are variants of the stock roster, and only accessible through a mid-game quest line that is very easy to miss, and takes considerable time and effort to complete even if you make a beeline for it. Two more ships are also locked behind that quest, or other hard to get to vendors in late-game territories. This leaves the mid-tier ship options lacking and hard to get to, making a strong argument to just save up for a Durston or Coyote.

Get Yer Dwarf On

If you’re digging mining, but want to get out of the Platypus, the most straightforward upgrade is the SPZ. You can use the single hardpoint for your mining laser, and rely on the two turret mounts to provide some protection. You won’t be dogfighting in this, so it’s upgraded Shields, top speed, maneuverability, and cargo space (12 default, 22 max), make it a nice quality-of-life upgrade over the poor Platypus.

Space Trucker

Maybe upgrade to the Sonora, but keep in mind that it is an all-rounder, and kinda all the weaker for it. The end goal is the Durston, or its variant the Beluga, but this is assuming that you are going to focus mostly on trading and running from fights. Don’t let the Sonora’s 3 hardpoints fool you, it is not a fighter craft, in the same way the Bloodhawk is. It is still limited to the same Tier 2 Powerplant and Shields as the lowly Platypus, and it’s Sequoia variant that can make use of Tier 3 upgrades, is locked behind that station restoration quest.

All the Dakka-Dakka!

Take your pick. Get the Sandhawk, or just go right for the Coyote. Once you finish the station restoration quest in Eureka, you can have fun trying out some of the other end-game craft, like the Foxbat, Blood Eagle, Dingo, or even the Mattock if you are feelin’ real saucy. They all can equip Tier 4 Powerplants and Shields, and plenty of weapon and missile hardpoints.

Do All The Things!?

Don’t.

Just, don’t.

Learn from my mistakes. Being an all rounder puts yourself at a pretty severe handicap until you reach late game and can get your hands on a Mattock. Being an all-rounder means that you’re often filled with enough cargo to attract the wrong kind of attention from the game’s procedural encounter generator, but you lack the firepower, defenses, speed, and maneuverability to handle that kind of heat. Plus, your only real option is the lowly Sonora until after the Eureka station restoration, and by the time you’re done with that, you’ll probably be able to skip over the Sequoia and go right for the Mattock. There just aren’t any good, easily accessible, mid-tier options for general purpose ships. If you want to haul, there are better ships. If you want to fight, there are better ships. Being general purpose means you trade in being good for one thing in exchange for being passable at everything, but passable can quickly slip into less so depending on your other upgrades or the situation you find yourself in. Probably the most frustrating and disappointing path to take. Sorry.