The first 15 minutes

Voidborn has no quest system, no quest log and no NPC to lead you. The first fifteen minutes are a route: a chain of places, and a one-line objective chip under the pilot card that says the next thing to do. There are two routes. Both end at a counter with something to buy.

1. The door

The client opens on the door. It asks for a callsign, a password and an address for recovery; the account is created there (the site has no separate registration).

Then three questions:

• Where were you raised? Concord, Sepulchre or Ashaari. Permanent, and it carries no stats; it gives you a voice and an identity. The three colonies.
• What is your class? Vanguard, Stalker, Corsair or Warden. Classes and hulls.
• What is your pilot’s name? An account has four berths; the first pilot takes one.

2. What you start with

Everyone starts in the same hull, the Ageia G57-X, with the same three things fitted: Pulse Cannon I, Mining Laser I and Cargo Bay I. All of it is issued - it flies like anything else and no counter will buy it back. The purse is 600 credits whichever colony raised you. The hull carries 60 m³ and the bay adds 90; your class then multiplies that (a Warden carries more, a Stalker less).

So there is no bay to buy; the first sale funds the next thing.

3. The miner’s route

There is no rock at home; that is the economy, not a suggestion. M opens the chart: your colony’s Shallows is one jump away, open at rank 1, with no PvP and no patrol. J warps.

Close on a rock and hold Left click / F. The rock breaks; fly into what came out of it and the hold fills (I opens it). Just outside the rock disc stands the Shallows’ own Mining post: dock with R, sell with G at ×1.10. The chip’s send-off line names the lesson: the Port at home pays best. Fill the hold again, warp home, and the Trade port pays ×1.35 - the best rate in the game, because it sells you nothing. Two receipts, one lesson: tools at the Mining post, money at the Trade port. Mining.

4. The second path: the fighter’s route

The same pilot, the same cannon, a different first counter.

1. Dock at home’s Arms wing and open The rolls. It posts a cull writ for the threat-1 sectors on your own Compact’s spine - three kills at threat 1. Take it.
2. Warp there. A patrol is something you can watch: a drone attacks only if you shoot it or fly into its face. T locks; your cannon reaches 1.8 km, its gun 1.2. A starter cannon takes a threat-1 drone down in about six seconds.
3. Each wreck spills silicon. Fly into it - the same verb the miner learns. The writ line on the HUD counts the kills.
4. Warp home, dock at the Arms wing: it buys ore at the floor rate (×0.85) - the scissors from the other side - and Collect pays the writ, a small share of the spill’s value. The XP is the point.
5. Buy Shield Cell I at 600 credits. It goes in the Systems mount and adds a fifth to a shield that comes back on its own.

Both routes reach a purchase at about the same minute; neither is the game, both are the on-ramp. Combat.

If you die on the way

You almost cannot in the Shallows; if you do, the hold spills where you died and holds ten minutes, the fitting stays on the new hull, and you wake at home. Death.