Welcome to the official blog of The Emerald Circle, a Dark Orbit Clan. The Emerald Circle – tag [TEC] – is one of the top-10 ranked clans on the USA West server, and a proud member of VRU (Venus) Company. [TEC] has written an extensive series of guides to Dark Orbit for our newbie members that we call our 101 series. Each contains information contributed by the most experienced Dark Orbit players to aid you, the new player, in quickly getting up to speed and enhancing your enjoyment of the game. We post this here on our blog not only for the benefit of our own clan’s members, but all Dark Orbit players, especially those new to the game. Feel free to comment and let us know what you think, and, of course, add your own wisdom! Thanks for visiting!
The Emerald Circle – A Dark Orbit Clan
April 11, 2009 at 8:29 am (Clan News)
Tags: Dark Orbit, New Player Guide
Dark Orbit 101: Galaxy Gates
April 11, 2009 at 3:52 am (Dark Orbit 101 Series)
Tags: Dark Orbit, Galaxy Gate, New Player Guide
Galaxy Gates are special gates that take you to another part of the galaxy, where you get slammed by aliens and die, or survive to fight another day 
Ok, that’s a bit simplistic, but you get the general idea.
To get a Galaxy Gate, you have to build one. To build one, go to the home page and click “Galaxy Gates.”
There, you will find a big blue button that says “Energy” with a number after it. This button works like a simple slot machine, in essence. (In fact, you’ll often hear more experienced players joke about having to “pull the arm” or “play the slots” – they are referring to the Galaxy Gate materializer on the home page. ) Read the rest of this entry »
Dark Orbit 101: Killing, Part 3 – Around and Around We Go!
April 11, 2009 at 3:36 am (Dark Orbit 101 Series)
Tags: Dark Orbit, New Player Guide
These are some simple ways to kill aliens and reduce your ship damage and risk of death in Dark Orbit. The most important one, without a doubt, is circling.
Other than Streuners in 3-1, you should get in the habit of circling most of the aliens you kill. If your ship is strong enough that you can destroy the alien within a few seconds, don’t bother circling – just take the small hits. But otherwise, most aliens should be circled.
A common mistake – Read the rest of this entry »
Dark Orbit 101: Ship Configurations
April 11, 2009 at 3:28 am (Dark Orbit 101 Series)
Tags: Dark Orbit, New Player Guide
This first chapter in the Dark Orbit 101 series is about ship configurations, an important but often underlooked aspect of the game.
On the home page, there is a button called Equipment. Here you can change your ship’s “configuration” – which is just a fancy way of saying you can set up your ship two different ways.
Most of us Read the rest of this entry »
Dark Orbit 101: Killing Part 2 – Picking Your Target Profitably
April 11, 2009 at 3:26 am (Dark Orbit 101 Series)
Tags: Dark Orbit, New Player Guide
When you are killing alone, you want to pick targets you can handle on your own, while at the same time, make as much money as possible without spending even more time than you already do playing this game! That means pick your target wisely.
Basically, go for the kills that you know you can do single-handedly, but are still somewhat challenging. For most of us under level 12, that means Mordons, Saimons, Lordakais, and Streuners.
Streuners are, of course, Read the rest of this entry »
Dark Orbit 101: Killing – The Very Basics
April 11, 2009 at 3:08 am (Dark Orbit 101 Series)
Tags: Dark Orbit, New Player Guide
In Dark Orbit, killing is how we make most of our credits and uri. You want to kill as much as you can, as often as you can, and, of course, as cheaply as you can. To whatever extent is possible, you always want to try to combine your kills with quests, so you can make even more money.
Believe it or not, there are three basic components to killing: Strategy, Technique, and Economics. All three of these aspects will be covered in the killing messages to come.
Killing is obviously very simple: Read the rest of this entry »
Dark Orbit 101: Death and Dying
April 11, 2009 at 2:56 am (Dark Orbit 101 Series)
Tags: Dark Orbit, New Player Guide
Death and dying. The universe can be a dangerous and cruel place, especially when you find yourself dead, broke, and without any uri much less credits. What should you do? Whine and cry? NO. Beg and plead? NO. Get over it and get busy? YES! But how do to that when you are driving around in a Mini Cooper (Phoenix) with zero credits and uri? Simple: You sit in sector one, you collect boxes and ore, and kill Streuners. Lots of Streuners. If you work hard, you’ll be in a Nostromo within an hour or so!
There is, of course, a better way: Become rich and powerful! But how to do that in such a dark and risky world? It’s simple: Kill more, die less, spend smart. Let’s start with dying less. Read the rest of this entry »
