Tutorial: How to fly the Barge

[TheKusari]

HOW TO FLY

- THE BARGE -

FT. MY THOUGHTS ON THE VESSEL

So, you're looking at this page thinking, I got the fifteen billion credits, should I spend all of it on getting the Barge? After reading this guide, I hope you have your answer. After getting one myself a while ago, decided to compile my experience and thoughts on this gigantic ship. In comparison to other players, my experience and use is fairly short. I'd like to say that my experience would still be helpful in helping someone decide to purchase it or not. So with that out of the way, let's get underway.

First part, I'll list the pros and cons. Might be the easiest and most straightforward way to get my thoughts out, I'll elaborate further on.

Pros and Cons

PROS	CONS
30,000 units Lump sum profit Quicker than a Train	15,000,000,000 price Piracy Magnet General Movement Docking / Lanes / Gates / Bases

Pros first.

• 30,000 units

Once your Barge is filled by a generous Miner, or you purchased your cargo from a PoB, you're now carrying 6x the amount of a train. Once you finish your trip and sell off your goods, that's essentially 6 trips you have done in one. If you're hauling stuff back and forth with a 5k'er, your miner may need to log out, or something happens where the two of you cant meet. Where the Barge wins (in my head) is that once it's filled and you're moving, that's 6 rounds of 5k'ers (where you may have stopped at round 4) If that makes any sense at all. Fill a barge, guaranteed 6 normal runs.

• Lump sum profit

This one is easy, whatever profit you'd be making as a 5k train, multiply that by 6. Each trip is longer, you're carrying more, sometimes more efficient (more on that later) but you get a bigger payout.

• Quicker than a Train

This one goes hand in hand with the general movement part of the CONS section. Most people ask me why trade in a barge? Efficiency, mostly. Also the slow art of piloting the Barge is calming to me, could be frustrating to you. For trade runs using the Barge, pick routes that have trade lanes. You'll find that with a standard 5k transport, most of your travel time is in lanes. That's also true with the Barge, even if it takes an extra minute or so to fly between intersections. Longer trips are more efficient than shorter ones with the Barge, since most of your time will be spent in the lanes, not flying between them. The helium run between Sigma-59 and Pennsylvania has been a great source of income, the only pain is the open space between the mining zones.

Cons now.

• 15,000,000,000 credits

Massive purchase price, unless you have money to burn or you somehow get one at a reduced price (like me!) Reading "Quicker than a Train" and "General Movement" will get you a small idea of how quickly you can make your investment back.

• Piracy Magnet

Since this ship moves super duper slowly, getting a lane disrupted or getting caught in a position where you can't dock, you're pretty much done for. Once your char name is known by pirates, you'll most likely become hunted down and best case you'll be down 50-100 million. Be mindful as it will inevitably happen.

• General Movement

The most important advice here, probably. This thing is huge, heavy and a pain in the ass to move. You're flying at 25m/s, and after 3 minutes, you'll be cruising at 90m/s. To judge if you need to cruise to reach your next waypoint, or not. If you're over 5k's, start to cruise, if you're under 5ks, don't bother. When you're moving between trade lanes, I'd suggest utilizing the lane eject feature. If the next lane is on your right hand side, use the lane eject at the last second to be facing the lane. Set a handful of keys for strafing, that will be your best friend for movement. Turning and strafing will save you time moving around. Trust me, you'll definitely need practice with it. Lining up trade lanes and such using those two things will make it real easy.

• Docking / Lanes / Gates / Bases

Place the circular tube thing on the front of the Barge on the docking light, you're in. The "trigger" for trade lanes is located halfway down the cockpit on the barge. Once you get the feel for it, you can quick dock lanes easily. The image below is a quick thing I put together to illustrate docking points and trade lane triggers. Jump Gates are super duper easy, fly right into it, once you're at 250m, press dock. You'll be pulled straight in.

At this point in time, that's all I got. If it helps you, yay. If not, well at least I got this out there.

Godspeed out there.

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