I have never played this game before, but it certainly looks like a good deal of fun and after watching a lot of Firefly recently, it seems like this game could give me a fix!
However, my ship seems to have no weapons!
I have looked everywhere that I can, I have done what I guess is the first 'Quest', but I still do not have a weapon. I have tried using every button on the keyboard, looked in the Device Area, and even tried to use the one Device thing that I 'acquired' from a certain lunar spot... yet still no guns.
How do I go about obtaining a weapon, so the ugly bugger that comes to kill me stops raising it's kill count...
The primary weapon is right-shift. Secondary weapon right-control. Your flagship is armed with an Ion Bolt Gun from the start of the game. Your cruiser escort is also armed, and much better at killing things initially.
When in 'exploration mode' (exploring solar systems, hyperspace, etc.) you can't fire weapons at all.
You can only fire weapons in 'melee' mode. Melee mode is where battles are fought. If you meet an alien and select 'attack', or if you converse with an alien and engage battle mode (either by saying something along the lines of 'prepare to die!' or because of a natural flow of dialogues or because of the alliance the alien is in)....
Depending on your operating system and such things, it's somewhat possible, that the key defined for shooting simply doesn't exist on your keyboard.
Here's how you can redefine the keys: In the main menu go to Setup In the Setup menu choose Configure Controls In the Controls Configuring menu choose Edit Controls (it's the 3rd lowest menu entry). Choose Weapon from the Controls Editing menu and press Enter. Now press the key you'd like to define for weapon. You should also define Special to some nice key. Special is the secondary weapon/ability that most ships have got. The depressed race can turn their ships invincible with that key, the stereotypical dudes in the northwest use it for teleporting to safe distance away from a potential killer and the cowards with nice ships use it for firing missiles from their butts.
And the new-agers should to use their special all the time in order to function at all, really. I'd say that's the most important special use of all, and it's likely to come up very early.