More newbie stuff

[bmills]

I'm playing in a large, cluster map, but once I explored my little corner I discovered that there are no jump points to the rest of the map. Can this be true? Am I marooned, or is there some alternative way to send ships across empty space?

What's the deal with fighters? I've designed a few and tried them out in the simulator, but in every fight a normal ship fires once and bLasts however many scads of fighters I've tried to send against it in one volley. What's the trick?