Troubleshooting

Sometimes things don’t go as smoothly as we all hope. Here are a couple of troubleshooting tips when FastTrek isn’t doing what you expect.

Use the Setup Wizard

The wizard shows solutions to common problems:

Optimise game settings

e.g. Windowed mode

Community Mod

Automatically install the Mod for large game windows (usually on 4k).
Automatically adjust scaling settings.

Tests Interaction

Checks screen reading and keyboard input.

Check the ‘Start’ tab

FastTrek’s Start tab may show a warning to alert you to certain issues, such as if the game is partially covered or if the game has been resized.

This works

Does not work – HUD/ships covered

Does not work – Ships covered

Keep the game visible

The core HUD and docks need to remain visible at all times to allow FastTrek to determine both the screen the game is on and the status of each ship.
Please see the examples shown (with an older version of FastTrek).

Re-run ship detection

Ship detection underpins all ship-related functionality.
In this screenshot the game window is covered (obscured), so ship status can’t be read. In addition, the game has been resized. Both would contribute to ships not performing as expected.

If this screen shows an ‘unknown’ status, please ensure that the window itself isn’t covering, as per ‘Keep the game visible’.

Please note: With no automations running, the status display may lag behind the game by up to 10 seconds to conserve system resources.

Other Common Issues

Here are solutions to some commonly encountered issues.

FastTrek isn’t finding the game window

Make sure the game is running and not minimised to the taskbar. Sometimes the game launches in Administrator, in which case you can try restarting the game in non-Admin mode, or starting FastTrek in Admin mode.

All ships work except Dock number ‘X’

Please check ship detection, which shows your ships in order.
Also check for a duplicate key mapping, i.e. more than one dock using the same access key.

Explanation:
If they appear out of order (e.g. Dock F shows what you expect to be Dock G), and if you bought Dock G but haven’t yet unlocked Dock F in the game, please check for a double mapping of the selection key for that dock. If both F and G are mapped to ‘6’, FastTrek may think that Ship F was selected when it should have been Ship G.
The solution is to map all docks to separate keys.

Unable to pass “Screen Detection” in the wizard

If you have checked everything else, this could be a problem with not being able to connect to FastTrek servers. Please check your Firewall, VPN, or other internet security software and allow FastTrek to make outbound connections to all services on *.fasttrek.space. Turning your VPN (or other security) off temporarily is also a good test to see if this is the problem. You can then look at configuring split tunnelling, for example.

During Ship Detection, it freezes on ‘Detecting’

Please ensure that you have a captain in every ship (otherwise it can’t be selected, but will open Ship Management instead). Please also check your Firewall/VPN, as per “Unable to pass Screen Detection” above.

‘Start’ is greyed out on some or all ships

Two possible reasons: Ship Detection or Server connectivity.
If you have just installed FastTrek and have run ship detection successfully, but the ‘start’ button is still disabled on some or all ships, restarting FastTrek usually resolves this problem.
If it doesn’t, please check your Firewall/VPN as per “Unable to pass Screen Detection” above.

FastTrek moves the system around and keeps switching ships. Not targeting anything.

Hostile Type filters:
Please check that you haven’t inadvertently asked FastTrek to target types or levels of hostiles that don’t exist in the system. For example, Borg Probes are usually Battleships. If you select only Explorers in that case, FastTrek won’t find anything to engage. To troubleshoot, please try selecting all or none to see if that works (none means the same as ‘any’).

Hostile levels:
Due to OCR limitations (and Scopely’s number font), the hostile levels in some systems cannot be read reliably. Please try removing level restrictions. If you cannot kill all hostiles within a system, it may be worth moving one level lower until you can ‘set and forget’ it.

Lag:
If you are running multiple ships, there may be a delay between switching systems. Open “Adv. Settings” and under “Performance Tuning” increase the “System Load Delay”. This increases the time it allows for a star system to load fully (mining nodes and ships visible) before trying to search for targets. A delay of 2000-3500ms can work wonders, especially when there is lag.

FastTrek is targeting hostiles, but doesn’t engage them, or clicks randomly around the system

1. Try restarting the game. Sometimes graphics can get messed up and hostiles appear to the bot as player ships or other targets that it shouldn’t engage.

2. Open “Adv. Settings” and under “Performance Tuning” increase the “Dialog Load Delay”. This increases the time it allows for the “Attack” dialog to open.

3. Try a different system. Some system backgrounds (in particular Singularities/Black Holes and some reddish shades) can interfere with hostile detection.

4. If using the community mod, check if ‘loot preview’ is enabled (clicking a hostile or other target will show its loot instead of its image and strength).
The default shortcut to toggle this feature is Alt+4. If targeting works without this, please disable it by default.

I can see FastTrek moving the mouse, but it doesn’t actually ‘click’

Go to Settings > Advanced and increase the mouse click duration. This is the average time for which a mouse button is held down. A longer duration can improve click realiability, however, for moving targets (hostiles) it could result in the click ‘lagging behind’, especially in systems with fast-moving hostiles.
You are welcome to experiment with this setting to find something that works well for you and on your computer.

Another possible option is to use the community mod. The mod introduces keyboard shortcuts for many actions that in the stock game can only be performed with the mouse. This makes things like confirming a target or repairing a ship quicker, more reliable, and more pleasant even for manual play.

More help needed? Just ask!

I’m only an email away. If something isn’t working, please don’t give up, I’m sure it can be resolved.
Let me know and I’ll do what I can to help or fix the problem.

[email protected]

FastTrek

Use the Setup Wizard

Optimise game settings

Community Mod

Tests Interaction

Check the ‘Start’ tab

Keep the game visible

Re-run ship detection

Other Common Issues

More help needed? Just ask!

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