Elite: Dangerous

[novicius]

I downloaded the trial version for free and have been going through the tutorials. It is really spaceflight simmy -- which has pros & cons.

Pro: realistic(-ish) Newtonian physics, detailed HUD, realistic space settings

Con: Realistic space settings are dull :lol:

Reynard should love this game, it's like Zero-G Fighters on Xbox 360. Realistic, simmy, patience required. :up:

[Reynard]

Heh, good one Novi. Turns out I've been playing it since it launched in December... evidence: https://youtu.be/1GeWX04UcuM ;)

I have no complaints, it's a damn impressive game with a lot on offer and always expanding in it's content. But from a personal perspective and this could apply to any other modern MMO I suppose (when I used to play War Thunder I felt the same) in that to get the most out of these games, you need to play them practically everyday. Try playing for a couple hours a week and you're soon left behind in the wake of all those who dedicate far more time to it then you. It's then that these games start to feel like a second job and that is quite off putting for me tbh. :lol:

[Yw-slayer]

This is going to be one of the first things I buy after I get an Oculus Rift (Eve: Valkyrie will probably be THE first). I know someone who plays it on the Oculus DK with a full HOTAS setup. But I agree with the general tenor of Reynard's comments.

[Cam]

Elite: Deleted :lol:

No, seriously. I gave this a go today. First thing I started were tutorials, of course. Unfortunately, "Go shoot stuff!" is not a tutorial. I couldn't figure out the controls. It turned me off immediately. I'm not giving up on it just yet. I'll go back some other day and look up the control scheme.

[Alan P]

I didn't even realise there was a thread. I've been playing on and off on PC but I kind of got bored. I know, you're probably thinking 'how? It's humongously massive!' But there really isn't a huge amount to do at the moment. It feels about as deep as a puddle. Sure the puddle is the size of the Pacific but it's still only a few inches deep. You can't do more than dabble in anything, there isn't the support or in game structure to completely immerse yourself into any one thing.

[Cam]

I seem to remember getting this game for free. I booted it up to give it another go and there was a 6 Gb update. :eek: Once I got it started up, it told me I had two hours left on my trial. :?

[novicius]

Yup there was a free (and short) trial period but the full game costs $40, I believe.

I've fiddled around with it here and there -- I'm not good at the ship-to-ship combat, if you can believe that. But I've got the docking and landing down pat! :lol:

[Yw-slayer]

LOL. I nearly bought it but read a few reviews which mentioned the problem Alan encountered.

I've bought No Man's Sky. That should have more stuff to do, and it should be slightly prettier.

[Kchrpm]

YW -
This is completely unfair of me, but please, PLEASE, ignore your family and play No Man's Sky and tell us about it. I don't own any hardware that can play it, but the premise and possibilities seem so wonderful.

[Yw-slayer]

I think it's also being released on the PS4. It shouldn't be an issue to buy one.

[Kchrpm]

I am not buying a PS4 for one game.

[Cam]

I gave this an honest go today. There are more tutorials now, not just one or two flight and shoot tutorials. Despite that, they're still too stingy with the hints on how to complete tasks. It took me 6-7 minutes of bumping around a landing pad just to dock. I thought there was some button you had to press or something. The time almost ran out before I was able to park in the right place. I was able to figure things out and enjoyed it a bit more. Opening the galaxy map made my eyes pop out of my head. There are countless systems to visit. Seriously, there must be thousands. :eek: I think I would enjoy it once I got into it, but I don't think I will buy it at this time. Maybe if it's on sale in the future.

[TheBenior]

I am not buying a PS4 for one game.

But then you could play games online with Janelle and me!


Which we rarely do. ;)

[21Kid]

And me!!!

[Yw-slayer]

And ME!!!!

[Alan P]

And m....wait a minute. I don't have a PS4. Join the Master Race and get a PC!

[Cam]

As a side note, as I was looking at space-sim stuff on Wikipedia, I clicked through to this. Just thought it was crazy and interesting. :eek:


The Bloodbath of B-R5RB or Battle of B-R5RB was a massive-scale virtual battle fought in the MMORPG space game EVE Online, and was possibly the largest player versus player battle ever. Pitting the Clusterfuck Coalition and Russian alliances (CFC/Rus) against N3 and Pandemic Legion (N3/PL), the 21 hour long conflict involved over 7,548 player characters overall and a maximum of 2,670 players in the B-R5RB system at one time. The in-game cost of the losses totalled over 11 trillion InterStellar Kredit (ISK), an estimated theoretical real-world value of $300,000 to $330,000 USD. This theoretical value is derived from time cards which are purchasable for real currency and can be converted into a tradable item in-game.

Full article. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodbath_of_B-R5RB)

[Cam]

Anyone ever play Escape Velocity on the Mac? Jeez, that was 20 years ago. :eek: Elite: Dangerous is totally EV for this generation.

[Cam]

Alright, I bought it for the Xbone. Still trying to get a hang of it. I think I got the flying and docking down. Even fought off my first pirate and got a bounty. Alas, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to deliver a damn package. :? I got fined because I messed it up somehow. They don't make it intuitive at all. :(

[Alan P]

Usually through the notice board there will be an option to redeem your mission.

[Cam]

This game is kind of frustrating. I have not played much yet, but twice already, I've been interdicted, immediately incapacitated, then destroyed. WTF am I supposed to do against that? :mad: Another time, I made the mistake of investigating a distress call. I was immediately attacked and destroyed by about six ships. I want to like this game, but it's trying hard to drive me away. :?

"Welcome to your first day of Elite: Dangerous. We're going to destroy you several times with no hope of you doing anything about it. Isn't that awesome?"

[Kchrpm]

I have a feeling that there are people who love that type of game. Are there how-to's or anything online that explains how to avoid the normal pre-badass pitfalls?

[Cam]

Yes. I have not examined at them very closely. It was not until after the game screwed me three times that I actually looked that stuff up. I learned pretty early to outrun dudes that are trying to shoot me. Still, nothing would have helped me with the interdiction/incapacitation BS.

[Kchrpm]

That is why I do not like games with unbridled PvP. I'm assuming it is other players that are griefing you, and not horrific AI location/programming.

[Cam]

No, it's the AI. I'm playing solo mode, where I do not interact with real players. I was afraid I would get attacked in every system if I did the free, open mode. I was hoping solo would be somewhat safe. I was wrong. This game is trial by fire. :thppt:

[Reynard]

Take this with a grain of salt as I haven't played the game for quite some time... as in before having "wings" (squadrons) existed let alone Horizons with it's planetary landings. Anyway, I played Open 90% of the time and rarely had any truly hard times getting attacked on a regular basis. When I did I was pretty good at evading interdictions with their little reticule dual (as I call it) mini game once the interdiction starts but perhaps that is harder to win with a gamepad? if I did get pulled out though it would simply be evaluating my opponent to see if a fight was even an option or not. Usually not if I was just running cargo in a ship kitted out for that purpose I would have no offensive weapons at all and it's just dump some cargo and run but that's not really my point. Though I wonder if it's possible that they upped the AI frequency & aggressiveness in Solo mode since I played. I remember there was a lot of folks playing the game that were not happy with players just working the trade routes to death pretty much unmolested in Solo mode.

The important thing I want say is that the Milky Way is just so damn huge that it shouldn't be a problem finding some open space so to speak. The main thing you want to do early on is venture out and away from wherever you started as that is almost always going to be the most crowded. I moved out right away and found my own little slice of the galaxy early on with 4 systems fairly close with some good trade routes within and one with some good technology for buying good parts in their shipyard. Was it the most profitable sector to be in, of course not, that's where you'll find the most trouble at any given time. However it was quiet, I'd be lucky to encounter another commander once every 10 hours worth of playtime I'd imagine and they were almost never hostile. Then I was able to grind away to get enough dosh to get some more and better equipped ships that allowed me to broaden my play styles and venture back to more populous space. The Cobra MkIII is prolly the best all around ship to shoot for early on (if you stick with it) as it can be outfitted for any role reasonably well (Hauling, fighting or exploring). That's what I made most of my initial bankroll with once I mapped out a nice rare goods trade route to run with it. Before I stopped playing I had 4 different ships scattered about the galaxy, an Eagle for racing/fun, a Viper for Bounty Hunting & 2 separate Type 6's. One outfitted for max payload/speed and another I turned into a right fine explorer. And that was about the time I got burned out with the massive time sink the game had become for me. ;) I keep telling myself I'll start playing again but just never get around to it. I even make sure my game is updated to the latest version so if I do, at least I won't have a change of heart while I'm waiting 30 minutes to download all the updates I've missed the past 9 months.

Obviously you could peruse the forums here if you so wish. There are usually some good user created guides/resources to be found.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=29

Also another nice little tool I used a bunch is the Elite Shipyard for playing with different possible ship configurations before spending any money in game.

http://www.edshipyard.com/

Well good luck Commander Cam, with whatever the you choose to do in the end.

[Cam]

Thanks Rey. I started to play open mode. I haven't seen another real player yet, that I know of.

I started out making deliveries. The game gave me an Eagle in a nearby shipyard and I've been using that since picking it up. I've just been doing simple safe missions, but they have not been lucrative. I've collected a few bounties on dudes that I was able to fend off after they attacked me. I'm constantly seeing things to investigate as I'm flying. I gave up investigating them, however, as they always seem to be traps. I saved up enough to upgrade the Eagle for longer range. I don't get how to explore unknown systems yet. I'll have to look through the play guides.

[Cam]

It's tough for a spacer to make an honest living out there. The majority of the stuff available on the bulletin boards are illegal. :lol:

I don't get why salvaging is illegal though. I somehow got a 500 spacebuck bounty on me. I don't know where or how, but it was either from speeding near a station or having salvage cargo. :?

[Kchrpm]

There are speed limits in space? The more things change, the more things stay the same.

[Cam]

Yes, near space stations.

I'm surprised how much dough you can make simply by flying around uninhabited star systems. :eek: at one point, I was skirting the edge of inhabited space, considering doing some exploration. Alas, I do not have a good enough ship to do that very well. I have a Viper MKIII right now. Maybe once I get a Cobra I can do some real exploring. I decided to head toward Sol instead, just to have a look. Hopefully, I can get the required permit to visit. :roll:

I'm writing this as I wait for my ship to fly to a station at an extreme orbit around its star. I've already been waiting for it for ten minutes. It's going to take another 45, probably. Who thought this was a good idea? :? I read about the waiting times to fly to other places. I thought they were just exaggerating. I have not had to fly for more than a couple of minutes to get to a space station, until now, and I've been to about 100 systems. (I read a comment from a dude on the Elite Wiki that claimed he visited over 20,000 systems. :eek: )

As I was typing this, my speed has just surpassed 1,600 times light speed and the time to get there is telling me one hour. My speed is increasing, but not very quickly. My controller will shut off if I just walk away from it. Seriously, Frontier? :roll: This has to be a glitch in the game or something. Who would take the piss like that? I'll let this finish, but I'm not flying this far again.

[Cam]

It topped out at over 1,800 times light speed before starting to slow down. Your speed decreases as you approach large masses like stars. I'm still 20 minutes out though. :(

[Cam]

Seriously, Frontier, this is brutal. :smh:

[Leon]

The game sounds technically fascinating, but I don't think I'm interested in the time sink (not specifically the one you are mentioning Cam, but just in general).

I'd be buying for X-box if I were buying.

I looooooved the Elite I used to play on an Acorn Electron as a child. In fact I remember playing such a marathon session on a green screen monitor that I ended up violently unwell with the worst migraine of my life ;)

[Cam]

I'm enjoying it for the most part.

OK, since I had some time, I discovered that players call it a "long haul." One of a very few in the game, to Hutton Orbital in the Alpha Centauri system. There have even been contests and even a web site that you can brag that you actually did the haul. :lol:

[Cam]

I think I got ganked earlier today too. I was interdicted, then destroyed by three ships before I could even figure out what was going on. I realize that it's allowed in the game, and it's a risk I have to take playing open. Still, I don't get the appeal of greifing.

[Leon]

that would be because you're not a douchebag.

Unfortunately, there is a whole culture of douchebags in any online game.

[Reynard]

Ah crap, I wish I had remembered to mention Hutton Orbital before... like I said it's been a while. I was lucky enough to have read about it when I was playing to not make that trip. Sorry man. :( Still though, it does kinda bring home just how vast just our little corner of the galaxy is let alone the universe as we know it. Not that you needed to be enlightened to that fact Cammie. ;)

[Alan P]

LOL when he started talking about taking an absolute age to get there I just KNEW he was talking about Hutton Orbital!

[Cam]

I'm just amazed by the scope of the number of systems you can visit--not just thousands, but hundreds of thousands of systems. :eek: It would take me months of real-time playing to make my way to the galactic core... if I was inclined to do that. ;) I would make some serious exploration dough if I did. :scratchchin:

After about 20 hours of play, I saw my first confirmed real player. He warped to his next system before I could say hi. (I cannot confirm that the earlier gang bang by three ships was perpetrated by human players, as it happened so fast.)

[Cam]

I have a Cobra now, as per Rey's suggestion. I outfitted it as best I could afford as an explorer. I need to find a good scanner first before heading out to deep space.

[Cam]

Hertz Station is a pretty long haul too at 10-15 real minutes travel time. Nowhere near the ~hour to Hutton Orbital, however.

[Leon]

I've spent a couple of hours just watching Elite vids on Youtube now, you bastard ;)

Do you need XBox gold account to play? My googling on this question has resulted in my futility.

[Cam]

I don't know. I have gold. You may be able to play, just not with other real players. Try the demo?

[Leon]

Fired up Xbox for first time in months.

Turns out it works better when plugged in.

Looked for free trial, couldn't find it. Game page says Gold is needed.

Attempt to purchase game online, unable to progress beyond address line three which forces US State name to be selected. So that rather puts an end to that idea unless I can actually find the game physically in a store.

Yayyyyyyy murica*

*in defense of the box, I am pretty sure I had to convince it I was in USA previously to download free Neverwinter. So I made a rod for my own back it seems.

[Reynard]

No gold/murica needed for PC play. :assclown:

[Yw-slayer]

#pcmasterrace

[Cam]

GAME BOX AND WORK BOX MUST BE SEPARATE!

[Yw-slayer]

So get a gaming pc, duh. #pcmasterrace

[Cam]

Some of us don't have more money than brains.

[Cam]

Well, here I go, into the vastness of the unknown. I might never make it back.

:sing:
This is Major Cam to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

[Cam]

I tried to plot a route toward the centre of the galaxy, but it won't plot more than 1000 light-years away.

[Leon]

Changed location back to NZ, purchased.

Actually then ended up playing Neverwinter Nights ... ooopsie!!

[Cam]

I got 500 light-years away from civilization and I decided that just exploring would be a bit too boring for me at this time. I plotted a course for home. Someday I'll see the centre of the galaxy. :)

[Cam]

You know when you are near the end of a long road trip and you just want to be home? :lol:

[Cam]

I made 630,000 spacebucks on that ~1200 light-year road trip. Not as much as I was hoping, but you don't explore for the dough. Got a bunch of first discovery bonuses, like at least 30. It could have been more, but I zoomed through the last 500 Ly.

[Leon]

Oh man, I can't even get through the training dogfight ... this is embarrassing!

[Yw-slayer]

Might pick this up for use with Rift. But is it anything other than a massive time sink?

[Cam]

There is no story, if that is what you are asking.

[Alan P]

Might pick this up for use with Rift. But is it anything other than a massive time sink?

It is what you make it. There's no direction given, no prompting, no story to follow. If you like your hand held then this is really not the game for you. You make your own decisions and then live, die, suffocate or lose your ship and cargo completely because of them.

I hammered it for about a month but then found myself rarely playing more than once a week and now I haven't played at all this year. YMMV of course.

[Cam]

The recent income allowed me to kit out the Cobra pretty well as an all-rounder. I guess I'll poke around the inhabited systems for a bit.

[Cam]

I bought a new ship, but I didn't like it as much as the Cobra. I bought back the Cobra and I'm now on a exploratory mission. I expect it will take me months to get to Sagittarius A. I equipped my ship with huge fuel tanks and a fuel scoop. I'm scooping some fuel right now, but it's taking ages with the best scoop I could buy. I guess it takes a while to scoop 30 tons of fuel. :lol:

[novicius]

Going to visit the black hole? Take pics! ;)

[Cam]

I'm going for the achievement. :hard:

[Kchrpm]

I would love to see how the game models the accretion disk. Kind of just because the one in Interstellar is so beautiful.

[Cam]

I'm pretty sure there are screen shots online somewhere taken by others that have made the journey.

[Cam]

I played a lot over the last few days. I'm about 2,500 Ly out, headed in the general direction of galactic centre. I may have made an error in my selection of FSD drive. I should have gotten one with greater range, or perhaps tried to lighten my ship a bit more. (Probably won't need those lasers.) I find that the nav computer is having trouble plotting me routes right now because systems are too far apart for my ship to make the jump. It will generally work if I fiddle with the destination enough in different directions. There is a dearth of stars between the spiral arms. Once I get closer to the core, it won't be a problem. Just another 1,000 Ly or so.

[novicius]

Run silent, run deep Cam. :up:

[Cam]

I'm almost 4,000 Ly out now. I've been hurrying, not really scanning many planets--only if I saw a water world on the system map. I had a goal of making it to a group of bright blue stars located near the next spiral arm closer to the core. I'm pretty close now. I plan on taking more time and scan more celestial bodies once systems are closer together. It takes about ten minutes to scoop enough fuel to fill my tanks. :thppt:

[Cam]

Of course, as soon as I post that, I encounter a problem. I'm only about 200 Ly away from my current goal, and the systems are too far apart for my FSD drive to make the jumps. Now I have to back track to find a way around. :mad:

[Cam]

After backtracking a bit, I picked my way around the gap. Lo and behold, I find my first neutron stars and a black hole! I'm not the first to find it, however, as they are in a group of bright stars clearly visible on the galaxy map and from the ship's cockpit. I'm not surprised other explorers were lured to this cluster like flies to a light bulb. Now, I plan on playing pokey for a bit and take more time to scan systems.

[Alan P]

When you're plotting your route there's an option for fastest or most economical.

[Yw-slayer]

Does most economical mean you short trips, one at a time?

[Cam]

Dockonomics!


When you're plotting your route there's an option for fastest or most economical.
I am aware of that. The problem was that the systems were simply too far apart for my ship to make the jump. Its fine now.

[Cam]

I'm over 5000 Ly out now. I haven't been playing much lately, as I've had a lot of homework for school. Zooming out on the galaxy map depresses me once I see the progress (or seemingly lack thereof) I've made. Soooo far to go yet. I just found my first Earth-like planet. That was exciting compared to the normal monotony of exploration. I'm in a sector now that no one has been in before. I haven't seen another name on the system map for hundreds of light-years. I'm at over 1300 systems visited so far.

[Cam]

Almost 10,000 Ly out. Only 15,000 to go to Sagittarius A. :( My routine is to jump into a system, scan with the discovery scanner, then look at the system map to see what planets are there, if any. I'll only stop and scan planets if it looks like there is an earth-like planet in the system. Otherwise, I just jump to the next system. So tedious. Why did I do this again? :lol:

[novicius]

For SCIENCE!! :lol: :up:

[Yw-slayer]

BECAUSE YOU CAN.

[Kchrpm]

I'll only stop and scan planets if it looks like there is an earth-like planet in the system.
What is the value in the game of an earth-like planet vs others? Resources?

[Cam]

When exploring, you can gather information on systems by actively scanning planets. You can later redeem that information at a star port for credits. Rare things like Earth-like planets, water worlds, black holes and neutron stars are much more valuable. Value list on this page: http://lavewiki.com/exploration

Edit: I've been to over 1,800 systems now. I've only found two Earth-like worlds, one black hole, plus a handful of neutron stars and water worlds.

[Kchrpm]

Oh, neat! It's like being a spaceship-based astronomer :)

[21Kid]

That..... does not sound fun. :|

[Kchrpm]

Wha? Have you never been walking around in a game and found something hidden and cool that no one has ever mentioned before? This is that, except you're finding astronomical bodies! It's a combined online universe, right, so if you find something new that means no other player has ever scanned it?

[21Kid]

Oh, I didn't realize that they weren't discovered before. That sounds like a lot of work... ;)

[Kchrpm]

Well you know what Rihanna says...

[Cam]

so if you find something new that means no other player has ever scanned it?
That's right.

[21Kid]

Well you know what Rihanna says... Chris Brown did it? :?

[Kchrpm]

:rolleyes: :smh:

I am, of course, referencing "Bitch Better Have My Money."

[21Kid]

I thought that was an AMG song?

[Kchrpm]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3eAMGXFw1o

[21Kid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKBUUXm0eow&list=RDdKBUUXm0eow&index=1

[Cam]

I just found another Earth-like world.

Half of my time is spent refuelling: Make 15 or so jumps. Set ship to scoop fuel. Go do something else for ten minutes while ship refuels. Repeat.

Unless there is a system worth scanning. Then I'll take five to ten minutes scanning, depending on the number of astronomical objects.

[Kchrpm]

Have you named any of them Camtasia? Camtopia? Camelittle? Camgrala? Camada?

[21Kid]

Camalamadingdong?

[Kchrpm]

Camooine? Camobah?

[Yw-slayer]

Camaltoe?

[Cam]

13,000 Ly out. That means I'm half-way there. I wish I had done my homework a bit more on how to make my ship have a better hyperspace jump range. Oh well, I'm going to make loads of exploration spacebucks if I ever make it back to a inhabited system.

[novicius]

:lol:

Silent running Cam! :D

[Cam]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yMjg6mDAg0

[Cam]

Made crazy progress toward the core over the week-end. I've been playing a lot today too. I just found two Earth-like worlds in the same system. Extremely unusual considering how rare they are.

[Kchrpm]

Whoa, that would be crazy. Imagine if there was another Earth-like world in our solar system, we'd be racing to try and get send probes there, and if both places had intelligent life, imagine how crazy that would be! How that would change our culture and...we'd probably try to blow each other up :(

[Cam]

At 20,000 Ly out. I'm not even in the core and there's so many systems, it chugs the Xbone when zooming in and out on the galaxy map. :twitch:

[Cam]

I was waiting for work to come in, so I had some time this week to make more progress toward Sagittarius A. I am now within 1,000 Ly.

[Kchrpm]

When you get really close, you should live stream on Twitch and post the link here.

[Phil_SS]

It would be funny if it is just a picture of Morgan Freeman.

[Cam]

I don't get it.

[Kchrpm]

I think because he has played God in movies at least twice.

Oh, and, as a popular narrator, he is quite often an all-seeing, all-knowing, booming voice in the sky.

[Phil_SS]

Correct!

[Cam]

I set out on St. Patrick's Day. There it is. Nobody here. I was kind of expecting to see someone hanging out. :sadbanana:

http://cameronporter.net/SagA.png

Now to get home. See you in a few months.

[Alan P]

Was it undiscovered?

[Yw-slayer]

That's pretty cool.

[Kchrpm]

Did you record a video as well?

[Cam]

Of course it was discovered already. There is a list of visitors on Frontier's forum with ~1,500 names on it.

No, I did not take video. There are plenty of videos of it out there already.

[Kchrpm]

Fair enough. Found some on YouTube, watching one now. I bet there are some amateur Cosmos series based on this game.

[novicius]

Seriously, great work Cam!! :up: :up: #mostimpressive

[Phil_SS]

Agreed. Very cool.

So, does everyone start at the same star system? Like when you start a new character, is it always at the same place or is ii always the same distance from the center? Do tell.

[Cam]

Yes, I think everyone starts at the same system. You start out with a small ship. As was mentioned before, there's no story, really. You can fly between systems and get missions from space stations. You can eventually upgrade your ship, and own as many ships as you can afford. The game is open-ended. You can play as a miner, mercenary, trader, smuggler, explorer and even a pirate (or any combo of those). PvP is allowed, and even encouraged by the developers. However, there is solo mode, where you will not encounter any real players to grief you, if that's what you prefer. There is CQC mode, which is exclusively space combat against other real players.

Elite: Dangerous is not for everyone.

[Reynard]

PC version you don't all start in the same system but certainly within the same region of the galaxy. There's also planetary landings and terrestrial bases etc. now and I believe that update will be available soon for the Xbone too.

Congrats on your voyage Cam. You're far more patient then I. :lol: One thing I just read that surprised me was you stating that you'd set your ship to re-fuel and come back in 10 minutes. :? Granted it's been quite a while since I played but there was no auto-refuel feature and when I'd be scooping manually I could fill up in less then 30 seconds usually. So I'm guessing that's anew feature and you were simply using it as an opportunity to stretch yer legs.

[Cam]

I fly close to a star and sort of get into orbit with it in supercruise. The maximum fuel I can pick up with my A-rated scoop is 42/s (Unknown units. :rolleyes: ) I replaced all cargo space with fuel tanks, so my ship holds 30 tons of fuel. It literally takes over ten minutes to refill my fuel tanks, so I can just set the controller down and walk away from it. I must be doing something wrong then if it should not take more than 30 seconds to refuel. :?

[Alan P]

Is that stationary because when I played on PC I had to be careful not to overheat and I needed to keep moving in order to refuel.

[Cam]

I get close enough to get hot, but not overheat. The temperature gauge normally hovers at ~65%. I upgraded the ship's heat dissipation capability to allow it.

[Cam]

As I was plotting a route home, I was thinking that I only saw one black hole on my entire journey, not including the one in Sag. A. I was zooming out and looking around the star map and just happened to see several black dots, indicating black holes. Sure enough, there is an area with numerous black holes within close proximity to each other. Pure luck find. I'm going to check it out. :hard:

[21Kid]

Don't get sucked in!!! :o

[Cam]

I'm almost half-way back home. Half-way in galactic terms is ~15,000 light years. At the pace I'm going now, I won't be back to inhabited space until Christmas. :(

[Alan P]

That's the one thing I think they could have improved on, although I guess it's all true. There's a whole lot of nothing out there.

[Cam]

It's my own fault for not building a ship with a better frame shift drive.

[Cam]

I had some time this week waiting for feedback on work. I'm now <10,000 Ly out. I'm looking forward to doing some good, old-fashioned courier runs. :lol:

[Cam]

I'm sure you are all wondering how I'm doing. ;) Playing here and there, I am now about 2,700 Ly from Sol. There are systems closer, however. You can sell exploration data to different factions which will increase your rank with them. I would be dumb to sell all the data in one place. I may make it home by the week-end.

[Cam]

Nearly seven months on, I finally made it back to inhabited space. Sold my exploration data to the tune of nearly 30 million credits. Honestly, I am a bit disappointed that it is not more. I am not surprised either though. Oh well. Back to doing courier runs. :hard:

http://cameronporter.net/ED_stats.png

[novicius]

:lol: :up:

[Reynard]

I wish there was cross platform compatibility so I could come out and find you man.

I'm definitely back with this for a while if for no other reason then some ridiculous good luck. I booted it up again for the first time in over a year last Friday. I was with my trading T6 and wanted to go get my Viper to go do some hunting with. So I open up the galaxy map (so much better then before) find where I left the Viper and start making my way across the bubble to get it down in the heart of the Empire. Turns out that a system very close to where said Viper is parked has just started Community Goal (a new feature since I last played) that is a matter of hauling some specific goods to the specific station so the Empire can build some new capital ships yada yada. I'm not too fussed with the story factions etc. anyway, the goods in need were in reasonable supplies close by, I was in my best hauler so I figured I'd give it go. Not really sure how these work but if what I was seeing in game was real, It looked to be a lucrative proposition.

Long story short, after a couple nights work, about 4-5 hours of hauling my butt off, and only getting destroyed by another Commander once (there were plenty of empire pilots protecting us haulers for this, the word got out fast apparently), this ended up being the highest paying CG yet in the game. I managed to stay in the top 50% and earned a cool 130,000,000 + credits! :D

So that now affords me the opportunity to actual test some of the ships that I would probably never have been able to because I don't like to grind and the game still doesn't offer any kind of offline mode where you can at least test drive all the ships in the game. The only way to simply try one out is to work your arse off grinding for credits in the game and just like Krunch would say, a PC sim should have everything available from the get go, there should be no unlocking needed <sigh> but then this is really just a MMORPG that's wrapped around a nice little flight sim in a great version of the Milky Way. And there's still ships I can't even try even though I could afford to buy one because they're Faction rank locked... ugh. Still cool, I'd forgotten how good the sound is in the game though. First new ship I'm trying is the Imperial Courier which has a fantastic cockpit. handles great and the engines have such a sweet, sweet thrum I think it's going to be a keeper. :)

[Cam]

I bought an Asp Explorer.

[Yw-slayer]

Cam spends months exploring and earns 30 mil credits. Reynard plays for a few days and earns 130 mil credits.

A++ would play again?

[Cam]

I never claimed to know what I am doing. :lol:

[Reynard]

The Asp was my dream ship when I stopped playing and it's likely to end up in my hanger soon but I want to try as many as I can before deciding where to spend most of my dosh. I know my Eagle will be sold as soon as get back to where that is... The Courier is my new racing ship for sure. I love it.


Cam spends months exploring and earns 30 mil credits. Reynard plays for a few days and earns 130 mil credits.

A++ would play again?

As the saying goes, you can work hard or work smart. ;)

Seriously, was just at the right place at the right time for jumping back into the game. I will say though that the Community Goals, as a new feature is nice as it takes some of the credit pressure off, allowing more time for fun gameplay IMO. Or in your terminology, time spent working Empire Military CG's = awesome value! :D

I should mention that the top 25% banked 330,000,000, while the top 4 got 550,000,000 ( or something like that I think). I was checking the local traffic report each time at the CG station (forgot it's name) and when I logged off after the second night, where I think we were about half way between tier 5 & 6 of the goal and it was unlike anything I'd seen in the game before. Granted I've been away for a while but it must have been around 30,000 ships. It was pretty awesome to see actually.

[novicius]

Is there multiplayer in E : D? Can you partner up for missions and such? I didn't play very far into the game...

[Cam]

There is multiplayer, but I have not tried it before. I am the only one here playing it on the Xbone.

[novicius]

I have it for XBONE I just didn't get into it. Should we try to make the beast with two backs?

[Cam]

Sure. I have no idea how it works though. :lol:

[Cam]

Fly through the galaxy for seven months: net 30 million credits.

Participate in community goal for a couple of hours: net, you guessed it, 30 million credits. :lol:

(I am not just out to make creds.)

[Cam]

Got interdicted by NPC pirate. As I fought him off, two imperial security ships show up. One scans me and says something to the effect of, "Everything looks good, cmdr. Go about your business." WTF? I am actively fighting off a pirate! :lol: :rolleyes:

[Yw-slayer]

Thanks, Obama? :assclown:

[drew]

Bought. Fuck it. It will be something to kill down time during the day.

[Cam]

And then you play No Man's Sky at night. :lol:

[drew]

All I'm doing with NMS at this point, is fucking with the files and seeing what happens in game. There's little other "goal" to playing at this point :)

[21Kid]

Is there a goal in Elite: Dangerous? :?

[Cam]

Not really. :|

Participate in community goals.

[drew]

Having given it 15 minutes (first training thing to get used to it), my only goal is to not break something.

How do you disable that fucking roll on the left/right mouse movement? I mapped two keys to it, but it still is spiraling shit.

Not sure I'm going to enjoy this that much, if I can't come to terms with the "hey, lets just spin for the sake of spinning" aspect.

[novicius]

It's tough to get started. :|

[Cam]

I don't know, Drew. I play it on the Xbone.

[drew]

I found a few controller bindings, it's much better now. The mouse thing rolling was seriously going to have something expensive broken if I continued.

Just fucking around with the tutorials now.

[Alan P]

I could update this and, er, play with you Drew. Not much else to play ATM.

[Cam]

Reynard has said he's gotten back into it recently. Look him up too.

[drew]

I'm doing solo at the moment, to familiarize myself with shit, but, I'm game.


That being said, am I crazy, or, when you're in the starter ship with 4 cargo slots, and you mine for an hour, only to get about 2000cr worth of shit, is that fucking ridiculous?

Add to that, the 20 minutes it took me to pick up 5 floating things (some materials of some sort), that you can't appear to sell at all?

I'm slowly warming up to it, but it's taking a bit.

I got stuck in a system without a trade dock, and not enough fuel to jump to another system. So I self-destructed. How fun!

[Cam]

Yep. Trial by fire. In order to get the most (or anything) out of mining, you have to find a good spot with a high percentage of valuable materials. I tried mining, but gave up on it. Random stuff you find is considered illicit cargo and you have to sell it on the black market. You get a fine if your ship is scanned by the authorities when you are carrying illicit cargo. Not all ports have black markets, but when they do, you have to look for it under "Contacts." I gave up on picking up random found things too. I simply do cargo and data runs. As Reynard pointed out, community goals can net you some reasonable cash for not much effort. I think the best way to make money is to trade commodities. Like mining, you have to find trade routes that are worth your while. The more cargo space you have, the more you can make.

[Alan P]

I found the best pickings to begin with were from hanging around Nav Beacons waiting for wanted pilots to come in. Be careful what you shoot at though!

[drew]

How can you tell what's in an asteroid before you start blasting it?

I got real lucky with a mission requiring Bromellite. They required 3, I got to a Saturn-like planet with rings (and ice rocks, tip from Reddit), I fumble-fucked around shooting "test" samples off about 30 before I found it. Then, when I couldn't collect it with the scoop, got turned around and couldn't find that fucking rock again...

Repeat fumble-fucking, found another one, got 3 units out of it (in the refinery), then it quit spitting out anything.

Repeat fumble-fucking....

All told, it took me 100 minutes to fill three cargo slots with the shit, for 90k cr. I got back to the payout destination/station with 2 minutes to spare.

That's fucking stupid.

[Cam]

You don't know what's in it before blasting it.

Like I said, I gave up on mining. :lol:

[drew]

After that nightmare, I believe I am going to as well.

The fact you have to shoot a chip off of it, pick it up (which is entirely shit, ffs, it's the year 3000, you'd think Dyson or Shark would have perfect the Suckoroid by then), refine it, and have to do so 9-10 times to get ONE unit of it in cargo In a shitty ship with only 4 available), to sell for a couple 1000....

Fuck that.

[Alan P]

What your Commander name Drew? Something lewd and potentially disturbing I'm sure.

[drew]

R. Swipe Shitgibbon. Couldn't tell you where I'm parked, not far from where you start though.

[Cam]

Actually, don't bother with this week's community goal. It's piracy and not many people are trying or succeeding.

[drew]

No clue how they work anyway. I just clicked as a "what's this?"

Turns out, it was 500ly away, so....

[Alan P]

R. Swipe Shitgibbon. Couldn't tell you where I'm parked, not far from where you start though.

I'm not surprised in the slightest. First time back after about 9 months away. managed NOT to crash, although very nearly got blasted when I deployed hardpoints inside a space station!

[Reynard]

I can't think of a much worse job to have on Earth then being a miner and once you get to space, that's the profession you take up? ;) Seriously, I've not ever spent one minute doing any mining in this game so I can't help you there. Trading and the weekly Community Goals are the quickest ways to make money in the game, though the missions from stations are better now then when I played the game originally. More variety and better payouts once you get friendly with local factions. There is a lucrative illegal goods smuggling run that can be done from the Robigo system but that's something you'll want to have a bigger ship to make worthwhile. When I started playing initially (almost) a couple years ago, I made a loop to trade rare goods in a Cobra MkIII outfitted for just that. That's what got me "on my feet" in the game monetarily my first go 'round. Now, as described earlier here, I was fortunate to get a large chuck of credits upon my return to the game so I've been just having fun trying different ships in different configurations, doing some surface exploration and getting to grips with the SRV. Eventually I'll head way out of the bubble for some real exploration like what Cam just did.

Controls, I also can't really help you with as I'm full HOTAS with TrackIR and a custom button box to boot. Though if you're not wanting to go all out like that you might want to consider checking out Voice Attack (https://voiceattack.com/) as a way of freeing up some buttons.

A nice tool I must recommend is this, https://coriolis.io/ for playing with different ship configurations. It's a nicer layout then the Elite Shipyard one I posted earlier in this thread with more options.

And just as nice if not better is the Elite Dangerous Database, https://eddb.io/ Just a great way to help locate stuff in the bubble when you don't want to go searching on your own. For instance on the Stations Tab you can input any combination of specific ship modules you're looking to buy and the system you're in to find the closest stations selling them. Lots of filters to play with etc. one of which is important currently if ship and/or module shopping and that is adding Li Yong-Rui to the powers filter as any station under the influence of that 'power' in the game currently sells ships and modules at a 15% discount.

Drew & Alan, the times I'd be playing are late (typically after 8pm PST) on Fri/Sat/Sun. Commander name Reynard11 (just like everything else) and I'm currently screwing around the HR 783 system, getting friendly with some local factions in the area.

[drew]

I'm 20 hours in, most of that spent fucking with rocks. So I've got a lot of learning to do with the trading part.

I started a new game, because, I had no real progress to lose. Which, I got excited that I was going to get my first kill (interdiction within 30 seconds of my very first jump), then some feds showed up and fucked it all up and blasted him.

I've hit the wrong button while landing and shot a beam over a station, got a 50cr fine. :lol:

[drew]

I think I may actually get into this now.

Second start, 8 hours in:

Managed two bounties (they pulled me from Super Cruise): 17000cr (total)
Did a courier mission (boring/easy): 27000cr
Did a "find tech and deliver" mission: 52000cr + 45000cr bonus
Paid a trespassing fine: -500cr (really??)
Bought a PVH and SRV (about 30k) to do a ground mission I accepted out of curiosity. Currently sitting on a planet/moon, waiting to get the Scarab out. Pay is 589k.

Still in the sidewinder. I've upgraded the power dist and FSD one level, to compensate for the extra lump of SRV. Also cost me a 4 cargo rack slot (needed a level 2), so it's down to 2. But, if I manage to pull this off, I plan on buying a new ship altogether (should have 600k+ in the bank).

Just not sure which one. I kind of feel like killing the universe, but I should probably get some bank before embarking on genocide. Without blasting goddamn rocks...

[Cam]

Cobra MKIII is a good one to aim for, but costs three or four million spacebucks I think.

[drew]

Well, that may be a bit off, unless this Planet side run/gun mission works out, in which I'll look for more of them.

Landing on a planet the first time was fun. I entered the system, locked on to the planet, then super cruised for 20 minutes to get into orbit, then another 20 minutes to get to the surface (17 for descent, 3 to find a suitable landing area).
Yeesh.

[Cam]

I have not tried a planetary landing. Sounds like I will not. :lol:

[drew]

I didn't end up a crater, so I'll take that as a win for the first go at it.

I had to reconfigure the controls on the lander so I could drive/shoot at the same time easily (more easily).

I crept it up to about 300m of my intended target (some settlement power plant, sounds like a dick thing to do, but, it pays well).

I guess we'll find out when I log back on and start firing at it, if I have the planet against me or not.

[novicius]

A man can get a job.

He might not look too close at what that job is... but a man learns all the details of a situation like theirs... well... then he has a choice.

:random:

[drew]

Hopefully my next mission is against Fox.

[drew]

Well, that actually went rather well.

I got to the place, did my thing, got all kinds of warning transmissions, then spent the next 20 minutes driving around trying to find my fucking ship.

Closed the game, googled it, and went back in and recalled.

I now have a shiny new Cobra MkIII, with a few upgrades on it. All told, I started with 672k, and ended up with 138k after the ship/upgrades (38 cargo slots now, instead of 4). I kept the Sidewinder, since it has the SRV in it.

Now I need to learn the trading shit.

[Alan P]

Make sure you have enough for Insurance or you could lose it all!

[Alan P]

Also, added you both, Misschief. (Long time 'online' name since City of Heroes more than ten years ago.

[drew]

I just saw that in-game :)

So, now I'm stuck. I'm sitting on a planet, on another "destroy the generator" mission.

I go to the encampment, there's a data tower and a hub thing, and nothing else.

I drove around for 20 minutes and didn't see a generator. wtf.

I don't really want to bail on this one, as it's 380k.

Is there a trick to finding shit like this, or is it a bug/feature?

[Cam]

I've never done a mission like that, so I do not know. The game does not hand-hold you.

[drew]

Hand-hold know. Fist you, yes.

That being said, I exited out and re-loaded, and it was there (the whole base).

When I flew back to claim my reward, the same person was offering the mission again. I felt bad, but took it and did it again.

Now sitting on 1M cr....

I'm going to just continue with the Cobra for a while. I'm in the process of maxing out everything I can on it, aiming towards being a bounty ship. It's now got 4 frag cannons on it (thought I'd give those a shot, they were 1000% more damage-inflicting than the pulse/beam lasers I had on it, I did manage (somehow) to take out another Cobra that yanked me out of super cruise with the lasers though).

Maxing out the gen and distributor will eat at my reward stash, but, I want to be able to fight better.

I also need to learn how the factions/relations work, because I feel like I'm pissing people off (wanted in 2 sectors now).

Trial by fire :)

[Alan P]

I don't have the planetary landing update but have considered picking it up now it's cheap.

[Cam]

What's to learn about factions? People tend to dislike you when you blow up their stuff. :lol:

[drew]

Yeah, you're right. What am I thinking, fuck em! My services are to the highest bidder.


Although, I docked at a station in a wanted sector, in the attempt I could pay it off/bribe my way out (it's only 2000cr), guess not.

Upon leaving the station, I got gang raped by 10 fed ships. Which then cost me 45000cr to resurrect my ship. Luckily, the second time, I hit the boost button and shot out of the station like a bullet and jumped out before they went into balls deep mode again.

I landed at the station that gave me the generator missions and got my reward, and accepted another one for stealing data from a different system's planetary base for 620k, which I am currently parked outside the camp in my SRV.

The group offering me these missions seem like assholes, so I may stick with them for a bit.

It's a shame you can have more devastating weapons on the rover. It'd be high fun to lob a nuke at an outpost. 'cause, that's how I role in games.

For the record, 4 frag cannons are fairly effective, but probably not ideal. I should have youtube'd it first (assuming there are videos showing hot the various weapons work/fire). The Frag Cannon is just a giant space shotgun. Now I know.

[Alan P]

I run 2x Beam lasers and 2x Multicannons and it seems to work well Lasers for the shields and Multicannons for the hull. Uses quite a bit of power though.

[Yobbo NZ]

I've been plodding away at this.
Picked up a class 6 freighter or something like that.
Can't fit many weapons onboard but it can take a shitload of cargo.
Doesn't fair too well in battle as I found on my first outing with it.
Turns slower than a cruise ship,so I had no chance of even getting the attacker in sight.

[drew]

I finished another mission for the assholes, finding/delivering nerve agents. I found a station with them cheap, and loaded up, sold all but what I needed for the mission at another one.

At the end, with the profit from the sale and the bonus for an upped time, I got about 290k from it.

Now I'm greedy, I won't consider any mission under 150k, which at this stage, there aren't that many...

[Alan P]

Although I'm only playing for a couple of hours here and there so I'm having great difficulty making any cash. Since I last played the bad guys seem to have received an upgrade. Even an Eagle can cause a few problems now.

[drew]

I just jumped about 30 systems away from where I was at to see what the income potential was. Currently in the middle of (pausing, need to spend some QT with the lovely lady), Accepted three delivery missions, all to the same place (sourcing and returning to original station).

Found everything, then get a "bonus" notification that one needs to be delivered somewhere else (smallest of the three at 62k, but with a 45k bonus), the other two are north of 250k each. I also got a "bonus" notification on one of them, that assholes have been sent for me, and I can earn 60k per kill.

While I'm still not that confident in my "skillz" yet, and as tempting as it sounds...I don't want to risk an all but guaranteed net payout of 400k, especially when I have 200k of shit in the cargo bins. (not to mention the 80k to bring my ship back from the dead).

Playing it safe for guaranteed rewards, that's not like me at all....

I was happily plodding along a random route to a random system, when I jumped out, got yanked out of FSD, and had 4 anacondas lighting me up like christmas. Needless to say, they turned me into dogshit in about 15 seconds.

I've made the decision that my next ship will be an Asp Explorer. I'm in no hurry to get it, so I'm just flying here and there, cherry-picking missions. Still haven't tried proper trading, not sure I will.

[drew]

Well, so much for "safe". Within 2 minutes of firing up the game and jumping into a system, I got pulled from FSD and killed.

So, there's 280k in the shitter.

Reload, only went and got the smallest amount of the three I was trying to make good on. Jumped through 5 systems, got within 15 seconds of the destination station, and got pulled from FSD. After 20 FUCKING MINUTES of fighting this asshole (conveniently, every time I would knock his shields down, he would get above/behind me to the point I could never get him in view through the canopy, only to come back into view once his shields were back up.

After 20 FUCKING MINUTES, I beat him down, and he fucked off via FSD (that didn't make me happy).

So, I start super cruise towards the station which I'm now 1 minute out. Which is irrelevant, because I got pulled out of FSD (tried to not let that happen, but it was under 10 seconds), guess who. The same asshole that killed me in another system. Pulverized me in 15 seconds. As soon as my ship stopped spinning after beyond de-FSD'd, I was already sparking with no shields and "taking hull damage".

So, I'm a little fucked off to start the game up again, if this is what it's like.

I thought I was in a fairly decent ship (Cobra III with all shields/core equipment 4C/D, but I get annihilated by this one NPC within seconds of him dropping me out of FSD.

This time it was much worse, due to the fact that if I didn't have to have fought that other asshole for 20 FUCKING MINUTES, I may have just gotten away with a mission completion.But, my shields weren't even recharged when the second asshole jumped in.

So, all told, I'm out about 400k on this mission, and still no progress to be made. I could try again, and hope to break even overall, but I already have an idea of what is going to happen.


Out of curiosity, how do you get "away" from something that's obviously much bigger than you that's pounding your ass into oblivion?

[Cam]

There's a boost feature on your engines, but I don't know how you would activate it playing on PC. With the Cobra, you can get about a 50% speed boost, which can help you outrun baddies long enough to charge your FSD. You can also divert power to different systems, but again, I don't know how you do that on the PC version. Diverting power to SYS will give you better shield recharge, ENG will give you more engine power and WEP gives you better weapon recharge.

[Reynard]

Alright man, here's the basic drill. If you're not looking for a fight and get interdicted, don't try to escape, throttle all the way down completely. That will have you 'submit' to the interdiction, the plus side being when you drop out of super cruise, you won't be in an out of control spin.

Get your power dist. to 4 pips to SYS and 2 pips to ENG full forward throttle and and boost! Keep on boosting away until your FSD is cooled off and then jump away, either 'low wake' (back into super cruise) or 'high wake' (wormhole it to another system completely).

If you can get a ship with a max boost around 400, this will work pretty much 100% the time. At least 300 and it still is very effective against all but the fastest enemies and providing you have really good shields and or some mines, they're not usually a problem. Of course if your shields are good enough and your power dist. is a lower class and you need quicker boosting you can move more pips to the ENG.

Not sure if you're up to speed on how the module ratings work in the game or not. I know you can see all the stats in game and the changes they make to the performance of the ships but the general gist is: E class is always the cheapest worst performing. D class is always the lightest. C class usually the most efficient. B class kinda best bang for the buck and A class best performance and most power hungry and usually heaviest. Obviously the number is the size/space required. It's not always necessary to fit the biggest module available to any specfic slot to get the desired outcome.

Here's an example, last night I went and put together this Python (https://coriolis.io/outfit/python/0pitiFflidsssf5kp2k2kkpkp03030202050505044a0302020 1.Iw18eQ==.EwBj5UwRhXYhIA==?bn=Cargothon) to have a go at the curent Empire CG going on. It's built to run 260 tons of explosives as fast as possible, running from any interdictions. Heat sinks & Point defense turrets in case I get lit up by anybody with engineered heat weapons or torps. One of the facets I do really like about the game is trying to optimize ships for specific missions. We'll see how this one goes, only made two quick runs last night before logging off to get on the board and only saw other friendlies hauling goods, no interdictions. Wonder what this evening will bring. ;)

[drew]

Thanks for the tips, hopefully I can remember it all the next time I get surprise buttseks.

I should plug my current ship into that site as well, so I can get advice on if some of it was a waste...

I traded in the frag cannons for multi cannons. At the rate of getting 444k back, each... So, there's that.

[drew]

Wanted to say thanks again for the tips.

Twice I've been jumped, and twice I've gotten away with just a few hits to the shields.

I didn't even check to see what was attacking me. I was loaded up with 250k of wares for three deliveries, totalling 670k, I wasn't going to fuck with that again.

The boost control may as well be named the "fuck YOU" button. :up:

At 2.4M, with about 400k in payouts to come.

One thing though, I got a "new location" message for one for an added 75k (on top of the 350 base), but it sent me to a sector with only two suns, and I'm supposed to deliver to a mine. Does shit (planets/stations) disappear from existence?
edit: duh. I bought the sector scan for 800cr. (christ #n00b)

[drew]

I bought a Type-6 a while ago, kitted it out to about 100T, stock shield, and upgraded the FSD/power stuff to "B" level, for distance and evasion.

I sold the guns, because, really??

Going to fuck around with some bulkier trading for a bit. I parked the Cobra in the dick I got the T6.

I may go hunting rare commodities. I found 9 Kamorin Weapons, of some fashion, and traveled about 150LY, made 190k profit.

I think I'm starting to get into it now.

I took a couple delivery missions (both going to the same place, convenient), then did some investigating and found a ware in the origin to sell at the destination to fill up the rest of the cargo bay. 15 minutes later I was 600K richer. (90k off the extra wares)

[Reynard]

You're welcome.

So I continued on with with my cargo running Python working that CG and everything was going swimmingly well and it didn't take long to get into the top 50% being able to move about 1300 tons/hr if I didn't get side tracked. After a couple hours I finally got interdicted by a Cmdr in a Diamondback Scout. He was real RPG'r pirate and once I submitted, demanded 8 tons of cargo or else he would turn me into space dust. I responded, as I was already boosting away, well, I think I can outrun ya!. Even though he had the faster ship, being smaller means even if he gets close he can't 'mass lock' me, preventing from jumping away. So he got a couple of plinks in on my shields just before I was outta there.

I just low waked back into SC as I was right close to the station but my little pirate friend had a wake scanner and interdicted me again before I got there, so I submitted again. "8 Tons, last chance!" I don't boost away this time and just go well alright you got me (the time spent with him is hurting my bottom line more then the measly 8 tons of cargo) but no tricks or you get find out what's inside all these hardpoints... and toss out the goods. He bids me a good evening as I speed off. So another couple of runs and w/o a hitch when I get interdicted again just before making a drop off. I submit, but will soon wish I decided to fight it. This guy/gal is in a Imp. Clipper and they're not talking and it's fast... fast enough to keep me mass locked and my mines while knocking their shields down aren't slowing it at all. Needless to say, this was no pirate but just someone out shooting peeps and it wasn't long before my ship was toast. So yeah a nice little 3 million insurance bill right there. I could afford it of course but really didn't feel the need to push my luck anymore and finished off the evening playing in solo and working my way into the top 25%. At this point the CG was between tier 5 & 6 and my payout would be around 4 million if ended right then so I still be ahead. However there was still 4+ days left to go so lets see if this one keeps climbing like teh last one I did.

So I went at some some more the next night and made my way to the top 10%. Feeling pretty good about that I suddenly realize, there's nothing stopping me from signing up for the Federation CG at the same station. Granted it's not as far along as the Empire one, down at tier 3 but the goods in need are even closer by and will net far more profit per run... doh! What am I waiting for. So I now start hauling goods for the Feds and it's only 1 jump out and 1 back fully laden (where my Empire run would be 1 out & 2 back) and I quickly start making hay on the FedCG charts, making it to the top 25% in one evening. Nice!

So even though I usually don't play after work, I felt compelled to boot it up last night in hopes of keeping my standing in the CG's. Well I places still remained and the Empire was just about to hit tier 7 even, so I ran a few extra runs for the Fed until I used up the last of the supplies available at my go to outpost, made a quick stop to fill up the rest of my hold with goods for the Empire and flew my last run delivering stuff for both sides at once. Heh. And I read that the Empire CG had ended early today, reaching tier 8. Anxious to see where I finally stood, booted it up this evening and yay, my place(s) remain.

see attached

Not too shabby considering the Fed one won't likely hit tier 6 and even if drop into the top 25% that's still 4 mil plus the 20 from the Empire and about another 300k net profit from the actual commodities sold to market, that insurance bill doesn't seem bad at all. ;) So that's an example of working a CG to try to maximize the results but keep in mind, there might actually be a better strategy. For this Empire one that maxes out & ends early (and you can't see in the screenshots I took), the top 99% payout was 800k, the top 75% was 5.5 million. If you want to be really efficient, you just keep your eye out for a CG that is close to ending and high up the tier ladder. Then jump in at the last minute just to get on the board. You can still get a nice payday for a minimum amount of work.

[drew]

I did a rare commodity tour with the Type-6. Spent probably 3-4 hours in total, traveling around, picking up anywhere from 2 to 15 rare thing. Then aimed the opposite direction from the closest sector I got them, and went about 160ly away.

End result was about 1.9M cr. Seemed underwhelming, for the time (and panic, got interdicted a couple times but got away, and got scanned and had to pay a couple fines). I fitted the T6 with the best FSD, shield, all cargo (no scanner), shield boosters, and best thrusters. I didn't put any guns on it to save weight (and it seemed useless anyway). Result was, when I was interdicted, I'd submit, and hammer the boost. I'd get shot a few times, but I'd never lose shields. It worked well.


While doing the rare thing, I stumbled across a small faction in "Massagetae", which happened to be my rare sell off spot (completely random). I looked at the missions, and they had a couple "deliver [this] to [here] for" missions, ranging from 250-450k. So I took as many as I could carry, which conveniently, were all going to the same sector. First run was 8 delivered to two stations in one sector. Payout at the end was about 1.5M. Since then, I've been returning and repeating. At this rate, I don't think I'm even going to mess with trading.

I've done 6-7 runs like this, all from 1.5M to 3M each time. I've since sold the T6 and Cobra, and dropped about 10M on an Asp Explorer, kitted out to haul 80T and (potentially) kill. Still upgrading the core equipment on it though, everything is C class, for now.

Oddly enough, I've done 3-4 runs with the Asp, and haven't been interdicted yet, whereas the T6 was almost once a run (or three times in the same sector by the same douche, which ended poorly for thim, since the last one was in a no fire zone, and the gun batteries and security turned him into a half dozen floating crates (that I picked up)). I parked last night and accepted 4 deliveries, all to the same station, all totaling 2.2M (one is 933k alone).

I may milk this cow for a while, until it gets boring, then move on and repeat with the feds, etc.

I may look into the CG things too :)

Ok, I have a question, regarding combat.

How/why, every time, when I strip the shields from a target, they magically get above/behind me (flashing red/white/line on radar), and I can never get them in my view again?

Not only that, but they also magically manage to rip me apart in the next 10 seconds.

EG: I was in my Asp E, with a 5B shield gen (power maxed out was 90%), throttle in blue....he does the red/white/line thing, then I get "warning, impulse attack", and within 5 seconds, I'm dead in the water. Now poer, life support clock ticking down, ultimately exploding and costing me 1/2 a mil.

Here's the funny part, it was a fucking Eagle. I have 4x G pulse lasers that removed it's shield within 3-4 seconds, and it was able to do the same to me?

[Reynard]

I'll try to help with the combat but I need to wait until after work to post proper.

[drew]

cool. I've gone back to running deliveries, for now.

Got jumped by a couple Cobras (two different occasions), both didn't fare too well (for them).

I'm dicking around with different equipment loadouts, I think I've got it where I want to (until I find a better FSD (currently 5C)).

Got two multicannons and 4 pulse (for shield take down). I downgraded my generator to something that is just above my max draw, and got 380k back for it.

We'll see. I want a Python now. This game is great for the "oo, piece of candy" shit.

I also bought an Advanced Discovery Scanner. It hurt the account a bit, but, it's nice to have when you're sent on deliveries to places that show nothing on them map (case in point, I super cruised for a total of 480,000Ls trying to find one fucking station, jumped out, bought the ADS, came back, it was 1000Ls from the goddamn jump point).

[Reynard]

Lets see first regarding the scanner when being attacked, white icons are usually missiles, torpedoes or mines of some sort so you're probably getting hit by some combo of them & maybe a rail gun or plasma launcher. The red icon flashing is just showing you who is firing on you. If it's got brackets around it < >, it's who you have targeted. Excuse me if you know this already. The other thing to know though is even NPC's in the game can have engineered weapons. The impulse attack warning is just one of many weapon mods. They all have a specific icon that will also appear next to (bottom left) the shield indicator around your ship icon on your dash when you're being hit. I'm no expert on engineered weapons & modules in the game as that was a new feature since I originally played but it's the next facet I'm about to start exploring. I do know that they can be very powerful, as you've experienced yourself.

So as far as actual ship to ship combat goes, as you would expect there are ships that are built for that specifically (think Eagle, Viper MkIII, Vulture, Fer de Lance). You can think of the fighting in very similar terms to good old aerial dogfighting here on Earth in the basic sense. The best option is to get on the tail of your opponent and stay there. This will usually also carry the benefit of staying out of the possible firing arcs of your opponents weapons (and this of course varies ship to ship because of hard point placement and the possibility of turreted weapons). Regardless this should always be your first goal in ship to ship combat. Well what if the other ship is the more maneuverable one you say? Well hopefully you have a speed advantage and then you can try some bang & zoom on them. Essentially coming in at them at a high rate of speed and trying to hit them while passing and zooming away out of range before they can hit back and repeating this. This doesn't always work out as well with shielded spaceships as it does with aluminum aircraft though but against not so tough opponents, it should help. The next important thing I'd recommend (if you have the controls mapped to do so) is targeting subsystems, specifically the Power Plant. Do that once their shields are down and that's the quickest way to destroy a ship.

Now if you're not in a combat focused ship but have the firepower to take down your opponent but not the maneuverability or speed (I'm thinking your ASP vs an Eagle), try putting her in full reverse as soon as you have eyes on the enemy, that way you can lay into them with all your weapons all the while he's closing in on you and as soon as they're about half a klick away, shifting to forward and boost past them, turn around and repeat. Of course as you get more proficient, you may want to dabble in turning off the flight assist as that will make flipping around to face an opponent like a just described quicker as well as keeping you moving away from them at the same time. Of course I should also mention that whether you have the flight assist on or off, you should be using your lateral and vertical thrusters in conjunction with your regular pitch & roll control for maximum maneuverability. (and yeah, I still have a hard time imagining doing all this with a gamepad easily but you have my best wishes)

So now that I've laid all that out, here's your weekend assignment. :P Find a station under the influence of Li Yong-Rui (as mentioned before to get the discount) that sells the Eagle MkII as well as all the modules I've laid out in this build:

Practice Eagle (https://coriolis.io/outfit/eagle/1p0t5F7l3d5s5f224241000B46d--.Iw1-EA==.IwBhrSrI?bn=Practice%20Eagle)

If you're still in or around the Massagetae system, I already filled it out for you using the EDDB I linked to before. ;)

So as you can see this ship is just over 1 mil to buy and outfit with the discount and has a nice small re-buy cost, easy to go and practice with and not sweat it when you get destroyed. You'll see I fitted it with a fixed beam up top and 2 gimbaled MC's on the wings. It's good to practice using fixed weapons when you can as they will generally do more damage with a lower weight and energy use penalty. They also can't be fooled by chaff... but of course you need to aim them yourself hence why lasers are the best to start with in that regard as you can see very easily where your shots are landing. Another point of note is managing your module priorities, not sure if you've played with that at yet but in case you haven't... you'll see in the module section in that build it details the power usage with the hardpoints retracted and deployed. This build doesn't make enough power for all the modules with the weapons deployed so you need to set some at a lower priority so that they get shut down first when you go over your power limit. In this case all you really need to do is set your Cargo Scoop to Priority 2 ( which it should be by defualt anyway) and you'll be under the power limit deployed but I always set my FSD to Pri 2 out of habit as you can't use it with your hardpoints deployed anyway.

Now find an Anarchy system (so you won't get any fines or bounties and get hassled by the local security force) and go shoot stuff! I included a FSD Interdictor so you can try pulling someone out of supercruise for a change (if you haven't yet) to see what that's like. Just hang out in slow SC around the nav beacon for that and pick out a good target when you see one. Once you've got the hang of that, look for a RES and head there. You can loiter around there in real space and pick fights with whomever you choose. Stick to Competent or lower ranked targets at first and use the handling advantage you have to keep the target in your sights while staying out of theirs. Practice your aim with that laser to knock their shields down, then try targeting their PP with the multi cannons. It will be possible to even take down a Anaconda with this ship, it just takes a while. ;) Again this is not a ship to get in slugfest with but to out maneuver your foe with. The Bi-Weave shields while not as strong as normal ones, recharge much faster so if you get hit a few times, boost away, use your chaff, let them shields recharge and get back in there using your chaff again while gaining back your position on the target.

Good luck and have fun!

[drew]

Interesting. I've got about 14M, so a "practice" Eagle is feasible.

I'm also considering having a go at the Latugara CG. It's got a few weeks left, and it ups to Tier 4-5 (or so), or a long range smuggling run.

I'll give it to Frontier, they definitely give you lots of options, which is a good thing :)

Thanks, I'll work on my homework :P

[drew]

I decided to give one of the CG a try. Turns out, it's a 15 minute round trip, selling off shit from the CG station to the buy location. It's only 45000 profit for the whole trip in the Asp (80T cargo). But, I may have fucked up, since this one isn't done until 10/6. I'm already guaranteed 600k, which isn't shit. So maybe I'll keep repeating the loop for a while (the ware needed for the CG is in ridiculous volume in the next sector (250000 supply), and the CG station has an almost infinite supply of the other ware to sell at the buy station). I made note of the current progress (overall tonnage), to see if that changes by any appreciable amount by morning. If it doesn't, I may go on my way.

I did find Robigo, and there are lots of smuggle missions, but I can't get them due to needing a higher "like" status with them (with seemingly no way to do so).

[Reynard]

Dude I'm sorry. :( I haven't done any of the long range smuggling runs myself, was just going by what I had read then and now evidently the Robigo one is kinda dead. The go to place(s) now are Sothis & Ceos. They're both about 400+ ly out of the bubble but close enough to each other that you can do data runs etc. between the two to get friendly with the locals and then try to stack a bunch of the higher paying long range runs back to the bubble.

[drew]

I gave up on the CG, it was just boring as fuck.

I instead went to Sothis and tried that out. Currently running 4 deliveries for 19M (cumulative).

We'll see how this goes for now. I may try out another section of space altogether and go from there.

My next goal is a Python. I've got about 28M in the bank, so I've got a while to go. Once that happens, the Asp is delegated an actual explorer (I'm scanning everything along my way right now). I'll strip it down to maximize distance, and aim in one direction.

[drew]

Not that anyone probably cares, but, I've spent the last three days fucking around with engineers. Once you understand teh mechanics of it, they're actually pretty awesome. My Python now jumps in the high 20s (thanks to a range boost). I've also got the thrusters amped up, as well as the multicannons.

It's a bit tedious, but I'm actually having fun with it. each one requires different things to "rank up" with them. I spent a few hours driving around on various planets picking up materials for it all. According to the stats, I've got about 350km in the buggy.

With the mods (so far, have higher levels to find materials for), the Python flies like the Asp, in both speed/maneuverability, and almost range, with more pain delivered. I submit to all interdictions now. Especially if it's an FDL or smaller. The small fighters (Vipers/Vultures) pop within 10 seconds.

[drew]

Anyone still playing this, they just had a huge update (2.2), that adds a bunch of shit, like:

More Engineers (and higher grade levels on existing engineers)
New ships (a couple fighters and cruise liners (somewhat intrigued about those)).
Fighters on Anacondas and the bigger ships (where you can hire NPC pilots from bases)

Cruise/people hauler missions, which, looking at them, are REEdiculous. Eg: got 73M Cr, you can haul 12 people on a 30,000Ly trip.

Not sure that's something I'd jump on, jesus.

They've changed the layout in the stations quite a bit (taking a little bit to get used to it), as well as some of the information displayed in-ship with jumping/etc.

Apparently some galaxy map changes too, that I haven't really looked at.

The total list was about bullet 500 points

As an aside, I got wasted in my Python (costs 8M to replace), but made worse that I lost about 4M in astro scans....

I made up for it by hovering above a landing pad, waiting for a wanted Sidewinder to lift off. I vaporized it within 2 seconds of leaving.

Also found a (lame) work-around to getting killed. If you think your death is imminent, just ctrl-alt-del and kill the ED task.

Sure, it's a bit of a cheat, but with all the time involved, dying sucks ass. When you start the game again, you're just floating in space. Unless you didn't do it fast enough, and you're dead anyway.

[Cam]

I haven't played in a while. Xbone version is a bit behind the PC version. They call quitting out before dying "combat logging" I think. It is often debated on ED's forums.

[drew]

Considering I've not spent one minute in online mode, I don't care what they think :)

If it was PVP, it'd be a total chicken shit way to "get out", and I'd agree with them.

What I am finding comical though, are the NPC pilots' names.

So far, I've seen:
Nicolas Cage
Jeffery Dahmer (really FD?)
There was a passenger mission for Elisa Dushku
Robert Plant

Stations named James Cameron, Ridley Scott, and George Lucas (all in the same system, if memory serves).

Though, I could have come up with many more.

It's too bad they have mods locked out of this one. There are a few things I'd love to tweak (not cheat, tweak). Hell, even if you could just make additional name generators for the pilots, I'd be content with that.

Ty Watwaffel
Angelina Twunt
Billy Canyon-Yodeler
Buster Highman


You know, shit like that...

[Reynard]

Yeah for sure, this is still my "currently playing" game and I haven't got close to burning out again on it yet. I've been working on engineering different modules for my little fleet (currently Python, FDS, AspX, Vulture & Imp. Courier) and in doing so have had to finally give mining a try and... I kinda like it. :o It's a bit meditative for me to find a pristine metallic ring of some planet and dive in to my own little spot all alone listening to some good tunes, zapping floating rocks while my little minion limpets are out doing the hard work. That was the reason for the Fed Dropship, perhaps the most maligned ship in the game, which I made into a very sturdy miner. Granted the Python of course can be outfitted to be much more productive in that regard when you're mining for profit but I was mostly doing it to get metals for mods & the occasional mission initially and now it's pretty much just acting as a module storage vessel. Regardless, it's the little "quality of life" as they put it, additions I'm most happy about on paper at least... specifically the ship transfer & module transfer and storage. Now I can have all my stuff at my home base easily. I also like that you'll be able to pay off & collect bounties at stations outside of the specific system (for a small convenience fee). Still want to see all the other stuff of course, find some geysers, flirt with some neutron stars to boost the FSD etc.

I was playing some yesterday hoping to catch the update when it was released but logged off before it happened. I am (perhaps was now) sitting on a stack of about 8 haulage missions from down around Aditi to back up in the bubble worth about 20mil but was starting to nod off. So instead of flying into a star I called it a night and went to bed. I'll be curious to see if I still have them this evening after the update and if so, if the prices stay the same or they get nerfed at all.

Also here's a good thread worth reading guys: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/296628-Little-helpful-facts-Did-you-know-that

Lot's of good info therein and plenty I had no idea about too such as I had no idea you could use your vert/lat thrusters during the interdiction mini game. Or this little gem of a tip

- having problems finding Cargo Content in Planetary POIs? Fire off a single Collector Limpet and lock it up as a Target. As soon as anything scoopable comes within max. Range of that Collector, it'll fly off straight towards it
(naturally it'll blow up on the Ground, but it's a suitable 1-way Cargo finder, reliably showing you where you need to go )

[drew]

The one engineer required 500T of mining (anything/any combo). So, I went to an ice ring and filled up with water/etc rather quickly. I kitted out my Python with 3 grade 2 mining lasers and a 2-limpet controller (and 10-bay refinery). 500T didn't take too lon

I chose ice rings, because the higher concentrations meant faster refinement. 2-3 fragments made 1T, instead of shit with 5% concentration (using prospector), that you have to get 10 or more for 1T.

Since it was all water, and essentially worthless, I just dumped it in space and kept mining till I got past the 500T.

The 10 Painite was a bit more involved... But I got lucky and found a pristine ring and a 35% Painite rock.

Right now I'm roaming around on planets again, looking for downed satellites/etc. I want G5 overcharged Pulse lasers (they added level 5 in the update), but need Modified Embedded Firmware (most G5 weapon upgrades), which is one of the three most insanely rare things to find (along with Exquisite Focus Crystals (G5 Charge Distributor) and Pharmaceutical Isolators (G5 Dirty Drives)).

I've spent the last 3+ weeks on engineer shit. Unlocking them, and finding the various materials. It's tedious, and frustrating (thank you RNG), but still fun to me. I'm trying to get more efficient at data scanning planetary bases.

Had I been doing Sothis missions this whole time, I'm sure I'd have a billion in the bank. But, what I have been doing, I'm also getting a secondary effect of getting my Imperial and Fed ranks up (and permits).

[Reynard]

Yeah, sure enough I lost all my missions. All the goods were still in my cargo hold so I could at least sell them for some credits. It appears all the long range cargo runs have seriously depreciated now. A 18 ton 250ly run with an allied faction before would net me around 1.2-1.5 mil and now it's around 250-450k. Oh well I knew I was taking a chance at not completing those before the update. I did however read something on the FD forums from one of the developers saying they were looking into some mission reward issues. It's thought that they wanted to specifically nerf the Solthis runs and perhaps had too far reaching effects but regardless the passenger missions look like they could be interesting, in as much as they will get you to see some stuff you prolly haven't yet, and they can be very lucrative... and dangerous.

Of course as soon as I booted up the game there's a big message saying the module storage is majorly borked and don't try it yet. <sigh> why they didn't test it in the beta, who knows. Also didn't take me long to see the 0h:0m critical mission update timer is still very much in play. I'm sure you've experienced that drew. More of an annoyance then a problem but still. :| But everything certainly seems to look better to me in the game. I followed a Beluga out of a station and the engine nacelle flares from it were stunning as it accelerated away. The station I was at in Aditi, Pew Orbital I think, was one of the ones with a white interior that previously looked really harsh and washed out, now it looks great. The hyperspace tunnel is really nice now as you can look to the sides and there's no more walls of stars going by. I really like the that the star type shows up in the info panel before a jump too. So handy for scooping. Obviously lots more stuff to check out, will get more in depth this weekend. And also though I haven't looked at them yet, I've read that the new tutorials are actually really fun to play through fwiw.

[drew]

I've noticed that the mission choices are also greatly reduced. Maybe I should have done Sothis for a week or two... Though I haven't been back there in a month (about).

Generally speaking, the above seems to be true now. Less available missions and they're not as lucrative, except the passenger ones, it seems.

I am allied with all factions in Shu Babassi, and the passenger missions range from 1.5M to 70M (biggest one so I've seen so far). Of course, they also range from 50ly to 30000ly.......

I really want to get a Beluga and give on of those a go, if for nothing else, the exploration aspect. As opposed to just jumping back into my Asp.

[Reynard]

Well I officially burned out again last week. I think I took a mining job just before logging off on Sunday night that had a 3 day to complete window or some such. Thought I would take care of it Monday but never got around to booting up the game. Then Wednesday comes around and I get home from work and I think, oh shit, got to complete that damn mining job... and then I'm like damn it, it's just a game, you don't want another job or deadlines in your life and got all pissed and unhooked my Hotas. :lol:

I really want to head out on some serious exploring in the game sometime but I just feel like I really won't see anything I haven't already seen, either myself or watching videos so we'll see. I'm sure I'll get back to it again at some point. In the meantime it's back to XCOM for me.

[Cam]

I completely lost interest in this game too. :(

[drew]

I'm still plodding along with it. I bought a Type 9 a couple days ago and thought I'd mine with it. That was boring AF. 3 hours worth and I think I managed 400k in the palladium/painite/gold mix.

Took all the equipment off of it (stored) and sold it.

I'm not bored with it, yet. I still have a couple goals with it (namely, ships I want but can't afford/access yet).

I may re-install GTA V and go through that with the redux mod.

[Reynard]

Yeah for sure it's more about the user then the game. I still think it's a technical marvel and an excellent (space)flight sim but like before though, I tend to turn it into a second job and then the fun stops. I'll get back to it again no doubt just needed a break. It still has the ability to deliver moments to make my hairs stand on end, like coming in on approach for landing on a planet moon's dark side when the local star rise is just breaking over the horizon and an absolutely perfect song comes on (I tend to play with a few playlists I created in shuffle mode), those moments are the best and why I still love the game.

[drew]

Yeah, I have the sound off completely in game and just queue up everything from Slayer to Bach.

I've done a few passenger missions that take you to the new "visitor" locations, noting one I want to go back to off-mission. It's a lava geyser site. You can barely make them out while in flight, but I want to take the rover around them and see them point blank.


I just wish they'd allow solo-play mods. There are so many things that could be improved with a few tweaks in that regard (namely, scanners should all be utility slots). It'd have been fun to mod the engineers' stuff too. Rather than just having lightweight/integrity mods on non weapon/etc, maybe make the scanners have better range, etc. Maybe make a super scanner for 10s of millions that does a system-wide scan of all bodies and surfaces.

Oh well.

[GreatScawt]

Holy shit did you guys see this? :eek:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsga26eiDPE

[Cam]

Wow!

You know, a couple of days ago, I started this game up. I got into the ship and thought to myself that I didn't want to play this game right now. :lol:

[Kchrpm]

I don't know what that was, other than amazing to watch.

Edit: this popped up in my feedly, so now I know! http://www.polygon.com/2017/1/5/14184452/elite-dangerous-first-contact-aliens-thargoid

[GreatScawt]

Sorry yeah, I stripped out the news story and just posted the cool video. :lol:

[drew]

It's all over the ED forums. I'm about to go and take a look myself. Everybody is losing their shit.

[Cam]

Looks like all the encounters have been the same. Player gets interdicted and loses all power. Alien ship appears, scans, then leaves before the player can do anything. Not a big deal, in my opinion. Publicity stunt to get bored players like me interested in the game again?

[Kchrpm]

Hopefully it is just a precursor before a larger (free) patch/content release.

[drew]

Looks like all the encounters have been the same. Player gets interdicted and loses all power. Alien ship appears, scans, then leaves before the player can do anything. Not a big deal, in my opinion. Publicity stunt to get bored players like me interested in the game again?


Most likely. I'm still having fun with the game, so, why not (as well as having precisely NOTHING else to do).

I may load up my Asp with all fuel tanks and just "wander" for a while.

[Reynard]

I just read about it in the weekly newsletter they send out. I knew it was coming, it's cool and all but more for those who are committed to the Elite universe canon I think. I never played any of the games before this as I certainly didn't have a computer of any kind when the original games came out. And as I am with such things and games like this I really could care less about any "story". I'll leave that for games like Uncharted. ;)

But yeah it's certainly cool but I'm not ready to boot it up again yet... got a full (and very rainy) weekend ahead that is going to dedicated to Motorsport Manager. :)

[GreatScawt]

You would hope this means they'll be incorporating these guys in to the game from now on. It'd be a bit of a cock-tease to pull players in to these neat interruptions, then not build on it with future content.

[Cam]

I played a bit of this game last night for the first time in ages. (I guess the publicity stunt worked on me. :lol: ) There have been a few changes since I played it last. Most significant changes are in the station interface. On top of that, you can now carry passengers. Xbone updates are a few months behind the PC version.

I pretty much forgot how to play this game. I crashed (slowly) into a station while trying to dock for the first time. :lol: Didn't do any damage, thankfully.

One of the community goals is to ship stuff to Jacques Station, 22,000 Ly away! :erm: If I had more time to play, I might help out on that. Crunch time at work. :(

[drew]

Ive only done the smaller "sight seeing adventure" missions, because:

They can be done rather quickly (one was about 45 minutes/4-5 stops, got me 18m).

Fuck the "wants to go to [name constellation/etc] and gather info" missions. Sure, I've seen those go north of 100m for payout, but, at that level, you're looking at 25000-32000ly (ONE way). So yeah, fuck that. Not much "scenery", just a lot of warp/jump screens (A LOT)...

I'm currently trying to find the "sweet spot" for Fed rank, because now I want a Corvette. It passes the time, just like the long passenger missions would, but, with one difference, I can kill things while I'm doing it, rather than wanting to kill myself to keep myself awake.

I fucked up yesterday and tried to blast a wanted ship as it was descending to a pad on an outpost station, and one of the cannon shells hit the station. 4 seconds and 7m later, I was back in a port...

I really do enjoy this game, and have never seen any of the earlier ones. There are just some aspects of it that tell me the devs are sadistic bastards. "take these people across the milky way, and we'll give you a shiny piece of sulfur when you get back in a month".

Cam, being busy with work isn't a bad thing ;)

[Cam]

Launch from station. Get told to be careful by station control. Attempt to carefully leave station. Get surprise buttsex from an AI ship leaving behind me. Get warned by station control to be more careful. :rolleyes:

[Cam]

I gave up on passengers. Most of the time they're criminals. Even when they're not, they're usually demanding and neurotic. :rolleyes:

[Kchrpm]

The Transporter: Space.

[Leon]

I gave up on passengers. Most of the time they're criminals. Even when they're not, they're usually demanding and neurotic. :rolleyes:

I gave up on girlfriends. They're usually demanding and neurotic ;)

[drew]

:lol:


Been there done that. For years, if I wanted to hear a woman speak, I'd just unmute pornhub.

[Cam]

:lol:

The right lady is out there. I found one. :)

[Cam]

I've given well over 10 million spacebucks in charitable donations in the last week. It's an easy way to earn rep.

[drew]

I think I'm at about 100mil in donations this week. Two ranks to go, then I can get any ship in the game. Sitting at 520M in the bank with about 198M in missions to complete (loaded up on "massacre" missions, so I'll gain an ass load of rank too).

They just had a new update a couple days ago, which I think neutered the donation missions (in quantity). Before the update, I was seeing 10-15 per faction per log in (switching modes). Now, You're lucky to find 1 or 2 mission every 3rd log in. At the same station, same factions, and same "state" (civil war).

There's some other things I'd like to try out (the alien artifact thing, go to Sol (now that I have the permit)), exploration type stuff, after this rank stuff is done.


(and for the record, I found the right lady :))

[Cam]

Holy hell. I just jump randomly around and do missions, but they are never worth more than 100,000 Cr. :? I guess I just have not earned enough faction rep to get the more valuable missions.

However, I never do go-kill-people missions. Heck, I don't even do the transport slaves missions. My morality is too high to do that, even in a game. :lol:

[drew]

That's what we love about you.

I have no scruples in a game. I transport narcotics/slaves, kill people en masse... It's my thing :)

Even if you're just mining/trading (non-perishables), getting friendly or allied with a faction greatly increases the payout.

Some of the smaller sight-seeing missions are pretty $ as well. You can take one that can be done in 20 minutes and get 5-15M, depending on your status with the offering faction. Most involve fly to [x] scan beacon, then fly to [y], repeat. Some are only 1 or two, some are 4-5 with 100-300ly legs between. But with an Asp, is less painful, because of the longer jump range.

[Cam]

Yeah, I have an Asp Explorer. Most of the passenger missions were restricted to me because I need to be friendly with that faction. The problem is, I never stay in one place long enough to build much rep.

[drew]

Ah, well, as soon as I'm done camping out at the 4-5 systems (rotate through them as they go to war), I'm going to start a voyage.

I may even take up mining. I've got a Cutter sitting in storage begging for some kind of use. 750T of cargo is just stupid.

[Cam]

I got an Imperial promotion... to Serf! :lol:

[drew]

Nice. I just bought a Corvette. Which I will try for a while, then probably start over with nothing...

Focusing more on exploration in this one.

Suppose I don't have to start over, but, what the hell.

Oh, I saw this yesterday:

2285

[Cam]

I feel like I've been trying for ages to get my rep up with the Imperials. I'm only at 19% cordial. :( I'm 50% friendly with the Federation. I wanted to get the achievement for being friendly with all three superpowers. I haven't even worked on the Alliance yet.

[drew]

Yeah, the rep is one thing, the RANK is a whole other.


There are systems out there that have many major-aligned factions that you can rep up with. I think if you found such a system/station, and did the little run around missions (data/transport people/deliveries), you would be able to get to friendly with them fairly easily.

The rank on the other hand, ffs.

[Cam]

Yeah, I understand that you have to do missions, trade commodities, and sell exploration data to systems allied with whatever power you want to get friendly with. I am not really concerned about my rank. I was hoping to get a Sol permit eventually. You just have to keep doing missions, but it takes eons.

[drew]

Yeah. The Sol permit is a fairly mid Fed rank, which is some considerable effort...

I swear the FDEV guys are sadists, making you intentionally go out of your way to spend hours/weeks on end for one seemingly simple task...

[Cam]

After playing this game off and on for a while, I finally got: a.) Friendly with all three super powers. (I thought there was an achievement for this. :( ) b.) Sol permit. The thing is, I wasn't even really trying for a Sol permit. I was just doing missions and got a message saying I was granted one.

It took a lot of space truckin' to get friendly will all three super powers. :lol:

[drew]

:up: I've not touched this in over a year... :)

[Cam]

Recently, I did a whole bunch of linked Imperial missions. Suddenly, I jumped up about six ranks from Serf to Baron. I got a few more follow-on missions that required a landing module that I did not have. My rank easily could be higher, not that it really matters. :lol:

[drew]

I just fired it up last weekend again. It appears to have had some big changes.

I re-engineered my explorer ship, and pointed towards Sag A. Got about 10000ly into the trip, and got bored. So I'm heading back, hitting nebulas along the way.

I also installed Skyrim last week, but haven't done anything with it yet.

[Cam]

I just bought a Python. Traded my Asp Explorer. It was a good ship. Looking forward to flying the Python though. :hard: