MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Only 33% of my ships have upgraded shoot at other people weapons.
All but one of mine have. 😀
We're told never to sell ships, but I can't imagine why I'd ever use my Challenger now I have a Krait?
I'm 50:50 with weapons, neither my explorer (Asp X) or my mining ship (Python) have offensive weapons. My combat Vulture and my bubble jumper (Cobra mkIII) obviously have. The Cobra is mainly cos pirates keep pulling me out of supercruise to attack me (ship painted the wrong colour I guess).
I think it's another play it your way kind of thing. I have not sold any ships, cos with mining you don't need the money. Plus one day I know I'll have a niche role that it will fill perfectly, like my Sidewinder cargo hauler!
Matt
Parts bin ship!
Dunno why I never removed the lasers from my Cobra, I'll probably do it when I get back. Or buy an AspX (lol).
What's wrong with selling ships?
You get 90% of the value back I think. But make sure you sell upgraded modules separately as apparently you get less if you sell them with the ship.
Old ships have some use as storage For engineered modules that you don’t want to get rid of but may be useful in the future I think. Other than that it’s just sentimental value I think, as it actually makes quite good economical sense to flog then as the depreciation is so low. I’ll be flogging my Asp when I’ve got a nicer ship; don’t like it at all.
Cashing the challenger could allow me to kit out my Anaconda when I can find one for sale.
I can't think of a reason to keep it when I have a Krait. It was great to fly mind.
I keep mine for sentimental reasons. 🙂
I didn't have it for long. That may be a reason to.keep it but there are around 30 million reasons not to.
Yeah if you sell modules separately you get 100% value, basically swap them all out for the E rated version before selling.
Matt
With all the money sloshing around, why sell to get 90 mill or whatever back?
Because I don't reall ylike mining.
Heresy, burn the unbeliever!
Well. Purchased the Anaconda, it really feels like not much of a combat ship because it's sluggish, and it has more of a bridge than a cockpit. But then WTF am I going to do with all this weaponry? I feel rather daunted tbh. Pulse or turret? SLF or not?
I'm still Mostly Harmless.. I don't feel like it in this thing.
It's not for dancing round behind things, it's for standing toe to toe. You'll need to set it up to take a punch as well as deliver one.
Matt
I'm gonna have to do some more mining to build up this thing.
However, I can build it up with loads of limpets, loads of capacity, loads of cargo and still kick the shit out of any pirates who might show up, so it might work out easier.
Just think every ton is the next module you need to A rate it.
I am doing the second part of a mining comparison tonight. Last night I went surface mining at a local LTD hotspot. Tonight I'm off to Borann.
Matt
anyone used a Type9 for mining?
and found a new tactic for the Mamba when fighting small ships, Ram them and watch them bounce back right in front of your guns 🙂
How'd you get on at the local hotspot, matt?
I think ultimately my ship collection would extend to Asp Explorer, Krait, Anaconda and Beluga.
Any more vids ?.
And i take it Captain Pugwash/Haddock/Birdseye usernames are taken.
Commanders, not Captains.
"De Lacy Mike Oscar Lemur you are clear to dock landing pad zero eight"
The results are in for the surface mining challenge. At the local hot spot I used about 100 limpets for 8t of LTD in fairness not a bad return. Realising I wasn't going to fill the hold that way I moved onto deep core and ended up with 140M of LTD, Void Opals and Alexandrite, though it took me three different places to get the best price for each. From what i can see each surface fragment is about 3% of the bin, each core fragment is 50-60%.
Tonight in Borann I filled the hold (192t) surface mining in just over two hours, 144Ly to sell point and I make 210M. On average every third asteroid has more than 10% LTD at Borann, whereas at the single hotspot there were LTDs about every 10 roids and only two had more than 10% content (if only Bromellite were worth something).
The local spot Onyama 2, was good for cores, I found cores pretty frequently. But Borann is so easy, and they both give you the thrill of the run for the sell. That's me mined out for a bit, I'm off exploring for a bit.
Matt
In 500ly from sol in my srv and stuck on a rock...
Arse.
Can't you just blow up an respawn in your ship?
Have you tried boosting with your SRVs thruster? Hold down L3 and the SRV will fly for a short time. It works sometimes, other times you are somehow jammed and it does nothing. You can also try opening and closing the cargo scoop. If all else fails, self destruct your SRV and you will return to the ship. Bit of a PITA if you don't have a spare SRV but should save you being stuck.
Got my hands on Elite Dangerous with Horizons over the weekend. I've spent a few hours on it already much to the joy of my wife and have it now setup in the back bedroom rather than the living room.
Vast would be an understatement and I think I might not notice lockdown being lifted or my wife and kids leaving me.
All I can think about is what to do next, especially after browsing through this thread and other sources of info on the internet.
Vast would be an understatement and I think I might not notice lockdown being lifted or my wife and kids leaving me.
Yeah, there's no virus in space. Well there might be, I mean your CMDR never gets out of his chair never mind his ship, so I think transmission would be pretty low.
What platform are you on @Bushwhacked ?
I'm still pottering round the Pilots Playpen ( or whatever it's called )..... made a couple of million out of courier / delivery missions to try a few ships, done a bit of light cargo trading which isn't really my scene.
Currently learning how to fight by becoming the scourge of the pirates in the Sharur system in my Eagle. Killed one caled Ivor Biggun this morning.
I'm not very good at it. Maybe I should use my Cobra.
In 500ly from sol in my srv and stuck on a rock…
I read somewhere that if this happens, log out of the game and log back in through Elite without horizons, put the ship in orbit, log out and log back in with horizons. This only works for PC though, not console. (Can’t remember how you’re playing)
Otherwise, I think the only solution is self destruct
@Bushwacked that's the beauty of it. Be what you want to be, do what you want to do. There is loads out there and many ways to play.
Run missions, to gain reputation or rank up with the Feds or dirty Empire
Trade cargo (tea is popular!)
Hunt bounties
Explore the universe
Carry passengers etc, etc.
Go mining in Borann (more wealth than you can imagine)
You can have a ship for each or run a python for everything. Just have fun (and dodge the grind). If you need pointers, there's plenty of us now, all doing different things.
Matt
Eurgh!
I need to deal with the dirty Empire to unlock another engineer.
Am I willing to sell my principles for G5 engineered lasers or should I fly to Colonia to unlock the laser guy there?
Word is Empire's the easiest to grind as well, upping the temptation!
That engineer looks like a serial killer (not as bad as the power plant guy!) as well, gotta be Colonia!
Matt
im a billionaire!
Time go go and get that Federal Navy rank up so i can buy a Corvette.
Are the pirates/hijackers in this played in roles by real people or are they a computer element set to make things exciting ?.
Only other kind of role play game ive played was Arma altis life, where the bad guys were real people.
Are the pirates/hijackers in this played in roles by real people or are they a computer element set to make things exciting ?.
Both.
You can play in Solo, where all other ships in the universe are computer pilots or you can play in Open where the rest of the real people in the world can play too and be pirates if they want.
I’m not very good at it.
There are a few combat manoeuvres to learn which help but the trick is in getting the loadout right. It's not a game of agility and skillful flying really. Well, it might be if you were all evenly equipped but you're not - there are so many variations and levels of kit that it is literally an arms race not a skill race.
What platform are you on @Bushwhacked ?
I'm on Xbox - is it cross platform?
I'm definitely in the playpen still and imagine I will be for a while.
It’s not cross platform but the background simulation is.
Effectively anything you do within the background simulation such as helping factions, participating in community goals affects the game dynamics for all platforms, but you can’t link up and play with other platforms. A real shame I think.
Ended up self destructing the srv, but I now have a decent amount of arsenic for felicity.
And experience of exploring outside the bubble.
Got bugger all experience for the cartographic data?
And loads of arc for combat, despite only firing the weapons to mine.
Another trophy, combine harvester. Slowly getting closer to the SagA trip.
Now this was fun.
Just bought a Type-9, launched it and noticed i had no jump range, so docked again, got stuck in the docking port somehow and got blown up.
Now jumping back to where i want to be then have the Type-9 moved over to where i can get a better FSD fitted.
Fun last night. Put the mining kit away and bought some guns. Went out to test it out on a simple pirate mission and it was quite amusing when loads of pointy guns unfolded from my ship like something out of Dexter's Lab* and shredded some poor Cobra.
However, I got into a bit of bother through not reading and thinking properly.. I took another assassination job from some system, then I got a message from a shady character asking me if I would switch my target for another, for more money. Sure, I thought, they're all just pirate scum. Well, turns out that the system I was in was run by various gangster factions and they wanted me to kill an informant. I didn't realise this until after it was too late and I got a bounty on my head then I went back and read the chat. So I basically killed an innocent man who was being coerced. I think I got off pretty lightly with 5,100Cr bounty and they didn't even take my cargo from me in jail. No justice in the galaxy, really.
On the plus side, trading can be fun in the Anaconda with 384t cargo space. Made a few million taking polymers and membranes to high tech systems, easy and no pirate hassle. I also found there are a few systems with stations both buying and selling the same goods for about 1500Cr/t difference. With a big ship that's easy money.
* or, for younger readers, Victor's house in Despicable Me
I’m getting a bit bored grinding out the LTD at Borann. Won’t stop until I get my trading Elite though so I reckon I need another 300m out of it.
My Anaconda has 3 large beams and a huge multicannon which I’ve not even fired yet. Might have to take a break from mining and shoot so people up. There’s plenty of anarchy systems between Borann and the LTD markets
The hardpoint placement on the Anaconda is a bit tricky. The huge hardpoint is underneath near the back but infront of the deepest part of the ship, so it can't fire backwards (I don't think anyway). But one of the large ones is in front of it and only slightly above. So whilst the huge one might be able to see forward and up slightly, the large would probably obscure it even more when facing the target. But if you are slightly side-on, then it'd be fine.
I'd normally only put one medium beam on as a shield stripper, but the medium HPs are on either side so if you aren't facing the target then only one can fire - unless you roll so it's above you. But then you obscure the huge HP underneath! It's an interesting flying problem.
The two small HPs are right at the bottom near the back, which I think means they can fire backwards which is brilliant if you're being chased (reminds me of the rear facing military lasers in the original game which basically made you unstoppable because you could just fly away and the AI was too dumb to realise that chasing you put them right in your sights) but they are only small, unfortunately. A ship properly designed for turrets (like the Type 10.. I may get one of those too) would have all-round visibility for its turrets.
If you are fighting an Anaconda, whatever you do don't run, cos then they can see you with ALL their HPs and you are likely to be shredded before you can get out of range!
I've joined Mikkel and bought a flying brick (Type 9). Had to do a Borann run to pay for it mind.
I have kitted it out with just over 700t of cargo space and some passenger cabins. When I get back from my latest trip out in the black I'm going to do some serious space-truckin. It's fun to park, I put the autodock on and that scraped the mailslot.
Matt
Wow, 700t? What weapons do you have on it? I think I'm going to be a trader for a while.
Yeah the huge hard point won’t take a turret so it’s a gimballed multicannon on it not sure how much use that’ll be to be honest. Everything else is turreted so I may swap it for something smaller on a turret and ditch a cargo bay for a fighter bay
I had a play around in my Vulture last night.
Its funny as its one of the first ships I bought 3 years ago, but I sold it as I couldn't really afford to upgrade it properly and I wasn't great at combat.
Now with a bit more experience and a ton of credits, plus a load of engineers to experiments with builds.
So I A-rated everything, upgraded the power plant and thrusters and then messed about with different weapons.
First i tried railguns. I gave up pretty quickly. I can't shoot for shit with fixed weapons. Then I tried one beam and a frag cannon. That was pretty fun, the frag cannon does decent damage once the beam has stripped the shields but the firing mechanism is a bit underwhelming. It doesn't really feel like a space shotgun.
Finally I settled on 2 large multi-cannons Engineered with overcharge and one with incendiary and one with corrosive.
Dakka, dakka dakka!
What a great little ship. Its more maneuverable than the FDL or the Chieftain and much harder to hit. Fair enough it doesn't have quite the same firepower or load out flexibility but the rebuy cost is tiny as well.
If you are filthy rich from LTDs and have some engineers unlocked then its great fun to play around in, I definitely prefer it to the FDL.
@Molgrips the type 9 has three medium and two small hardpoints. The thing turns so slowly I could kill it in my Cobra.
I have tried to make survival an option if/when I get ganked or pirated. I have reinforced alloy, a 5A sheild (only costs you 32t cargo) and two sheild boosters on utility mounts. I have point defence and chaff on the other utilities and when I get some more knowledge I'm going to look at mines and missiles for flinging in the direction of interdictors, while I run away.
For hauling it seems good. I only have a few passenger cabins, but when I find a good location I can buy a bigger one(s) and keep it in module storage.
Matt
@Richmtb love my Vulture, though I run with 1 fixed beam and 1 overcharged multicannon (I haven't added an experimental effect because I can't be bothered to jump it to Wolf 397, but I have the same cannon combination as you in medium flavour on my Cobra). The frag cannon is great for up close damage but aesthetically really, really underwhelming.
Have you had any cockpit issues? My Vulture has taken a real beating at times, but since I added the module reinforcement no problems. Now I've learned to synthesise ammo, 'm generally playing out until the hull gets below 50%.
Matt
Not had any problems with the cockpit, it seems tougher than the Cheiftain even without a module reinforcement - i use a standard hull reinforcement instead.
I've got a trick getting experimentals for weapons - I stick 3 large and 2 medium of whatever I want to engineer on my Python and fly to Wolf 397 or Wyrd and engineer as many as I can in one go!
That's a master stroke, I can take three large and just put different effects on each. See which I like best. Thanks
Matt
I haven't done much engineering yet. I put some extra range on my FSDs but ran out of stuff. I have yet to see a materials trader to ask.
I sold the Type-9 again, never got round to fitting it out to tank as all the bits i needed was quite a long way away.
First the accident in docking mentioned earlier, then first mission i get interdicted as i i dropped the throttle by mistake, and was instantly dead even though i was sporting the biggest shield generator out there.
bought it back then decided to sell it after all, will get a Type 10 instead at some point at the moment i am using the Python which i had flown out for the short jump cargo mission around 180 tons a mission.
Have found a nice station right in a Planetary ice ring, fancy fitting the Type-10 and just go mine everything i find there as i find mining very chilling 🙂
Lol @perchypanther just watch you don't leave the Fed district or they'll lock the door behind you. Get all the leave missions for a fat payday once you do get out.
Loving the Krait Phantom for exploring. Big enough to take all the toys you need, including a mahoosive fuel scoop which fills in seconds. Even with all of the kit I've managed to get a 45Ly jump range and it is so nice to fly, especially for planetary landings.
If Borann didn't exist I would just have made us all rich! I found a planet about 50Ly out of the bubble with four double hotspots, really good overlaps as well. Two were low temperature diamonds, one was void opals, the last one was grandiderite. When I get back I'm definitely going to mine it just out of curiosity.
Matt
Basic medicines seem to be the thing for trading. Over 4k per tonne.
Good work matt. I tried to find some decent mining spots on my own but failed.
What planet types are you trading those between, that would be good money with 700t?
Matt
I'm at Procyon and there are a few planets with outbreaks or 'expecting outbreak'. These seem to be consistently paying 4.5k or so and they are readily available from industrial systems for 2-300.
Sounds like a lot of you are a long way down the road compared to me and I've got a lot of space time ahead of me.
I tried a planetary landing yesterday, managed to work it out myself. Initially thinking I needed to land it like a plane before realising at the last moment you come in vertically using the thrusters.
Then I got my SRV out, had no idea what I was doing. Got stuck on a rock, self destructed. Then when I was trying to take off I managed to turn flight assist off without realising and ended up like a turtle upside down on the surface, flailing around unable to get myself the right way up and take off. Most fun I've had for a while and was laughing out loud, especially when I realised what I had done and then turned flight assist back on and I was gone in 30 seconds.
Currently building up my money to get a cobra mk3. The stock sidewinder I can't bring myself to upgrade.
The classic Elite experience, do I know what I'm doing, no, hell i'll give it a go. At least the rebuy is cheap in a sidewinder. When you have a specific thing in mind to try check out the vids/guides on youtube, Down 2 Earth Astronomy is great, though Obsidian Ant does brilliant beginner stuff (and he is the voice of a station somewhere).
The Cobra is a great ship, you really can do anything with it; fight, trade, mission, mini-miner, explore.... Just stick the modules in storage as you switch from one mode to the other. I've just moved my Sidewinder to my home base, not sure what I'll do with it!
Matt
The Cobra is a great ship, you really can do anything with it
Yeah, you can show up in Sharur to fight an endless supply of Harmless NPC pirates in stock sidewinders, while your heavily reinforced and shielded Cobra is equipped with a million quids worth of turreted beam lasers and a shit load of seeker missiles.
It's almost like cheating. 😉
My plan last night was to take my new Krait out for a short spin to Wolf 397, with 5 multicannons, visit Tod upgrade them and go back home and put the engineered MCs on the Vulture.
So I go to Tod, and get at least G4 Overcharged on all 5 guns. 2 with Incendiary, 1 with Autoloader and 2 with Corrosive. I start heading back to Shinrarta, its only 2 jumps. The first jump lands me in a system with a Compromised Nav Beacon.
So I decide to have a little play with all these guns!
So many bullets! So much dakka! dakka!
I've never tried an all gun build before, it's great fun. 2 pips to weapons and you can fire your guns all day.
I definitely don't need another combat ship (I've got a Chieftain, an FDL and a Vulture!) but the Krait with lots of guns is really fun.
Ooo, nice! I really must get engineering... 🙂 How does all guns cope with shields? I've been incoporating lasers to strip em, but guns are more fun. 🙂
Currently building up my money to get a cobra mk3. The stock sidewinder I can’t bring myself to upgrade.
Been mining the Borann triple hotspot so I've got cash to spare - might have a day away from the asteroids, pimp the Sidewinder and see what adventures we get up to. Or I might take something shooty to.... Sharur, I think, has been recently mentioned...? 🙂
Somebody said a few pages back that we're a bit shooty on here - aim of the game for me hasn't changed since playing it on the Speccie in '87 or whenever, gotta get to Elite status in combat. The rest of it is like a fun expansion pack. 🙂
Or I might take something shooty to…. Sharur, I think, has been recently mentioned…?
Sharur is the bad boy system in the Pilots Federation District i.e the permit locked starter system for total noobs like me. Easy missions to give you a chance to learn the mechanics of the game.
IN my case the most recent lesson has been "Peace through superior firepower"
Once you gain any rank at all, leave the district and dock somewhere outside, you get locked out forever.
I'm 5000LY out of the bubble heading back. Going to try and unlock the Guardian FSD booster and some more engineering before heading to Colonia (just for something to do). I managed to get my ship out of the Eagle Point base and somehow picked up a fine in the process, pad infringement probably.
Only 100 boring jumps to get back with some occasional neutron star fun for super jumps.
Might go mining in Borann for a couple of days and boost the income and get all shooty with some anti pirate missions. The data pod recovery missions are fun too, retrieving stolen artwork usually leads to a decent fight and me getting my arse handed to me.
Yeah, you can show up in Sharur to fight an endless supply of Harmless NPC pirates in stock sidewinders, while your heavily reinforced and shielded Cobra is equipped with a million quids worth of turreted beam lasers and a shit load of seeker missiles.
It’s almost like cheating. 😉
My current strategy, except pretty much jumped out of the safe area straight away and wondered why I couldn't get back to finish a mission.
Had a spell of using mines and seekers on the same load out, before I'd worked stuff out. Didn't end well.
Currently building up my money to get a cobra mk3. The stock sidewinder I can’t bring myself to upgrade.
Ah. Well ok - Sidewinder pimping it is, then. 🙂
How does all guns cope with shields? I’ve been incoporating lasers to strip em, but guns are more fun. 🙂
The trick is to get a couple of the guns with the Incendiary experimental effect applied. This converts the guns damage to thermal to take down shields.
Guns are more fun definitely, but beam lasers are probably still more efficient for stripping shields, especially if you get "Themal Vent" added to the lasers, then they actually cool the ship down whenever the beams are hitting anything.
Ah ha - brilliant, cheers. 🙂
Hadn't realise cargo gets transferred when you switch ships - I'd planned to horde LTDs until a favourable market day, but that's a non-starter. 🙁
Ha! I'm not falling for that old chesnut again... 🙂
my cousin says he will look after them for you, he has a lock-up over near Lave.
He holds the rank of Imperial Prince in the Nigeria system?
Hadn’t realise cargo gets transferred when you switch ships – I’d planned to horde LTDs until a favourable market day, but that’s a non-starter.
That's what fleet carriers will be for. Just 5bnCr for you sir.
Ooo - can you mine in them, and how much cargo do they hold? 🙂
25000t, I doubt you could take them into the ring. That would be cool though, taking asteroids whole and spitting out the dust when you had taken the delicious bits.
Matt
Ventured outside the Pilots federation playpen last night into the big bad galaxy.
Turns out I'm shite at gunrunning.
I arrived at my destination 3 jumps away only to find my destination was 327000 Ls away and when I finally got there I had made an arse of loading up the weapons and had left them behind.
Frak! and indeed Shazbot!
You know how everyone who ever clipped into SPDs has, at some point, had one of *those* unclip fail/fall on face moments? I'd bet my dog and lot that everyone who ever attempted a cargo mission in Elite Dangerous has, at some point, failed to pick it up before setting off. 🙂
I’d bet my dog and lot that everyone who ever attempted a cargo mission in Elite Dangerous has, at some point, failed to pick it up before setting off. 🙂
Posted 2 minutes ago
More thane once, added bonus for maximum Ls away in supercruise.
At least two or three times. I don't take them now for fear of embarrassing myself. Getting killed by a pirate you are supposed to hunting is cool by comparison.
Matt