Forum menu
That is odd, the T10 hull is the toughest available. The canopy thing is a thing though. Anyone who has owned a chieftain or a Vulture will tell you.
With my Vulture a module reinforcement seems to have improved it, though plenty of people say it does nothing.
I've been killed by all sorts of bizarre ships, earlier I wasted an Anaconda in the Viper, then got roasted by a Diamondback Explorer!
Matt
i know its just one of the random "luck" happenings when you lose your canopy like this, i was at 99% hull when the canopy shattered, if i had had a cruise assist i would have made it i think as i overshot first time, then got intercepted a third time when really really close to station.
its why i like to keep a big surplus of credits 🙂
@mikkel you asked about pinning blueprints. Down To Earth Astronomy did a review of which blueprints to pin from which engineers. I'm nowhere near ready for that yet so I'll come back to it when I'm ready to get upgrading. The summary is at 14:46 in this video;
cheers
i got the FSD range pinned now, well at lvl4 but with my Diamondback Explorer its never far away.
just got Post Captain rank, when i got the Rear Admiral i think i better go get my Elite in exploration sorted.
Finally left the inner Orion spur, over 10k ly away from Sol.
Bored, so very bored. I'm currently scooting 300k ls out from this star to see/map a water giant and it's refreshing to see black space with white stars.
Another 2k to get to a way station, will see how close to elite explorer I am - so want to sprint in and out now.
I'm already bored with the exploration idea after about 2 hours. I wouldn't mind going on a proper long trip but I'd only have to come back.
You can cheat to get back quick...
Blow up the ship.
Thought you ended up at nearest station if ship goes boom
Ooooh. Handier.
Can buy a cheap ship nearish to SagA, run in, blow up and cut 1-2k of travel off!
Lose your exploration data tho.
Found this on reddit, made me chuckle as he's next but one on my list!
A letter to Broo Tarquin
Humor
Dear mister Tarquin,I am writing to you to inquire about the nature of your most recent request.
Ever since I started working with miss Tani, your name has come up in conversation. At one point recently I mentioned my wish to get a little more juice out of my laser weaponry and she offered to get us into contact with one another. I was delighted to then find your invitation in my inbox and happy to visit you in your home system for a cordial chat. During this chat you, of course, mentioned that you have a particular fondness for Fujin Tea, and would gladly perform your services in exchange for some of this universally appraised delicacy. Now, I consider myself a friendly chap and have no problem running an errand for a good friend, especially if it is an exchange of favours, and since I have business near the Fujin system anyway it would be my pleasure to pick up some of that delicious tea for you. I am, however, a bit unsure about the quantity you requested.
50 tons.
Did you perhaps mistype and mean to request 5 boxes of tea instead? I find it difficult to imagine what one man would do with fifty tons of dried tea leaves. The average tea afficionado might consume five cups of tea a day and I imagine it might feel like you burn through your supply rather quickly at this rate, but the amount you requested would be sufficient for 25 million cups of tea! To put this into perspective, this is enough tea to supply nearly 1.500 afficionados like yourself for life! Perhaps you mean to share it with your entire colony, which I can understand. Everyone likes to buy a round for a friend on occasion. Regrettably, though, I must decline this errand as I simply find it unbecoming of a gentleman to ask for such a monumental donation of a friend.
Yours truly,
Commander Skude
PS: I might have to have a chat with miss Tani as well about the 20 million cigars I gave her.
Brilliant, but what a bunch of glorious nerds Elite players are 🙂
Yeah the 50T of random rare commodity to unlock an engineer gets old pretty quickly. And there are 3 of them that need this.
A half decent story driven special mission would have been a better way to unlock engineers.
Thankfully I think I'm mostly done with unlocking engineers.
Now I'm grinding for Federation rank, got promoted to Ensign yesterday, just 5 more ranks to Rear Admiral and a shiny new Corvette
Midshipman for me, but I love how fast it shoots up when you skip the cash and take 5+ REP missions.
I'm off to see Selene later this week and in true Matt_RPG mode I'm going to mine the painite on the way.
Matt
Yeah I mined the Painite to give to Selene too. There was at least some basic story lore as to why you had to deliver Painite.
It was a little bit grindy but at least was sort of understandable from a gameplay perspective. Certainly better than "Bring me tea".
80% away from Rear Admiral.
Been running missions in ceos to the system next door with 250 cargo I can sometimes get 3 cargo missions plus data couriers in one go.
My quickest jump was the two stacked mining missions, taking the rep-iest rewards.
@Molgrips I promised a review on the rails and missiles.
Missiles have too limited ammo for HAZ Res, where you want to stay out a while.
Seeker missiles are visually satisfying, but only work when the shields are down.
I couldn't find a fire group combo that worked between gimballed bursts, rails and missiles, at least without a load of switching groups. I've not given up on missiles.
Rails are challenging, it's not just the fixed mount, but the 1 second wind up time (I wonder if an engineer can speed that up?)
When you hit something with rails it's very effective. I nearly 'one-shotted' a Sidey (to be fair he was sat in front of me, some kind of intimidation I think!)
My next test is going to be Rails and gimballed multi-cannon, with thermal mod on the Viper. Yesterday I had an Anaconda sat in my sights for about 5 seconds while I blasted away with the beams. That seems like a prime candidate for rails.
And one general bit of advice from my pirate mission, double check that the wing is 2, not 3! Ran for my life (and my 2M in bounties) with 6% shield remaining. Viper-speed!
Matt
And one general bit of advice from my pirate mission, double check that the wing is 2, not 3! Ran for my life (and my 2M in bounties) with 6% shield remaining. Viper-speed!
I've been getting quite cocky taking on wing assasination missions in either my Krait or my Cheiftain. Generally I try to take down the biggest ship, then zoom away and let my shields recharge and then finish off the smaller ships, the space cops are generally helping out by that point too.
Last night it didn't go so well. The target was an FDL and his wing was 2 Vultures and a Python. The shields on my Chieftain popped in about 8 seconds, I ran but my thrusters got taken out. I span around getting shot for about 20 seconds before i was done. I went back in my Krait, which has similar firepower but better shields and a fighter. My fighter lasted about 10 seconds, my shields went down shortly after and I ran, managed to jump away with 15% hull.
I abandoned the mission!
I wouldn't have even taken it!
That's 7 large hardpoints, just from the wing. Big, big shields required.
Matt
on the Diamonds again, think i want 2billion in the bank before i buy a Corvette.
Just found a 37.5% LTD roid, that is the highest i have come across.
how high do they go anyone know?
I've found quite a few 33-35% but no higher.
I would guess that's about the limit. They go high for metal rich, I have seen painite and gold up to 50%, but never that much for LTD.
Matt
hope my luck holds now that im setting off to sell 6 jumps away with 233 in the hold 🙂
Fingers are crossed for you!
Matt
all went well, an Anaconda tried to intercept me when i arrived at destination system, decided not worth trying to fight if i could avoid so i evaded him and sold all my diamonds at 1030 a piece.
What were you flying?
Just out of interest, what ship should I get with the 20 odd million I have lying around if I wanted to jump on this diamond mining, cash cow bandwagon?
How much are Pythons? You can get 180-odd tons in one of them. IIRC, you can get 60 in a Cobra Mk III, which is plenty to get started. 🙂
I started with my Asp Explorer. That bought me an Anaconda IIRC. You won't make 250m a trip, but you will make 50m a trip and the trips will be shorter and hence much less boring.
Asp x, good for 96t if fitted out right. It will be a bit slower than the bigger ships but will make you 100M per run. The python for 200t, then type 9 for 700t. Retire a billionaire.
Matt
Yea I am thinking of downgrading the cargo on my T10 if I can power the big size 8 shield instead.
Are you carrying weaponry as well as mining kit or do you just do a Brave Sir Robin if baddies covet your hard gotten goodies?
Brave Sir Robin for me - no supercruise assist, no docking computer, diddy fuel scoop. 🙂
I carry guns, medium beam lasers, small burst lasers and large multi canons all turrets and I don't fancy trying to aim in this lol I have killed Anacondas when doing missions in it when I just used my mining outfit. But there seems to be a big difference in how well the NPCs are fitted. Last night a fed gunship attacked while running missions and it got blown up in 2 passes.
Same as Pondo pretty much. Using a Python.
It works for your 200 docking trick as well, Perchy. I have no need to do it most of the time, but it is so much fun!
Matt
I’ve just flogged my partially engineered Vulture in a fit of pique after narrowly losing a battle with an NPC pirate in another vulture. I got him down to 2% hull and I was on about 30%, but then he managed to damage both of my weapons almost simultaneously so there was no point continuing the battle. Unfortunately I failed to disengage safely and got blown to smithereens as I attempted to boost outathere.
I’m now the proud owner of a bright orange Fer De Lance. Hope it works out a little bit better; I only needed a little bit 😡
On the plus side, several engineered modules swapped straight over, so I’ve already got a decent (for an FDL) jump range and a couple of other bits and bobs.
Getting module damage is a ball-ache.
I was heading home last night after hunting raws and stopped into the Nav beacon, to practise with my rail guns. I started a fight with a triple wing, including a Chieftain. I was doing OK until something started hitting me and wrecking modules. I just finished off the Chieftain before I was hit several times and lost thrusters. I fired up a reboot/repair, while in a miracle of timing the police showed up and dispatched the other wing members! After the reboot I had 1% thrusters and 13% hull, most other modules were around 60-70%. I didn't do the 200m/s docking on this occasion!
Let us know how the FDL works for you, I'm looking for a ship that will last longer than 30s in a CZ; my record in the Viper.
Matt
I've got a Vulture, a Chieftain an FDL and a Krait MkII.
I like the FDL the least out of all of them. Maybe I haven't spent enough time in it but compared to the other it just flies "funny". It was also a huge pain in the arse to try and scoop cargo due to the shape of the nose. I need to fly it more but at the minute I tend to stick with other options
I love the Vulture, its easily the most fun to fly, its agility is amazing but its just not tough enough for taking on the biggest ships.
My two favourite are the Cheiftain and Krait MKII. The Cheiftain is nearly as nice to fly as the Vulture, its got great firepower and a tough hull. Its let down a bit by its weak shields. I tend to fight until i start losing hull then run and hide until my shields come back up. I've fitted bi-weaves instead of standard shields. Its great for hanging out at Compromised Nav Beacons and fighting at RES zones. Once you've taken a bit of hull and module damage you can bug out to a nearby station and get repaired
The Krait isn't as maneuverable but has much better shields, you can also carry a fighter for added distraction. I prefer the Krait for CZs and assassination missions where it might be a longer fight.
Getting module damage is a ball-ache.
Didn't even know it was a thing until last week - absolutely horrible, got minxed by an NPC whilst mining LTDs in the Python, fighting with a solitary mining laser is not the way forward, everything 0 to 2% by the time the rozzers saved me, but close to impossible to fly. More impressed than I could say that I managed to post it into a station, but 0% of a successful landing. The sense of futility was overwhelming - didn't help that Mrs Pondo was watching a US soap episode with the death of a long-running character, so loads of really sad music as I flailed about. 🙁
I finally reached a waypoint on the Colonia Highway late last night.
Almost made an absolute arse of it.
Stopped two jumps out, restarted all my weapons and shields etc and in the process I broke my FSD. WTF?
Got it working then headed to the “space port” and flew like a complete noob…
Other ships, beacons, panic over pirates meant I tried my best to get lost and turned around back to the beacon to eventually find the “space port”. It was a little odd as I looked at it in space but blamed my lack of familiarity on docking and headed to it slightly nervously, then realised that it was a planetary landing. Space port my arse.
The slowest landing possible and I ****ed it – dropped out of orbit 200km early (too shallow an angle), had to jump back out and back in again.
The relief as I got into the no fire zone, then nearly crashed into the space station as I pissed about trying to remember what to do (it was late).
So, 15,000ly and nearly 350unique systems scanned and I’m a quarter of the way on my journey to Sag A. I’m 120m richer (now an actual billionaire instead of theoretical) and jumped to Ranger explorer rank (I had hoped for higher).
My most interesting discovery was a double void opal hotspot which overlapped with a Grandedite (sp) hotspot, shame it’s 1K Ly from this two horse town, although 24 of the 25 jumps would be lovely and safe. There are no ship parts for sale here, so useless as a base – someone is missing a trick.
My paintwork is all shiney again and I have some nice polaroid pictures to hang on the wall.
That's a trek, well in! 🙂
Nice work Sacc.
What sort of combat techniques are people using? I'm experimenting with using both sticks to turn - so when someone flies over my head I nose up but then use down thrusters on the other stick. I don't technically turn any faster but I'm more able to keep the ship in sights so I can get in behind. A bit like flying with FA off but less mental.
new record 37.95% LTD 🙂
Chapeau!
First flight out of Jameson in my shiny new Anaconda, playing in open (against all advice) and I was rammed by twice by some ganker fool right outside the station. He took my shields down and I just managed to get away from the mass lock and FSD away before any hull damage. And I end up with a fine for reckless flying, there's no justice in this galaxy!
Not a great start with the big girl, she might not be the ship for me.