MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I’ve never known a game that inspires and encourages such player enthusiasm and activity outside the actual game
There does seem to be a great community (gankers/murder hobos aside) around it, but plenty of other games have huge modding communities, elite is obviously locked down so all that creativity is channelled into some really great tools, but they are such a huge QoL gains that I wonder how playable ED would be without them. Obviously tools allow you to min/max, which is a limited audience to nerds* like me, but just simply buying parts for a ship, how get pissed off would you get schlepping from station to station trying to find a 4A PP for your cobra? Part of the explorer experience early game, but annoying later on, difficult to believe there isnt a function in game, did click & collect die out in the 26th century or something? I think there may be an argument that the game & community are great in spite of frontier.
*you can call yourself a powergamer if you want to sound more awesome, but we're gamer nerds, accept it.
CMDR molgrips requesting boarding: Permission denied – you suck.
🙂
Also – you should be able to give money to or request money from other CMDRs. This would allow you to hire them to do stuff for you.
Yeah, as with so many other obvious features, you do wonder whether frontier have what they deem to be valid reasons not to implement them or its just laziness. (Is there chance of extortion or more chance of hacking with transferring in game money?)
but they are such a huge QoL gains that I wonder how playable ED would be without them
True but I get the impression that ED have realised people are creating the tools for free, so they don't need to - and they can get on with the stuff we can't do.
I wish the whole lot were open sourced though. That'd be amazing. Open source the code then charge £2/mo to play.
I think the money transfer was restricted in the days when credits actually limited your access to the top end ship(s).
Now, I think even a brand new player can get the credits to buy a conda in a week (if they've read some background) and the actual restrictions now are engineers and materials. Saying that I still don't have one of the big 3 (4).
I was raging trying to buy 7A thrusters, even with INARA!
Matt
@D0NK - thanks, I'll work out how to do wing, squadron thingy. I've got to work late tonight, probably won't be online in E:D until 9pm. And I've got some time in the evenings this weekend too.
@squirrelking - I'm Mostly Harmless too. I can see the pirates will be bricking it from a Mostly Harmless wing 😀 I'm usually in a Python with a large beam, 2 pulses & 2 multicannons.
I wish Inara had a Fleet Carrier timetable so you could see who had a jump planned and maybe the fare for hitching a lift. You can see departures on the Nav panel but AFAIK you need to look at each carrier. I did find that you can use the fleet carrier ID to search in Inara under the Systems & Stations menu (left hand column) and it'll tell you where a carrier is. You can favourite the carrier too so if you have an Inara login it retains that shortcut.
Yes, the 3rd party tools are insane. Excel-in-space? I reconcile myself using them by thinking "In 3306 they would definitely have this sort of tool, wouldn't they?". Although I've tried some trading without the tools by looking at the system and applying logic like "Agricultural, so tea will be cheap", "Blight, so they want agronomic treatment" plus the market comparison tool for systems you've got market data for seems to work.
There would definitely be a means of getting trading data from every system in real life. Even if you bring in the limitation that you can't communicate faster than light due to technological reasons (even though the existence of Galnet breaks this idea), only send ships via FSD, then you would at the very least have a network of couriers bringing market data around the bubble that is say a day out of date.
They have very clearly manipulated things to control the gameplay that don't necessarily fit with the universe.
@Molgrips that system of courier drones was used in a SF series by Stephen Donaldson, the 'logic' was that data doesn't have mass, so the technology used to move objects was not applicable.
Matt
Also – you should be able to give money to or request money from other CMDRs. This would allow you to hire them to do stuff for you.
You kinda can, via high price minerals. But it’s not easy. What would really improve the game would be better in game comms; the need for which is kinda proven by the multitude of reddit and discord servers that have sprung up (just counted; I’m a lurking member of seventeen different discord servers, all of which are active little communities in their own right to a greater or lesser extent, plus four subReddits). Probably missed the boat now though; all the disparate comms channels exist and are used. Just a pity it’s so fragmented.
Also, what I’d really like to see is cross platform play. This thread alone shows how good/useful it would be.
Yeah cross platform would be far better.
@son-of-mike I'll hide behind you in my Cobra!
The tools don't bother me tbh, I'd far rather have a 3rd party delving into the data and making a database than Frontier spending their time messing about and not getting other stuff done.
Or as I prefer to think; it could be worse, it could be Star Citzen.
Imagine how many less gankers there would be if you could hire mercs for escort duty or if you could sign up for fed patrols. Making them persona non grata in civilised systems or shipping them to a closed penal colony system that you can only get back from by mining enough for passage on a fleet carrier would also discourage rampant asshattery.
Yeah the payment mechanism would need to be tied into a system of contracts.
You could even hire NPCs although that would take more coding.
NKL newsflash:
If anyone is in Velniat, the Ipete Federal Company could use a little love, not much just a couple of points when you are passing. They are non-native and in retreat, they need to be greater than 2.5% (3 for safety).
If IFC retreat the system would only have 6 factions, which means a more aggressive faction could move in.
Matt
They are non-native and in retreat, they need to be greater than 2.5% (3 for safety).
Is that beacuse were taking % points and giving them to NKL?
If the system influence is 100% split over all factions and you increase one faction by 1% does the BGS take 1% from the controlling faction or does it it pro-rata that 1% and take a proportion of it from every other faction?
i.e For every % we add to NKL is it deducting 0.025% from Ipete?
It is definitely a zero sum, so our influence has to come from somewhere. I thought the influence of the other factions was reduced in proportion to their total influence, but I need to read some more background.
In Velniat, IFC were losing a small amount, but have tanked in the last day or so. These are low traffic systems, but that means that one or two missions from other players passing through can have a significant effect.
Matt
Any wing missions need doing?
I think I'll log on, head over to Kuwembaa and transfer my ships, ready for tonight.
Can’t get on tonight, but I’ll be on tomorrow and Thursday evening for some Merc’ing 😎👍🏼
you on a console mol?
I'll dip in a bit, but will be online properly later once Ive sent kids to bed
PS4 mate.
So all my ships are now in Kuwembaa. But I need money fast. Any tips for mining or passenger missions? I need to kit out the bus (Beluga) and engineer my Anaconda to invulnerability.
Did you sell your exploration data yet Mol? If so, how much did you get? If not, ask Matt where best to sell for most useful influence 👍🏼
Yes, only got about 35m for it too.
If you're already set for mining theres a double painite hotspot in Col 285 Sector WP-E c12-17 which isnt too far away (166LY), some mining hotspots in the last couple of planets in the system of goibniugo which is closer (also an FC when I was there, dunno if that does refuels/restock its gone), also hotspots in a nearby system, Ebana.
Done my bit for the cause for tonight.
Killed 30 odd pirates for the NKL Velniat branch and threw in a couple of inf++++ missions for the Ipetes for good measure.
Just about to do the rounds to see how the stats are for NKL.
Report back later
Matt
I did a mission and donated the plusses. Also got some useful mats and I now have maxed out reactive composite armour with thermal resistance on the anaconda. If that's not a tank I don't know what else I can do. Also now have 3* engineered shields, need to unlock someone to take it up to 5. Plus I need thruster engineering, I don't have any.
I will take on some combat missions for the mats next time I think.
Thanks Donk, will do some mining next. Once the bus is kitted out someone can join me for some passenger mayhem if you like?
If you want to grind mats, then Col 285 Sector TY-W b16-6 has a compromised nav beacon, loads of higher grade ships. You'll run out of limpets!
Thrusters are Palin over at Arque, at least you have the distance! He also likes Thargoid sensor fragments.
Matt
teamed up with son-of-mike tonight which after a few teething issues <ahem - elite level missions and a couple of rebuys> while we figured out how the wing stuff worked, we....well we went off to another system with a high res to shoot some pirates, which was a lot of fun and I swear I only hit his ship 2 or 3 times. 4 max! Will try to do something more NKL orientated soon.
well, that was a laugh. Winged up with D0NK and tried a wing anti-piracy mission in Kuwembaa - both of us got fried. Me in the first 5/10 seconds. The next attempt at action was a RES. Only thing was D0NK went to Nandhs and I went to Nandh. Totally different system - 120LY off course!! 😀 No wonder I had 5 or 6 20+LY jumps. The High RES worked out pretty good though. Team effort made short work of pirates. we may have clipped each other now and then and I took a pasting in the last few mins but got out alive. Learned that my control of menus when I'm under pressure is shocking. all over the place pushing the wrong buttons. A good laugh though and my first time in open.
hehe - teething issues alright. Got my teeth kicked in by that pirate & his 3 pals.
If you want to grind mats, then Col 285 Sector TY-W b16-6 has a compromised nav beacon, loads of higher grade ships. You’ll run out of limpets!
Are you talking about shooting the ships first? Or just cleaning up when other people shoot them?
I need to not check this thread before I clock off work, because I'll just get tempted to log on and try these things...
That sounds like a great evening. Some of those pirates are tough and definitely come out with all guns blazing.
The wing thing does get a bit smoother with practice, but it's a hairy moment waiting for your wingman to arrive when it's all kicking off!
Matt
@molgrips - I thought you only got materials from ships you've helped destroy/destroyed solo. Otherwise the place would be awash with materials from all casualties. Cargo might jettison from any fight, though I could be wrong about that.
Yeah, just shooting the ships first. The compromised nav beacons have a better rate of spawning, plus bigger ships and wings. So generally better mats.
It would be nice to sit there hoovering. I think that works in a wing though, I would be happy to try it in the Funship. My mats are pretty much full.
Matt
Edit: After double checking this would work. I am after the combat rank at present, so if anyone wants to give this a go I'm happy to be the gun crazy one!
@molgrips – I thought you only got materials from ships you’ve helped destroy/destroyed solo. Otherwise the place would be awash with materials from all casualties.
They float around in space for a while. However I've had good results from using the FSS and looking for transient signal sources. When you find one it has a timer which tells you how long it'll be there. The types of transient signal source tell you what'll be there. High grade emissions appear to be aftermath of battles with military or other expensive shops and give you loads of good mats, I got 15 grade 5 manufactured bits last night from one - but there are lots of different signals that are great fun to explore. One last night was called 'Universal Defence Force', and when I went there there was a large unusual spaceship. There was a scannable target on the ship but when I tried it jammed my scanner, and then I noticed my sensors were also jammed.. so I legged it!
There was a scannable target on the ship but when I tried it jammed my scanner, and then I noticed my sensors were also jammed.. so I legged it!
Would sir care to try the data hacking Recon limpet controller?
https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Limpet_Controller/Recon
There was a scannable target on the ship but when I tried it jammed my scanner, and then I noticed my sensors were also jammed.. so I legged it!
havent heard of that before....wonder if its old stuff I've missed or they're sneaking something new in. Remember first time I got hyperdicted by thargoids, that was pretty cool.
Will keep an eye out for those.
Typically when you scan a megaship, there will be sub-targets that can be scanned further, they are often described as hackable terminals.
Scanning them with the recon limpets can tick them off sometimes. Don't scan the guns or fighter bays (don't ask how I know!).
Matt
The high grade emissions are affected by the superpower and faction states. For example if you want Imperial Shielding (Grade 5) try the 4/5 systems around Benty aligned with the empire.
Pharmaceutical Isolators are linked to Outbreak faction states, but good luck they are super rare. I found my first ones ever in Celeano the other day, the same day I found it was the best price for painite when I was in the next system over!
RNGesus be praised!
Matt
Would sir care to try the data hacking Recon limpet controller?
Sir is afraid of being rapidly destroyed by big scary ship with other ships patrolling it that I cannot see on my scanner and facing a 45m rebuy... It was in Velniat if anyone fancies a crack, let me know how it goes 🙂
It didn't say anything about being jammed, but I went to use the data link scanner and it instantly stopped, the target disappeared, and there was a red line underneath the usual blue one in the aiming reticule for the scanner.
If you're looking for a trick to respawn mats at a good signal source try this (got it from Exigeous). Once you've hoovered up all the mats from the instance. Exit to desktop, restart the game, resume, once back in space, throttle at zero, jump to supercruise (boost into it), once in SC check your nav panel and you'll see a new unidentified signal source close by, target it. It'll probably be behind you. Drop out of SC as you would when approaching it and hoover up the next load of mats.
Each time I do this a little bit of me dies inside though.
@Molgrips I have all flavours of limpets on my DBX, I'll have pop. It seems like a reasonable risk of a rebuy, so right up my alley (so to speak!).
Matt
@son-of-mike I hate log out and back in and haven't done it anywhere. Jameson's Cobra and Davs Hope were once round, listen to the story then off.
I collect HGE whenever I see them, which does make journeys longer, or I'll do a lap of the planets around Benty, max our Imperial shielding and trade across.
Comparatively, I appreciate I have plenty of time to play.
Matt
Each time I do this a little bit of me dies inside though.
That is totally cheating.
I’ll have pop
I *think* it was Velniat - or maybe a nearby system. I went to a high tech system as well that was the nearest to Velniat, it might've been that. Something beginning with S EDIT Salikans
I hate log out and back in and haven’t done it anywhere
If I'd have thought of it as I lay helpless in space fifteen thousand lightyears from home watching the countdown to my own death after getting it wrong at a white dwarf, I'd have done it.
Don't get me wrong, I did think Davs Hope was a long way to go for about 5 manufactured mats and some data 🙂
Fortunately, the jump range in the DBX means I was doing something else in 2/3 jumps.
Matt
Did the log out thing at Dav’s Hope once but it felt wrong and won’t do it again.Spent yesterday away from Akuntsu doing some engineering. Got access to Liz Ryder and did the qualifying mission, then found out that she need 200t of land mines...really should have done some reading first!
I love an hour razzing round Davs Hope. It's like Mario Kart in space. Would be better with other CMDRs racing to compete for the materials and the first one round gets to scan the beacon.
I don't give a shit about relogging to farm materials. It's no more cheating or immersion breaking than using any of the countless other shonky game mechanics. As long as it works, I'll keep doing it.
Just seen that the NKL/ARP election is on and in preparation. Both Factions are on 25.5%. What do we need to do now?
What do we need to do now?
Do election related missions for NKL?
I'll be doing them in my Cutter because Imperial Duke Vladimir Perchy is strong like bear and loves interfere with foreign election for make benefit glorious Motherland
That is great work by everyone! ARP were nowhere before we started that push!
Perchy has it! We can drop any work for ARP now. Basically the data missions have an election flavour and hijacking missions are common. I don't know whether it was due to the election, but I got a poll data mission where 9 dangerous condas were sent after me one at a time!
You could still trade into Tennyson D'Eyncourt (tritium is nearly 8k per t, with Ostyat and Sun Pef best sells), though only one load (200t) per commodity would count. Carto data would also count if handed in there.
The NKL motto 'vote early, vote often'!
Matt
[Edit] Just a note to say there is no need to smash a load of time into this. Given that we developed ARP I don't see much opposition. For example, if it is useful to you take the federal rep points or the mats. A few of us with 2/3 missions each will max the win each day.
It's worth noting that, during an election, combat activities don't count. i.e handing in bounties and combat bonds etc.
The rewards for combat missions e.g. assassination missions do count but the bounties for them don't.
It's also a daily reset.
You could outperfom the other party on day one by a factor of 100 to 1 and then, if you do nothing for the next three days then you could lose each of those day by a single point and lose the election three days to one.
I've been reading up on it a bit here...
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/index-to-the-bgs-previously-on-the-forum.408768/
That is totally cheating.
It's like the difference between tax avoidance/evasion, morally you can argue they both wrong but one is 100% legal (and breaks immersion and yes you can absoutely argue it's wrong, but cheating it aint). If an exploit doesnt get patched (and most of the ones mentioned so far are quite old) the game devs are happy with it.
Frontier encourage the grind, they only seem to nerf get rich quick schemes.
Are the election missions obvious? Will they all be murdering ARP officials or are there less deadly ways to screw over the democratic process?
Are the election missions obvious?
All missions for NKL will count as does trade / exploration data at an NKL controlled facility.
Only thing that doesn't count is combat bonds / bounties. Those are what count during a War.
tried the compromised nav beacon during my lunch time, 1st fight was a 2 wing and I got knocked down to 54% hull, ouch! The rest went ok, just slightly cooked myself a few times, was low on ammo and getting ready to call it a day when an elite anaconda jumped in, decided to risk it, synthesized a reload and charged in, managed to keep in it's blind spot til he was down to about 30% hull then lost it a bit and ended up in a lancing fight, kept my shields tho. Phew.
All missions for NKL will count as does trade / exploration data at an NKL controlled facility.
cheers.
I don't think anything we're talking about is considered cheating by the Devs and the majority of players. There is still a choice about whether you want to do them or not.
It is still possible to mine painite @ 200t per hour, so I'm not losing much sleep about the poor egg farmers and now redundant SLFs.
Anything that isn't patched is by definition fair game and whether you use it or not is down to how you want to play the game. Well that's my take.
Matt
They don't stop you doing stuff because they haven't got time to work out a system to prevent it - they are too busy building new stuff that'll sell more copies. There are never enough devs to do everything you want to do.
Anyway point is that we can all choose what we want to do.
I know Anacondas aren't popular on here but I love mine, I love how I don't have to shoot stuff, it shoots it for me, and quite hard. Just spent half an hour cruising a nav beacon blasting Kraits and even another Anaconda. They fly over all cocky, then get hit with so much firepower they run away, and whilst they try to take evasive action to save their sorry hide I zap some missiles in. That is the missing piece it seems, they are very effective and make up for the lack of speed in pursuit.
Only drawback is the rebuy is now a shocking 45m. But I'm this far in I need to carry on with the engineering to make that rebuy as unlikely as possible. I need shields and thrusters. Is there a guardian mod for these like there is for the FSD?
@D0NK - just dropped off 36T of Tritium on your carrier. Just curious to see how the depot works. @matt_bl - I tried the same at your carrier but it was already full.
Did a few more missions tonight, a Fed navy rank mission popped up too and with a few time bonuses the bank balance is going the right way.
I feel bad about building ARP up just so that we can shaft them. I've got to know them quite well, and made a few friends in there. They think I'm an ally but I'm just a double crossing no-good. They only have one station and we're going to take it away from them. Still, all's fair in love and Elite 😎
@Son-of-mike I think the devs topped up the tanks of the carriers when the patch came out on Monday, I had about 400 but then the next day it was full.
Thanks for the thought though.
Matt
I feel bad about building ARP up just so that we can shaft them.
I don't, in fact I may go find a wee corner myself and put the pirates in charge.
I need shields and thrusters. Is there a guardian mod for these like there is for the FSD?
Yep, guardian shield booster, you need mats from guardian sites to enable them from technology broker. They fit in optional slots so you can fill utility slots with standard boosters and then optional internal slots with guardians ones to get really silly shields. They do hull boosters too but you cant engineer them and they draw power, iirc they do have corrosive buffs so maybe worth it for xeno hunting. All the details are on inara, dont think there anything for thrusters, with 1 or 2 exceptions you want G5 dirty with drag drives from palin.
https://inara.cz/galaxy-techbroker/
The guardian sheild boosters are a fixed addition according to module class. This makes them kind of good for smaller ships with smaller shields. Utility slot Boosters are a percentage and so OP for large ships. The guardian shield boosters are applied after the shield boosters in your utilities so there is no multiplication bonus (Thank Braben!). They max at class 5 which is worth a couple of hundred points.
If you want to shield tank your conda, and why wouldn't you, pledge to the blue haired beauty (I don't think you have to put the calendar in your ship) get yourself some prismatics, 7 boosters on your utility mounts, and a couple of class 5 or 6 SCBs in your optionals. This should give you about 4000 absolute hit points, double with resistances.
On the downside, you will need power efficient weapons since that's a lot of juice for those shields, oh and if they go down, they aren't coming back up.
Matt
does anyone know why, when you're collecting materials after combat, the first few limpets seem to self destruct/expire on returning to the ship? They don't hit anything, have a clear run to/from the target. Seems to go; kill pirate, see mats, deploy limpet, scoop open, collect the mat, put it into cargo then die. Same thing happens at High Grades, Degraded, Encoded signals etc. I go through 3 or 4 limpets before I get one that actually lasts and collects more than 1 target.
I thought it was maybe a shonky batch I bought from Slumpy's Fuel & Limpets 😉 but it's not
#LimpetLivesMatter
Don't select a target from the materials. If you select something the limpet collects it, then comes back and retires, purpose satisfied.
If you launch without selecting a target it will scoop everything within range.
My sympathy for limpets wears pretty thin once the third one in a row has yeeted itself into a rock trying to collect fragments!
Matt
If you fire a limpet with any collectable material targetted then the limpet will collect just the specifically targetted item and then expire.
If you fire the limpet with nothing targetted then it'll keep collecting anything (excluding stuff on your ignore list) until it runs out of targets.
oh and if they go down, they aren’t coming back up.
Yep, prismatics are great for single/short term heavy encounters, but once you're out of SCBs* full recharge is measured in years I think. Biweaves with good resistances for sitting in a res/conflict zone for prolonged periods. You can jump into supercruise to boost recharge rate but prismatics are still going to take a while.
*and a canny enemy will nerf your SCBs with feedback cascade
and a +1 on the dont target your limpets
I thought it was maybe a shonky batch I bought from Slumpy’s Fuel & Limpets
Cheek!
I'm not going near Duval and the Empire. I'd rather get shot.
Then I’m off to sort out Coribes, someone is doing some work there for the imperial faction.
Just had a look in Inara at Coribes and there isn't an Imperial faction.
The system is however controlled by a fairly large player faction, The Syndicate.
Is it wise to be pissing on their chips, do we think?
Is it wise to be pissing on their chips, do we think?
possibly not, looks like they cover a large area and 37 squadron members. Maybe consolidate a bit first.
After we've beaten the ARP in akuntsu do we do more work for NKL, improve our influence and trigger a war with IPP?
@Perchypanther yes that's exactly who I meant. I was looking to see whether anyone was active, to contact in their Squadron, but on Inara at least there is very little recent activity. Someone who does a load of BGS close to Sol suggested it was 50% working for your group, 50% collecting data and 60% negotiation with other player factions!
@D0NK exactly, the more stations you have in a system the harder it is for other people to mess with you and the easier it is for you to accumulate influence. That is the rationale for taking on ARP first.
Matt
[Edit] When we win the election we will get a boost to our influence which I think will push us quite close to IPP.
Just reading a bit more on it, what about a coup?
It is also possible to skip a conflict state and have a “coup”. This only occurs if a faction rises with excessively increased influence to dominate the system and the rival faction controlling the system drops to very low influence and has no positive player activity. This rare event leads to the changing of the controlling asset instantly but it may be delayed by some states.
Kick out ARP, we work our arses off for NKL and NO ONE DO ANYTHING FOR IPP, reckon that could get a coup?
Sounds like a jolly jape, I'm in.
- Your pal, Mark Thatcher.
What do you mean by 'collecting data'?
Matt_BL & Perchy - thanks for the advice on limpets. So a case of PICCNIC then. Problem In Cmdr's Chair, Not In Computer.
Re: BGS NKL etc. Consolidating systems sounds like a good plan. Is there any benefit to having Coribes? The distances have put me off going there TBH (my old joystick has a "wander" on it so I need to keep a hand on it so I can't just set it and go make a cuppa).
What do you mean by ‘collecting data’?
Spreadsheets in Space.
In order to manipulate the BGS then there are loads of variables.
For example, you can't stage a coup if either your faction or the opposing faction has any other conflict state pending, active or on cooldown. If any of these blocking states are extant then the coup won't trigger.
So in order to stage the coup you'd need to monitor both factions in every system they're in for as long as it takes to change the influence that's required to trigger the coup. That's potentially a load of daily information gathering which is obviously made easier by 3rd party tools like Inara but still a pain in the hoop
This. Inara is reliable in the busy systems, but days out of date in many of the systems around Kuwembaa.
It gets particularly difficult if you are trying to do things like direct expansions, as you are trying to tweak a minimum of two systems, whilst ensuring no-one else sneaks in, either deliberately of by accident.
Matt
****!
Always check the small print. Lonchakov Horizons, 348k, FML.
yup, I've done that before. 🙂 I think the Voyager probes are something like 2 million LS out.
Ouch. Wasn't too bad, I made a cup of tea and read some stuff on here. Hit somewhere north of 800c so it was quick enough.
Find and return mission!
I'm sure it's not really the case, but those places always seem to have some well paying missions, though they should do for making you trogg all the way out there.
Matt
I reached 2001c on a trip out to find some pirates who were 0.28Ly away from the entry point. There were five, engaged, killed two whilst the other three got away. Chased them, they respawned back in the same place, so had to do it again. That's about 8 million Ls. Took about 1.5hrs each time.
.... and you didn't even get a Hutton Orbital mug or the free Anaconda.