Just got Elite Dangerous

V8ninety knows a lot about the game too I think he's read the whole of Reddit on the subject.

Gonna head up now and try and finish the mission leftovers.

Well that went well. Didn't kill anyone, escaped with 9% hull integrity.

😂 At least you escaped I suppose! I have a new appreciation for the ‘rebuy’ mechanic after last night.

Did the space road truckers mission get finished?

Looks like it.

Oooh, I might join your squadron if you don't mind? A wee bit of company and chat might keep the thought of how far I have to travel at bay. I'm currently a few jumps away from Beagle Point, on my way home in a Diamondback Explorer.

Commander Beagy73 🙂

Your application is likely to be viewed favourably, that's all I can say at this point.

PS we found that wing voice chat in the game didn't really work at all, we ended up creating a PSN party which worked perfectly.

Are you handy with the pew pews? We have two more enemies to kill to complete a wing mission. Oh but wait, we probably cant invite you after the mission's started.

Squadron is for everyone on STW PS4 and your mates if they fancy it 🙂

I think I finished it off v late doors, got distracted.

I'm using a nearby high tech system as my hub because Dekker is a bit lacking.

Everyone is invited, still thinking on fleet rank names, the lowest was easy though.

Fuel scoop is your friend

FTW! 🙂

For variety I've decided to do some mining.

So far I've spent the best part of 1M credits and mined about 20000C of minerals. In some ways it's more frustrating than bounty hunting, but I'm hoping to find a good spot soon.

Report back when I've found the motherlode.

O7

Passenger missions seem lucrative 👍🏼

Yeah they are iirc I when I played back a couple of years ago I was saving up for a bigger passenger capable ship.

Well my wife's watching telly now so I might try playing on the VR headset even though it's not a VR game.

So far the 'go fetch us some....' missions have been most lucrative for me. I think I scooped half a mil for one of them. The promised hostile ships, either weren't sent against me or didn't find me.

Mining has been a challenge so far, god knows how you play this game if you don't have the internet/youtube to rely on for tips and tutorials! I just fired off 6000C of seismic charges at the wrong type of asteroid. I'll be back on the courier missions in no time at this rate.

Matt

Just netted 1.5m for taking someone two stops up the galactic road. Their destination was a fair way from the nav beacon mind you 😳

Boom time at Ross 85 Mohmand station. I've got 3 missions on the go worth 4.5m and I already did 1.5m worth in about 5 mins.

They are selling Federal Dropships for 15m which I'm tempted by, but according to the internet there are better ships for not a lot more.

Yeah they are iirc I when I played back a couple of years ago I was saving up for a bigger passenger capable ship.

I have an Orca. Passenger missions are lucrative. I did consider a Beluga but apparently they’re a bit of a sod getting in and out of the mail slot.

Ha ha, mining mini success!

1.1M credits for 4t of Alexandrite, ship paid for. Whoo and indeed hoo!

One tip is to get some protection from hold robbing limpets, they nicked all my collectors, so I had to scoop it manually.

Matt

I might try passenger missions as a way of getting enough for a proper combat trader.

Something weird happened picking a target out of a combat zone. I quite like my loadout now, I have 1 medium and 1 small beam laser firing together to strip shields, a medium and small burst laser and two small multicannons to damage hull. So I picked this Asp Explorer (same as my ship) out of the crowd and chased him down - but it took absolutely ages... I sat behind him after burning his shields for several minutes just emptying thousands of rounds into his hull before he finally succumbed. I have no idea how he lasted so long - my ship is nowhere near that tough. Is it the high grade military armour maybe? Or are small multicannons that bad?

I haven't taken on anything that big solo, but generally the multicannons seem to be pretty destructive.

I think you want railguns for real damage, but then you need big hardpoints.

Some of the armour can be good from the look of it. When I go back to bounty hunting I am going to get military for my Viper.

Matt

I don’t use my Asp X for combat. In fact I took all the weapons off. Couldn’t get the used to the hard point placement

Use my Python for shooting things. 3 large beam lasers and 2 medium multicannons. Working for me better than the Fer de Lance was

I have no idea how he lasted so long

It might be that NPC ships are aiming at specific points on your ship - eg power plant rather than random potshots

Well I made my first cargo ****up today. Took on a mission to shift 27 units 2 systems over, no problem until I realised the destination was at the arse end of nowhere relative to the nav beacon. Oh well, got there in the end, handed my cargo in only... ...no... ...yup. I'd clicked 27 units but not actually hit the collect button. So jump back in about 2 minutes, load up and spend another age getting back to the station. But got my 480k in the end.

Currently sitting on Coriolis figuring out a refit for my Cobra 3 for exploring and deciding whether I'm going to do some trucking or sightseeing.

I spent the last hour of my session last night repositioning to a new sector. I’m now in the Pleiades area, and have seen (and been shot at by, and run away from) my first Thargoid contact... Running a few missions and keeping my eye out for alien materials. A financially better session too, Passenger trips repaired the damage that my foray into combat caused to my finances.

o7

Woohoo. Just completing my first mission. Right I’d pick perhaps the most important one I could find on the list. Delivering tea...

Pretty straightforward so far, just trying to remember all the steps to actually get somewhere and dock 😀

Early days those kind of missions are great for just getting some money in the bank.

My second mining trip was a complete success. I didn't get my collectors stolen, so once I split the asteroid they ran off and grabbed everything in sight, all I had to do was plink it off the rock with my abrasion blaster.

Two asteroids, about 40-60 minutes, 16t of alexandrite in the hold with another four in the refinery, about 6M credits!

I think i'm a convert!

Matt

@matt_bl. Exactly 30k for delivering some tea with guarantees of no agro. Money in the bank that is 🙂

V8 I may join you at the Pleaides soon but I am saving up for a Federal Assault ship, currently exploiting my high rep in Ross 85 area.

I reckon the best way to help my mate Jon would be to accept the wing missions in a big hard bastard ship, do most of the work and let him finish one off, then he can share the bounty.

Agreed; so long as he can get a couple of shots in. Ditto the hauling missions, which may be safer. I think there’s reasonably lucrative wing passenger missions too. He really needs a slightly more versatile ship though. Heartily recommend the Cobra 👍🏼

Just about ready to try out mining, learned to manually dock the hard way last night when my docking computer got destroyed.

@Mikkel check out deep core mining, very lucrative. If you've got any questions I've already made a few of the mistakes!

I'm using a cobra, pretty cheap and as above, a good trip can net about 5M.

Matt

Yep def the Cobra for a first effort. Or he could haul with his Hauler and I can escort him.

I have now reconsidered, saving up for the Chieftain instead.

I have done no mining at all so far. I might deck out my Asp as a miner to see if it helps saving up for the Chieftain. Although I am currently making over 1mCr each boom delivery mission so I should probably keep going with that.

Just arrived at my first engineer, Farseer, now I’ve got to work out what to do. Did a little exploring on the Road to Riches which felt like a bit of a cheat and probably is, but then exploring on the way to find some meta-alloys and then onto Farseer gained me quite a few credits for the exploring data. It took a while to work out the FFS scanner but once you do it’s easy money if you’re travelling a longish way.

@molgrips what's the cargo on an aspx. Void opals are 180000 per ton, alexandrite is around 280000.

Definitely money out there

Matt

78-92 depending on internal gear.

Right, I'm off out for a ride you bunch of geeks 🙂

I’m going to try some junior mining missions out in Pleiades as they are pretty lucrative, and that deep mining looks like a gorgeous animation if nothing else, worth it for the view alone. Did you attract much negative attention with such lucrative cargos Matt?

Also, if (it’s a big if) I can find any meta alloys I’ll bring back some to share amongst the squadron.

See you in the black Cmdrs! o7

Gah, the frustration...! Done a few courier missions now, next one I pick up, go to plot the route and... "route plotting failed". WTF? Que an increasingly frustrating hour trying to work out a route manually on the stupid 3D map before finding the self-destruct and pulling the plug. Deep breath, start again - I get my money's worth from the insurance people. 🙂

There's no doubt it's good fun blowing asteroids into chunks, easier than you imagine when you get the knack.

I haven't had much bother from pirates and the like, but I mainly stick to low RES sites. I will try and see what the difference is later. Usually the scan you when you arrive, but as you're empty they soon clear off. It seems the nearer to are to the RES the more 'action' there is. I've seen some advice that says move off about 5-10km and you don't get a lot of trouble so that's what I do.

I'm 'based' in the same system as the RES at the minute, as the prices are good for alexandrite and void opals (currently both around 260000 per ton.

Matt

I haven't got a clue what I'm doing but think I will run some courier missions and replace the hauler that I just bought as I was to lazy to move around to find a place with more ships available.

Go to EDDB (Elite Dangerous Databases, I think). Takes the guesswork out of travel. You can select the ship you want and find the closest station which sells it.

Also good for finding the most profitable trades.

Matt

I get my money’s worth from the insurance people.

I think we all do. As many new ships as you want for just the excess and we never seem to pay any premiums.

I've been mining at high metal content rings. I scan them with the discovery scanner and it shows up hotspots.

I get scanned on the way down with an empty hold and left alone. Occasionally I need to drop one or two things in the cargo hold to stay alive (no weapons).

Made 30mil this afternoon, getting faster as I recognise cores.

Decided to follow v8ninty to an extent, looking to get the farseer stuff done.

Need to suss out mining then for 30m in an afternoon.

Have 1t of meta alloys 😲

Now to get to the engineer...

Oops. Stayed up til gone four last night without realising it - this really hardly ever happens to me with computer games so it just goes to show how absorbing it can be.

Bought the Alliance Crusader, but now worrying if it was the right thing to do. Since it's a bit of an all-rounder I sold the AspX too, on the basis that if this works I should be able to whip up the funds to get another one reasonably easily.

I've kitted it out for combat, but it's a bit sluggish compared to the Asp. Already failed to mass lock one pirate in an Asp cos he was going too fast. I think I might go hunting for meta alloys next.

My wife cancelled her holidays for this week and is today for her 2 day week.

I may be on later.

Oops. Stayed up til gone four last night without realising it

I know! It’s a massive real time shrinker isn’t it?

Bought the Alliance Crusader

Ooh, you recruiting for SLF pilots? That would significantly increase its combat effectiveness and resilience 😎👍🏼

I'd love a bit of multi-crew but I don't have SLF, that's the Challenger.

I noticed you still up as I went to bed at 0030, I'll message you next time...

Work tonight, might get on later.

Edit to say: got to the farseer and did a basic upgrade, I forget which. Plan to keep the AspX as a miner/longish range machine and will upgrade the fsd.

Then plan to get a proper long range jobbie as I want to get the "busy X" trophies and have an explore.

Somehow got the Kepler's eye trophy last night - I'm going to have to find where as I was only just off the beaten track bypassing obscured fsd targets.

I will rebuy my AspX as soon as I can. I think I'm going to try mining. Maybe a bit more combat with the new ship to try it out - but it doesn't pay that well.

Anyone else come across systems with status 'outbreak' and feel a pang of sympathy?

Getting the hang of mining now. Picked up an ASPx for a 96t hold capacity. The last run was 19M worth of void opals, alexandrite and low temperature diamonds, which took around two hours. I'm sure if i'd shopped around I could have got another couple of mil but I'm lazy and wanted to sell them all in one place.

Tempted now to stick the asp in storage and go back to bounty hunting for a bit.

I love how you can chop and change play styles. Is the ASPx the best cheapish explorer? Even kitted for mining I have a range of 20Ly

Matt

How do you find the stuff? Fly to the right system, prospector limpets, then pew pew and collector limpets?

How do you know which system/planet has the good stuff?

**** if I know - I can't even work out what to do with the fragments I pick up. Bit over it all, to be fair.

I got frustrated my first few goes, most of it didn't make any sense. Sat on it for about a month, persevered mostly cos I paid more than the recent sale price, then when it clicked it started to make sense.

Oh - there's a manual, you can download it. Worth a read.

Google painite double hotspots - gave me more instruction than regular threads.

With the right setup do the following.

Go to a planet with a ring, planet needs to be high metal or icy.

Scan the ring with discovery scanner (whist cruising).

It'll show up hotspots for mining as orange rings.

Head to one, land about 1.6mn away. Use the centre as a destination to stop you getting turned around in the asteroid field.

Use the pulse wave scanner to find asteroids that glow orange, these contain stuff to mine. Use the prospecter limpet to check content, target it as it goes to the asteroid.
Garlic clove shape generally have a core. Core mining is where the money is. The core shows up as a blue message.

Use mining laser to take some stuff, use abrasion laser to take surface stuff off.

Now you have to target the asteroid fissures (they are only on asteroids with a core), there are 3 strengths. Use a seismic charge launcher to match the strength. Once the first hits you get 90 seconds, you also get a sensor on the top left. Each charge gets closer to the blue "optimum" line. I work on high/ave strength til I'm close then use low to tip it into the blue.

Move 1km away and set shield to max for the detonation.

Use collector limpets to get your stuff. Oh, I load up with about 60 limpets, they are interchangeable.

Remember to use the abrasion laser to get the stuff from the middle out.

Refinery has bins for each type of stuff, get the most bins you can saves you dumping stuff.

Things you need.

Mining laser
Abrasion laser
Seismic charge launcher
Oc pulse wave analyser
Collector limpets controller
Prospector limpets controller
Detailed surface scanner
Refinery

Remember to set you fire groups, I have pulse/dss set to A with prospector on b as my hunting set up, the all the other mining weapons linked to collectors in sets 2,3 and 4.

That's bloody complicated.

I wonder if I can buy another AspX for a dedicated mining setup - a lot easier than shuffling kit around each time..? Or is the Challenger better than AspX so I might as well use it?

I'd go dedicated miner - I just swap out the refinery for a fuel scoop at the mo.

It's about 20 mill to get it fully fitted out, a good afternoon minings worth, does have 32ky range too.

I haven't got the liquidity to invest in a miner currently, I don't think.

I'm not sure if my game is bugged or I'm just stuck with limpets that are thick as shit.

Crack open an asteroid, use the abrasion blaster to chip minerals off, send the limpets in and they fly straight into something and explode. I find I have to get right into the center of the split asteroid and hope for the best otherwise I burn up all my limpets.

Still, good thruster practice dodging chunks of asteroid I suppose. Might get myself set up with a mining specific ship when I get to Colonia if there is anything worth mining and trading there.

Great mining post Sac, thank you. I’ve failed miserably so far at making any money from it but I can see a few areas that I was going wrong now, cheers. Also, where did you find your meta alloys?

There's not much to add to that other than, learn your asteroid types! Each field type rocky, metallic, icy has a single asteroid type which will have a core. Once you know the type you will hit a core every time.

For icy it's the 'smaller' popcorn, bunch of grapes asteroid, with big nobbles.

For metallic it is egg shaped, but obviously only in one plane.

Check out a guy called Down to Earth Astronomy on youtube. It is the clearest guide I have seen.

With the collector limpets, don't select a target then fire or they only pick up one fragment. Also makes sure your cargo hatch is clear, it can get blocked and the limpets die if you try and get in the broken asteroid too quickly. Hang back, let the limpets do their stuff and ping the surface deposits with your abrasion blaster. Look for the sights 'pulling' to the target, even fixed they seem to gimbal a bit.

Matt

In No Man's Sky, you shoot the asteroids, they blow up, the chunks zoom into your cargo hold. You get precious metals in every one. And space is about 50% filled with huge asteroids. Which raises the question: if they are so plentiful, productive, and easy to mine, why are the metals still precious and why do people pay you good money for them?

One of many many reasons why ED is so much better. OTOH VR in NMS is great.

Also, where did you find your meta alloys?

According to eddb.io you can find them at Danielle’s Progress in the Maia system. Despite playing for 2 years, I’ve never tried engineering, so I’m on my way there at the moment to pick some up for Felicity Farseer

I'm on the look out now for a good home base. I'm currently near Crom. The list of requirements is:

Near anarchy or low-security for collecting bounties
Good outfitting and ship building
Near some good mining (deep core)
Decent place to sell within a couple of jumps

What area is anyone else in, do you know of anything which fits the bill?

I haven't aligned to the federation or anyone else yet, has anyone done this? What are the benefits?

Matt

I aligned to the Federation so I could support Felicia Winters, because she's a leftie and I thought I could improve the lot of the poorest and most downtrodden Federation citizens. Not done any missions for her yet though.

I dunno about any bases fitting your criteria - I've been hanging around places with high-tech, and looking for booms. Kinda boring but too lucrative to ignore currently.

In other news, the Challenger is awesome. It feels sluggish at first compared to the smaller ship, but it accelerates and brakes better which is useful and also whilst it doesn't necessarily change direction that fast, it comes about more quickly and drifts, which some how makes it easier to keep on a target. And even with only one large hardpoint with 3E burst laser I tore a Competent Anaconda to shreds in no time.

My favoured loadout seeems to be beam lasers on one trigger to strip shields then burst lasers and multicannons on the other to damage hull. Also experimenting with a railgun and seeker missiles on another fire group for when they run away.

Interesting stuff about the challenger, the next upgrade for bounties would be something with a bigger gun platform.

I've seen big ships do a kind of flip move, then back up to speed quickly, so it sounds like your ship is that kind of boat. I have only dared to get involved with an anaconda once and that was with the FEDS on my side so we could double (triple) team. Beam lasers really rip the shields but heat up fast.

I really noticed the deceleration rate when I moved from the cobra to the aspx for mining, I crashed into two head on before I learned to slow down earlier!

Matt

Is the ASPx the best cheapish explorer?

It arguably the best long range exploration ship in the game. Mine has 60ly jump range and all the internal space needed for SRVs a big fuel scoop and a small shield.

In other news, the Challenger is awesome.

I think the Cheiftain is a a better all rounder for bounty hunting and general combat because its a lot more agile.

You lose a little in hull strength but you should get hit less often, but all the alliance ships are pretty solid.

I use 3 small beam lasers and 2 large and one medium multicannon.

If you have Felicity Farseer unlocked you should upgrade the thrusters to grade 3 dirty drives to get better speeed and maneuverability.

You should also have access to Tod the Blaster, upgrade your MCs to Overcharged

I’ve seen big ships do a kind of flip move, then back up to speed quickly

That's not a Challenger thing - it's what you can do when you turn flight assist off......

I think the Cheiftain is a a better all rounder for bounty hunting and general combat because its a lot more agile.

Yes for combat, but I wanted an all-rounder.

How do you get an AspX up to 60ly? Is that with engineering and guardian upgrades?

I've priced up an exploration package using D rated subs and the best I can get it to is 36ly unladen with a 16t fuel tank and 8t cargo rack. Power plant is minimum size.

36ly is pretty good without engineering. Have you fitted a smaller sized power plant? (go the smallest A rated that will still power the ship. you can even go slightly above you power cap by switching off things like the cargo hatch and the SRV bay until you need them.

The Guardian frame shift booster gives you a flat increase depending on the module size, they come in 4, 5 and 6 slot sizes. I think my AspX has a size five which gives 8ly boost. You can still get a very respectable jump range without though just using engineering and to be honest collecting the Guardian tech is a bloody grind.

If you have Horizons you should have access to Felicity Farseer straight away. You need to take 1 Meta Alloy and have your Exploration rank up to Scout. If you fly out to Maia (which has a station that always sells Meta Alloys) and scan all the planets and systems on you way there, then jump a few systems to the side and fly back so you aren't passing through the same systems on the way back, you should get enough exploration data to rank up.

I'm heading to Maia anyway so I won't feel like I'm cheating if I happen upon meta alloys for sale 🙂

Do you get the AspX up to 32Ly just by minimising mass?

Have you got a 5A FSD, then weight reduction seems to be the way forward? I'm not sure you'll get very high above 30 and have it useable for much.

I have had a night of getting killed, I'm on my third viper of the evening. An expert Fer-de-lance killed me and then I got rammed by a pirate in a federal gunship.

Matt

@Molgrips are you off exploring. I'm heading towards one edge of the bubble myself. Then gonna see what's out there!

Matt

Yup, lowest level power plant you can get away with, D rated isn't as efficient but is lightest, highest FSD and then the lightest D rated kit after. I'm up to 25 on my Cobra just now with a 3A FSD. Plotting a route to Maia, only 19 jumps, looks like I can do a tourist gig that takes me relatively close though I'll need to see where the other stops take me.

This is fun planning all this out, bonus being I should unlock Maartuk just by getting to Maia.

Worth remembering you don't need a huge jump range for exploration.

You level up exploration by well "exploring"! So if you set a course for say Barnards Loop in a ship with a 25-30ly jump range you just visit more systems on you way there than you would do in 55-60ly jump ship.

So long as you are 25ly+ I think you are fine. Shorter jump ranges make it a lot easier to get "dead ended" You can end up stranded with low fuel too far from any scoopable stars. Unless you are way out on the fringes of the galaxy where the stars are really spaced out anything with a half decent jump range should be perfectly viable for gathering exploration data.

Ships with a really long jump range are handy for hops outside the bubble to gather materials or for passenger missions where you're not really interested in exploration on the way just the payoff when you deliver the passengers.

Its still worth doing Increased Range engineering on every ship you use regularly though. There is pretty much no downside.

An Alliance Cheiftain is never going to be a great trading or exploration vessel, but upgrading and having a 20ly+ jump range while loaded for bear makes bounty hunting and pirate assassination missions easier because every mission you are offered is almost guaranteed to be within one jump.

This is what I’ve been doing with my Orca. I’ve been taking long range passenger sightseeing missions to help with my exploration status (passenger transport counts as a trade mission I think). Each sightseeing mission is around 90 jumps of around 20Ly. The payout for the mission isn’t great but the money comes from exploration, which increases the rank. It does get a bit of a grind though, jumping in, honking and using the FSS to pick up every planetary body in the system. It’s cool when you get a new discovery though, because assuming you get back to a base and sell the information before anyone has discovered it, your user tag goes on that planetary body, over all of the platforms.