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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.
I may save up again for a Chieftan (in addition to my challenger) because I fancy doing missions with someone else manning the SLF 🙂 Not sure it would be particularly useful having a gunner tbh.
Does anyone know whether it's worth collecting the bits after you've blown up a pirate. Obviously not the cargo, as i'm clean as a whistle, but the 'materials'?
Thanks
Matt
Dunno, I do when I feel like it. I think you can use the materials to make stuff later.
Collect the materials, they get stored without affecting your jump distance and are used for engineer stuff.
Better to be looking at them than for them.
Just upgraded my 1E fuel scoop to a 4B, bloody hell that's quick!
Slowly making my way to Maia, got another 15 jumps but charting unexplored sectors on the way. Need to figure out honking next as I realised I've been wasting time (if not working on my scout status).
I did some exploring with the FSS and the surface scanner. Not sure what the point is. I'm trying to find barnacles, and so far I've found nothing at all. Some ice capped mountains but that's it.
It would seem that it's a more efficient way of spending your time. If you scan whole systems manually (as I have) then youre time to profit ratio is pretty poor. If you only honk then fully scan systems with terraformable or earth-like worlds then you make as much in the same time but for less effort.
So it seems anyway, to be honest I'm still trying to figure out how to get my FSS to work in the first place.
Old Pondo (in Elite) is dead, long live new Pondo (in Elite)! Having utterly failed to work out to do anything in mining, I thought f*** it, let's try a combat mission - flew to the requested system then no idea how to find my quarry, THEN found, when I deployed my hardpoints, that whatever messing around I'd done to try and mine had put my little pulse laser into a configuration that wouldn't allow me to fire it. Back to base, no non-combat missions for me, tried a few different systems, same thing - either it's combat and I'm in a tiny ship that I can only damage people in by ramming, or I don't meet the requirements, presumably because I've died and failed so many missions that my name, virtually speaking, is mud across the universe. Dang it. 🙁
Before I snapped the disc in half and went back to RDR2, I had a think. I loved - LOVED - Elite on the Spectrum, I was SO looking forward to this, I decided not to give up just yet. I turned me off and back on again to start once more from the beginning, dug out the case and activated the Horizons pass I couldn't be bothered with before, went through the licence test at the start with my previous experience and picked up a ton more than I had first time through, and with the Horizons add-ons making life a whole shedload easier (autolaunch/dock, supercruise assist), all of a sudden just getting about is no longer a time-consuming pain in my ass. Now I'm completing missons no problem (so far!), and the Cobra MkIII is almost within my grasp. I've got to have it - it's my electronic version of the e-type my dad always hankered after...
@pondo glad to hear you are getting on with it now.
I have recommended him further up in the thread, but check out 'Down to earth astronomy' on youtube, he has great tutorial videos on mining, exploring and various other bits and pieces.
I am an easy going miner but today I managed to fully scan a planet, find a mineral hotspot in the rings and make 36 million credits, in about 3hrs. Not fleet carrier type earnings, but pays the rebuild costs when I go bounty hunting and the inevitable happens.
I loved my Cobra III, it was kitted out for mining, but such a versatile ship, you could use it for anything.
Going to give exploring a try tonight.
Matt
If you've not left the Pilots District yet I suggest reading my previous post to maximise exit profit. My Cobra Mk3 is now happily skipping across hyperspace with not a care in the world, fuel scooping has taken care of a lot of range anxiety.
Cheers both, will do some research - Mrs Pondo has the telly at the mo, but when she goes to bed... 🙂
Are you in the squadron Pondo? Ping us a message if someone else is online (in the chat menu press L2/R2 to cycle between different levels of chat) and send a message, then if anyone response we could do a PSN party for chat purposes. The Elite in-game group voice chat doesn't really work.
Then if you're on chat you can ask someone if you get stuck. You can even share your screen with people via PSN rather than Elite).
Got a Cobra Mk3 and have been busy mining diamonds and now feel super rich 🙂
not decided what ship to get next.
and anyone else find that if they click on last page of a thread it logs you out and you cant reply?
thought i was going crazy as when i then click login it already is logged in, until you click on last page.
Working if i just click on second last page and reply from there lol
Are you in the squadron Pondo? Ping us a message if someone else is online (in the chat menu press L2/R2 to cycle between different levels of chat) and send a message, then if anyone response we could do a PSN party for chat purposes. The Elite in-game group voice chat doesn’t really work.
Not knowingly! 🙂 Cheers, will see if I can join up - I haven't tried using online chat whilst gaming since I got GTAV and some American youth threatened to papercut my nipples - I'm hoping this doesn't go the same way! 🙂
If you join the STW squadron then it's just us off this thread, it's not public. For voice chat it seems to be just the PSN party feature. You invite people from your friends list using the PSN menu.
But you have to friend us for that. My name is molgrips, others have shared their usernames earlier in the thread.
See you out there Commander.
We prefer to wee in shoes.
Bought a python, did a few upgrades and took it for a spin as I didn't have time to do anything else.
Oh, paint jobs are half price at the mo too, mine are now glowing blue.
A short 300ls hop to the next space station and I got hijacked, thought "I'm packing heat now!" And had a go. Realised that as I've been flying weaponless in the AspX I'd forgotten to upgrade the stock beam lasers.
I won! I had upgraded power plant, shields, distributor so out rated their weapons more than combat skill but I don't care.
I presume as you go up the combat ranks the mobs get harder?
I'm doing some missions to get into Sol, a bit more mining and then thinking about SagA.
What's at SagA?
I should be the_kato
Working on my combat rating at the moment running assassinations and pirate hunting out of LTT 10823. Ditched my fixed beams on my Python for turreted burst lasers last night. Feels a bit like cheating at the mo but then I’ve not come up against any ship using chaff launchers
“What’s at SagA?”
A massive black hole I think
I was not a fan of turrets on the Asp. They never seemed to be firing. Although probably an improvement over fixed, you nutter.
Yeah on reflection it was kinda hard to hit anything with fixed weapons and a slow moving ship
Find now I’ve turrets by the time I’ve manoeuvred into position for my multicannons the turrets have already taken down the enemy shields
am i doing something wrong when trying to find mining hotspots with the DSS, it never shows anything, unless if i fly away and dock and come back out, then its shows up.
Help 🙂
I finally figured out how to get my FSS working, turns out I couldn't see the difference between ' and `!
it seems to be a bug for me, i can fire tons of probes and nothing, logout and back in and the hotspots are there.
I've been looking for barnacles with the DSS. First time I used it I found a fair few interesting things inc a tapped out barnacle (Merope) but every single time since I've found naff all. Entire planets with absoutely nothing of interest whatsoever, which strikes me as a bit odd for a game that wants you to explore.
When you use the DSS, how do you get the results? When I found stuff it popped up in my info panel and then I got markers when I looked at the scanned planet but it seemed a little transient, I was expecting a proper report or something.
In the navigation panel.
Barnacles are in the witch head nebula?
SagA is a PS4 trophy.
Just mooching around at the Inner Orion Spur this afternoon. About 200Ly jumping, scanning systems as I went. When i turned for home I changed the setting on the route finder and made it in about 7 jumps.
As far as I could tell I found one terraformable planet, but about 10% of the system scans were worth 200000 to 500000 credits. The rest were junk to be fair.
I hop in then scan the system with the FSS until I have found all of the planetary bodies. Then I move onto the next.
Am I missing a trick?
What is this 'honking' thing?
Loving the different playstyles. I'm bounty hunting at the minute, before getting the miner out for a trip this evening.
Matt
I hop in then scan the system with the FSS until I have found all of the planetary bodies. Then I move onto the next.
Am I missing a trick?
What is this ‘honking’ thing?
Honking seems to be doing an initial scan with the FSS then determining if there are any planets worth further investigation (Earth-like or terraformable). If there are worthwhile planets do a full system scan and DSS the interesting one(s) if you can. If nothing worth seeing then leave it at that and hop to the next system.
you guys using Mouse or Stick?
Guessing for fighting a stick is a must? so far just been flying around using mouse which is fine for mining, but i cant keep up when trying to shoot the pirates.
*Waves from Hutton Orbital* Man, that's an hour and a half that has failed to win Mrs Pondo over to the cause... When you take on a mission to kill someone, how do you find them? I flew to the system and pressed buttons but nothing seemed to work - attacking a random passerby on the off chance definitely didn't work, as him and the rozzers turned me over quick smart. ;(
Honking seems to be doing an initial scan with the FSS then determining if there are any planets worth further investigation (Earth-like or terraformable). If there are worthwhile planets do a full system scan and DSS the interesting one(s) if you can. If nothing worth seeing then leave it at that and hop to the next system.
Thanks for that, looks like I missed out on some money, as I didn't DSS anything. Ah well!
I'm on PS4 so coping with a million button combinations. Managed to switch silent running on again in a dogfight!
Matt
£5 - so I thought why not! downloading now.
I remember losing many hours in the 80's on my BBC, not least to the cassette deck. That sound I can still remember like yesterday.
Hi all. Noobie alert.
I'm on a mouse but honestly not done any combat beyond the initial training. My mouse has adjustable dpi so might work better for dogfighting but do fancy a stick later on. I don't envy the players on standard controllers as it's a big enough faff as it is, HOTAS is definitely the way ahead for console.
Hi wally! That's 3 of us on PC now!
I'm fighting on a PS4 controller but it's hard work. Want to get a HOTAS but it seems a little extravagant
Just got wasted 3x by an NPC on a mission to rank with the feds.
Now owe a loan shark a shit load.
Did some courier jobs to re-spec the ship and now it's back to mining to pay off the shark and keep my knees.
think i will plug in my hotas tomorrow and give it a go.
Also just watched some videos of game with Oculus rift, i want one now.
Now that was bicycle clip time! I misread eddb and went to the wrong station to sell 67t of void opals, so ended up making 2 extra jumps.
Of course on the final one there's an FSD interdict attempt. I'm so pleased that the Asp X is so maneuverable they barely got one block from me. Selling those got me my second promotion of the day!
Matt
*Waves from Hutton Orbital*
Did you get any mugs? These are rare commodity items which you can sell at a good profit. This profit level is greater the further away you sell them from point of purchase.
Also on PC here (can't remember if I've mentioned that before)
For any newbies wanting video tips there's a few YouTube channels you can investigate for help/advice
Down to Earth Astronomy does some good guides on everything.
CMDR Exigious does guides on how to make money quick/engineer quick etc.
Vindicator Jones is great for combat and ship outfitting.
CMDR Plater does a lot of live stream stuff and general chat but his channel is worth watching anyway. He has thyroid cancer so does a lot of fundraising streams. Frontier Devs have actually named a station after him in game (Platers Folly I think)
Obsidian Ant does a lot of Elite news/developments.
Yamiks just takes the piss but is worth watching because his stuff is just generally funny.
Obsidian Ant does a lot of Elite news/developments.
Has a starport named after him too, they have also used his voice for the background docking area PA announcements which made me chuckle.
Obsidian Orbital, Maia.
I would imagine that the piratey faction located there called the Ant Hill Mob are something to do with him, too. 😂
What I’ve been doing on the few hours that I’ve been able to get on is a bit of Bounty Huntering; I’ve bought a Vulture and upgraded it, with a pair of wopping great beam lasers and the associated power supply. Can now strip most shields in a single burst; makes the ‘eliminate/assassinate known pirate/terrorist’ missions enjoyable and lucrative. I’m currently at engineer Todd ‘Blasty McBlastyface’s base about to get some gun upgrades.