(… personally I think the genre peaked with Freespace. That’s never been bettered, I would love a modern remake of that.)

It can jump 60Ly in one hop? If so I might have to try exploring like this whilst I am still low combat ranked. What’s the best cheap ship for exploration? Presumably you have to configure it for such with FSD upgrades etc?

Yeah 60ly in one jump but thats with the Guardian FSD Booster and an engineered Frame Shift Drive – these are only available if you have the Horizon upgrade.

The Cobra MkIII makes a pretty good cheap exploration ship and can be converted to other roles too. You need an A rated FSD and then D rated everything else. You also need a Fuel Scoop an Advanced Discovery Scanner and Surface Scanner. Ditch everything else, no weapons, there is no-one to fight. Some people ditch the shield too but it gives you a bit of added safety margin for crap docking when you want to return from your trip. You should be able to get a 20+ ly without engineering.

Once you have done a few trips outside the bubble you can get yourself an Asp Explorer, then the galaxy is your oyster!

@Molgrips

Sorry, you’re right of course, you can’t play across platforms, but the expedition was organised, and route planned so that everyone was going in roughly the same direction at roughly the same time. Players could chat and interact via the Discord app across platforms, or as part of a ‘squadron’ within platforms. It felt like a really big, really cool, community project. I think I’m right in saying that the game designers even added a partially constructed space station at Sag A*, to tie in with part of the expedition’s aim to mine and ferry construction materials out to the station.

At the very least, I’m glad that station is there, because every time I smack into a planet, I’ve ended up back there!

I’ve sunk a couple of hundred hours into Elite Dangerous on the PC and have enjoyed it from time to time. Haven’t played on it in a while however. I really enjoyed the deep core mining but in the most recent update they seemed to nerf it quite a bit from what I can gather. Shame really as I enjoyed spending an hour or two mining valuable gems/minerals and then hooning across the galaxy with several million credits in the hold while trying not to get shot at by pirates.

Ended up with several ships in various states of being engineered (Anaconda, Vulture, Asp Explorer, Krait Phantom, some Alliance ship that is epic in fights when engineered) and elite ranks in trading and exploration.

Play this on and off, on pc its pretty immersive when using vr. I used to have it set up for voice commands using a program called voice attack so a lot of sub systems could be engaged by just talking into the mic but ive since reformatted the pc and it was a pain in the ass to set up first time around,

Well all reinstalled and I can’t remember any of the controls. 😂

I hear you can make a lot of money transporting paper pulp to Covid-19

😂

Well I just went to hit R2 to power up my engine which of course is to fire lasers, so I’m now 600K down as I had to buy a new ship. 😂

See my first post on the previous page. (-:

Hah yes I keep doing that sort of thing. Shot to bits whilst pressing the wrong button.

I might invest in a HOTAS if I can find a way to make it work from the sofa.

Pressing boost instead of deploying landing gear while docking is my favorite. Especially when you boost into another ship and the space station defenses frag your ass for flying like a dick.

Yup that’s happened when I last played

I don’t play it, never have. But I’d like everyone to get involved.

PS buy shares in Frontier Development.

Why are you lot docking manually?

Why are you lot docking manually?

I enjoy it unless I get it wrong.

Time consuming innit.

So I got shot to bits again last night doing a delivery mission just one above my trade rating. I’m using a Keelback with a SLF and I didn’t have enough time to launch the damn thing before my shields were gone.

What did I do wrong? Do I simply not have enough shields (4B)? Or am I just crap? In my haste to launch the fighter I didn’t drop any chaff, but I actually don’t know for sure what weapons he was using. Problem is it cost me 300kCr to replace my ship so I can’t keep trying it out.

Generally I just avoid interdiction. Sometimes I look at the data of who is attacking and if they’re low level then I’ll have a scrap otherwise I avoid it and finish the mission.

When it comes to fighting are you managing the power pips? Adjusting them according to what you need? (Power to weapons, power to engine to chase down/run, power to systems to bring shields back). You could also equip a shield booster to strengthen shields, they consume a bit of power but you can adjust things in the power control panel as to what has priorities and what doesn’t.

I usually avoid with ease, but this time on the second cargo run of the mission I only got a few seconds to try to hit the evasion target and it smacked me right out of cruise anyway. I think it felt I needed some obstacle to overcome to complete the mission.

Even the biggest shield booster only gives 25% boost, which doesn’t seem like much when he seems to be taking out my shields in seconds. First thing I did was go for my fighter which just took too long.

Just reading up online, and it seems that you can still see potential attackers on your scanner and evade them before they get the chance to interdict you; and you can target them whilst in cruise and also during interdiction. I hadn’t realised this.

I still thing it ridiculous that you cannot set fighter crew to scramble when attacked. I mean we’re being attacked, don’t just sit there and wait for orders FFS! Show some initiative!

Fighter crews!? When I was playing I had none of this, very curious to return now and see whats changed.

Check out Vindicator Jones on YouTube, he does some good combat tutorials in various ships.

One of the best combat things I learned was to hit boost straight after being pulled from supercruise and push the upward thrusters to max. It puts all the boost energy into the upward thrusters and spins the ship so you’re facing the attacker, then open fire. Need to have high rated thrusters for it to work really well, engineered ones are hilarious fun.

Probably easier said than done however as I was using a HOTAS rather than a pad. Did play it for a while on PS4 but kept boosting into stations due to pressing the wrong button so gave up.

Fighter crews!? When I was playing I had none of this, very curious to return now and see whats changed.

You can have NPCs to fly fighters for you; but you can also get real people to crew your ship and man person the turrets etc Milennium Falcon style.

Well a mission and commodities run and I soon got my credits back from my mishap.

My first purchase was a Cobra MkIII and I upgraded it, now I’m in a Keelback

Get back in your cobra, best all round ship til you get to python/krait level, aspX isn’t a bad stop gap tho, but bear in mind it’s got terrible braking. DBX explorer if you want to go, erm…. exploring.

With practice you can dodge npc interdictions fairly easily, if you play in open there’s tactics to avoid them & maybe get away, but you need to accept you’re still going to get wasted by murder hobos – but not too often if you’re careful.

Engineers & guardian stuff can massively enhance your ship, but the grind may ruin the game for you. TBH a lot of elite can be grind-y, so try not to get sucked into it, stick to stuff you enjoy.

Auto-dock lessens accidents (still crashed on occasion a while back, dunno if it’s better now) but manual docking is faster once you get the hang of it.

1300 years in the future, FSD drives, pew pew and railgun weapons but we still cant manually force a reload our kinetic weapons!

Get back in your cobra

But.. with a SRV it only has 24T capacity or something, half that of the Keelback. I want to make the Keelback work – apparently, a lot do according to the internet. I just need to crack it. I got it cos it can take a SLF but the difficulties in launching the damn things seem to be holding back the idea.

I think next time I will keep an eye out for pursuers. I get the piratical message on the system chat, so I’ll scan from cruise to see who’s following me then drop out, launch the SLF and try and be ready.

This game sounds right up my street; is it worth buying a hard copy, or better to download from the PS store? Cheers 👍🏼

Makes no odds except for the fact that if you have a hard copy and want to play you have to get up and put the disk in.

Look me up, I can help with the confusing control system if you need it 🙂

is it worth buying a hard copy, or better to download from the PS store?

Whichever’s cheapest. Looks to be £18 used on CEX (dunno if new retail comes with extra DLC or anything?)

In Team Green world, buying on the console is usually the most expensive way of getting games, unless it’s on offer.

Thanks chaps, Molly, will do 👍🏼

Weird that a physical disk and case is cheaper than just the digital content 🙄

Convenience Tax innit. Buy online and you get it Right Now (well, after a couple of hours to download) without having to move from your seat, rather than having to wait a couple of days or traipse into town to go to a shop smelling of body odour and despair.

Weird that a physical disk and case is cheaper than just the digital content

Digital is handy if you share your purchases with someone else, my eldest has access to the games I purchase saves buying 2 copies.

Look for the complete edition if you can saves buying the DLC.

You want the Horizons update though, I reckon.

Xbox or ps4? Which is best for this game?

Dunno, depends what your mates are on is the standard response I think.

You want the Horizons update though, I reckon.

Definitely still don’t have it and there’s a lot I can’t access.

I usually avoid with ease, but this time on the second cargo run of the mission I only got a few seconds to try to hit the evasion target and it smacked me right out of cruise anyway. I think it felt I needed some obstacle to overcome to complete the mission.

When I had a Keelback I got pulled out of super cruise a few times. Not sure if it was the ship or my inexperience but it hasn’t happened on my subsequent ships.

I used a Python for my trade ranking without auto-dock because that takes up a slot which I used for cargo. Quite enjoyed manual docking and soon got quite good at it. I still have the occasional boost at inopportune moments though.

But.. with a SRV it only has 24T capacity or something

Nah, cobras are pretty roomy, only about 10 less than a KB with SLF

I want to make the Keelback work – apparently, a lot do according to the internet. I just need to crack it. I got it cos it can take a SLF

Go for it, making stuff work for you can be a lot of fun. My issue is SLFs arent going to do anything against murder hobos/gankers (unless you are well engineered they’ll annihilate you in seconds) and you don’t need to fight the NPCs unless you want to (beat interdictions or submit, boost, low/high wake). Haven’t played with SLFs, struggle to handle my own ship without issuing commands aswell. Will be giving them a go once I get back into it (I’ve logged a LOT of hours, taking another break from it).

traipse into town to go to a shop smelling of body odour and despair

Chuckles

Anybody else getting stealth adverts for HOTAS controllers now xD should never had googled how much it was on the PS4

Nah, cobras are pretty roomy, only about 10 less than a KB with SLF

My Cobra has an SRV, cos of the planetary scan missions, although I don’t necessarily enjoy them. I’m trying to use it as my naughty trespass ship for those. I guess I could swap the SRV in and out..

beat interdictions or submit, boost, low/high wake

Yeah I beat every interdiction until that last one where it dumped me straight out of cruise almost, nothing I could do. The submit/high wake thing is what I want to get better at doing.