Elite: Dangerous

[Suchy]

I switched to DBS from Cobra and never regretted. Basically that's when I started earning good cash, and thanks to that ship I'm now in a Python. At this moment I have 152hrs counted on Steam, not really that much.

Hmm, maybe once I'm done with uprgaring the drive, I'll sacrifice 64 cargo space for passenger cabins. Could be fun.

 

[Burning Bridges]

A Python costs 60 million. How do you make that much money in 150 hrs I may ask?? I earned about 15 millions since I took up mining (on monday, so within 4 days and about 8 mining expeditions), and that was with a highly optimized route where I get 200% for Painite anddoing a lot of missions too. I had made about 8 million in the 75hrs or so before, doing smuggling of slaves and drugs.

The DBS is really one of my favorite ships too, I had it for some time when I was msuggling but it limited my trading too much (I had only 20 tons or so cargo space). And tbh I could not afford 2 ships at the time, not to mention the transport was not in thje game and you had to fly back manually in a Sidewinder and fetch it.

I think I will now be able to own a DBS, Asp and Cobra at the same time. The Asp is fantastic for mining, the DBS the best fighting ship and the Cobra is amazing for its price. I also thought about a Viper Mk III

 

[Morkar Left]

Last time I played you basically made money with community goals.

 

[painman]

Are you guys playing with Horizons?

Is there a point to visiting more distant systems? I've never seen more than a handful of people outside of the most populated systems clustered around the starting one.

 

[dbx]

Are you guys playing with Horizons?

Is there a point to visiting more distant systems? I've never seen more than a handful of people outside of the most populated systems clustered around the starting one.

Went as far as Jaques Station and visited most of ther part around the bubble, i think i've clocked 40000+LY doing exploration.
Unless you want to larp, it's probably the most boring thing i've ever done in a vidya.

 

[painman]

Does the whole metagame of taking over systems for different factions matter at all then?

 

[Suchy]

Are you guys playing with Horizons?

Is there a point to visiting more distant systems? I've never seen more than a handful of people outside of the most populated systems clustered around the starting one.

You can get not too bad cash from exploration, especially now with space tourism.

As for Horizons - yeah. It definitely adds to the atmosphere, also when driving the rover around on the surface I was able to obtain some very rare materials required by engineers. No idea if you can get them in any other way, maybe as rewards in missions or sometimes mining?

Nevertheless the point of flying far away and surface exploration are things like this:

Spoiler

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/10/elite-dangerous-player-uncovers-biggest-alien-secret-yet/

 

[Suchy]

A Python costs 60 million. How do you make that much money in 150 hrs I may ask?? I earned about 15 millions since I took up mining (on monday, so within 4 days and about 8 mining expeditions), and that was with a highly optimized route where I get 200% for Painite anddoing a lot of missions too. I had made about 8 million in the 75hrs or so before, doing smuggling of slaves and drugs.

The DBS is really one of my favorite ships too, I had it for some time when I was msuggling but it limited my trading too much (I had only 20 tons or so cargo space). And tbh I could not afford 2 ships at the time, not to mention the transport was not in thje game and you had to fly back manually in a Sidewinder and fetch it.

I think I will now be able to own a DBS, Asp and Cobra at the same time. The Asp is fantastic for mining, the DBS the best fighting ship and the Cobra is amazing for its price. I also thought about a Viper Mk III

I got the Python with 15% discount somewhere in Li Yong Rui space. And the components are discounted as well, just fly around the high-tech systems over there.

As for getting money - as I said, stacking pirate hunting missions against a single pirate faction. I found a system where most factions totally hate the pirate bunch in a neighbouring system. First I increased my ranking with these factions by delivering local bounties from RES hunting, then started doing the missions. Once you're allied, you can stack up a couple of missions reaching up to 7+ mln in rewards, against a single pirate group. Basically you get paid multiple times by the same job. Let's say you pick a mission for 2mln to kill 16 pirates of a specific group, then another mission against the same pirates for 3mln (kill 24 of them), one for 5mln (kill 32) and one for 7mln (kill 40). In total you still need to kill 40 pirates to complete all of them, and you earn 20mln in 3 hours.
It's still a bit tricky though - let's say you killed 32 pirates out of 40, so you only have the highest paid mission left to finish. Now... the higher the paygrade, the tougher the mission is, so you can be fighting Pythons, Fer-De-Lances and maybe even Anacondas. Also their spawning rate really drops. So instead of waiting for a ship that will probably obliterate you, if you're in a DBS or even a Vulture, you head back to the station. Cash in rewards for completed missions, then find a couple of cheaper ones against these pirates, like killing 8-12 for up to 1-1.5mln in rewards. This will increase the spawn a lot, and will give you easier targets as well.
Note that sometimes you need to log off/on, switching between open and single play, to get new missions generated while you're at the base.

Oh, and the system I'm talking about is LHS 378 - Tuan Survey settlement. It's like Sothis for bounty hunting.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Interesting, now that I have 25 millions I could even afford a fully upgraded Vulture .. The Asp by the way is not my favorite ship, it's a total money making mining machine but otherwise it doesnt excite me at all.

 

[Burning Bridges]

By the way, I had to try some ice mining, and it was as profitable.

I think the key here is to get the really, really good contracts by calculating the price per ton. Some paid out ca 70-80,000 per ton of Bromelite, which means you can get as much for a rather ordinary material as if it were 1 ton of Painite, or even 2 tons of painite if you sold it anywhere. Payout was ca 2 million which is not bad, I even found 6 tons of low temperature diamonds though at these prices per ton they are less profitable than the Bromelite.

The system was only major reserves (pristine ice rings are harder to find than metallic) though I dont recommend that because you may have to grind out the tons (at 5% per asteroid and maybe every 5th asteroid containing the material, you'd only get ca 1 ton per 5 asteroids, or even just 15 asteroids if you dont use prospectors). This grind can become quite tedious as I was spending an hour or so looking for 12 tons.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Just look at this, 2 tons of Methanol Monohydrate Crystals for 236,000 thats 118,000 credits per ton.

This should show how unbalanced and illogical this whole mission system is. A lot of missions just pay out 2000 credits for carrying scrap or manure to some other port and then you have these premium tasks where you get 100 times the normal price per ton (the market price for MMC is 1,300 per ton)

 

[J_C]

Just look at this, 2 tons of Methanol Monohydrate Crystals for 236,000 thats 118,000 credits per ton.

This should show how unbalanced and illogical this whole mission system is. A lot of missions just pay out 2000 credits for carrying scrap or manure to some other port and then you have these premium tasks where you get 100 times the normal price per ton (the market price for MMC is 1,300 per ton)

Yeah, but you are allied with the faction, and the allied status provides the best paying missions.

 

[Burning Bridges]

What mining actually taught me is exactly what Dangerous Catch captains talk about the whole time. Everything they say about fishing is also true for asteroid mining. For example, you need to be able to assess the content of an asteroid in 1 minute. Basically every increase in time efficency is cash, and sometimes you must grind out a few toins to fullfill your quota. Once you have one that contains a lot of Painite / Platinum / Palladium or one of your quotas you need to work like a factory, with 3 limpet drones and see that the fragments move in a straight line towards you. That way you can sometimes make several hundred thousands in 2 minutes.

Yeah, but you are allied with the faction, and the allied status provides the best paying missions.

I'm allied with them because I traded ca 30,000,000 with them within 5 days. After my status went allied the prices have gone up a bit that's true. But the prices for Osmium have risen a bit too much to be reasonable even if I'm their ally. In the last run they gave me 3 million for 40 tons in 3 individual contracts. Thats 72,500 per ton, if I'm not mistaken the same price you get for Painite in the best selling stations. This is fucking Osmium which is normally worth 8,000. The price was so good that I vented out several tons of Palladium to make more room.

Recently my profits per mining trip have gone from 3.1M to 3.6M to 4.7M million. I think this will have been the last one though and my career as a miner is over for now. I will head to Diaguandri because that is supposed to be a upgrade paradise, and build myself a combat ship, probably a Vulture.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Yeah baby, paytime

 

[Burning Bridges]

I would also like dat Federal Assault ship, but I must be Chief Petty Officer in the Federal Navy ... what do I even have to do to enlist?

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Federal_Assault_Ship

 

[praetor]

I would also like dat Federal Assault ship, but I must be Chief Petty Officer in the Federal Navy ... what do I even have to do to enlist?

nothing. go to a fed-aligned station and do fed-aligned missions/drop exploration data/bounties (basically anything that generates rep. i think missions are the most efficient) until you fill the Fed rep bar to 100% so that the random "haul 5t of coffee so we can promote you in the military" mission spawns. repeat until rank is achieved

and do take into consideration the Imperial Clipper as well. it has excellent speed (one of the top 3), pitch and roll, although the lateral thrusters suck (it's a pretty big ship), solid jump range, 2L+2M hardpoints (but gimbals are a must because of the positioning) and very very good internal space for the price (the best you can get until you can afford a Python. even though they buffed the T7 recently, i still think the Clipper is better)

bet course of action to get money+rep quickly for one of the 2 would probably be to find a nice station that gives lots of "skimmer massacre" missions, stack those and grind away in a sidewinder or eagle. just my 0,02€

 

[Burning Bridges]

Can you be a bit specific about "haul 5t of coffee so we can promote you in the military"?

Because my fed rank has been sitting at 100% forever and I seriously wondered what's the point.

 

[praetor]

when it reaches 100%, the RNG will sooner or later spawn a "military ascension opportunity" mission (i'm not 100% sure about the specifics but i think it's enough to refresh the mission board at any fed controlled station), which is usually something as idiotic as "haul 5t of coffee to that station over there so we can promote you to admiral". plus, the 2 military ranks in fed/imp aren't mutually exclusive so you can be king and admiral at the same time, lol

 

[Burning Bridges]

OK, I re-evaluated the fighting ships and for practical reasons the favorite option is really the Diamondback Scout. It has a long list of advantages (speed, maneuvrability, armament, cockpit view and small target size) and while the shield is not the best and it cannot compete with a Vulture the much lower insurance cost is also an important factor to me. The internals are only not even a factor for a pure combat build, and I could even go with a 2T fuel tank and maybe even 2D frameshift drive.

What about the shields? Is it best to go with 3A, Prismatic or Biweave?

And what's the take on hull reinforcement packages? I can get up to almost 1000 hull by stacking them, good idea or bad?

I also tried my hand at a highly uprated Sidewinder and it could be fun, I still like the view from the cockpit most and the insurance cost is laughable low.

 

[praetor]

current meta is to use RNGineers mods, as they offer insane increases on resistances that can up the strength of your shields virtually well over 300% normal for "little" sacrifices ("little" as in compared to stock shields/boosters. but a lot of sacrificed time to grind all the materials)

more hull is always good. as long as you keep your total mass around 50% (or less) of your thruster's optimum mass for max manoeuvrability, stack as many as you want. for shields go with what suits you best. they have their pros/cons so decide what suits your playstyle best (i personally prefer biweave, but plenty others swear by prismatics). but if you want to go the rngineer mod route, it matters a bit less

DBS used to be an awesome ship before they nerfed silent running (FDev are literally crazy retarded when it comes to ship/weapon balance), because it has a pretty strong hull for the size, excellent manoeuvrability, and subpar shields so sacrificing those for HRP made sense. plus, iirc it has the lowest (or near enough) default thermal signature of all the ships so it runs pretty cold by default. CMDR Na'Qan has some nice clips on youtube and is one of the better (if not the best) silent running DBS pilots i've seen. unfortunately, SR is not what it used to be and it was always crap in PvE as AI pretty much ignores it 90% of the time .

the DBS is still very good, but the Vulture is significantly better (seriously. it's like flying an Eagle that dishes out more consistent damage than a clipper and has almost the survivability of a python. you'll be killing non-modded ships with ease even with a basic setup of 2 large pulse lasers. the only thing it lacks is versatility [only 2 hardpoints] and raw unboosted speed)

 

[Burning Bridges]

i still ask myself why i played as much as i did (~2bil in total assets, lol) as after i a-rated my Asp, i traded it all in for an Imperial Clipper and just grinded from then on until i hated the game from the bottom of my heart an then 2.0 came out which was more of the same but in a buggy, 2.1 was and still is a monumental P2W clustefuck which still lacks basic functionalities so it makes at least a tiny bit of sense (how incredibly fucking stupid do you have to be to implement a feature like this the way it is without commodity storage?! how?!), and 2.2 adds pretty much nothing gameplay-wise although at least it finally added some more visual variety which the game badly lacked since release (and still does. it's a good start but there's still a long way to go)

"I still ask myself why I played as much as I did" is a question I have been asking myself, with 200 hours. I also think that I now understand why so many people go through playing hundreds and hundreds of hours and then realize they hate it. It is because there is no point! You spend all this time playing the game and it looks like a game that is full of infinite possibilities but at some point it will hit you that everything you ever do is increase your credits, and you have to do this because the prices of better ships grow exponentially. There is nothing else that you do, you dont build new space stations or spaceships or influence the number of pirates or anything, when you are gone the universe will be the same as when you entered, it's just a fucking number on on some server.

My advice to new players would be just to ignore the credits as much as they can and just take the game for sightseeing and some combat. But that's easier said than done, because you certainly dont want to stick with s Sidewinder but get a Cobra or Diamondback and then you are already knee deep in grinding.

Mining was fun though as long as I needed cash it was rewarding to maximize the profit per hour. Now I have liquidated everything and left with ca 35 million that I can spend the rest just testing features :D

 

[someone else]

So can you just get infinite credits and fool around or are you stuck on MMO server rules or something?

 

[Berekän]

The second one.

 

[Burning Bridges]

praetor I found the rank increase mission and now that I understand how it works I see how incredibly stupid it is.

To increase rank you must:

a) have amassed enough rank with the federation
b) find a faction that is alleged to the federation
c) have build at least cordial relationships with the faction
d) open up each an every mission description (!) to see wether one has a rank increase (this happens about every 2nd time you log in)

Since these are all impossible to discover while just playing the game without guides, especially because of c) and because d) is simply retarded the only conclusion is that this game has been designed by a complete imbecile. It's like they have thought, let's hide the ranking system withing factions where no one can ever discover it without looking though guides from the internet. Retarded!

Now I need to find an agent that can give me those missions (I think my current allies are all non federal alleged) and then its gonna be interesting to see wether my rank has amassed beyond 100%, or if all progress beyond that has been wasted.

All just because I want to try out that Federal Assault Ship, otherwise the federation can go suck a dick.

I hate this fucking game.

 

[Urthor]

Doing rank increases fair and square for imps or Feds is really fucking dumb, I'd suggest everyone just wait until someone finds a bug/exploit and abuse that to get my rank up. Elite in general they program so much grind into it to deal with the neckbeard who play this like their full time job that you more or less have to look up cool exploits on the internetz to get anything within a reasonable amount of playtime. This goes triple for Engineering.

So yeah this is classic guide dang it, especially for agame that's supposed to be old school they really don't make any kind of effort towards making the optimal gameplay arc obvious to anyone without online resources.


FAS is not that worth IMO but it's alright. It's not super optimal PVE content clearing ship like Asp/Python/Conda and Cutter/Corvette to an extent, and it's not seriously amazing to fly like Vulture/Clipper/Courier. If you feel like it though https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange..._a_spot_to_grind_millions_of_credits_and_fed/ this is the latest n greatest rank exploit, and you'll get a truckload of cash.