Elite: Dangerous

[Astral Rag]

According to Steam I've played 14 hours already and I only engaged in combat in two of the tutorial missions.

I'm mainly doing easy delivery missions while listening to classical music. I find it very relaxing.

Edit: I should probably add that I play Solo until I get better at this.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I have it for VR but haven't delved in too deeply yet. Logitech XR 52 Pro HOTAS. It seems great, though, very immersive, and I've just done the tutorial missions. Combat seems difficult but I have to get more used to the controls. I'd like to do mostly non-combat missions anyway, if that's possible.

It's very possible. Combat used to be the most profitable thing but now it might be the least profitable thing. NPCs (And players if you're playing in open) will interdict your ass but you can both fight the interdiction and potentially outrun the ship that interdicted you, depending on what it was. That was one advantage to me mining in an imperial clipper, for being a large ship it absolutely fucking hauls ass in a straight line and can outrun most shit when people would try to interdict me and take my goodies.

A cobra mark 3 catches a fair amount of flak from Elite nerds for being a dad-ship since it's a multi-purpose ship, but it's basically just a straight up better sidewinder and a pretty good upgrade. Isn't complete trash at combat, it can haul ass and outrun almost everything if things go bad, and isn't too bad for early cargo either. A hauler is easily what I'd recommend for early cheap exploration too, can reach really impressively long jump range with it for how cheap it is so if you want to make some spacebux that way it's a good first option. Other than those I don't know what good really early non-combat ships would be. My progression basically went sidey-cobra-vulture (Kickass heavy fighter, since combat was the thing when I was starting out that's why I went for it)-infinite space shekels and blinged out anaconda with spinnaz, with some various not really well fitted ships thrown in for fun.

Edit: Although I will say that if you ever get a vulture be prepared to learn about rejiggering the power on your ship. It's a super power-thirsty little fucker and you really do not want to have your power cut out on you when you're dogfighting.

 

[Razor]

Now is that model of a drone or a queen?

 

[Shackleton]

I have it for VR but haven't delved in too deeply yet. Logitech XR 52 Pro HOTAS. It seems great, though, very immersive, and I've just done the tutorial missions. Combat seems difficult but I have to get more used to the controls. I'd like to do mostly non-combat missions anyway, if that's possible.

Yes, I picked it up in the recent sale and 20 hours in, this is the game that's got me pulling on my Rift every day. I went for the Thrustmaster T16000 Hotas and along with voice attack, it makes the whole thing just an incredible experience. This could easily be a headset seller if they could get people trying it.

I'm playing in a very relaxed manner, just flying from place to place and doing either kill missions or small delivery missions in my Cobra. It's absorbing and relaxing, but it's nice to have something to really get my teeth into learning. Don't be put off by the 'Advanced Combat Tutorial' being as hard as nails, so far all the low-end combat has been much easier than that. The annoying thing is the target warping off somewhere when he gets a bit damaged, but I'm sure after a while I'll learn to deal with it.

 

[Astral Rag]

Helpful videos for Elite noobs










Scoopable stars

Spoiler

and these are helpful as well

https://thecakeisaliegaming.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/getting-started-in-elite-dangerous-a-guide/

https://www.exowing.com/pilots-guide.html

 

[Zibniyat]

After taking on "harmless" and "mostly harmless" pirates, I said to myself why not try something more? So I went for a "novice" and his cobra (I think), whilst I have a Sidewinder upgraded with various stuff (upgrades costed me cca 400 000 credits). After the initial advantage I had, since I attacked first, the tide of the battle quickly turned against me, and whilst I damaged his hull to cca 90%, he blew up my ship before I properly knew what hit me.

And just when I thought to escape by jumping to hyperspace too.

Anyway, I still have around cca 900 000 credits, so getting back on feet is not an issue, but that 500 000 bounty is now outside of my reach

 

[Zibniyat]

Naturally, upon losing the battle and my ship I concluded that I've had enough of this game for today so I saved and exited. :D

 

[J_C]

After taking on "harmless" and "mostly harmless" pirates, I said to myself why not try something more? So I went for a "novice" and his cobra (I think), whilst I have a Sidewinder upgraded with various stuff (upgrades cots me cca 400 000 credits). After the initial advantage I had, since I attacked first, the tide of the battle quickly turned against me, and whilst I damaged his hull to cca 90%, he blew up my ship before I properly knew what hit me.

And just when I thought to escape by jumping to hyperspace too.

Anyway, I still have around cca 900 000 credits, so getting back on feet is not an issue, but that 500 000 bounty is now outside of my reach

Hey that was pretty good for a first try. You'll have better luck next time. :D

 

[Zibniyat]

Well I don't mind. I'm generally prone to experimenting (both IRL and in-game) with stuff, even if that means losing and getting hurt. I'm actually glad to have encountered such a strong opponent, it was very intense and interesting. Imagine thinking at one point "Shit, gotta run away, start the FSD NAOOO!!!", only to get blown up half a second later. Both disappointing and hilarious, frankly.

I wasn't expecting the bounty of 500 000 credits to mean meeting such a strong opponent though, since I've done bounties with up to 150 000 credits and the opponents were a piece of cake. And since "Novice" rank is right after "Mostly harmless" one I thought it might not be that difficult. Glad I was proven wrong, now I have to get better weaponry. I upgraded my engines, FSD, power plant, power distributor, shields, added another fuel reservoir... basically almost everything, to 2A or similar category, and yet I left out the weapons and also some additional defensive modules. A mistake! I immediately realised that they're too weak to deal with powerful shields of that Cobra. Oh well, it's time I finally learn some additional stuff.

 

[Matalarata]

Also... Cobra vs Sidewinder. His ship does everything better than yours. More hull/shield/weapons, top speed and turn rate. Not exactly sure about this last one but even if you do have an advantage here it's minimal, Cobra mkIII is an extemely maneuverable ship. Its only disadvantage is its broad top/bottom side, try initiating the attack while perpendicular to its trajectory and aim for the either the power plant or the drive. Lasers start losing damage after just 500m (iirc) so try and alpha strike its shield away while standing very close, if you're angled around 90 degrees, it should start the combat with a straight boost and you can aptly allign with its trajectory and chase.

I installed this again to dick around with the new update, bought a Krait MkII (I love it!) and decked it as a bounty hunting-multipurpose ship. For my hardpoints, I went for double L Beam lasers (fixed), engineered for long range and a thermal vent (Heatsink? You are my heatisnk mate!) and triple MC ,2 med one Large, all gimbals cause fuck aiming fixed projectiles with my rusty skills. I went for Overcharged+Autoloader on 2 of those (the L one and one of the M) while my last Multi Cannon is an Extended Clip with corrosive.

Apparently, last time I played I pledged with prismatic princess, although I can't remember doing so. This means I could access prismatic shield with a 7.5 million investment and an hour of grind or so. Can someone vouch for their effectiveness? My power plant can sustain them.

 

[Zibniyat]

Actually, it was not Cobra, but Vulture. Even worse?

 

[Zibniyat]

Oh my, I just checked the specifications of this Vulture ship. Mine has a price of cca 30 000 and Vulture around 5 MILLION!? Yep, gonna give up on this mission for sure.

 

[Matalarata]

It... depends. I've seen ace pilots take thargoids head on inside a sidewinder. Being little and maneuvrable is an undenyable advantage. In this particular case, if I had to choose my opponent while inside a sidewinder, I'd probably take the Vulture. If he packs turrets (bad idea on a Vulture anyway) you're more or less done but if all he has is forward-facing fire, you have a pretty good chance at hiding in his blind spots, and vulture has a lot of those, like all ships packing big hardpoints related to their size. The Vulture also has power-related problems which can actually end the battle early and in you favour, although in any case it would be very hard to pull off, the disparity in firepower and defense is huge and a single mistake could spell your doom.

I suggest you try and graduate to hauler/adder or (better yet imho) Cobra mkIII as soon as possible! Cobra in particular, allows you to try different roles and see what suits you, it's also a very good and beginner-friendly ship that allows you to fight in PVE reliably, very good for some early RES fighting, for example.

 

[Zibniyat]

Thanks. So far I'll see to do some more missions with my Sidewinder, I do need to learn how to properly fly and fight, and I'm not in a hurry frankly. Elite Dangerous is interesting in that it's very relaxing to play it most of the time, and there's always something to do. I play it for an hour or two daily, and I'm content thus far.

 

[Matalarata]

Good thinking. Never "graduate" to a ship you cannot afford to lose is the first tip you need to learn! And in any case, Elite is very grindy only if you actually want to speed things up, if you take it slowly and never step out of your boundaries you will experience a sort of natural progression. Although if there is one ship you should try to leave behind as soon as possible that's exactly the sidewinder. You will upgrade to similar class (small) anyway and will be able to do everything better.

Some additional early suggestions:

a) To get your feet wet in combat relatively safely and earn some side money, jump inside a high-med RES and piggyback the police, follow them around and attack their target. A Kill-warrant scanner can increase the money you gain but don't fret over it. You can easily do it inside your sidewinder if you want.
b) Try and fit a collector limpet controller on your early ship, it will give you unvaluable experience (limpet behaviour is... peculiar and you need them for a lot of activities) and will allow you to collect manufactured components from downed ships and random signals without the need to scoop them one by one.
c) Learn how to use a fuel scoop early on, it will save you a lot of time.

 

[Zibniyat]

So I finally have beaten that pirate in my 5th attempt, only the 1st one was lethal for me, 3 times I ran away, and now I got him woohoo, God I'm happy like a child! :D

I hope I won't go blind with this game, since the third of the battle was looking like this:

It was a tense battle, but I managed somehow. :D Optimising my ENG and WEP power distribution gave me a necessary edge, ENG to somehow get behind him (or perpendicular to his forward trajectory) and WEP to shred him whilst I'm still at an advantage.

P.S. My rank is Harmless, and this pirate was Novice, so this is quite a boost for me. And that 500 000 credits plus bounty, I'm satisfied.

 

[Zibniyat]

Actually, now it says "mostly harmless" for him, but believe me he is (was?) not. Not in the mission description (where it clearly said Novice), nor in how dangerous he was. Strange though.

 

[Zibniyat]

So now that I have 1 day and 6 hours of total playtime, I'm starting to form an opinion of the game. It's positive.

One thing I've noticed is that if a pirate (and I assume any target for elimination) escapes after a fight by jumping to hyperspace, they'll regain their full shields and armour (hull integrity) after engaging them again. This happened today to me, when a pirate whom I had reduced hull integrity to 27% escaped, only to find him a few minutes later (max 5 min, because I too had to jump to hyperspace, locate his signal and then approach him again, it was all pretty fast) with restored hull. Is this how it is supposed to be anyway? I seem to remember how you can purchase some repair-drones or similar, but since I didn't investigate sufficiently I don't know how that works, could pirates have and use them?

Another thing is the FSD jump to another star system, it appears you can't jump "in-system" somewhere closer to a particular station? This becomes annoying if the station in question is for instance 100 000 or more Ls away, and to get there you have to spend several minutes (up to 10 min in my experience) with speeds sometimes in hundreds of "c (= speed of light)". That's problematic if for instance you wish to take missions from a particular station for a prolonged time.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

One thing I've noticed is that if a pirate (and I assume any target for elimination) escapes after a fight by jumping to hyperspace, they'll regain their full shields and armour (hull integrity) after engaging them again. This happened today to me, when a pirate whom I had reduced hull integrity to 27% escaped, only to find him a few minutes later (max 5 min, because I too had to jump to hyperspace, locate his signal and then approach him again, it was all pretty fast) with restored hull. Is this how it is supposed to be anyway? I seem to remember how you can purchase some repair-drones or similar, but since I didn't investigate sufficiently I don't know how that works, could pirates have and use them?

That doesn't sound right. It's been a while since I did specific target hunting like that (Usually I just park in a high value res and scan and blast pirates for quick and dirty bounties rather than taking missions and hunting someone) so I could be wrong, but they shouldn't be repairing their hull like that. The "Auto field-maintenance unit" potentially could be used in hyperdrive (Not positive if it can, just taking a wild guess) but that only repairs internals, not hull. It also disables the module it's repairing, so if you were targeting their engines or power plant they absolutely 100% couldn't use it in hyperdrive. There are also repair limpets which CAN repair hull (Only hull, not internals, and they can't fix broken canopies) but you can't use limpets in hyperdrive either so that wouldn't work. So either it's a bug or they're just cheating and giving NPC pilots the advantage of full instant healing if they briefly escape.

There's no way to change your drop-in point on a new system, no. You always plop next to the primary star, so planets/stations way the fuck out there take a while to fly to. There's a meme-station in Alpha Centauri which is notorious for this called Hutton Orbital, which is a whopping 6,800,000LS from the entry point.

 

[Burning Bridges]

just checked back in and I still have over 330 million credits in my account.

Seems there is still not muchz more to do with it. I'd need to play for a month or so to be eligible for the Federal Assault ships and even that is probably useless.

I'm mostly just interested in records. Last year I had jerked off to ca 12 million / mining trip and then eventually jumped to 110 million in 1 passenger run (although that took hours real time and was a little dangerous too). There was a point where I could have made billions in 1 week but what would be the point. I just kept grinding enough to be free of financial worries.

P.S. I see that there are these new Krait ships, are they any good?

 

[Agame]

just checked back in and I still have over 330 million credits in my account.

Seems there is still not muchz more to do with it. I'd need to play for a month or so to be eligible for the Federal Assault ships and even that is probably useless.

I'm mostly just interested in records. Last year I had jerked off to ca 12 million / mining trip and then eventually jumped to 110 million in 1 passenger run (although that took hours real time and was a little dangerous too). There was a point where I could have made billions in 1 week but what would be the point. I just kept grinding enough to be free of financial worries.

P.S. I see that there are these new Krait ships, are they any good?

Mining is a new officially sanctioned "gold rush". People are making 100s of million quite easily. If your goal is $$$ then you should jump on board now, as I have a feeling once FD have let there shiny new systems play out for a few months they will probably bring in the nerf bat.

I have no experience with the Kraits, tho I bought a phantom as it is supposedly a good alternative to the aspX for exploration. I havnt actually used it yet, I just feel more comfy in my aspX and cant be bothered engineering another ship.

 

[Zibniyat]

One thing I've noticed is that if a pirate (and I assume any target for elimination) escapes after a fight by jumping to hyperspace, they'll regain their full shields and armour (hull integrity) after engaging them again. This happened today to me, when a pirate whom I had reduced hull integrity to 27% escaped, only to find him a few minutes later (max 5 min, because I too had to jump to hyperspace, locate his signal and then approach him again, it was all pretty fast) with restored hull. Is this how it is supposed to be anyway? I seem to remember how you can purchase some repair-drones or similar, but since I didn't investigate sufficiently I don't know how that works, could pirates have and use them?

That doesn't sound right. It's been a while since I did specific target hunting like that (Usually I just park in a high value res and scan and blast pirates for quick and dirty bounties rather than taking missions and hunting someone) so I could be wrong, but they shouldn't be repairing their hull like that. The "Auto field-maintenance unit" potentially could be used in hyperdrive (Not positive if it can, just taking a wild guess) but that only repairs internals, not hull. It also disables the module it's repairing, so if you were targeting their engines or power plant they absolutely 100% couldn't use it in hyperdrive. There are also repair limpets which CAN repair hull (Only hull, not internals, and they can't fix broken canopies) but you can't use limpets in hyperdrive either so that wouldn't work. So either it's a bug or they're just cheating and giving NPC pilots the advantage of full instant healing if they briefly escape.

I see, thank you for the explanation. Maybe they had just enough time to repair everything in that 5 min time I spent jumping to hyperspace, locating the signal and coming back to them.

There's no way to change your drop-in point on a new system, no. You always plop next to the primary star, so planets/stations way the fuck out there take a while to fly to. There's a meme-station in Alpha Centauri which is notorious for this called Hutton Orbital, which is a whopping 6,800,000LS from the entry point.

I'm gonna have to research how to increase revenue, but so far I just want that to be from fighting, because that's the most interesting thing for me ATM. Currently I fly Cobra MkIII.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I'm gonna have to research how to increase revenue, but so far I just want that to be from fighting, because that's the most interesting thing for me ATM. Currently I fly Cobra MkIII.

Don't know if it's still the best way to earn money in combat or not since I haven't been paying SUPER close attention, but the best way when I was doing it was finding a high resource node in a system somewhere, dropping in, and then using the bounty scanner on everyone who isn't mining. You can also sorta game the system by quitting the game and coming back until you get a "Better roll" and get more high-value pirate ships like clippers, anacondas, etc. On top of that you can boost it a bit more by looking up the powerplay system since there are 2-3 powerplay leaders that increase bounties in their space. Can't recall if non-members can benefit from that or if you have to sign up under them, but IIRC it's a 15% boost to bounties. It's definitely not exploit levels of money and isn't even mining gold rush money but it's fairly solid.

I'd also recommend keeping your eye on a vulture if you're wanting to almost exclusively do combat, just make sure you toy around with it in Coriolis so you can check the price for getting it fitted and especially so you can fiddle with the power. Learning to adjust power priorities is a big deal for the vulture so you can automatically shut off shit like cargo scoops/FSD/etc when you're in dakka mode. Some people even shut down life support when the hardpoints are out but that always makes me a bit paranoid since having your canopy break isn't super unusual in combat, but if you're running shield cells and/or boosters it may be less of an issue since the vulture has pretty decent shields for its size anyway. Cobra has 124mj with a top of the line shield generator and vulture has 390 for comparison.

https://coriolis.io/ On the off chance you haven't seen that for dicking around with ships.

 

[Zibniyat]

Thanks, I've just had an hour long run in some high RES and managed to get cca 1,2 million credits, which is nice. Although it took away 96% of my hull, so I pretty much run away from the last opponent, lest I spend hundreds of thousands on repurchase.

Still, missions are nice too, especially for learning how to fight, since some missions come with only 1 opponent so it is a classic space fight. Fighting in RES can be very hectic and unpredictable, ships firing from all directions, I even get hit unintentionally by the security forces.

 

[Zibniyat]

I managed to obtain upwards of 500 000 credits by destroying wanted targets in one of the high resource extraction sites, and all was proceeding well until I accidentally hit some ship, possibly one belonging to a security service of sorts... suffice it to say my ship got blown up and I ended in prison. Sad! But what surprised me in a very bad way was the fact that all the bounties I collected were gone! What!? All that time and effort and they got erased. BTW the facility I ended up was called something like "Mercy Hammer".

Anyway, being triggered at the loss of so much bounty (it was close to 1 million TBH), I went back in the same sector, and was more or less careful how I do stuff, and then one wanted Anaconda just didn't want to die; some bug I guess which caused Anaconda to remain on 50% of the hull and no shields, but no matter how much I and cca 5 other security service ships shoot at it nothing changed, in fact I could see them from a distance shooting at it in vain for close to half an hour. Oh man, that was disappointing.

Also, the same site attracted quite a few of the commanders, like 7 or 10 of them, and one of them was apparently very annoyed by others stealing his bounties, so he threatened (to everyone I suppose) that they either stop or get blown up, and since he had some large-sized ship I decided to try and get some more targets at the periphery of their presence. I guess I could steal bounties left and right, not like I care much about other players, but at the same time I don't want to be blown up again for avoidable reasons. I think I'll rest a bit by doing some missions.