Elite: Dangerous

[bloatedsack 6,873]

If you were PSN I'd offer to wing up and we'd go claim some bounties for quick and easy cash, but no good. Sorry.

 

The neat thing about Elite is there's a lot of outside applications and support, the bad thing about Elite is that there's very little in game. My better half already ran down his suggestions, and I think the earlier post and Cmdr S's do a good job of summing it up.

 

LIke I said, I always did missions and hten filled cargo when I thought hte run might be lucrative. You can usually get a feel for what the local station sells and the remote station wants just by looking at it in the galaxy map. CS's point about trying to run missions out of the same group of stations isn't to be overlooked, as your local (and faction) rep go up, the better missions come out.

 

https://edcd.github.io/is a great place to find a lot of the community tools, particularly Coriolis and eddb. Also, if you're near a community goal there's no reason to not drop a tonne or two of materials at it. Even the lowest tier of the CG can be worth a couple hundred grand, and starting at the beginning every dime counts.

 

CS also mentions modules, specifically "D" rate. Modules come in sizes and Ratings. Sizes are numerical and are usually the minimum (but sometimes you can undersize them). Ratings provide the sort of stats within the size.

 

E's advantage is it's the cheapest.

D is always the lightest.

C are the best price for their performance.

B are the heaviest, but the sturdiest.

A is the most expensive,b ut generally the best performance (but not mass).

 

So, D rating modules that you don't need to worry about (ie, sensors or life support) saves you valuable weight which makes your jump range go up. A rating your FSD (mandatory) will also increase your jump range.

 

Ideally, I'd set your Freewinder up like this: https://eddp.co/u/BKxCLLD3

That maximizes jump range and cargo capacity, so you can make more off what you start with. If someone tries to interdict you, either run, or submit and your FSD will charge faster than if you lsoe the minigame.

 

The chaff launcher isn't neccessary, but if you do get interdicted and htey start shooting you can get a few seconds without fire to get your FSD charged and low wake out.

 

The Docking Computer is up to you, I'd either do the DC or another 1E cargo pod. If you use the DC, you'll have 8 tonnes, if you ditch the DC you'll have 10 tonnes with a 1E pod.

 

You can forgo the sheild gen for another 1E cargo pod and 2T capacity, but you'd better be real gentle with your landings.

 

You can fly the Freewinder as much as you want, but I'd start to decide where you wanna go. An Adder the cheapest multirole upgrade, the Eagles and Vipers are combat spec ships, and the Cobra3 is legitimately one of the best multirole ships in the game, capable of decent cargo, decent combat, even acceptable exploring. It's the original Elite ship, and thus it lives on as possibly the best.

 

Don't buy a ship and fly it without at least enough to buy it out of insurance once or twice.

[Commander S 24,149]

...and there we have it - on January 27th, 3304, the Musashi departed Earth, in search of new worlds (with stops at some famous points of interest along the way):

 

 

 

Cue the music!

 

 

 

First up, Menkar - also known as Alpha Ceti, but probably more famously as Ceti Alpha. Added the entire system to the database, and then made landfall on Ceti Alpha V:

 

Just one slight issue - Menkar 5 certainly looks the part (although that can't be blamed on Menkar 6 exploding, since it's still in one piece! ), but what the movie version doesn't have is ...higher-than-average gravity.

 

Not ideal for landing a small corvette - particularly when combined with extremely rugged terrain. The first attempt at setting down ended up with the ship skimming like a stone, losing all shields, and suffering not-inconsequential hull damage (!!). Second time worked better, but as that pic shows, the ground is so uneven that it's not even possible to get all the landing gear in contact with the ground (thank goodness for the extra legs extending from the cargo area!). Probably worth me stopping in at the nearest mechanic on the way to Betelgeuse...

[Commander S 24,149]

...okay, sorry for the double-post, but eh, it's been two weeks since this happened:

Exactly a month to the day the Musashi first took flight, I achieved my original goal: a round trip from Earth to Ceti Alpha Alpha Ceti Menkar 5, then on to Betelgeuse, and then head on out until I made my first discovery (assuming I hadn't done so already). As it happened, my route from Menkar to Betelgeuse took me into a system where two people clearly hadn't honked everything there, leaving three ice worlds and an ice moon un-scanned!

 

So, yeah - on January 30th, out in the Synuefe sector, I got to explore my first strange new world:

 

 

(on a Trek-related note, I love the catchphrase of the NPC explorers in signal sources out in regions like this! )

Turns out that the system's moon is also the sole land-able body there, so I figured I'd put down and actually 'visit' proper (next time, I'm going in with a detailed surface scanner and my SRV, for a full survey):

 

 

 

Back on course to Betelg-HOLY HANNAH THAT'S MASSIVE.

 

 

 

Probably the biggest giant I've come across so far - takes ages to fly around it, and even from the furthest planet (hi, Ford! ), there's no ignoring just how huge it really is:

 

 

 

 

Got well and truly banged about trying to put the Anaconda down - again, it's not a great idea, landing a barge on a high-gravity body. Came away from Betelgeuse with only 27% hull integrity - that was my cue to call it a job well done, and get those discoveries safely logged...

Still, worth it for this 'Anaconda in front of things' shot - and yeah, Betelgeuse is enormous...

 

 

 

This binary star system was a great sight on the way back, too:

 

 

...oh, wait - turns out there were five stars, total, with four in close proximity:

 

 

 

All's well that ends well - and as of the beginning of this month, I've now written my name (well, gamertag...) into the ED history books:

 

 

 

...and then I went for a victory lap in my Anaconda a few days ago, decided to go bust some heads in a Conflict Zone, picked a fight with another 'Conda, and promptly got shredded by a dozen other ships - eating up 7 million creds in the process, and leaving me 3 million, which is half the rebuy cost. Looks like I'm going to have to fly it extremely safe for a while - either that, or go back to doing odd jobs in the old space van...

Edited February 15, 2018 by Commander S

[Commander S 24,149]

Okay, this is now a post hat trick, but with good reason: rank grind gold rush!

For anyone who doesn't want to spend months/years unlocking the Cutter/Corvette, there are a couple of good 'short circuits' (I'll post the recommended stations if anyone wants them) for courier missions - and with 3.0's 'choose your mission reward' system, you can prioritise Reputation.

In under an hour, I got my Fed rep up to 100% allied from 87%, and rank from 69% Warrant Officer to 100% Ensign (which means I can already do the next rank-up mission to Lieutenant - and goodness knows how much I've ranked up beyond the visible cap...). Well worth doing while it lasts - rank grinding is pretty tedious, and it often comes at the expense of earning money (although in this instance, I managed to put away a good 4 million creds in the process, too).

 

 

Here's the Empire version, which is currently still good to go:

Fed equivalent is G a n g Y u n to Z h a n a...

 

Edited March 14, 2018 by Commander S

[Ilya 67]

Got a message about this a few days ago, but something came up so I didn't get a chance to ask.

 

Wonder if they've added proper roleplay missions, encounters, etc. yet, or are planning to.

 

Couldn't stomach the sh*tty non-roleplay missions and bounty hunting, so I quit after seeing encounters etc. were also garbage. The "etc." is e.g. character customisation choices having no consequences/effects in the game, so I had a soulless, and paralysed, "character". Missions had poorer choices & consequences than some open-world shooters, let alone open-world RPGs.

 

On 1/9/2018 at 2:23 PM, bloatedsack said:

Trading and missions are your opening bread and butter.

Moldy bread and margarine. What are/were those sh*tty non-roleplay missions doing in an "RPG"? Wouldn't be so bad if they didn't make up 100% of the missions, rather just a minority and of course totally separate. For example, Fallout 4 has more mission and character choices, more choices in general, but don't get me wrong: compared to RPGs, FO4's choices are weak as hell.