toblix

Elite: Dangerous (Kickstarter)

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Sorry to hear that! You have every right to ask for a refund, but it might be worth holding off for a month or so because your issue might be fixed in version 1.1 (public next week) or 1.2 (out in March)

 

Cool! I'm #1753 on that list, with  742 discoveries :D. I did a round trip to the bottom of the disc yesterday (too snowy for work), and bagged almost a million credits from exploration, including 120,000 from one system with an Earthlike world. I've just made it to Pathfinder rank in exploration, and finally upgraded to 5A Frame Shift Drive (32 ly per jump, 25 ly with 104 tons of cargo!!!!!).

 

Interestingly, number 6 in that list (Tequila) posted a screen saying that they had made Elite explorer, with 99,999,923 cr from exploring (or something like that). I guesss the other 5 are Elite too.

 

Technically, that's number of planets scanned, so people that scan every single planet they come across could be higher on the list but have made less money (and therefore have less of an exploration rank) than someone who's more selective. 

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Bought this over the weekend and have put an hour or two into it. Have yet to turn a profit at all though. I found some kind of star that it says was undiscovered. Is that something I can scan and upload at a docking station? I try shooting my scanny thing at it but it seems like nothing happens.

I also bought some goods for cheaper than the average thinking I could sell them, but I'm guessing I'll have to travel farther than the closest station to profit, huh?

Anyone have any tips to get started making bank? Is there a thumbs group in game?

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You can scan any stellar object simply by being close enough, targeting the object, and pointing at it. The scanner you are shooting actually sends out a pulse that locates any stellar bodies within 500 ls of you, so you can then target them. You can scan every body (that isn't marked as scanned by default) once and sell that data at any starbase more than 20 ly away. It is an excellent way to make money starting off, as most systems are unscanned by default unless they have really large populations.

 

As for trading, a lot of the in-game trading information is wrong, so you'll simply have to learn which types of bases supply and demand which commodities. A good start is to buy metal at a refinery base and transport it to an industrial base.

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So I just look at it and I don't need to use my charge scanny BWAAAAMP thing on it? How do I know when I get the data? I fiddled around next to the star for like five minutes before logging out last night.

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So I just look at it and I don't need to use my charge scanny BWAAAAMP thing on it? How do I know when I get the data? I fiddled around next to the star for like five minutes before logging out last night.

 

Your BWAAAAAAMP thing looks for new planets / stars/ etc. but doesn't scan the details. To do that, you need to target one of the undiscovered things, and when you get close enough it will automatically start scanning, and a little timer icon will appear in the left panel. After it's finished, the thing will change from Unknown to the name of the planet or star. You need to be at least 20 ly from a system before you can sell the data. After the 1.1 update scheduled for this week, the first person to  discover each planet/star will be shown, and they will get a bonus.

 

For trading, you need to buy stuff which has a high supply, and sell it in a system with high demand for that stuff... when you select it, the description now says which type of economy produces it, and which consumes it; economies are things like agricultural, industrial, refinary, extraction, high tech, military, terraforming, and service off the top of my head. So agricultural worlds sell e.g. food and beer,and buy crop harvesters and fertilisers. Meanwhile, refineries buy minerals from extraction economies then sell the resulting metals to high tech or industrial economies. Galactic average is NOT necessarily a good indication of what to buy because some regions are so well stocked that even the stuff they demand is cheaper than the average. Some stations sell rare goods (listed in yellow) that increase in value the further away you go from the station... it's not worth buying these unless you want to go 100-150 light years away to sell them.

 

You might be best off taking courier missions from the bulleting boards to start with, as these are basically free money as long as you complete them on time. There's a lot to learn, but there's no rush. You might like to join the MOBIUS group and start off there (groups are named after the player who started them): this is a PvE group with over 4000 members.There's nothing in the game to stop PvP, but players agree not to attack other players, except in conflict zones when the player has signed up for  the opposing side. 

 

Good luck, and don't be one of those players who obsesses over maximising credits per hour- this is work and those guys often end up burning out and complaining, when they are missing out on 99% of what Elite has to offer.

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I'm a little rusty, but the target display just to the left of your center console will change from something like "Unknown Star" to "G type Star" with a little more information there. You can see some pictures that show the Unknown and Scanning states (as well as a better description of the scanning process) at http://lavewiki.com/exploration

 

To scan you have to be pointing directly at the targeting reticle, so if the star was large enough, it could be that you weren't pointing directly at the center. Also, it might have scanned it already and you didn't notice, or it might have been one of the pre-scanned systems. 

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Rad, thanks. Yeah I'm not one to min/max in any game, and this one is just so gorgeous and fun to fly around in! Will try to scan this star when I get home tonight, and then look for courier missions. I'll probably just sell back the goods I bought and eat the loss to try a more fun/easy way to get upgrade funds.

Also I was interdicted yesterday and it went on for like five minutes. I was in the escape vector for a solid 30 seconds and got bored so I turned my throttle down and aimed the wrong way and it never pulled me out of my jump or whatever. I guess it was a bug? I had to log out and log back in.

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Yeah, must be a bug. If you throttle down you are supposed to automatically submit to the interdiction, and even if you were fighting it it should only go on for a minute, tops.

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So Elite Dangerous 1.1 is out, and I'm really enjoying it. The interdiction rate is WAAAY up, making me glad i bought those 6 multicannons!

I've been testing out the current community goal, having missed those in beta, and it's pretty clever. In this case, we are helping to source materials to build a new space station in a previously uninhabited system. Candidates for the system were proposed by the DDF, a short list was published on Galnet, and the system was decided by the amount of player interest in each system, measured by scanning data.

To join in, you have to go to the station specified on Galnet (the improved routefinder was very helpful here, getting me 300 ly with no problems). You then have to sign up on the bulletin board. After signing up, you contribute by selling as many metals as you can (or want to) to the station; your reward depends on your contribution as well as how well the goals are met (expressed as Tier 1 to Tier 8 in this case). What I think is a nice touch, is that your contribution is measured in tons rather than credits, so someone who can only haul say 10 tons of copper gets as much credit for their contribution as someone who contributes 10 tons of platinum... the difference in profit is already taken care of in the market. While everybody who signs up gets a reward that is set by the Tier achieved, the top 70%, top 40%, Top 15% and Top 3 commanders get extra rewards on top of this.

The result of this community goal is a good trade run for people at all stages in their Elite career, with plenty of opportunity for action via pirates.

The system map now says who discovered a star or planet first as soon as you BWAAAAAMPF them; if there is no name, then you are the first and scanning them gets an extra bonus. When you sell the data, there is a special alert to congratulate you on your discovery, as well as a bonus. Helpfully, you can sell exploration data by the page, rather than one system at a time.

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So I took on a courier mission last night that was farther than I could travel. Ran out of fuel and decided to just self destruct and restart in a new free ship now that I have a better grasp on things.

On my second ship I took on a cartel mission and recovered a black box for my first profit in the game!

Another noon question, how do I communicate with other people? I saw some ships and locked onto them and tried to type out a hello but it said no communication target in range or something like that? And are there any other common questions or tips that I should keep in mind?

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I am starting to feel like this is a game I'm glad exists and that I own, but every time I think about deciding to load it up in the evening, I don't. :/

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Nice, I'll have to hop on and do a trade run to that new station and hopefully that will also get me the last cash I need to get my new scanner.

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So I took on a courier mission last night that was farther than I could travel. Ran out of fuel and decided to just self destruct and restart in a new free ship now that I have a better grasp on things.

On my second ship I took on a cartel mission and recovered a black box for my first profit in the game!

Another noon question, how do I communicate with other people? I saw some ships and locked onto them and tried to type out a hello but it said no communication target in range or something like that? And are there any other common questions or tips that I should keep in mind?

 

Congrats on the first bit of profit! Communications are not implemented well at the moment, but they are going to be hauled over in the next update in March, I think. If you go to the communications window (I think pressing '2' does it), then you get a list of ships in the region. If you click on them then you have the option for voice comms or text. Since my current setup doesn't include a microphone, I've not tried voice comms, but text works fine. Pressing 'Enter' gives quick access to the comms menu, but I don't know if that works as intended yet.

 

I am starting to feel like this is a game I'm glad exists and that I own, but every time I think about deciding to load it up in the evening, I don't. :/

 

Fair enough :)... I'm feeling that way about Wasteland 2 right now. Some day there will be enough new stuff to tempt you back in, I know it :P! While there's a whole lot to do in ED, it doesn't neccessarily provide the motivation for doing it. The game outlined in the design discussion archives sounds phenomenal, but we're not there yet. I reckon that given enough time ED could get there.

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I hopped in last night and made a couple of cargo runs to the group project. Unfortunately, it doesn't pay very well. On my first trip, I grabbed metals from where I was sitting before jumping out there, and made about a 40k profit on a cargo size of 24. Then, having to buy minerals in the area that were largely sold out, my next trip only made 20k. I think I'm going to go back to my home system and do more mining instead.

 

Edit: I should mention that the risk is a ton higher, simply because there were so many players there, even 30 minutes before the nightly downtime. I didn't get interdicted, but I came pretty close to running into another player hot-dogging it out of the star port.

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Heh, I like the increased player count, but then I mostly play in the MOBIUS PvE group, so I'm pretty sure they won't attack. There's been quite a few times where I've been chatting with people only to get interdicted though :P! I generally submit, then either run away or blast them; there's only been one time that I changed my mind so I was hit by repair bills without the bounty. A kill warrant scanner is definitely worthwhile now, although I can't see the benefit of Class A over Class B.

 

Running resonating separators to the various refinery systems and getting metals back has been fairly profitable for me, but mostly I like to think I am helping build a new station. The bonuses for the highest contributors don't seem huge, so I'm not worried about contributing the most... last I checked, I was in the top 15%; my contribution is a factor >10 smaller than the top 5, so I'm not trying to compete.

 

My only ship losses to date with my current commander have been to space stations, and I almost managed a third time when I accidentally boosted right into the side, leaving me with a shattered canopy and 7% hull. Giving that I had 104 tons of gold on board, docking was VERY tense! I'm glad that going into pressurised atmosphere inside the station now restores oxygen rather than exploding your ship like it used to :P!

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I play open all the time, so you never know what you're going to get. Still, I've gotten pretty good at escaping when I need to, but I've only tested my mettle against a couple of real people. I'm actually more scared about accidental collisions with that many players about.

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So I've started a solo game, played for about 20 minutes and felt completely overwhelmed by everything. Do you guys have any resource you'd recommend to someone who's just started to play?

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Welcome! There's a LOT to take in, so try not to do it all at once! The in game tutorials are a good place to start, i.e. the interactive bits and the videos. You can access the videos directly at

. The good news is that actually flying around and doing stuff is easy when you get used to it, but there's a whole bunch of info to take in first. The launcher gives you a link to the current manual which helps a bit.

 

While you're getting started, I recommend taking courier missions from the Bulletin Board... these will give you free money as long as you do them in the (pretty generous) time limits, and will get you used to flying around between systems. If Open play is too daunting, then you can either play in Solo mode or in a private group (the MOBIUS group is a PvE group with over 4000 members and could be a good place to start). As you go between systems you could check out the type of system it is, see what is in high supply or high demand to get a feel for how trading works (buy at places with high supply, sell at places with high demand, the description of each commodity tells you which types of systems produce and consume it).

 

If you're feeling feisty, you can try shooting up wanted criminals at Nav Points, or Resource Extraction Points. Piracy could be something you want to try later on (no judging) but that needs stuff you won't be able to buy yet to do well. You can practice combat in the some of the tutorials, with some extra stuff in the single player combat demo.

 

Good luck :)

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I think it will take me a while to be any decent at combat, so I'll probably just stick to courier/trading for a while. For now I'll stay in my solo game as well, and eventually move to PvE. It's the first game I buy at full price since maybe Age of Empires II, so I have all the incentive in the world to give it a fair shake. Thanks a lot!

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Keep in mind that those courier mission timers are real time (timer ticks even when not logged in,) so only grab a mission if you have the time to complete it.

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What's the penalty for failing to complete a mission? Also if I want to be a bounty hunter do I need to buy a scanner for that and then I guess chill in populated areas?

And I should probably practice flying without flight assist huh?

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What's the penalty for failing to complete a mission? Also if I want to be a bounty hunter do I need to buy a scanner for that and then I guess chill in populated areas?

And I should probably practice flying without flight assist huh?

 

Penalty for failing to complete: Mostly reputation. If there's something else I haven't noticed.

 

Bounty Hunting scanner: Significantly increases how much money you'll make from bounties. By 10-50% or more.

 

Flying without assist: Once you feel like you're very, VERY good at killing people, start practicing. Not before then. It's only useful insofar as hitting the pinnacle of flying skill.

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There's some interesting stuff in this week's newsletter

 

MERCENARY EDITION GOODIES

 

Everyone who preoredered will get some 4K desktop wallpaper and ringtones selected by the design team, along with a digitally signed screenshot (huh?) and an art book with with words by Art Director Chris Gregory.

 

FER-DE-LANCE IN 1.2 (EARLY MARCH)

 

The other cool thing is this teaser of the Fer-de-Lance ship that will appear in the next update... it's the return of a classic ship, with a somewhat revised form. In the good old days it was a luxury bounty hunter craft... maybe it still is?ferdelance_3quarter.jpg

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