toblix

Elite: Dangerous (Kickstarter)

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Yeah, that's kind of my experience with this sadly. I feel like they built out a completely gorgeous, well playing game, but completely botched everything else.

 

I do have to say, adding my friends into my wing while playing has definitely made the game more fun (as long as we are relatively close to each other), it seems to help drive some of the emergent story telling this game has to offer. Seeing a friend get interdicted, having them request for help over voice comms, then having to race to a nearby system to rescue you by the skin of his teeth has been fun as hell. 

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Fitted out a Cobra MkIII as a smuggler to run some of the high-paying Shadow Delivery missions. Took 4 missions that all had delivery points in the same region of space about 200 light years off.  Had pirates on my tail 90% of the time as well as the authorities in the populated systems. Had to stop to fuel scoop twice when I could, keeping my back to the star in order to make interdictions difficult (they have to get behind you to interdict and if you're close enough to the star the gravity well drops them out of supercruise).

 

The most exciting jump was when I came out of witchspace (Elite's "hyperspace") and was immediately interdicted. My ship seemed to careen right towards the primary star and I got tossed out of supercruise...but evidently I had gotten too close to the star and it dumped me out of supercruise before the interdiction could complete and the pirate or system patrol could join me. Took a lot of heat damage but jumped out of the system and completed the deliveries, making about 12M credits. Traded in my Cobra for an outfitted Asp Explorer so I can handle more deliveries. Hoping to get enough money to eventually trade up to a general-use Python.

 

The game is still 90% "make your own fun" sandbox. But it'll be interesting to see what's going on in 1-3 years.

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I didn't intend on dropping into this thread to make the same post as the previous posts, but it looks like I'm gonna!

 

I've reached a new plateau - I now no longer feel like the mechanics are actively working against me. It is fun to play the game. It's just that my only goal right now feels like "acquire a new ship". The next logical step for what I'm doing is probably a python, which means I need roughly 100m credits to even make it flyable. That is a literal magnitude more than what I have right now. Even if I was pulling 2-3m creds an hour that's weeks away, and that's just grinding nice RES zones. I dipped my toe into the powerplay system. That was a waste. I tried some of the new quests - they're mostly broken.

 

I just... don't know what to do next. I'm not space rich but I'm space first world and as such feel like I'm experiencing space first world problems, but those will make me not play the game.

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I picked this up recently and I'm having trouble getting started. Like most people have said, I'm not quite sure what to do. I bought a new ship that's supposed to be more combat focused but I'm still getting wrecked in fights. I can't tell if anyone I've encountered is a player or an NPC, which is pretty confusing. Should I just run cargo bounties until I can buy better stuff?

 

Also I'd really appreciate any tips on judging when you should decelerate when supercruising to a destination. I overshoot every time!

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I picked this up recently and I'm having trouble getting started. Like most people have said, I'm not quite sure what to do. I bought a new ship that's supposed to be more combat focused but I'm still getting wrecked in fights. I can't tell if anyone I've encountered is a player or an NPC, which is pretty confusing. Should I just run cargo bounties until I can buy better stuff?

 

Also I'd really appreciate any tips on judging when you should decelerate when supercruising to a destination. I overshoot every time!

 

I can actually answer two of these things!

 

1) a player will have a non-solid icon on your HUD (an outlined square vs a filled in square or triangle), and all of them will be called CMDR (DUMBNAME). So I'm CMDR BADFINGER.

2) put your speed in the middle of the light blue area on your acceleration bar. It will auto-decelerate to get you to the station without overshooting it. You can run at max velocity until you're about 10-12s from your destination, then drop your speed down to the middle of the bar and it'll guide you in.

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Badfinger, Shadow Delivery long-distance smuggling missions appear to be the best credits/hour payout right now, unless you can sit in a combat zone popping anacondas constantly.

 

Vasari, I go at max velocity until 6-7s from your destination then drop my speed to the middle of the blue bar range (maximum maneuverability for your current ship). The gravity well associated with the star dock will slow you down enough to get under 1mkm/s and allow safe disengagement of supercruise. There are a bunch of other little tips and tricks (e.g., come in from planetside direction to ensure you're right in front of the star dock's "mailbox slot") but that's the basics.

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Ok that sounds super interesting. How would I find something like that to do?

 

I did have my best ever RES bounty session on friday, pulled in 3m in about an hour. That was rad.

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If you search for "Elite Dangerous Smuggling Missions" you'll find a bunch of guides. I found this one to really be the best:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3xpahv/psa_guide_to_longrange_smuggling/

 

If you're just starting out I would get into a Cobra MkIII and outfit it for smuggling (one gun to make the law spill its coffee when it tries to scan you, an extra fuel tank to minimize fuel scoop stops, a fuel scoop for when you have to stop, and just enough shields to take a hit or two when you're boosting away from pirates). After 1-2 runs you should be able to upgrade to an Asp with an extra fuel tank, which has a max jump range of ~380LY, ensuring you can get to that first dropoff point without needing to refuel at all (I still have a scoop equipped because it's my security blanket). The Asp Explorer refitted for smuggling is what I'm using.

 

Essentially, you take any "Shadow Delivery" mission worth ~2M or more, then take any others that deliver to the same region. Since you're at an "outpost system" far away from populated space, all the missions tend to be deliveries to populated space so they end up being in the same area. You can load up on missions until your cargo hold is full and then take off. I'd take 5-8 missions max, because each mission taken increases the chances that some pirate/law enforcement will be after you. Once you find your comfort level you can take as many as you like. My last run with 6 missions had anywhere from 0-3 guys coming after me with each jump. 6 missions should net you around 12-20M for about an hour of work.

 

The higher your Trade level, the more shadow deliveries will be available to you. The good news is that these payouts will increase your trade level quickly.

 

Be sure to see where you're delivering to so you don't end up delivering to a outpost 0.3LY away from your jump in point. That will take a while. Also, delivering to outposts is preferred as they tend to not have any system security present when you jump in. Because of this I tend to make my first stop at an outpost to ensure I get some return from the trip, as one successful scan makes all your missions fail. That's the risk.

 

 

Here's a list of long-range outposts to get the missions from (Robigo and Sothis are popular)

 

Ceos
Sothis
Takurua
Fehu
HIP 11913
HIP 2761
HIP 8711
Iota Tucanae
Shorodo
Tsakapai
BD+22 4939
Aditi
Canopus
New Yembo
17 Draconis
Exphiay
Quince
Robigo
HIP 74290
Almagest

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Ok that seems cool as hell and also dangerous and interesting and creates goals. Elite needs all of those things!

 

How'd you outfit your Cobra? I can probably fit one as soon as I log in.

 

e: something like this?

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Here's the fit I put together for the Cobra:

 

http://coriolis.io/outfit/cobra_mk_iii/04A4A4A3D3A3D4C---18--0303452o0101.Iw1-kA==.Aw1-kA==?bn=Cobra%20Smuggler

 

No extra fuel tanks, so you have to scoop, but it's only 7.2M credits. If you have to cut corners be sure to leave the Frame Shift Drives and Thrusters A class. You can definitely skimp on the shielding if necessary.

 

e: Your proposed outfitting looks great, go for it. Ideally you'll never have to use those guns, but it's a good idea to have them if you need them. I don't bother with a chaff launcher and put in a point defense for missile protection. Right now the common wisdom is "chaff doesn't prevent scans any longer, it only helps you in pvp in Open play." With 32 tons you should be able to get 3-6 Shadow Delivery missions stacked.

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Is that your full build? I have 10+mm in the bank right now. I'm not even sure I'd need to buy a cobra, I might have one in the station I'm parked in.

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Bought a Cobra, souped it up, got to about 120 LS from robigo mines.

 

Got interdicted by a player, immediately blown up. Not even scanned. Carrying no cargo. He gained nothing except a bounty and my annoyance that I wasted a fucking hour and lost exploration data.

 

Cool job, fuck this game every time it pretends there's something cool behind the curtain.

 

 

Ugh it's not the game's fault. People though

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Badfinger,

 

I have to apologize. Robigo is camped constantly on the open server by players who already have tons of money that enjoy just popping people coming in for smuggling missions because it's a lawless system and they can. Hindsight, but do not go there on the open server. Look at the list and find a system that actually has security, or only smuggle on the Solo server (which is what I do because I'm still building up a credit buffer and have long since developed an aversion to griefing players. Additionally, I don't have enough game time IRL to suffer setbacks from PvP encounters.)

 

Yeah, the Open server has the Killer problem, especially if you're doing community goals and/or the currently profitable metagame (right now, the smuggling missions).

 

The only thing I use the Open server for is to check for extra missions. If you still enjoy playing with other people there's a large PvE only server - the Mobius group (https://elitepve.com/).

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Wow, I did not know there were different server options.

 

I learned my lesson and went Solo. I actually decided not to give up - I bought an Asp financed with my Vulture and decked it out like the Cmdr in that guide. I really like this Asp! I made ~3-400k scanning systems, and made maybe 5m credits between two runs I could get to Robigo and Sothis. it was an interesting experience, just frustrating to get exactly where I was going and get exploded. I know it's part of the game, it's just a way more annoying version of that than, say, getting killed in WoW. There's nowhere in WoW that costs you 500 gold and an hour to get back to.

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Although Frontier would probably want everyone on the Open server for more emergent game play, I'm glad they have both the Solo (classic Elite) and private server (play with your friends in a Wing or a group) options, simply because the power differential on all possible ships gets pretty large at the far end. Additionally, you have to adjust your loadout if you're expecting to encounter player pirates, and they'll usually have the drop on you if you're not specifically optimized to fight them.

 

As for the travel, that's what you get when you approach faithfully replicating space. Thankfully the insurance costs is only about 5% of the actual ship costs.

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I should have phrased my statement better! I didn't know there was a PvE Server. I did know there was open, solo, and wing play, all of which are very good options.

 

You're totally correct about power scaling. A 7m cobra fit for speed still gets annihilated by anything a class above it if it's caught. You can fully fit a sidewinder, all bells and whistles, for less than the base cost of basically half the ships. Those things make complete sense, honestly. A smuggler stripped for speed is supposed to get smashed by cruiser-class military ships. It's just that there's no recourse for happening to run into someone who wants to do the smashing.

 

I actually love the travel. I played a game for over a decade that took 10+ hours to travel end to end, and that was only if all the boats were on time. It's that if you die you lose - all your cargo, any transactions, the cost of the insurance, and it sets you back at the last place you docked. I don't have the time to fight against both the systems AND the player base for those things.

 

I decided to make one more run last night after I made my post. Picked up 3 contracts, 7-8m worth of potential gain. I got 1 jump away from my first stop, and got interdicted by system authority. I tried to break the interdiction, and then it looked like I might not make it so I submitted. I did my scan evasion in the wrong order, and got turned around so I ended up flying right past him instead of away from him. Fucked up. Got scanned. Lost 3 contracts with 20LY left on a 350 LY sprint. And I was fine with it, because I messed it up. My fault! I can handle failure within the game system structure. I actually kind of appreciate that it's not so rudimentary that it's a guaranteed success.

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I want to say thanks for introducing me to this type of trading, DocRandal. It somehow combines very relaxing stretches with extremely tense moments in a way that really works for me. I was upset at getting blown up, but the concept is good for me. I have also made legit profits despite getting scanned a couple of times. I hit 100m net worth last night and don't have to choose between and Asp and a Vulture. I considered buying a completely bare bones Python last night just to have one, but that seems silly.

 

The only thing I'll not thank you for is now being suspicious of getting into any ship without a 25+ ly jump range and 500 ly of cruising capacity.

 

One weird thing is this doesn't show up under profits from trading OR smuggling.

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Badfinger,

 

You're welcome. I'm still only at 50m net worth now, so congrats on surpassing me (I haven't had time to play much). An outfitted Vulture for combat is going to be my first real reward from the smuggling until I have enough cash for a fully outfitted Python.

 

I did see my Trade rank go up from making deliveries. It's strange that it doesn't show up as smuggling profits; I don't have the game where I am right now, maybe it's under Black Market Profits (which is what smuggling profits may be, I don't remember).

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Hey guys :), I've not had much time for these forums or ED of late, but something really cool has happened... after months of teasing in some kind of weird ARG metagame, players have seen first signs of alien life in game! They were very briefly teased in the Horizons launch trailer, but the first player encounter happened on a live Twitch stream, on Merope (?) 5C in the Plaedies cluster, the place singled out by players after months of deciphering the unknown artifacts. 

 

fALtYzU.jpg

 

There is even more mysterious stuff going on with these structures... well played FD!

 

Also, their recent public financial report shows that they've sold over 1.4 million copies, which is pretty incredible.

 

Since I'm a long way from getting a cutter, I have been expanding my inventory instead; I have a cobra mk iv, a viper mk iv, an asp, a python, and an anaconda, plus my grounded asp that took me to Sag A*. I'm just north of 270 million credits' worth, but this might be inflated due to buying some stock at discounts. I'm odd jobbing in my python, but may well head over to ogle alien strange

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Oh, this week's newsletter has details on 2.1 :).

Message board contacts will be getting faces! It looks like each minor faction will finally be getting a set of persistent representatives that is the same for each player, but varies depending on your reputation with that faction.

Also, 2.1 will introduce engineers that will be able to tune your modules; each engineer will have a specific skill set.

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Given that they say they will be giving more details in the coming weeks, not for a while.... Judging by previous updates, info started coming out maybe 4-6 weeks before beta testing, IIRC :)

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So it's the spring update then. That's fine, I need to make credits smuggling before they re-iterate the mission system.

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I am so bad with video game money.

 

So I now own a Python.

 

It has quite a ways to go to be fully decked, but it's got Class A shields. Let's do this, bounty hunters. I would love some suggestions for what to put on my medium hardpoints. Right now I have multicannons because they're a reasonable basic choice, and too many lasers is kinda bad news.

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I'd probably put 3 large gimballed pulse lasers and 2 gimballed multicannons to start if you're not going to go turrets.

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