[Elite: Dangerous] Now you're Playing with Power

GnomeTank · March 2015

Elite: Dangerous is an online spaceships game in a completely simulated Milky Way galaxy in the year 3300. Mankind has settled a volume of space hundreds of light years in diameter. Three superpowers exist here, the Federation, the Empire and the Alliance. Each of these three major powers are teeming with factions. Then there are independent factions of all types, from egalitarian democrats to dictatorial slavers. Commanders (the in-game reference to all players) can gain and lose reputation with any of these powers, including the three superpowers. And there are three ways to build your reputation. Three paths to become Elite.

FIGHT
Become a fearless combat pilot. Engage in military conflict, assassination, mercenary wetwork, bounty hunting, piracy or just go plain psycho fucking nuts and see how long you can keep going.

TRADE
Become a shrewd merchant. Ply the trade lanes, scraping every last credit you can from your cargo hold and Frameshift Drive. Collect necessary resources for a particular faction, reinforcing their strength and position. Gather food and guns for the starving and oppressed, and if you are particularly charitable you just may gain allies that much faster.

EXPLORE
Roam the uncharted systems, looking for the next big strike. Planets rich with resources, the orbits of stars, planets, moons, asteroid and more are out there for you to discover and chart. The right data can make a man rich. And there is the frontier, a place stalked by alien menaces and escaped rogue AI. Wonders surely await amongst the danger.

COOPERATE
With the new Wings update, getting together with your friends to pillage, plunder or protect is easier than ever.

All of this takes place in an online sandbox simulation of the Milky Way galaxy. The players are members of an elite organization, the Pilot's Federation, a kind of self policing loosely organized spacer's guild. Humanities interstellar civilization depends upon this nominally neutral organization for survival. Without them the life blood of trade and exploration would cease. The Commanders of this group have a ranking system rooted in combat kills, the starting rank is Harmless and the highest ranking is Elite. Over the years the ranking has been expanded to Trade and Exploration as well bringing us to the ultimate ranking of Triple Elite. And rank hath its privileges. As a pilot in this federation you will engage in all manners of activity, all of your choosing. You can be a defender of the downtrodden, a murderous psychopath, a calculating and amoral criminal or whatever you set out to achieve. It may not happen overnight, but if you stick with it and pay attention to the details you just may end up living the galactic space opera of your dreams.

Here is the controversial launch trailer.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=I6peGu2yG6o

Yes, it's rather combat heavy and hyperbolic. I can say that while it may not be entirely accurate I have had many moments that felt like the moments shown in the trailer. As far as hyperbolic CGI trailers for video games go it's pretty much standard fare. And there is an absolute wealth of real gameplay footage and information. Like this.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8umAuCmqdo4

And this.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VeIeZdvMS9Y

Ok yeah that ended up being a lot of combat too. I guess you do fight a lot in Elite so maybe that launch trailer isn't so out there?

But there is a lot more to do than just fight, and the game is just going to grow and keep growing. The first two planned expansions are going to get us out of the captain's chair and walking around our ships and stations. I imagine we'll be able to shoot each other on foot too. Knowing Elite though I think it'll be a bit more than that. The second expansion will have us flying in planetary atmospheres, landing on and exploring planets. In 400 billion star systems. Have you ever wanted to go big game hunting for alien dinosaurs?

While we are here I want to talk about the online nature of the game. It's pretty important, and there isn't really anything else out there like it. The term MMO gets thrown around a lot, and it carries certain connotations. Certain expectations. Like robust communication tools for community building. Mail systems, global chats, guilds and so on are an entrenched part of the MMO landscape. Elite has launched bare of these types of features. In order to communicate with a pilot that is not on your friends list you have to have sensor contact, then you can target the pilot, open your comms panel and send a message. Also, while the game is a single persistent galaxy, players inhabit instances within their location. These instances can hold up to 32 players, and that can be quite busy, believe me. Still, it can be tricky hooking up with your friends. In this regard it's like DayZ since you will likely start out hundreds of light years from anyone you know, with a ship that will be locked in a bubble of systems until you can extend your range with a new ship or more powerful Frameshift Drive. There are going to be some more social tools coming soon, it's the very first area of the game that will receive expansion and polish once the launch settles down. Still they don't sound like your typical MMO social tools. So don't expect the usual MMO experience. So why even make it multiplayer? Underneath the flight simulation and space exploration is a persistent social, economic and military simulation. Every action the player takes registers with this simulation. And it is very granular. At first your actions will barely register. But as you grow in knowledge, wealth and power your actions will ring louder and louder. Can the Elite move and shape an entire galaxy? We'll find out.

You can buy the game through the official website.

Here is a link to the game's manual in pdf format. It's chock full of useful stuff and information on the game.

Google Doc of PA CMDRs

Farangu's Newbie Starting Guide

Farangu wrote: »

So you just finished downloading Elite: Dangerous. You've played through the tutorials a bit, enough to be able to get from point A to point B, while maybe shooting some things along the way. You're sitting in some random hangar, in some random corner of the galaxy, looking at what you were given, which is the equivalent of a Geo Metro, $20 and a full tank of gas. All you know is you want to make your mark on the galaxy, but you have no clue where to start.

You'll have a better idea after reading this.

First things first, you need to make some scratch. The Sidewinder is better than...well,...floating in a space suit, but you're going to need more than what it can provide fairly quickly. The best thing I can recommend is to figure out what you enjoy doing, and then find ways to get paid to do it.

Universal tips:
If you break the law – assault/murder an innocent, shoot a System authority vessel(space cop), get scanned with stolen goods, fuck around IN ANY WAY with a space station(seriously those guys need to calm down), you get a fine. If you do not pay that fine within the time limit on your Transaction screen – typically 24 hours – that fine turns into a bounty on your head. That bounty means that any space cop will shoot you on sight, and anybody in that system that scans you has a free pass to shoot you dead. Once you ARE dead, that bounty gets taken from your wallet. Try not to get bounties on your head unless it's in some tiny independent system you don't plan to visit much in the future.

Whenever you're planning to go on anything more than a short, planned trip, ALWAYS PUT ON A FUEL SCOOP. It allows you to scoop fuel by flying close to certain stars. Not having enough fuel to make the next jump means you're blowing yourself up and going back to the station, so this is a “better safe than sorry” thing.

Always have a spare pile of cash lying around. If you bring up your info panels and look at the panel to your right, on the left side you should see your Rebuy Cost, or how many credits it will take to buy your ship exactly like it is when it blows up(and it WILL blow up one way or another at first. Unless you're the next incarnation of Christopher Blair or something.) Don't be that guy that gets his Cobra, misjudges how big it is, and crashes it on the way out of the dock without enough money to replace it.

(I'm not speaking from experience NEXT TIP)

Targeting a ship and keeping it in LOS will start to scan it. Scanning a ship will tell you all sorts of useful information about it, but the most important thing is that assaulting a ship that isn't fully scanned will earn you a fine unless you're in a lawless system. Don't jump the gun! Wait until the scan finishes.

There are tons of extra tools you can use to help you with particular career paths, but this one anyone can use. Once you start getting above a certain light year range, the in game route planner starts having some difficulties. This tool is very handy for planning long range trips.

When you're putting gear on your ship, look at the bottom right corner. There is a section that shows how much power you're drawing when all your hardpoints are on. If that number is bigger than your total power output, and your turn on your hardpoints, everything will shut down. Including your oxygen. Either get smaller equipment, buy a bigger power drive, or do some power management on your right hand info screen, under “Modules”. Things that you can safely put under priority 3 a.k.a. First things to lose power are: frame shift drive(You're not going to be using this much in combat, and if you need to odds are you're probably already dead), cargo scoop, fuel scoop, discovery scanner.

Regarding docking(Thanks, Cog!):

If you like shooting:
Undock from your station, enter supercruise and start looking for Unidentified Signal Sources. When you find one and get close enough to exit supercruise, start scanning all the ships that are there. Odds are, some of them will be Wanted, and have a bounty on their heads. You have full sanction to shoot the shit out of them. Once they are naught but space dust, you will have a claim to their bounty. Return to any station aligned with that faction(you can check which faction will pay the bounty on your Transaction tab), then once you've docked, go to the Contacts section, and take your hard earned space-bucks. You can haul in more than one bounty at once, but if you die, all your bounty claims vanish, so don't push your luck too much at first.Pro tip: if any of your victims drop some cargo, and you have room in your hold, you can always try hauling in whatever random stuff they dropped, but A. It won't earn you very much at all, B. Any cargo that you yourself did not buy is considered Stolen, so if you get scanned on the way into the station you'll get some hefty fines, and C. The station has to have a Black Market present to sell stolen goods. Not all of them do.

In terms of armaments, lasers (Pulse is > ROF, < damage than Burst, which is > ROF and < damage than Beam) are excellent at killing shields, and cannons are excellent at destroying hulls. Missiles are dumbfire and can be expensive, but back a hell of a wallop. Fixed weapons have the least power draw, but only shoot where you're aiming. Gimballed weapons can track a target somewhat reliably, but they suck more juice, and their accuracy depends on how good your sensors are. Turret weapons are the most energy hungry and most dependent on good sensors, but they have three modes: Act like fixed weapons, free fire on my target, or free fire at any hostile. You can also look at the Bulletin Board for missions to kill ships of a certain faction, but they can often require you to jump between a few systems looking for the right folks to shoot, and that's just wasting valuable killin' time. Protip: Any bulletin board mission that's asking you to kill a particular named ship, and offering 150k+ for it, is asking you to kill an Anaconda. That is the largest ship in the game right now. Odds are good that if you are reading this little guide, that's a bit out of your reach, but feel free to try.

Before too long of this, you'll earn the scratch to get yourself in an Eagle, or as TOG likes to call it, “the space Zero”. This thing can turn fight like no other, and is more armed and armored than the Sidewinder. Once you've got some proper guns and gear on it, you can consider finding a planet with rings. These rings have places called “Resource Extraction Zones” on them, which is a fancy way of saying “lots of rocks, and lots of miners shooting those rocks, and lots of pirates hunting those miners, and a few space cops on duty hunting those pirates”. It's pretty much a turkey shoot, and you'll see all kinds of wanted ships. The space cops will often help you kill the pirates, and the longer you stay in a zone, the tougher the pirates that will come along, and the higher the bounty you get from killing them. From there, you will be able pretty quickly to move into the cream of fighting ships right now - the Viper. Fastest thing in the game, with some Class 2 weapon mounts for more punch than you've ever had before. If anything starts giving you trouble, you can just shunt all power to engines and boom away from them, then turn around and make a strafing run right back.

From here, you can keep bounty hunting, or you can decide to go the pirate route. If you do, invest in cargo hatch mines – it is much faster and more reliable than battering down the ship with your guns. Then once the ship is dead or fled, scoop up the tasty remains, and take back to black market of choice. Try to do this in either Anarchy or small independent systems, though, as you'll rack up fines like woah anywhere else. If you want to try piracy, go for a more well rounded ship with some cargo space, like the Cobra.

If you like trading:
Well if you're reading this, you already know the basic rule: Buy low, Sell high. To help you find out exactly WHERE is low and high, you're going to need some assistance. Unless you're just a masochist. Slopey's Best Profit Calculator is the most widely used tool, and is pretty comprehensive. You can sort out which stations are buying what goods for how much and how far they are from you, and you can see what will bring the most profit if you're going from one particular station to another. Word of warning, though, all the data is crowd sourced, so trust, but verify.

When you start, you're going to have to make do with what you've got. Your best bet is to find the bulletin board trading missions, which often give you the goods they want traded, and you only have to schlep it a system or two. A bit of that to build some capital(Thanks, General_Armchair!), and you should be making good time to get into either an Adder or Hauler as soon as possible(an Adder is a bit more multi-purpose, whereas a hauler is...hopefully self-explanatory). Strip out everything that isn't a cargo hold, then throw in more cargo holds. You will want to upgrade your Frame Shift Drive as quickly as you can, as a larger FSD means a larger jump distance, which means less time in between trading posts.

After that, you're going to want to be doing some Rare Goods trading, which is the more lucrative option until you get to the ships that can haul ~100 tons of cargo. Certain stations have rare goods for sale in their markets, which you can identify since the name of the good always has the name of the station in it, and is a lighter yellow color. Rare Goods sell for higher the further away you sell them from the point of purchase, topping off at around 140 light years or so. There's a number of good rare trade routes floating around here that you can find, but here is a decent route that doesn't require too souped up of a ship. If you want to, you can keep your discovery scanner on the first leg of your trade route, so you can scan stars and make a bit of side cash on the way.

If you feel like trading bulk goods, you're not going to be making much cash until you get past that 100 ton mark. But the guide listed in the OP will help you squeeze out every credit(Thanks, Cog!):

The fuel scoop tip goes doubly for you. It'd suck to have to lose a hold full of goodies that you've already put down creds for just because you misread your gas tank.
If you like exploring:
Go wherever the hell you want to, man. Every ship comes with a basic Discovery Scanner at purchase. This is what allows you to scan stars. Actually using the discovery scanner – toggling to that weapon group, then holding the trigger until you hear the power of the bass – reveals all celestial bodies to you within 500 ls of your position. You can scan all of those planets and asteroid clusters to add some more value to your scan, but it does not add very much at all until you get the Detailed Surface Scanner on your ship. For now, your best bet is just pinging once, while you are scanning the main star, and then moving on. You have to be at least 20 light years away from the system you scanned before you can sell its data at any Universal Cartographers contact at any station. Just don't let too big a pile accrue: you lose all your scan data if your ship goes poof. The intermediate and advanced Discovery Scanners have a larger reveal range – the advanced scanner revealing everything in the whole damn system.

You're probably going to want to go for all purpose ships like the Adder and Cobra, as exploring on its own isn't likely to do much more than pay for your gas without the expensive modules on your ship.

Basic chart is in the OP(Thanks, Cog!)

If you like mining:
Get a mining laser and Refinery on your ship. Find space rocks, preferably planetary rings. Don't bother trying to go to the exact resource extraction site(Thanks, Rius!). Shoot the rocks until little chunks fall out. Scoop up the little chunks, and tell your refinery to get to work. If you see Palladium, you're hitting paydirt. The sites that you are looking for will scan as Pristine Metallic. A kind Internet gentleman is keeping a gallery of sites that are confirmed to be Pristine Mettalic. Also, you should invest in a bigger refinery as soon as you can.(Thanks, Basil!)
If you like smuggling:
You rogue, you. You're going to want speed and cargo capacity over all else. The unidentified signals that end up being nothing but floating cargo are going to be your lifeblood at first, until you can more reliably take cargo from others(see: Pirating and shooting). Other vital equipment: Chaff and Heat Sink launchers.

Here's your gameplan, after you accrue a hold full of ill gotten gains: First of all, MAKE SURE THERE'S A BLACK MARKET AT THE STATION YOU'RE DOCKING AT. I've found it's a lot harder to avoid getting scanned on the way out than the way in, so if there's no black market at the station, you're either trashing your haul, or flying like a motherfucker trying to get out of there.

This needs to be tested more, but it seems to me that when you're approaching the dock from supercruise, if you approach it while you are between the dock and the planet it orbits, you'll have a higher chance to drop out of supercruise facing the dock entrance. Once you drop out, put all your pips in your engine, and line yourself up with the dock entrance as best you can. Then gun it. At 7.5 km out(10 km for the bigger stations - thanks Trace!), you are able to request docking clearance. Once you get to about 5 km, start running Silent(Delete by default). This vastly reduces the range that cops can scan you. But you start building heat very quickly, and you lose your shields, which is why HOPEFULLY you lined yourself up before you started this. Once the heat starts getting too much(~120% is when you should consider doing it), pop a heat sink to buy yourself some more time. If some cop does start to scan you, and you think he'll pop you before you can get into the dock and break line of sight, then throw some chaff to disrupt his scan. Hell, you can throw it anyway if you want to, you have enough of it. Once you're actually inside the dock, you're typically safe, and can exit Silent Running, although I still wouldn't dawdle trying to get to your landing pad.

Trader's Guide Infographic

Explorer's Guide Infographic

GnomeTank · March 2015

I'll put @Farangu 's newbie guide back in the OP as soon as I can get the BB code source of it. Since the old thread is locked, I can't get the raw source of posts by quoting them.

General_Armchair · March 2015

So GnomeTank was ultimately the one who lost the game of chicken we were all playing for who would create the next thread :P

(thanks for making the thread GnomeTank).

For those of you who haven't been receiving the Elite: Dangerous newsletters, they sent out some concept art for the Imperial Courier yesterday.

I want one to go with my Imperial Clipper.

I wonder how good its jump capabilities will be? Right now the humble Hauler is my best long-jumper for commodity price-scouting.

GnomeTank · March 2015

I blinked because I thought up the current thread title and couldn't contain myself, it had to be made.

Drake · March 2015

GnomeTank wrote: »

I'll put @Farangu 's newbie guide back in the OP as soon as I can get the BB code source of it. Since the old thread is locked, I can't get the raw source of posts by quoting them.

I think I have it sitting around. I'll dropbox it and send you a link.

edit: Nope, my backup is from before his guide was put into the OP. Sorry guys.

Xandar · March 2015

Thanks for making the thread, I had started one Friday at work, but then I actually HAD to work so scuttled it.

For those who had been playing but decided to hang up their helmet, the 1.2 release had drastically improved the bounty payouts for combat kills and the RES now spawns a variety of ship types to gank so trading is not the only way to advance yourself financially. They also improved exploration payout, but I can't tell you by how much as I've been having to much fun shooting shit to experiment. Finally there is a new combat ship that is a step above the Viper (arguably?), the Vulture. 2 Large hardpoints, maneuverable, slightly slower than a Viper/Cobra for ~5M credits. I've not played around enough with mine to come to a final conclusion, seems good so far, but not sure if it truly replaces the Viper due to the slight speed advantage and greater loadout flexibility you get in a Viper.

I've not tried the wings multiplayer stuff yet either... I need to change that, but not sure when I'll have time to group up with some folks to try it, reviews I've read seem very positive on it so far though!

General_Armchair · March 2015

I'll need to get back into the swing of things. I liked trading, but I disliked that performing any other task essentially ground my credit income rate to an effective standstill. The improved bounty/exploration payout is excellent news IMO.

I see that the Fer-de-Lance manages to mount a Huge weapon hardpoint on a vessel capable of operating out of Medium pads. I don't think anything else short of the Anaconda has a Huge hardpoint.

GnomeTank · March 2015

I lost a viper to station guns earlier. Had logged in for the first time in a while, and I had my airbrake switch forward on my throttle, which is what I have flight assist disable mapped to. You can imagine how this went as I was bouncing around the station trying frantically to get flight assist renabled.

Syngyne · March 2015

Playing around with the external cam.

Coming in for a landing:

Berthed in the hangar:

A lil' sundiving:

I tried to get one of going into hyperspace, but the camera controls went all weird when the countdown started and the angle wasn't very good. Sadly, it won't let you go to external cam while in hyperspace, you're locked into the cockpit view.

Drake · March 2015

Flew my Cobra out to Lugh and threw my hat in with the Crimson State Group. The combat rewards for this thing are going to be pretty fucking good. 70k just for participating right now. If you are in the next tier the reward goes up to 5 million credits. So yeah, this is going to be pretty worthwhile in terms of getting paid as well as fun.

I bought an Eagle to fight in and I'm going to use my Cobra to haul for them. I already spent a good bit of time at a low intensity conflict zone with some others. This is the first real PvP I've sought out since the beta and man I'd forgotten how much fun it is to fight other players. The Feds are getting shellacked right now, so if you feel like misbehaving and you want a wingman hit me up if you are in Lugh.

edit: Oh yeah I took a couple of pics with the new external camera too.

Farangu · March 2015

Believe I fixed most of the image links, although the most important ones are in the OP anyway.

So you just finished downloading Elite: Dangerous. You've played through the tutorials a bit, enough to be able to get from point A to point B, while maybe shooting some things along the way. You're sitting in some random hangar, in some random corner of the galaxy, looking at what you were given, which is the equivalent of a Geo Metro, $20 and a full tank of gas. All you know is you want to make your mark on the galaxy, but you have no clue where to start.

You'll have a better idea after reading this.

First things first, you need to make some scratch. The Sidewinder is better than...well,...floating in a space suit, but you're going to need more than what it can provide fairly quickly. The best thing I can recommend is to figure out what you enjoy doing, and then find ways to get paid to do it.

Universal tips:

If you break the law – assault/murder an innocent, shoot a System authority vessel(space cop), get scanned with stolen goods, fuck around IN ANY WAY with a space station(seriously those guys need to calm down), you get a fine. If you do not pay that fine within the time limit on your Transaction screen – typically 24 hours – that fine turns into a bounty on your head. That bounty means that any space cop will shoot you on sight, and anybody in that system that scans you has a free pass to shoot you dead. Once you ARE dead, that bounty gets taken from your wallet. Try not to get bounties on your head unless it's in some tiny independent system you don't plan to visit much in the future.

Whenever you're planning to go on anything more than a short, planned trip, ALWAYS PUT ON A FUEL SCOOP. It allows you to scoop fuel by flying close to certain stars. Not having enough fuel to make the next jump means you're blowing yourself up and going back to the station, so this is a “better safe than sorry” thing.

Always have a spare pile of cash lying around. If you bring up your info panels and look at the panel to your right, on the left side you should see your Rebuy Cost, or how many credits it will take to buy your ship exactly like it is when it blows up(and it WILL blow up one way or another at first. Unless you're the next incarnation of Christopher Blair or something.) Don't be that guy that gets his Cobra, misjudges how big it is, and crashes it on the way out of the dock without enough money to replace it.

(I'm not speaking from experience NEXT TIP)

Targeting a ship and keeping it in LOS will start to scan it. Scanning a ship will tell you all sorts of useful information about it, but the most important thing is that assaulting a ship that isn't fully scanned will earn you a fine unless you're in a lawless system. Don't jump the gun! Wait until the scan finishes.

There are tons of extra tools you can use to help you with particular career paths, but this one anyone can use. Once you start getting above a certain light year range, the in game route planner starts having some difficulties. This tool is very handy for planning long range trips.

When you're putting gear on your ship, look at the bottom right corner. There is a section that shows how much power you're drawing when all your hardpoints are on. If that number is bigger than your total power output, and your turn on your hardpoints, everything will shut down. Including your oxygen. Either get smaller equipment, buy a bigger power drive, or do some power management on your right hand info screen, under “Modules”. Things that you can safely put under priority 3 a.k.a. First things to lose power are: frame shift drive(You're not going to be using this much in combat, and if you need to odds are you're probably already dead), cargo scoop, fuel scoop, discovery scanner.

Regarding docking(Thanks, Cog!):

If you like shooting:

Undock from your station, enter supercruise and start looking for Unidentified Signal Sources. When you find one and get close enough to exit supercruise, start scanning all the ships that are there. Odds are, some of them will be Wanted, and have a bounty on their heads. You have full sanction to shoot the shit out of them. Once they are naught but space dust, you will have a claim to their bounty. Return to any station aligned with that faction(you can check which faction will pay the bounty on your Transaction tab), then once you've docked, go to the Contacts section, and take your hard earned space-bucks. You can haul in more than one bounty at once, but if you die, all your bounty claims vanish, so don't push your luck too much at first.Pro tip: if any of your victims drop some cargo, and you have room in your hold, you can always try hauling in whatever random stuff they dropped, but A. It won't earn you very much at all, B. Any cargo that you yourself did not buy is considered Stolen, so if you get scanned on the way into the station you'll get some hefty fines, and C. The station has to have a Black Market present to sell stolen goods. Not all of them do.

In terms of armaments, lasers (Pulse is > ROF, < damage than Burst, which is > ROF and < damage than Beam) are excellent at killing shields, and cannons are excellent at destroying hulls. Missiles are dumbfire and can be expensive, but back a hell of a wallop. Fixed weapons have the least power draw, but only shoot where you're aiming. Gimballed weapons can track a target somewhat reliably, but they suck more juice, and their accuracy depends on how good your sensors are. Turret weapons are the most energy hungry and most dependent on good sensors, but they have three modes: Act like fixed weapons, free fire on my target, or free fire at any hostile. You can also look at the Bulletin Board for missions to kill ships of a certain faction, but they can often require you to jump between a few systems looking for the right folks to shoot, and that's just wasting valuable killin' time. Protip: Any bulletin board mission that's asking you to kill a particular named ship, and offering 150k+ for it, is asking you to kill an Anaconda. That is the largest ship in the game right now. Odds are good that if you are reading this little guide, that's a bit out of your reach, but feel free to try.

Before too long of this, you'll earn the scratch to get yourself in an Eagle, or as TOG likes to call it, “the space Zero”. This thing can turn fight like no other, and is more armed and armored than the Sidewinder. Once you've got some proper guns and gear on it, you can consider finding a planet with rings. These rings have places called “Resource Extraction Zones” on them, which is a fancy way of saying “lots of rocks, and lots of miners shooting those rocks, and lots of pirates hunting those miners, and a few space cops on duty hunting those pirates”. It's pretty much a turkey shoot, and you'll see all kinds of wanted ships. The space cops will often help you kill the pirates, and the longer you stay in a zone, the tougher the pirates that will come along, and the higher the bounty you get from killing them. From there, you will be able pretty quickly to move into the cream of fighting ships right now - the Viper. Fastest thing in the game, with some Class 2 weapon mounts for more punch than you've ever had before. If anything starts giving you trouble, you can just shunt all power to engines and boom away from them, then turn around and make a strafing run right back.

From here, you can keep bounty hunting, or you can decide to go the pirate route. If you do, invest in cargo hatch mines – it is much faster and more reliable than battering down the ship with your guns. Then once the ship is dead or fled, scoop up the tasty remains, and take back to black market of choice. Try to do this in either Anarchy or small independent systems, though, as you'll rack up fines like woah anywhere else. If you want to try piracy, go for a more well rounded ship with some cargo space, like the Cobra.

If you like trading:

Well if you're reading this, you already know the basic rule: Buy low, Sell high. To help you find out exactly WHERE is low and high, you're going to need some assistance. Unless you're just a masochist. Slopey's Best Profit Calculator is the most widely used tool, and is pretty comprehensive. You can sort out which stations are buying what goods for how much and how far they are from you, and you can see what will bring the most profit if you're going from one particular station to another. Word of warning, though, all the data is crowd sourced, so trust, but verify.

When you start, you're going to have to make do with what you've got. Your best bet is to find the bulletin board trading missions, which often give you the goods they want traded, and you only have to schlep it a system or two. A bit of that to build some capital(Thanks, General_Armchair!), and you should be making good time to get into either an Adder or Hauler as soon as possible(an Adder is a bit more multi-purpose, whereas a hauler is...hopefully self-explanatory). Strip out everything that isn't a cargo hold, then throw in more cargo holds. You will want to upgrade your Frame Shift Drive as quickly as you can, as a larger FSD means a larger jump distance, which means less time in between trading posts.

After that, you're going to want to be doing some Rare Goods trading, which is the more lucrative option until you get to the ships that can haul ~100 tons of cargo. Certain stations have rare goods for sale in their markets, which you can identify since the name of the good always has the name of the station in it, and is a lighter yellow color. Rare Goods sell for higher the further away you sell them from the point of purchase, topping off at around 140 light years or so. There's a number of good rare trade routes floating around here that you can find, but here is a decent route that doesn't require too souped up of a ship. If you want to, you can keep your discovery scanner on the first leg of your trade route, so you can scan stars and make a bit of side cash on the way.

If you feel like trading bulk goods, you're not going to be making much cash until you get past that 100 ton mark. But the guide listed in the OP will help you squeeze out every credit(Thanks, Cog!):

The fuel scoop tip goes doubly for you. It'd suck to have to lose a hold full of goodies that you've already put down creds for just because you misread your gas tank.

If you like exploring:

Go wherever the hell you want to, man. Every ship comes with a basic Discovery Scanner at purchase. This is what allows you to scan stars. Actually using the discovery scanner – toggling to that weapon group, then holding the trigger until you hear the power of the bass – reveals all celestial bodies to you within 500 ls of your position. You can scan all of those planets and asteroid clusters to add some more value to your scan, but it does not add very much at all until you get the Detailed Surface Scanner on your ship. For now, your best bet is just pinging once, while you are scanning the main star, and then moving on. You have to be at least 20 light years away from the system you scanned before you can sell its data at any Universal Cartographers contact at any station. Just don't let too big a pile accrue: you lose all your scan data if your ship goes poof. The intermediate and advanced Discovery Scanners have a larger reveal range – the advanced scanner revealing everything in the whole damn system.

You're probably going to want to go for all purpose ships like the Adder and Cobra, as exploring on its own isn't likely to do much more than pay for your gas without the expensive modules on your ship.

Basic chart is in the OP(Thanks, Cog!)

If you like mining:

Get a mining laser and Refinery on your ship. Find space rocks, preferably planetary rings. Don't bother trying to go to the exact resource extraction site(Thanks, Rius!). Shoot the rocks until little chunks fall out. Scoop up the little chunks, and tell your refinery to get to work. If you see Palladium, you're hitting paydirt. The sites that you are looking for will scan as Pristine Metallic. A kind Internet gentleman is keeping a gallery of sites that are confirmed to be Pristine Mettalic. Also, you should invest in a bigger refinery as soon as you can.(Thanks, Basil!)

If you like smuggling:

You rogue, you. You're going to want speed and cargo capacity over all else. The unidentified signals that end up being nothing but floating cargo are going to be your lifeblood at first, until you can more reliably take cargo from others(see: Pirating and shooting). Other vital equipment: Chaff and Heat Sink launchers.

Here's your gameplan, after you accrue a hold full of ill gotten gains: First of all, MAKE SURE THERE'S A BLACK MARKET AT THE STATION YOU'RE DOCKING AT. I've found it's a lot harder to avoid getting scanned on the way out than the way in, so if there's no black market at the station, you're either trashing your haul, or flying like a motherfucker trying to get out of there.

This needs to be tested more, but it seems to me that when you're approaching the dock from supercruise, if you approach it while you are between the dock and the planet it orbits, you'll have a higher chance to drop out of supercruise facing the dock entrance. Once you drop out, put all your pips in your engine, and line yourself up with the dock entrance as best you can. Then gun it. At 7.5 km out(10 km for the bigger stations - thanks Trace!), you are able to request docking clearance. Once you get to about 5 km, start running Silent(Delete by default). This vastly reduces the range that cops can scan you. But you start building heat very quickly, and you lose your shields, which is why HOPEFULLY you lined yourself up before you started this. Once the heat starts getting too much(~120% is when you should consider doing it), pop a heat sink to buy yourself some more time. If some cop does start to scan you, and you think he'll pop you before you can get into the dock and break line of sight, then throw some chaff to disrupt his scan. Hell, you can throw it anyway if you want to, you have enough of it. Once you're actually inside the dock, you're typically safe, and can exit Silent Running, although I still wouldn't dawdle trying to get to your landing pad.

Cilla Black · March 2015

Started my big exploration journey. I've seen some really cool things so far but it's sort of a bummer because it feels like people may be cheating to find the systems with valuable planets. Every system I've come to so far with a high-value planet has been discovered, but there are huge swathes of one star systems between these with no discovery at all, like the people are just laserlining to that location.

Just now entered a system with 57 astronomical objects and sure enough, one of them is an earth-like planet. It's 270,000 ls away. Aaaaand someone has discovered it already. It'll still probably be worth going over, 10 to 30k is still money in the bank, but I'm sorta bumming out. 1,300ly away from civilized space and all the cool stuff is being taken, and none of the boring stuff.

Farangu · March 2015

Also I haven't gotten around to playing this since January. Anyone have a cliff's notes on what's changed since then, pretty please?

Drake · March 2015

A lot of things. Most recently the heat system has been reworked, modules have a repair/reboot function now so you aren't necessarily hosed if your thrusters are shot up now. Community goals are events that you can sign up for and earn rewards based on your contribution level. There has been community goals for exploration, hauling and combat. For example right now the Feds have declared war in Lugh due to the activities of players supporting the Crimson State Group. There are two community goals you can sign up for at a station in Lugh, one is combat oriented and the other goal is trade oriented. You can support either side in the conflict and the rewards are looking pretty substantial.

Also there is the Wings update which includes improvements to the Signals encounter system including graded encounters by signal strength. Weak signals are likely to be single ships or salvage for example. RES have a better variety of ships to encounter and bounty payouts have been boosted. Lots of good stuff if you have been away for a while. Just make sure you get familiarized with the way shield cell banks function now if you are used to depending on them. They've had their performance tune just a little bit.

General_Armchair · March 2015

Yeah. Shield cells consume several times more power than they used to.

DarkMecha · March 2015

This update really has me feeling better about things. I think some really interesting stuff will start happening now!

Drake · March 2015

It's just going to get better too. I'm pretty stoked for the future of the game.

Raslin · March 2015

Bought myself a vulture, blew it up real quick the first time(don't fly drunk, kids). I'm just barely over the rebuy cost in my balance sheet, so I'm gonna have to play it cool building up some capital. Not feeling fixed beams though; too hard to hit with my 360 controller. Need to get something gimballed, because when my shots do connect, things get wrecked.

Cilla Black · March 2015

Found a planet with "water magma" as the volcanic activity

that's

huh

what is water magma?

General_Armchair · March 2015

My best guess is magma vents or something on the ocean floor.

BYToady · March 2015

Well if your average surface temperature is -200 F, liquid water is pretty hot in comparison.

Drake · March 2015

Teamed up with @Woggle for a bit tonight to do some group play in Lugh. I love the Wing mechanics so much. They do pretty much exactly what I'd hoped they would do. It's a breeze to see who has targeted which ships, and you can see your wingmates status at a glance. They show up on maps and are color coded on your sensor plot. The wake lock is totally sweet too. You are perfectly free to fly off and do you own things and can coordinate over vast distances. It's really cool. Not to mention sharing vouchers and rep.

And the whole upgrade to the comms system is a big step in the right direction too. There is still lots of room for improvements there, but everything is much more dependable and better organized now.

And now more pictures.

Fugitive · March 2015

Hhhhhhhhh I've been supporting the Federation in their conflicts so far, even went as far as to buy the American flag skin for my Viper to show my allegience to Space America

But if everyone is going to be supporting Crimson State in Lugh I guess I might as well.

Still though, seems like most of the conflicts are going to be one-sided since almost everyone wants to see the system flip.

Is anyone organizing specific nights to meet up and tackle conflict zones/SSS's?

Drake · March 2015

I actually flipped sides last night, since Woggle already had a lot more invested in the combat goals for the Feds and I wanted to check out the Wing mechanics with him. After a few hundred thousand in vouchers I'm invested too, so I guess I'm fighting for the Feds right now. Such is the prerogative of a freebooter.

And really it seems up in the air at this point. There is two weeks of fighting ahead of us in Lugh, it could go either way. Also I've heard rumors of a Farrgut class Fed battlewagon in the area. That thing will make a mark.

Fugitive · March 2015

The new ship they constructed is tasked to Lugh but won't be there for another week since OPERATION ARM CHOP stunted construction on its contingent of fighters.

Honestly the biggest reason I want to support the Fed is because those cruisers make it ridiculously easy to farm combat vouchers.

Drake · March 2015

And getting into just the top 70% on vouchers is a five million credit reward. And from there it gets really good. That's in addition to the increased value of the vouchers themselves. And that is either side too. Combat pilots rejoice.

Syngyne · March 2015

I just figured out what that noise is when you log in and pop into your cockpit at a station. It's your landing gear coming down.

General_Armchair · March 2015

Drake wrote: »

And getting into just the top 70% on vouchers is a five million credit reward. And from there it gets really good. That's in addition to the increased value of the vouchers themselves. And that is either side too. Combat pilots rejoice.

About how much do they hand out per-voucher these days? That 5mil sounds great, but it sounds like a Christmas bonus. What kind of salary does one make cashing in combat vouchers these days?

Drake · March 2015

I can't really say because I did most of the fighting in a Wing, so there was some voucher sharing happening. I made 200k with what felt like very little effort in a fast session before bed that was a lot of dicking around with the Wing stuff in addition to the combat stuff. So I imagine that knocking out a million credits in a session is doable. I'll be at it a lot more though so I'll be able to give more info soon.

I will also say save going into the conflict zones in Open for a pure PvP experience. You'll want wingmates too.

Syngyne · March 2015

In case you've ever wondered what's going on with your cargo scoop:

Drake · March 2015

I just did about 500k Cr in an hour at the Convoy Beacon in Lugh. That's in a Cobra so Viper pilots can probably expect similar results. I got into the top 70% at around 300K Cr so that's another 5 million at the end as long as I stay in this bracket, which should be easy peasy. So modest participation will net you millions in vouchers and rewards over the next couple of weeks in Lugh.

DarkMecha · March 2015

I'm enjoying a setup I've taken to calling The Gangster, 2 small an 1 medium fixed multi cannon and a medium railgun on my Viper. It's ok against shields and shreds the hull. It's also just damned fun.

Syngyne · March 2015

Yeah, fixed multis in a Viper is a lot of fun. Dem Galactica feels

Drake · March 2015

What's the bill like on ammo for that medium rail these days?

Fugitive · March 2015

Okay, I take back what I said earlier. Crimson State is getting slaughtered by the looks of it.

Syngyne · March 2015

FRIENDSHIP DRIVE CHARGING

And two of my Viper with her fangs out.

Cilla Black · March 2015

Woo found my first ammonia world

Undiscovered too

I'm psyched to get back to a spaceport and sell this info.

jinkumabuta · March 2015

Drake wrote: »

What's the bill like on ammo for that medium rail these days?

200cr per shot.
6200cr for full refill.

EvmaAlsar · March 2015

Woo, first weekday off work in what feels like a very long time.

Time to spend it in Elite since I've barely played it the last couple of updates... and to see how far away Lugh is from my current position.

BradicusMaximus · March 2015

If you plan to fight in Lugh as a pro-alliance member prepare to get rocked. Every instance of conflict zones I was in was usually like 70% feds. It seems like most alliance members might be fighting in private groups - that or most alliance people didn't feel like making the trek to Lugh.

On a side note, the update to combat bonds and bounties is so nice. About an hour in a super active RES netted me 1.5 mil. Combat feels a lot more rewarding now

I was planning on working towards a vulture but I think I might wait and see what kind of nerf it gets hit with first

DarkMecha · March 2015

I'm not sure what the role of the Vulture is really. Can 2 large mounts be better than 2 medium 2 small? Also it feels rather capacitor starved, atleast in the 1.2 beta it did. I tried 2x large burst lasers and it's cap lasted like 6 shots.

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