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

GnomeTank

It seems like the Viper is still the ship of choice for most combat, unless you can step up something really big to carry a bunch of turrets. I too am not really seeing the role of the vulture.

General_Armchair

Do turrets actually do anything now? They always felt like a waste that was more likely to draw extra aggro than anything else.

WillyDub

I haven't been back in awhile. I wasn't even aware Wings released! Would anyone like to try and group up here soon and test them out with me? Where should i be traveling to make this happen?

Dub

GnomeTank

WillyDub wrote: »

I haven't been back in awhile. I wasn't even aware Wings released! Would anyone like to try and group up here soon and test them out with me? Where should i be traveling to make this happen?

Dub

Lugh. That's where everyone is slowly filtering for combat it seems.

General_Armchair

I might have to get voice attack recalibrated and head on over there in my Imperial Clipper.

I'll have to decide if I want to outfit her for combat or buy a viper/cobra to do the shooting.

The Clipper would get style points at least.

BradicusMaximus

It seems the vulture is good for taking down small to mediumish ships. If you like the eagle's maneuverability and speed but want a little more oomph, then the vulture seems to fit that bill pretty well.

I ended up fighting a bunch of commanders using them last night with my viper. I never really felt outclassed or anything. It did seem like they had some pretty good shields but idk, my build could've had something to do with that though - 2x small gimbaled beams and 2x med multis. It definitely seemed like they could turn on a dime though.

GnomeTank

So can the Viper, just learn to fly while disengaging flight assist :biggrin:

General_Armchair

Don't forget to take full advantage of the vipers vertical/horizontal thrust. It has that in spades.

BradicusMaximus

Was just making an observation. I handled them all just fine (excluding the ones that killed me, haha)

So someone on the subreddit ended up making quite a journey - http://imgur.com/MdocfL1

I definitely enjoy exploration but I don't know if my sanity could handle it for that long

Syngyne

General_Armchair wrote: »

Do turrets actually do anything now? They always felt like a waste that was more likely to draw extra aggro than anything else.

How did you have them set? I think on the right panel you can set them to only fire at your current target as opposed to every hostile around you.

General_Armchair

Well the last time I used them they had a habit of trying to shoot through friendlies (I think they've fixed that bit since then). Even then, I was never impressed by the accuracy of the turrets. I found them more useful as super-gimballed weapons to get the firing arcs of my Clipper's large hardpoints to overlap.

EvmaAlsar

Spent the last couple of hours at Lugh with @Zenitram and @Drake in a low intensity conflict zone. Still love how awesome the voice comms sound, and we figured out that turning on a wing beacon lets people in supercruise lock onto your location. It was especially handy in Lugh since there were 2 low intensity conflict zones right near each other and there was confusion over which one to travel to.

Drake

They can still get you in trouble now and then but they can be really handy on a Cobra's light hardpoints. But yeah, they did get the Feds hostile to our wing a couple times just now with @EvmaAlsar and @BiggusDickus Zenitram.

And speaking of, Community Goal conflict zones in Open play with some wingmates is a complete blast. I just wish my mic had been working, because the voice comms sound totally sweet. But even without voice comms the Wings features make coordination super easy. I'm really impressed with how all of this is coming together. Two Vipers and a Cobra is a nice little force. Fucking good times guys, looking forward to doing that some more.

Here is a picture of Zenitram and me waiting for Evma at Hartsfield Market.

Zenitram

I am Biggus Duckus, btw



Great fun with @Drake and @EvmaAlsar today, it's the first time I've seriously played Elite since 1.0. I highly recommend everyone goes to Lugh to get some wing and PVP action in, it was very fun!

EvmaAlsar

You have to admit, when I did eventually come out of the station, I did it in style

General_Armchair

Oh yes. I do think I need to outfit my Clipper for combat and join you guys this weekend . I can get their attention with my huge and gorgeous (yet surprisingly agile) ship and then you guys can focus fire to knock them down once I've set them up.

Clippers are pretty much viper fast. If they want to keep pace with me AND keep their weapons online, then they'll need to divert power away from their shields.

Raslin

It saddens me that you folks haven't seen the light of the vulture. You definitely need to invest in a good power plant and distributor, but you can put out huge damage while being tanky and nimble enough to not worry about taking return fire. I pop pythons and clippers like balloons, anything smaller is usually gone before I run out of weapon capacity, and anaconda's take maybe a minute of fire.

Can easily make over a million an hour at a res, and others are saying they are hitting 3+ in good res spawns. If you don't think you like the space A-10, I'd give it a try when you can drop an extra 3m or so in upgrades, primarily an A plant and B distro.

Drake

I just don't have that kind of dosh yet. I've spent all of my time in Elite chasing fun instead of profits. I'm starting to build up some bank with the buffs to combat pay though so it won't be long before I pick one up to play with.

Syngyne

Do we have any Alliance pilots running around or are all you guys Imperials?

Raslin

Drake wrote: »

I just don't have that kind of dosh yet. I've spent all of my time in Elite chasing fun instead of profits. I'm starting to build up some bank with the buffs to combat pay though so it won't be long before I pick one up to play with.

I feel it, I can only really dig in a couple hours at a time before it starts getting repetitive for me. But I mainly traded up to 10m early on, which put me pretty perfectly in line to kit one out. The rebuy on it is only like 500k too, so it's probably the biggest ship out there you can reasonably afford to lose in risky situations.

Also, the cockpit window is nice and high, I like it.

Drake

Syngyne wrote: »

Do we have any Alliance pilots running around or are all you guys Imperials?

I guess I'm a Federal freebooter. Probably a habit from my days in the U'K back when I played Eve, but I just can't abide slavery. I may have gone Alliance if I'd started closer to them but I was pretty solidly in Fed territory from my starting position so getting rep with them was just natural.

MrVyngaard

Syngyne wrote: »

Do we have any Alliance pilots running around or are all you guys Imperials?

I'm working my way towards getting an Alioth permit. Very, very slowly.

General_Armchair

Syngyne wrote: »

Do we have any Alliance pilots running around or are all you guys Imperials?

I'm most aligned with the Empire because their imperial slave markets opened up more trade route options.

As far as conflicts are concerned, I mostly support the federation but I also supported Senator Petraeus' claim to the Imperial throne.

If I were to fly out to Lugh, my Clipper will probably be flying Federal Colors.

Edit :

@Drake
Imperial slavery has very little in common with traditional slavery. I was basically a passenger liner for those legs of my routes.... Except the accommodations were pretty much ultra-coach.

Drake

Uh huh. Trade options. We've all seen those docks where the imperial slaves go in and the regular old fashioned you are in trouble now slave comes out. :P

General_Armchair

Those ports aren't as profitable as the above the table imp slaves /palladium / performance enhancers triangles.

Edit :
Although admittedly those seedy routes are easier to find. However I don't deal in contraband. (except advanced medicines and occasionally tobacco)

Farangu

Made my way to Lugh.

Which side are all you folks fighting for?

Raslin

It's pretty nice when you become friendly in a zone, and all the cops appear green on the hud/screen. Makes it a lot quicker to differentiate between things.

Also, so much fun flying ~200m away from a dropship and popping it in ~7 seconds. I've gotten comfortable enough now with the vulture that I'll straight up facehug ships so I can do max damage. I use burst lasers, so if they try to escape my little dance of death, they're just letting me charge up for when I line my gimbals back on the power plant.

I also feel bad for the loyal wingmates. Like, I popped a python with two sidewinder buddies. I wrecked the python, and god damnit, the sidewinders wanted vengence. I didn't even want the ~5k credits each.

Shogun

I'm liking the sound of 100% of this.

Drake

Farangu wrote: »

Made my way to Lugh.

Which side are all you folks fighting for?

We've been flying for the Federal forces, out of Hartsfield Market. Make sure you sign up for the community goal regardless of which side you fight for. Hell I know a guy who is going all Fistful of Dollars and fighting for both sides.

But if you are in Open be aware that all I've seen is big murder gangs of Federal forces so far with the occasional CSG supporter popping in and getting dogpiled. If there are gangs in the Conflict Zone they will lock you before you even declare which side you are on.

GnomeTank

So I haven't tried to make money since rare goods were the thing. Now that they aren't, I figure my nicely groomed rares route isn't going to make me the phat stacks anymore. Time to find a good bulk goods route I guess and start loading the Cobra up.

Lykouragh

I've been hanging on the fence about this game but this thread has just about sold me. If I blow 60 bucks will I regret it?

GnomeTank

Lykouragh wrote: »

I've been hanging on the fence about this game but this thread has just about sold me. If I blow 60 bucks will I regret it?

Do you like space? Do you like spaceships? Do you like flying spaceships in space? If you answer yes to all of these, you will not regret it.

Lykouragh

I do like those things! Ok fine I give in.

Farangu

I was getting jumped so much last night I had to get into Solo Mode. I head into one of the low-intensity zones, thinking I can use that to warm up. Filled with master Cobras, Vipers and Asps. Proceed to get swarmed and blow up rapidly. I'll probably need to stay in Solo Mode(where I still didn't get out cleanly, but at least I survived for a bit) until I can get enough cash to either fit out my Cobra better, or get into a better shooty-ship.

DarkMecha

I've been messing around on ED Shipyard and came up with some interesting fits for the viper. Apparently if you sacrifice abit on thrusters and shields (3E shield gen, 3B thrusters), and use no utility slots, you can fit 4x railguns at 103% power use. That's easy to fix with setting the power priorities of the FSD and cargo hatch to 3. Oh man the firepower this would have...

Another one I might try is dual plasma cannons with 2x small seeker missile packs. You only have to drop the shields to 3B on that setup and can run max thrusters at 102% power use.

Farangu

Yea I meant to ask yesterday but didn't have the time: What are the reports on the different weapons? Last time I was in here, it seemed the best/most run layout was lasers and multi-cannons. Anyone have positive experiences with anything else?

Currently in a Cobra for size/power draw considerations.

Syngyne

Farangu wrote: »

Yea I meant to ask yesterday but didn't have the time: What are the reports on the different weapons? Last time I was in here, it seemed the best/most run layout was lasers and multi-cannons. Anyone have positive experiences with anything else?

Currently in a Cobra for size/power draw considerations.

I ran two C2 fixed beams and two C1 gimballed cannons on my Viper for the longest time. Seemed to work pretty well, though the beams are a bit power hungry.

I've since switched to all fixed multicannons because dragging a trailing gunsight onto a target and hosing them down with boollits is the best.*

*though not necessarily the most effective

EvmaAlsar

Quick question, I know diverting power to weapons helps when you're using a beam and you want to keep it from running out of juice, but is there an advantage to diverting power to weps when you're using a kinetic type like a multi-cannon?

theSquid

Kinetics can over heat

Cilla Black

Returned to occupied space after my long exploration journey

It was a whole lot of fun, although when I go back out I will need very badly to learn better how to spend my planet scanning time wisely. It just takes far, far too long to go to each individual planetoid in a system and scan them, given that the scan alone can take up to a full minute to finish, nevermind the travel time between each world.

It's really easy to lose an entire hour in one system. I only went about 1.5k lightyears out of occupied space and the whole round trip was a good 8 hours or so. Given that my final goal is a good 30 to 40k LY out, one way, I can't really afford to spend too much time hunting for rare planetoids amongst a sea of similar-looking junk.

After it was all said and done, my final exploration haul took me from 3.2 million credits to about 6.3. A spectacularly awful creds per hour rate, but the satisfaction of seeing so many "first to discover"s pop up was well worth it in the end.

Next question is: does anyone know a good (preferably free) site to host a bunch of pictures on a single page at? I've got a lot of screenshots and I'd really love to put em all up somewhere with some notes about each one. There are just far too many for the forum.