My Lightweight Anaconda build is fast as fuck long range. It's hard to get it to overheat no matter how soon I hit the FSD trigger, and I'm already 3/4 of the way to my last destination for this three stop explorer journey. An extra few LY really does make a big difference. This is a honk & bonk run though, I'm just knocking it out fast so I can pick up some rank. Oh wait I took one picture, let me find it...
It's also fun because it runs so cool that I can ice it, which I haven't seen on a ship this size before.
Edit: The picture I took of four different colour stars lined up did not develop and I am real salty about that
4 pips to engines, boost boost boost
immediately before impact, 4 pips to shields.
Type 9's shields crumpled and brought it to 60% hull.
Point blank triple fragment cannons finished it off.
I think that I'm having a lot of luck tracking down hunting down chemical manipulators in this system.
The system is 69 G. Carinae
It's a Anarchy system with an agriculture/tourism economy and a population of 10.6 billion people. It feels like Type-7/Type-9 freighters and Orca/Belluga liners spawn here with decent frequency for FSD intercept. Also a lot of anacondas, but I haven't tackled them yet.
Bring a FS wake scanner too. I think the bigger ships have a better chance of dropping datamined wake exceptions, so that's a consolation prize at least if the ship gets away.
I've also encountered some encoded and high grade emission USS's within the system.
The system is roughly in the neighborhood of Deciat, which is the home of the engineer Felicity Farseer
I recommend bringing a conventional combatant. This Orca is kinda working, but it's not fulfilling its role of knocking out the superior skilled NPCs. Their gear is enough to survive the initial impact and then they start taking evasive action and avoiding rams. So my clipper gets tarpitted by them via chaff spam, and my Orca by ram avoidance. I think I'll just grab a FDL. Maybe I'll try again once I can get better dirty drives or something. At least I'm the owner of 18 chemical manipulators now.
I just need a stockpile of arsenic and I'm good to attempt some more rank 5 FSD upgrade attempts.
The Orca is kinda freaky in the matte black "Black Friday" paint. The whole ship is pretty much solid black. Reminds me of a drone or something.
I'm mad at the game today! I got all the way to Sky Motion and it turns out that location is impossible to exit at. It's too close to the star. I tried a bunch of different angles (and took a ton of hull and heat damage) and it just can't be done. Even if it is technically possible, it's so absurdly hard to do so that it isn't really practical.
The part that made me mad is that there's a thread on the Frontier forums about it and the response was "tell us if it's fixed when 2.3 comes out". That's not an acceptable answer! I'm not flying the fuck back out there to see if it works this time! I'm out 35 million credits on this trip! It was not a trivial journey!
I recommend bringing a conventional combatant. This Orca is kinda working, but it's not fulfilling its role of knocking out the superior skilled NPCs. Their gear is enough to survive the initial impact and then they start taking evasive action and avoiding rams. So my clipper gets tarpitted by them via chaff spam, and my Orca by ram avoidance. I think I'll just grab a FDL. Maybe I'll try again once I can get better dirty drives or something. At least I'm the owner of 18 chemical manipulators now.
I just need a stockpile of arsenic and I'm good to attempt some more rank 5 FSD upgrade attempts.
The Orca is kinda freaky in the matte black "Black Friday" paint. The whole ship is pretty much solid black. Reminds me of a drone or something.
I remember from the long gone days when the Clipper was fairly popular in PvP that a thing many people did was to but one fixed weapon on one of pylons and a gimballed one on the other to get around the spacing-probolem on the huge hardpoints. You may want to try that, but I think that what I'd do with a Clipper now a days would be to make something resembling my Cobra on a bigger scale. 2 rails on the mediums, one large PA on one of the large and a turreted burst or pulse with scramble spectrum or some other fun mod on the other large hardpoint. That should work well enough against any NPC, but after all, the Clipper is not a warship... it has marginally more firepower than a DBX, and is a huuuuge target.
I'm mad at the game today! I got all the way to Sky Motion and it turns out that location is impossible to exit at. It's too close to the star. I tried a bunch of different angles (and took a ton of hull and heat damage) and it just can't be done. Even if it is technically possible, it's so absurdly hard to do so that it isn't really practical.
The part that made me mad is that there's a thread on the Frontier forums about it and the response was "tell us if it's fixed when 2.3 comes out". That's not an acceptable answer! I'm not flying the fuck back out there to see if it works this time! I'm out 35 million credits on this trip! It was not a trivial journey!
It turns out they answer literally every single ticket on their support forums with those exact words. I might try opening a "lost assets" ticket instead.
Hello All,
I haven't picked up the game, but there's a gnawing hole inside of me that can only be filled by a good Space MMO, so I hope you won't mind if I have a few questions.
Is there a Penny Arcade wing/guild/<applicable term> for the game? I've read that you can do exploration, mining, trade (which is good! I dislike solo fighting, and tend to take support positions or equivalent in combat when it comes to it), but the roadblock I run into is that unless I'm playing for a 'cause' or such, I get bored quick. Working to build up resources for a guild for fun stuff & times later is something I can easily get behind.
The game itself is buy once and play? I heard of the Horizon's season pass that came out, and the term confuses me. Horizons is basically a DLC/expansion for the game? Season pass doesn't mean it has to be renewed or anything, does it?
Ok, I'm going to experiment with something so stupid that it might work.
I've outfitted my Imperial Clipper into a multi-role ship for collecting engineer mats. It has an acceptable jump range, enough component slots to do a lot of things, good enough in combat for generic PvE combat, and fast enough to outrun anything that outclasses it and sprint to FSD wakes for scanning. However, when seeking the Type-7's and Type-9's that seem to be good sources of chemical manipulators, the clipper's reliance on gimbaled weapons for its awkward weapon mounts proved troublesome with the chaff launchers common on those freighters. Victory was never in doubt, but breaking lock to dumbfire doesn't work as well with the clipper's weapon configuration.
So I'm building a specialty ship for hunting those freigthers. Something that won't be aggravated by chaff and can kill them really fast before they chicken out and try to jump away. The SMART approach is to outfit a FDL or something. But it's asymmetrical cockpit aggravates me to no end.
I'm going to try hunting cargo freights in an Orca. I'm outfitting her for maximized ramming potential. That means I'm mostly B rating her for mass and practically building her out of hull reinforcement packages.
When specced out in coriolis.io, she's a 1055 ton missile capable of boosting in excess of 400 with stock equipment with 364 MJ shields and 2070 points of armor. One large and two medium fixed fragment cannons are present to blap the target at point blank range if it survives the impact. Power management is tight, but it works if I turn life support off when I deploy hardpoints and the limpet controller disabled until the fight is over.
This might be fun.
edit:
I just realized that makes her a kiloton missile :O
edit 2:
Just finally managed to purchase and outfit her. She's not exactly the same as that link. Some of her hull reinforcement packages are different so she has less armor than the above...however she does have more mass. I'm not quite sure which is actually more desirable. I just boosted into the rear wall of the station. She can't maintain 400+ boost speed before speed starts degrading, but I impacted the rear wall at ~380. Surprisingly the shields didn't pop.
Just so you know, the mass of the Orca is being reduced in 2.3 so it has better shields and jump range, but it won't ram as well.
I recommend bringing a conventional combatant. This Orca is kinda working, but it's not fulfilling its role of knocking out the superior skilled NPCs. Their gear is enough to survive the initial impact and then they start taking evasive action and avoiding rams. So my clipper gets tarpitted by them via chaff spam, and my Orca by ram avoidance. I think I'll just grab a FDL. Maybe I'll try again once I can get better dirty drives or something. At least I'm the owner of 18 chemical manipulators now.
I just need a stockpile of arsenic and I'm good to attempt some more rank 5 FSD upgrade attempts.
The Orca is kinda freaky in the matte black "Black Friday" paint. The whole ship is pretty much solid black. Reminds me of a drone or something.
Once the patch hits and it has decent jump range, it will become my generic mission ship - instead of the Python. I'll be able to use it for luxury passenger missions as well.
Also strongly considering a fixed cannon Conda for combat purposes over the Cutter I use now or at least as a change of pace type deal. The cutter I think I'll fit with some rockets and turrets for multicrew fun.
My Thrustmaster 16000m FCS came in today and I did a short test flight system with it so might as well do a short review and hot damn this probably the nicest feeling budget HOTAS I've ever used. I've owned the Saitek X-52 and a CH setup and despite costing far less this thing feels good. It's got just the right amount of tension so that it's smooth to use but recenters with authority. It's incredibly precise too. I was expecting to be kinda eh about the slide throttle based on my experiences with the kinda toy feeling CH throttle but it feels quite good in practice. The little joystick on the throttle is damned brilliant and perfect for Elite/Starcitizen lateral/vertical thrusting and may be my favorite feature on the throttle. It's perfectly placed under where my left index finger rests making it intuitive to use when maneuvering. I'm also really digging the giant rocker on the throttle since I can flick my index or pinky out to actuate it. The stick is damn comfy for my hands too and being able to change a couple parts out and make it into a lefty stick will be fantastic once my Gunfighter gets in.
Where I feel the 16000m FCS falters a step is in the placement of the controls on the throttle and the inclusion of those buttons on the base of the stick. Those stick base buttons in particular are kinda confounding cause someone buying a budget HOTAS isn't at the point that they'll be mounting it in a setup with a keyboard in an odd spot or anything like that so who/what are they for? To hit the buttons one of your hands needs to leave the control since you can't just reach out a finger to poke at them so why wouldn't you just hit a keyboard key? I feel like taking the money spent on those buttons and turning them into another hat switch on the stick or something like that would have been a better usage of materials. I'm also not quite sure wtf the orange lights on the stick are supposed to besides be annoying since they shut off if you keep the stick still for a short bit so you end up with this orange light occasionally blinking on and off in your peripheral vision. It's extra annoying on my setup since my LED theme is green.
The controls on the throttle all work well but even with my large hands I need to pick my wrist up a bit to reach all of them instead of just easily moving my thumb to reach the assorted hat switches. That's going to relegate the bottom hat switch and button on the throttle to less immediately useful items. I feel like that issue would have been solved just by having a bit of a hump on the backside of the stick to rest my hand on so that my thumb naturally sits in a spot where I can reach everything nbd. The Saitek X52 will always have one of the comfiest damn throttles I've ever put my hands on so that is my reference point for this nitpick.
Ultimately though, those are minor quibbles for what really is the ultimate budget HOTAS. If you're starting out with flight/space sim gaming and are wondering what you should get as your first HOTAS to test the waters with the Thustmaster 16000m FCS is absolutely the place to start.
And now to start obsessively remapping my controls in game!
Ok, I'm going to experiment with something so stupid that it might work.
I've outfitted my Imperial Clipper into a multi-role ship for collecting engineer mats. It has an acceptable jump range, enough component slots to do a lot of things, good enough in combat for generic PvE combat, and fast enough to outrun anything that outclasses it and sprint to FSD wakes for scanning. However, when seeking the Type-7's and Type-9's that seem to be good sources of chemical manipulators, the clipper's reliance on gimbaled weapons for its awkward weapon mounts proved troublesome with the chaff launchers common on those freighters. Victory was never in doubt, but breaking lock to dumbfire doesn't work as well with the clipper's weapon configuration.
So I'm building a specialty ship for hunting those freigthers. Something that won't be aggravated by chaff and can kill them really fast before they chicken out and try to jump away. The SMART approach is to outfit a FDL or something. But it's asymmetrical cockpit aggravates me to no end.
I'm going to try hunting cargo freights in an Orca. I'm outfitting her for maximized ramming potential. That means I'm mostly B rating her for mass and practically building her out of hull reinforcement packages.
When specced out in coriolis.io, she's a 1055 ton missile capable of boosting in excess of 400 with stock equipment with 364 MJ shields and 2070 points of armor. One large and two medium fixed fragment cannons are present to blap the target at point blank range if it survives the impact. Power management is tight, but it works if I turn life support off when I deploy hardpoints and the limpet controller disabled until the fight is over.
This might be fun.
edit:
I just realized that makes her a kiloton missile :O
edit 2:
Just finally managed to purchase and outfit her. She's not exactly the same as that link. Some of her hull reinforcement packages are different so she has less armor than the above...however she does have more mass. I'm not quite sure which is actually more desirable. I just boosted into the rear wall of the station. She can't maintain 400+ boost speed before speed starts degrading, but I impacted the rear wall at ~380. Surprisingly the shields didn't pop.
Just so you know, the mass of the Orca is being reduced in 2.3 so it has better shields and jump range, but it won't ram as well.
Well it's a good thing that I wasn't too overly attached to the vessel. I might end up selling the ship just to free up some more liquid capital.
I'll proably end up going with a FDL or maybe rank up my fed rank to get a FAS for the job. If I can scrounge up a few more hundred million credits, I might just convert my conda into a battle barge.
For now I'm torn between pushing through the last 20% of Tycoon rank to reach Elite Trader status, advancing my Imperial/federation rank, or working on upgrading my relations with the different engineers. My engineer material grinding paid off last night with a superb FSD for my conda. 49.5% increase to optimal mass, which lets her break the 50 LY barrier.
That's a damn fine roll, breaking 50LY is pretty tough. That must be with an exploration build, right?
I haven't picked up the datamined wake things to do a rank 5 roll. Once I bring this trip home I'll probably go for that next. How long do you think that last 20% of Tycoon will take? I'm at something like 15% Tycoon but I figured that would be many, many hours of grinding even in a Cutter.
I'm not sure what the big money is these days for trading. When I last was really grinding my trading rank, the big bucks was heading out to Sothis/Ceos and smuggling stuff 300-400LY back into the bubble. I dragged my Conda out there and filled her to the brim with as many missions as I could stack, then journeyed into the bubble to cash in. But I think they kneecapped those earnings sometime in the interim period. I think 10% of the Tycoon progress bar is ~50 million credits of profit.
I think large ships are more likely to "drop" datamined wakes, so I'd try to find a system with a lot of big ships floating around in it. Hang out at a nav beacon or outside a station for a bit. Or interdict some big ships and let them fly away so that you can scan them.
What would be the profit from heading out to Jaques for the community goal? Working on getting up there in the easy goal but I could fit out a nice asp to head out that way just loaded my jump range is shite.
Well I've been grinding imperial rank over at Quince. You can stack up a ton of planetary scan missions and then take a short hop over to the nearby planet to complete them all at once.
I'd probably be making a decent profit if I weren't flushing millions of credits down the drain for donation missions.
edit:
Maxed out my bar for the rank of Viscount.
I wonder if I can max out my bar for Count or even Earl before the darn system wakes up and realizes that it is supposed to present with an opportunity for promotion from Vicount to Count. I guess the promotion mission bug stuck around long enough to become a feature?
I'm putting in some time bounty hunting at the current CG to try and raise some creditsssssss (heh I always think of the Teladi from the X games when I say that word plural). Got two days left I think. After that I believe I will sell off my courier and pickup a ship to do some mining in, go after some low temp diamonds for awhile. I think I'll go with a dropship, pack it full of turrets and mining beams.
Steam Profile | My Art | NID: DarkMecha (SW-4787-9571-8977) | PSN: DarkMecha
Is there a Penny Arcade wing/guild/<applicable term> for the game? I've read that you can do exploration, mining, trade (which is good! I dislike solo fighting, and tend to take support positions or equivalent in combat when it comes to it), but the roadblock I run into is that unless I'm playing for a 'cause' or such, I get bored quick. Working to build up resources for a guild for fun stuff & times later is something I can easily get behind.
The game itself is buy once and play? I heard of the Horizon's season pass that came out, and the term confuses me. Horizons is basically a DLC/expansion for the game? Season pass doesn't mean it has to be renewed or anything, does it?
I myself would be interested in finding people to wing/crew up with and play, but regarding your other questions: The main cause in the game is to work different types of mission and improve your ship. There is Power Play, which allows you to align with a leader and attempt to spread their influence. A lot of people didn't like it when it came out, questioning the value of participating. There are, however, large online groups for each leader that organize their efforts. Some groups exist that role play the game, trying to protect people from pirates, etc.
E:D is technically buy once and play. However, roughly once a year (the developers are way behind schedule) they will sell a season pass for new content. Horizons is the first season pass.
Well I've been grinding imperial rank over at Quince. You can stack up a ton of planetary scan missions and then take a short hop over to the nearby planet to complete them all at once.
I'd probably be making a decent profit if I weren't flushing millions of credits down the drain for donation missions.
edit:
Maxed out my bar for the rank of Viscount.
I wonder if I can max out my bar for Count or even Earl before the darn system wakes up and realizes that it is supposed to present with an opportunity for promotion from Vicount to Count. I guess the promotion mission bug stuck around long enough to become a feature?
If it works the same as in the past, yes, you can earn credit towards the next rank (at least one, not sure about 2 or more) before getting/completing the mission to rank up. I got two in a row back in the day. No idea if it still works the same though.
I think Elite Dangerous is the only game I've ever dreamed about multiple times. This time it was going to land on an earthlike for the first time and falling out of the air like a fucking stone. My mind cheerfully remembered that I had over 100 million in passengers and exploration data in real life that I hadn't dropped off which exploded with me.
I think Elite Dangerous is the only game I've ever dreamed about multiple times. This time it was going to land on an earthlike for the first time and falling out of the air like a fucking stone. My mind cheerfully remembered that I had over 100 million in passengers and exploration data in real life that I hadn't dropped off which exploded with me.
Hit a minor snag with the FCS throttle, it gets a little sticky after some use out of the box. I'll need to get some silicone lube (AYYYYYYY) or something similar for the rails to fix that.
If anyone has a better lube/grease suggestion to use for that I'm open to suggestions!
Hit a minor snag with the FCS throttle, it gets a little sticky after some use out of the box. I'll need to get some silicone lube (AYYYYYYY) or something similar for the rails to fix that.
If anyone has a better lube/grease suggestion to use for that I'm open to suggestions!
I've read that you want to use a white lithium grease as your best option.
Hit a minor snag with the FCS throttle, it gets a little sticky after some use out of the box. I'll need to get some silicone lube (AYYYYYYY) or something similar for the rails to fix that.
If anyone has a better lube/grease suggestion to use for that I'm open to suggestions!
I've read that you want to use a white lithium grease as your best option.
Oh yeah, that stuff is pretty damn rad. We use that at work on stuff parts attached to things like the lifeboat davits so it should last a damn long time for this. I'll need to pick some up next time I go out. Thanks!
Hit a minor snag with the FCS throttle, it gets a little sticky after some use out of the box. I'll need to get some silicone lube (AYYYYYYY) or something similar for the rails to fix that.
If anyone has a better lube/grease suggestion to use for that I'm open to suggestions!
Push the throttle up all the way, it will reveal a tension screw in the track. Loosen it some.
Mine was much better after that, but some grease probably is a good idea as well. It seems to be a common complaint.
Hit a minor snag with the FCS throttle, it gets a little sticky after some use out of the box. I'll need to get some silicone lube (AYYYYYYY) or something similar for the rails to fix that.
If anyone has a better lube/grease suggestion to use for that I'm open to suggestions!
Push the throttle up all the way, it will reveal a tension screw in the track. Loosen it some.
Mine was much better after that, but some grease probably is a good idea as well. It seems to be a common complaint.
Oh hey, that is better, thanks! I think I still wanna grease the rails since the problem isn't so much tension related as it is just the friction caused by the way my hand sits on the throttle causing the plastic to drag a little on the rails unevenly. Even with the tension backed off so that the light sticking goes away I can still feel the throttle dragging a smidge on the rails.
Posts
It's also fun because it runs so cool that I can ice it, which I haven't seen on a ship this size before.
Edit: The picture I took of four different colour stars lined up did not develop and I am real salty about that
4 pips to engines, boost boost boost
immediately before impact, 4 pips to shields.
Type 9's shields crumpled and brought it to 60% hull.
Point blank triple fragment cannons finished it off.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
The system is 69 G. Carinae
It's a Anarchy system with an agriculture/tourism economy and a population of 10.6 billion people. It feels like Type-7/Type-9 freighters and Orca/Belluga liners spawn here with decent frequency for FSD intercept. Also a lot of anacondas, but I haven't tackled them yet.
Bring a FS wake scanner too. I think the bigger ships have a better chance of dropping datamined wake exceptions, so that's a consolation prize at least if the ship gets away.
I've also encountered some encoded and high grade emission USS's within the system.
The system is roughly in the neighborhood of Deciat, which is the home of the engineer Felicity Farseer
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I just need a stockpile of arsenic and I'm good to attempt some more rank 5 FSD upgrade attempts.
The Orca is kinda freaky in the matte black "Black Friday" paint. The whole ship is pretty much solid black. Reminds me of a drone or something.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
The part that made me mad is that there's a thread on the Frontier forums about it and the response was "tell us if it's fixed when 2.3 comes out". That's not an acceptable answer! I'm not flying the fuck back out there to see if it works this time! I'm out 35 million credits on this trip! It was not a trivial journey!
I remember from the long gone days when the Clipper was fairly popular in PvP that a thing many people did was to but one fixed weapon on one of pylons and a gimballed one on the other to get around the spacing-probolem on the huge hardpoints. You may want to try that, but I think that what I'd do with a Clipper now a days would be to make something resembling my Cobra on a bigger scale. 2 rails on the mediums, one large PA on one of the large and a turreted burst or pulse with scramble spectrum or some other fun mod on the other large hardpoint. That should work well enough against any NPC, but after all, the Clipper is not a warship... it has marginally more firepower than a DBX, and is a huuuuge target.
It turns out they answer literally every single ticket on their support forums with those exact words. I might try opening a "lost assets" ticket instead.
I haven't picked up the game, but there's a gnawing hole inside of me that can only be filled by a good Space MMO, so I hope you won't mind if I have a few questions.
Is there a Penny Arcade wing/guild/<applicable term> for the game? I've read that you can do exploration, mining, trade (which is good! I dislike solo fighting, and tend to take support positions or equivalent in combat when it comes to it), but the roadblock I run into is that unless I'm playing for a 'cause' or such, I get bored quick. Working to build up resources for a guild for fun stuff & times later is something I can easily get behind.
The game itself is buy once and play? I heard of the Horizon's season pass that came out, and the term confuses me. Horizons is basically a DLC/expansion for the game? Season pass doesn't mean it has to be renewed or anything, does it?
Just so you know, the mass of the Orca is being reduced in 2.3 so it has better shields and jump range, but it won't ram as well.
Once the patch hits and it has decent jump range, it will become my generic mission ship - instead of the Python. I'll be able to use it for luxury passenger missions as well.
Also strongly considering a fixed cannon Conda for combat purposes over the Cutter I use now or at least as a change of pace type deal. The cutter I think I'll fit with some rockets and turrets for multicrew fun.
Where I feel the 16000m FCS falters a step is in the placement of the controls on the throttle and the inclusion of those buttons on the base of the stick. Those stick base buttons in particular are kinda confounding cause someone buying a budget HOTAS isn't at the point that they'll be mounting it in a setup with a keyboard in an odd spot or anything like that so who/what are they for? To hit the buttons one of your hands needs to leave the control since you can't just reach out a finger to poke at them so why wouldn't you just hit a keyboard key? I feel like taking the money spent on those buttons and turning them into another hat switch on the stick or something like that would have been a better usage of materials. I'm also not quite sure wtf the orange lights on the stick are supposed to besides be annoying since they shut off if you keep the stick still for a short bit so you end up with this orange light occasionally blinking on and off in your peripheral vision. It's extra annoying on my setup since my LED theme is green.
The controls on the throttle all work well but even with my large hands I need to pick my wrist up a bit to reach all of them instead of just easily moving my thumb to reach the assorted hat switches. That's going to relegate the bottom hat switch and button on the throttle to less immediately useful items. I feel like that issue would have been solved just by having a bit of a hump on the backside of the stick to rest my hand on so that my thumb naturally sits in a spot where I can reach everything nbd. The Saitek X52 will always have one of the comfiest damn throttles I've ever put my hands on so that is my reference point for this nitpick.
Ultimately though, those are minor quibbles for what really is the ultimate budget HOTAS. If you're starting out with flight/space sim gaming and are wondering what you should get as your first HOTAS to test the waters with the Thustmaster 16000m FCS is absolutely the place to start.
And now to start obsessively remapping my controls in game!
I see them on occasion...but that's in Cubeo, where I've maxed on out the ruling faction rep, and am close to doing it for another.
But they always seem to be 2 or 3 passengers at most...
Well it's a good thing that I wasn't too overly attached to the vessel. I might end up selling the ship just to free up some more liquid capital.
I'll proably end up going with a FDL or maybe rank up my fed rank to get a FAS for the job. If I can scrounge up a few more hundred million credits, I might just convert my conda into a battle barge.
For now I'm torn between pushing through the last 20% of Tycoon rank to reach Elite Trader status, advancing my Imperial/federation rank, or working on upgrading my relations with the different engineers. My engineer material grinding paid off last night with a superb FSD for my conda. 49.5% increase to optimal mass, which lets her break the 50 LY barrier.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I haven't picked up the datamined wake things to do a rank 5 roll. Once I bring this trip home I'll probably go for that next. How long do you think that last 20% of Tycoon will take? I'm at something like 15% Tycoon but I figured that would be many, many hours of grinding even in a Cutter.
I'm not sure what the big money is these days for trading. When I last was really grinding my trading rank, the big bucks was heading out to Sothis/Ceos and smuggling stuff 300-400LY back into the bubble. I dragged my Conda out there and filled her to the brim with as many missions as I could stack, then journeyed into the bubble to cash in. But I think they kneecapped those earnings sometime in the interim period. I think 10% of the Tycoon progress bar is ~50 million credits of profit.
I think large ships are more likely to "drop" datamined wakes, so I'd try to find a system with a lot of big ships floating around in it. Hang out at a nav beacon or outside a station for a bit. Or interdict some big ships and let them fly away so that you can scan them.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
*some restrictions apply.**
**pad size restrictions.
I'd probably be making a decent profit if I weren't flushing millions of credits down the drain for donation missions.
edit:
Maxed out my bar for the rank of Viscount.
I wonder if I can max out my bar for Count or even Earl before the darn system wakes up and realizes that it is supposed to present with an opportunity for promotion from Vicount to Count. I guess the promotion mission bug stuck around long enough to become a feature?
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I myself would be interested in finding people to wing/crew up with and play, but regarding your other questions: The main cause in the game is to work different types of mission and improve your ship. There is Power Play, which allows you to align with a leader and attempt to spread their influence. A lot of people didn't like it when it came out, questioning the value of participating. There are, however, large online groups for each leader that organize their efforts. Some groups exist that role play the game, trying to protect people from pirates, etc.
E:D is technically buy once and play. However, roughly once a year (the developers are way behind schedule) they will sell a season pass for new content. Horizons is the first season pass.
If it works the same as in the past, yes, you can earn credit towards the next rank (at least one, not sure about 2 or more) before getting/completing the mission to rank up. I got two in a row back in the day. No idea if it still works the same though.
Should've quit to desktop.
If anyone has a better lube/grease suggestion to use for that I'm open to suggestions!
edit:
stupid phone left out the word "the". Dumb phone.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
It's plastic against a metal rail.
I've read that you want to use a white lithium grease as your best option.
Oh yeah, that stuff is pretty damn rad. We use that at work on stuff parts attached to things like the lifeboat davits so it should last a damn long time for this. I'll need to pick some up next time I go out. Thanks!
Push the throttle up all the way, it will reveal a tension screw in the track. Loosen it some.
Mine was much better after that, but some grease probably is a good idea as well. It seems to be a common complaint.
Oh hey, that is better, thanks! I think I still wanna grease the rails since the problem isn't so much tension related as it is just the friction caused by the way my hand sits on the throttle causing the plastic to drag a little on the rails unevenly. Even with the tension backed off so that the light sticking goes away I can still feel the throttle dragging a smidge on the rails.