Elite : Dangerous

[DanceswithUnix]

The key for me was getting a ship with a decent jump range. Yes, the hauler was a huge boost to profits. Once a 180ly flight no longer fills you with dread then trading rares is still probably a good way to get some early profits which is how I started.

Some have said that the Eagle is good enough to get into combat, and it is pretty cheap. Personally I avoided combat until I had an Asp.

These days I do a lot of the Community Goals. The payout for just taking part with a minimum contribution would be a lot for a new player, but again you have to get to where that goal is which I always find is a 200+ly journey. A trade CG would set you up nicely though.

[cptwhite_uk]

Allen, my recommendation would be to find a station offering missions for delivery to "x", they're for low money (typically 1000-3000) but give you the cargo and you just need to take it to the specified station. Do this a few times and you'll have 20-30k to spend on upgrading your sidewinder.

I think the icon for these missions looks like this:




Upgrade in this order:

• Power distributor to C rated (recharge rate for shields / engines / weapons)
• Get yourself 1x gimballed pulse laser (so at least 1 gun is auto targeting), buy 2 if you can afford it (about 6000 each)
• Upgrade your sensors to D rated (optional)
• Replace your basic discovery scanner for a shield cell bank, and assign this to either a keyboard / joystick button. This will allow you to recharge shields in a fight. Bear in mind it takes 4/5 seconds to start recharging, it has a wind up time, and if you shields fail completely it won't work and you'll need to them to come on again before you can use it. It has 5 "recharges" but if your activate and suring the "wind up" phase your shields go down before it activates, then you'll loose than recharge anyway.

Once you've upgraded thrusters / shields / power distributor / got 2x gimballed pulse lasers

and optionally fitted...
chaff launcher - stops all tracking weapons (gimballed / turreted) from targetting you for a brief period
shield cell bank

Then you can look at taking on some basic bounty hunting. Never take on a fight with anything other than sidewinder / eagle / type 6 transporter / adder (with caution!) as you'll likely end up on the loosing end. Once you're in a better ship it's another matter, but as a starter you're best sticking to these ships.

You can find targets to bounty hunt in resource extraction sites (RES), unknown signal source instances (USS), or at Nav Beacon points (near the star where you jump in - check nagivation tab (press 1 to bring up) to lock onto them).

As a general rule:

E rated - bad all around
D rated - lightest of all grades (better jump range and manoeuvrability) and slightly better than E rated as well
C rated - better than D but with increased weight (same weight as A rated, but with worse performance)
B rated - typically the heaviest but good performance
A rated - lighter than B rated and best performance

Weight & Performance (where higher number means more weight / worst performance

E = 3 & 5
D = 1 & 4
C = 2 & 3
B = 3 & 2
A = 2 & 1

Note not all ship upgrades have class and rating variants. For example fixed pulse laser is always F rated, gimballed pulse laser is always G rated (don't ask about F and G rated, it's not something you need to worry about, it just "is" )

Once you've got past the initial hurdle you'll find you can make a good amount (maybe 100k a time?) bounty hunting in the locations I listed above.

Once you have 70k or more look at upgrading to an Eagle, then when you have 150k or more a Viper. Once you're in a viper you can do some serious bounty hunting - much stronger shields and 4 weapons mounts, or if you prefer trading look at the adder, which can carry some cargo and also put up a reasonable fight against smaller ships.

If you want to wing up with me let me know, and I can get you a few hundred thousand credits in an hour or so, but that's cheating really, it's all about working your way up the food chain and the enjoyment that brigns when you get "new shiny"

Edit: Forgot to add, this guide to mission symbols is REALLY useful for a new player:

http://guides.gamepressure.com/elite...e.asp?ID=29603

[rob4001]

Really trying to get into this game - just need to put some time aside.

Do you guys use a mouse and keyboard or joystick for flying?

I was really put off when I was trying to complete my first mission but couldn't dock because I got 'permission denied' as all the bays were full.

Has any maximum docking times / a dock queuing system been implemented yet?

The game sucks don't bother.. I liked it at first but it became boring. My opinion of course... others are available if you must use an xbox controller perfectly fine with that.

[DanceswithUnix]

The game sucks don't bother.. I liked it at first but it became boring. My opinion of course... others are available if you must use an xbox controller perfectly fine with that.

Which version was that? They keep changing it, it isn't the game I started playing a year ago.

[Allen]

Allen, my recommendation would be *snip*

Wow, a lot of good information there, thank you!

I forgot to add, as I pre-purchased I get an Eagle I think. Worth selling that (for around 40k IIRC) and upgrading the Sidewinder, or using it and sticking with the plan you mentioned?

[cptwhite_uk]

Hmm hard to say, I'd probably keep the sidewinder and and sell the Eagle so you can use the money to upgrade it. Eagle is geared more towards to combat, whereas sidewinder is a little more multi-purpose so give you opportunity to take on delivery missions. I think it also has better jump range.

http://coriolis.io/outfit/sidewinder...Sidewinder%202

By selling the eagle you could upgrade to something like this.

All as per my comments above but with two gimballed pulse lasers and an upgraded shield (from E to D rated) to go with your Shield Cell Bank, and also upgraded thrusters (faster turning and top speed) and better Frame Shift Drive, this takes you above 10Ly per jump, which is nice as it opens up moving around a bit more easily.

Having a low jump range often means you often end up going massive routes early on just to find a link between your start and end destinations. Once your jump range increases, as well as travelling further in one jump your route is often more direct as well (i.e. closer to a straight line) which makes the travel time shorter still.

Here's a comparison between stock eagle and the upgraded sidewinder I recommended:

http://goo.gl/cMa6F9

Just remember the above link doesn't take everything into account. I.e. Sindwinder has tracking weapons and faster recharge rate for everything

[Allen]

Holy cow, that website is awesome! Didn't even know that existed.

That upgraded Sidewinder looks pretty decent to me. And gimballed weapons, they're the ones that move and automatically track the target, aren't they?

I think when I was playing about, I had the stock Sidewinder, didn't even consider upgrading the FSD which meant I couldn't jump very far, makes sense now why I had such difficulty getting around and therefore failing missions. I'll definitely give this a try.

Not sure if I have you added in game, will check when I'm home. I am Cmdr Seventy9 now, I think, maybe will see you around. (P.S. Thanks for the offer of helping, but I would prefer to work my way up to better ships, but defo up for some multiplayer fun if I ever reach the dizzying heights you guys are now no doubtingly at).

[cptwhite_uk]

It's funny how the money ramps up. I regularly kill wanted ships for 100k to 200k each (or more!). In the early stages those kinds of figures seem like a pipe dream but you get there eventually.

Just for giggles here's my current combat oriented Imperial Clipper via the sidewinder I've specificed for you:

http://goo.gl/nPiZkR

You could afford 1084 sidewinders for the same cost...lol

Just to be clear my ship is only mid-range (22 million base cost).

[Ttaskmaster]

Bit the bullet and pledged to one of those PowerPlay factions... Now to figure out how to make it profitable!!

Seems there's a lot of shipping cargo/data from very far away in someone else's sector, to the faction's HQ...
I was hoping that my favourite HI-RES in an exploited system would provide higher bounty payouts, but so far I'm making less than average.

[cptwhite_uk]

Power play just messes with my mind, it's all so complicated! I get the general concepts but it's just overly in-depth...systems in turmoil etc, having to vote when systems to expand into...can anyone be bothered?

[DanceswithUnix]

...can anyone be bothered?

lol, not me. I guess it isn't for people who dip in when they have a spare hour like I tend to.

[scaryjim]

... Just for giggles here's my current combat oriented Imperial Clipper via the sidewinder I've specificed for you ....

Are these the same ships that will be doing planetary landings, or is that going to be a different transit system? I'm a little concerned about getting off the planet if your ship can only acheive 400m/s...

EDIT: hmm, reading around it looks like you get into the km/s range you'd need using supercruise: wonder if that's viable from within an atmosphere though? I also wonder why I care so much about this when I don't play the game....!

[Ttaskmaster]

Power play just messes with my mind, it's all so complicated! I get the general concepts

What are the general concepts?
Is it just doing missions to enable the expansion/exploitation/control thing?
Do I need to do some of them to bump up my Merits, so I can start claiming the increased bounties from my exploited system?

[DanceswithUnix]

Are these the same ships that will be doing planetary landings, or is that going to be a different transit system? I'm a little concerned about getting off the planet if your ship can only acheive 400m/s...

EDIT: hmm, reading around it looks like you get into the km/s range you'd need using supercruise: wonder if that's viable from within an atmosphere though? I also wonder why I care so much about this when I don't play the game....!

If that worries you, then perhaps you should be playing Kerbal Space Program!

[scaryjim]

If that worries you, then perhaps you should be playing Kerbal Space Program!

there is not enough time in the universe for me to start playing that! Although on one visit to the MOSI I did try their jet engine design thingy and ended up designing a spectacularly good engine in terms of cost, reliability AND efficiency...

Maybe it's time to go back to uni and do Engineering after all...

[Lowe]

Are these the same ships that will be doing planetary landings, or is that going to be a different transit system? I'm a little concerned about getting off the planet if your ship can only acheive 400m/s...

EDIT: hmm, reading around it looks like you get into the km/s range you'd need using supercruise: wonder if that's viable from within an atmosphere though? I also wonder why I care so much about this when I don't play the game....!

Three stages to flight. Normal flight close to the surface - gravity is auto compensated for by the ships thrusters as i understand it, obviously this will have agility implications if gravity is stronger etc. Once you get high enough your ship will go into Orbital Cruise. This is what allows you to break away from the planet. Once far enough Orbital Cruise transitions to normal Supercruise. Note that there's no atmospheres yet. Horizons is dead planets, moons, asteroids etc. Atmospheres will be another expansion altogether.