Elite : Dangerous

[scaryjim]

... Note that there's no atmospheres yet. Horizons is dead planets, moons, asteroids etc. Atmospheres will be another expansion altogether.

Presumably that's "no signifcant atmosphere" rather than none whatsoever - I can only suspend my disbelief so far Even a dead planet should have a minimal atmosphere of some description!

Sounds not unlike the way a lot of real Earth mission launches work though - you put something into low earth orbit then launch away from planet there. Mind you, LEO itself requires speeds of ~ 8km/s

[DanceswithUnix]

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).

If you can get just one tonne of explosives to Epsilon Indi before the community goal runs out you get half a million credits. That might be a hard task in a sidey though, specially when the goal will probably expire today, but it shows how you can make fast credits once you have a decent FSD.

[cptwhite_uk]

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....!

It's like they read your mind scaryjim...planet with thin atmosphere

[Allen]

cptwhite_uk, can't thank you enough for all your assistance last night, you explained more about the game to me than I had read/watched in videos since its release!

I really appreciated your help with fitting out the Viper too, however, after you logged off I decided to take her out for a spin, found a nice juicy target in another system, hit the deploy hardpoint button and got an error about not having enough power to deploy them... :S

I think I got it working by disabling the shield booster (I hit the wrong button which seemed to untick it) but that took my power usage under 100% and I was able to deploy them, but kinda makes that module useless now.

Should I upgrade the power plant or something?

[Splash]

Given that I Kickstarted this I really should start playing some time soon...

[cptwhite_uk]

Hi Allen, yes just disable it for now it was just a luxury anyway

[DanceswithUnix]

If you look under the right hand menus there is one for power distribution. Things like fuel scoops and cargo hatches I put down at priority 3. Stuff that is really nice to have in a fight is priority 2. Shields, thrusters and weapons that are essential to a fight are priority 1.

Some people buy an upgraded life support system and stick it on priority 3. A grade life support gives you 25 minutes of air if it conks out, so you get 20 minutes of fighting before you retract hard points and get back to a space station. That's a bit hardcore for me though

Some ships, like the Vulture, are very under provisioned in the power plant size so you are forced to do this sort of power management.

[Ttaskmaster]

Some ships, like the Vulture, are very under provisioned in the power plant size so you are forced to do this sort of power management.

I hadn't noticed... Running Point defense, a beam laser and a Plasma-Accelerator/M-cannon/Cannon (depending on mood), along with scanner, fuel scoop, interdictor and... I can't recall what else, I'm at about 84% output deployed.
Seems to work fine, given the sudden increase in death tolls of Anacondas and Pythons at HI-RESes...!!

Unfortunately, I worked my ASS off to gain a shedload of Merits for the PowerPlay thing, so I could benefit from increased bounty payout rewards... only to find it doesn't get awarded until next cycle and that I have to do it all again if I want to keep the rewards for the next cycle!!!

[DanceswithUnix]

I think my Vulture build is fairly typical:

http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=70N,5T...Sk15O12G10i2UI

Large pulse lasers, because that way I don't have to fly back to a station to re-arm, but even with gimballed pulse lasers the power draw is high enough that I can choose between A rated shields or thrusters. Am considering a Federal Assault Ship which looks OK, but then I thought that about using a Dropship for mining and that didn't turn out as well as I hoped

[Lowe]

I wouldn't ever put shields as a 1 given they're one of the most power hungry things you have on your ship. The only thing you should have on priority 1 is thrusters and life support. This way should your power plant be taken out, you'll still be able to run. If you're trying to power shields it might tip you over the threshold, and so stop your thrusters coming online.

[DanceswithUnix]

I wouldn't ever put shields as a 2 given they're one of the most power hungry things you have on your ship. The only thing you should have on priority 1 is thrusters and life support. This way should your power plant be taken out, you'll still be able to run. If you're trying to power shields it might tip you over the threshold, and so stop your thrusters coming online.

That is an interesting comment. I guess it would be best to view as:

1/ Run
2/ Fight
3/ Cruise/fuel scoop etc.

Specially as, if you are taking that sort of damage, you don't have shields anyway

[Lowe]

Realised I made a typo there - have edited my original comment. Never put shields as 1 - as you say, if you're that knee deep in trouble, you don't have any shields!

[Lowe]

Another thing. If you're running shield boosters (not cell banks) and your shields get taken out, disable the boosters. They'll just make it longer before your shields come back online. This is especially important with the bigger ships that have huge shields, they can take a lifetime to re-energize and it can be the difference between life and death.

[cptwhite_uk]

^ Absolutely true. The recharge time is completely proportional to the amount of damage a sheild can take as far as I can tell. If your shield boosters add 40% to the shields strength it will take 40% longer to recharge. Turning off the shield boosters until it's back "on" turns it back on quicker, you can then re-activate the shield boosters (you'll see your shield indicator actually drop a little when you do this as the amount of recharge to shield capacity has dropped when you re-activate them).

[DanceswithUnix]

^ Absolutely true. The recharge time is completely proportional to the amount of damage a sheild can take as far as I can tell. If your shield boosters add 40% to the shields strength it will take 40% longer to recharge. Turning off the shield boosters until it's back "on" turns it back on quicker, you can then re-activate the shield boosters (you'll see your shield indicator actually drop a little when you do this as the amount of recharge to shield capacity has dropped when you re-activate them).

Thanks, that makes sense now you explain it but I hadn't twigged that at all.

Edit to add: I don't have life support on 1 either. Number of times I had to limp to the nearest repair facility on emergency oxygen with the canopy blown out making life support power moot, I tend to run with A class life support these days. That means if I lose power to the life support I have 25 minutes to get repairs, so it is a consideration but unlikely to be my most pressing issue.

That leaves just thrusters as a 1?

[Lowe]

Yeah guess so. I only ever bother with a D class life support due to the weight. 7.5 minutes is normally enough to high wake to somewhere and make a dash for it. Consider putting chaff on there I guess if you run it. That way at least you can be actively throwing out countermeasures whilst escaping too.