Elite : Dangerous

[cptwhite_uk]

No worries, just PM me on here if you want to do it (add me to friend's ingame - Matt White)

[kalniel]

No worries, just PM me on here if you want to do it (add me to friend's ingame - Matt White)

Cheers. Got deadzones set up now and it's a bit more controllable, but can't idle throttle :/ the axis deadzone seems only to set the centre deadzone, not edges which is what I need for the throttle control.

[Jonj1611]

Does anyone know if this is any good :-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thrustmaster...keywords=hotas

Thanks

[Ttaskmaster]

Does anyone know if this is any good :-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thrustmaster...keywords=hotas

Thanks

Very good entry level HOTAS.
I think you'll get on exceeding well with that.

[Jonj1611]

Cheers mate, will get on and order it

[cptwhite_uk]

There's plenty of control presets for the Thrustmaster floating about online, it's popular in the E: D community.

[Jonj1611]

Ah nice one, always good to know.

[DanceswithUnix]

Does anyone know if this is any good :-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thrustmaster...keywords=hotas

Thanks

That's what I use.

One of the throttle buttons is getting a little iffy after a year of heavy use, might need to re map things to even out the wear

[Jonj1611]

My old joystick went like that in the end from playing too many flight sims, unfortunately it was the trigger button! Right have got it ordered so will give it a go when it arrives

[spacein_vader]

I'm also looking at the HOTAS X, so far not heard a bad word about it for the price. I have got a question about it that none of the reviews seem to answer so I'm hoping someone who owns one can:

Are the stick and throttle wired to the computer using seperate USBs or is the throttle slaved to the stick? I'm assuming from what I have seen that it's the latter and if so how long is the cable between the two?

[DanceswithUnix]

I'm also looking at the HOTAS X, so far not heard a bad word about it for the price. I have got a question about it that none of the reviews seem to answer so I'm hoping someone who owns one can:

Are the stick and throttle wired to the computer using seperate USBs or is the throttle slaved to the stick? I'm assuming from what I have seen that it's the latter and if so how long is the cable between the two?

I can put my full size keyboard easily between the two with the connecting wire fully extended. In actual use I find that too far apart, so I put the keyboard behind the sticks and use the cable tidy underneath the throttle to hide some of the cable.

[Ttaskmaster]

Anyone else having problems controlling this SRV thing?
It's OK on flat ground, but it seems to have a very fine line between Off and Fast and I'm forever just spinning out, even with Drive Assist.

I've gone from Reasonable Pilot to Learner Driver!!!

[kalniel]

OK so you'll have heard (and answered) these questions before, but this thread is too long for me to trawl

I've still not taken up any offers of help (but thank you) - I'm doing the lone old school Elite thing for now and I want to try to work my way up without hand outs. If I get time I'll hook up for some tours but play time is a bit variable at the moment.

Eventually I want to end up in the kind of self sufficient/explorer/small trader role - I know this isn't optimal in terms of profit making, but it's the most fun for me - going off exploring, but being able to have a bit of fight back to fend off pirates and flexibility to take the odd bit of cargo/salvage.

What sort of ships should I be reasonably looking at for that kind of role? As far as I can tell, my first aim should be a Cobra mk3, which I can then vary the load out for depending on role. At the moment I'm flying a stripped out hauler - I find I can either go explore (not going very far, since no guns or shields ) and make measly profits or grind out discovered trade routes for higher gain, but much boredom. I've been taking cargo missions where available but they're few and far between (think I'm only ranked peddler or something). I have enough to buy a cobra, but am just waiting to build more capital for upgrades.

Once I have a cobra, I may risk the journey for the community exploration goal - does any exploration data count, or does it have to be from new planets? I just have the basic stuff from the basic scanner.

And some dumb questions.. is there a way to quickly glance up or right/left? I'm bumping into a few people in space stations, usually when taking off and the radar is still showing the landing pad. Lack of shields makes this an annoying cost

[cptwhite_uk]

I'l try and answer your questions:

Cobra Mk3 is a good all-rounder and a massive step up in to terms of multi-role compared to all before it, but in your position it's a fairly expensive ship (375k base cost approx). Before that you might like to try an Adder (less than 100k base cost), it's a half way house between a Hauler and Cobra and more than capable of taking on smaller NPC ships that might interdict you. It could carry the same load as a hauler but also be fitted with a shield and reasonable weapons to fight back against smaller ships if interdicted.

Go to http://coriolis.io/ and you can have a "virtual" play with the ships and their configs - so you can see their relative fit out cost. The interface looks a bit complicated at first, but it's really straight forward once you've spent a minute getting it's to it. Select ships from the top menu and go from there.

There's exploring (between known human occupied space) and then there's *exploring*. You earn exploration data for any systems unknown to you, but if you're the first to visit you get a 50% profit bonus (I wouldn't worry about this, you have to travel far out to find unknown systems these days ....around 500Ly minimum from occupied space as a general rule).

The basic discovery scanner will find objects upto 500Ls away, the intermediate upto 1000Ls away and the advanced will find *all* objects in a system.

I know you're not profit focussed, but this chart will help you decide if an object it worth travelling too for scanning:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sdgn1juniy...rices.jpg?dl=0

Community goals are a great way for new players to earn some (relatively) big bucks, even if you're only in the top 100% (i.e. you just participated a little) you'll still earn in the region of 500,000 per community goal. Grind a little more and it's normally quite easy to get into the top 70% and earn a few million.

In terms of looking around, I have middle mouse button as "free look" however this issue won't be a problem as soon as you have a shield to buffer collision damage.

In terms of exploring there's system "pinging" (firing the discovery scanner), then once you have objects showing in the system map, you can select them and approach for a full scan (range at which scan becomes available is dependant on the size of the object - suns can be scanned for 1000's of Ls away, planets from 100's to 10's of Ls depending on size (gas giant's are typically around 600-200Ls, rocky planets from 50 to 10Ls).

The most important things to upgrade for a multi-role ships are:
Power distributor - affects weapons / afterburner / shield regen rates

If you choose to go with an Adder I'd recommend 1x Class 2 Gimballed Pulse Laser (they're the cheapest, most energy efficient and honestly, I think the best, of all lasers) and 2x Class 1 Gimballed Multi-cannons. Fire the laser to take down shields and then the multi-cannons (and laser if you have enough energy) at the hull.

[kalniel]

Thanks. I'm on about 460k at the moment so think I'll probably grind a bit more and go straight to a cobra. I'll check out those sites to work out costings when I'm next able to to see if it's reasonable. Thanks for the info about exploring too - I didn't know you could do full scans for eg! Is there a way to tell if you've scanned something already?

[cptwhite_uk]

It's only worth scanning if it's listed as "unknown". Once you've scanned it, or if it's a common system that's just known through human space it'll already have a "given" name or an automatically generated one. Once you've done your basic scan ping amount of unknown objects is then shown in the top right of your screen in blue (or "no new objects" or words to that effect). Then you open the system map and look at the icons representing the found objects and compare against the chart I linked to see if they're worth travelling too to scan.

Just to rub it in, I can make about 500k in 10 minutes of fighting