Elite: Dangerous

[Ironwood]

Righto, so a couple more questions :

1 - What's the deal with the keyboard layout.  The more I play, the more I'm finding references to default keys that aren't setup or don't exist.  While it's five seconds work to sort it, it's pissing me off.  Anyone else noticed this ?

2 - Can someone give me a rundown on the Weapons in the game and what the different deals are.  Again, Shooties are best against hulls and pew pew is best against shields, but what do the different versions do ?  What's the difference between a beam and a multi, for example.  Just a quick idiots guide or link would be great.

Cheers.

[Sir T]

1) All the time. Really annoying.

2) YOur best bet is the ED Wikia http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons

[Ironwood]

And I'm on a type 7 now, trading Imp Slaves and Silver, and making 890k per back and forth run...

Where are you getting the slaves with a large landing pad ?  Or have I fallen prey to the 'best loop on the database, but not the only way to do it' ?

[Sir T]

Well, maybe you are just trying the wrong area. I use https://eddb.io/trade/loops and put in "Calennero" in the Your location box. I guess i was lucky enough to be in a good area for slaves.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, I found one.  Made rather a lot of money on it and I'm now in my own Type-7 and, Jesus Christ, it's a frigging brick.  With other ships you have the temptation to upgrade and do 'other roles' but this thing is useful for only one thing and that's making lots of trade money.  Or mining, I guess, but sod that too.

So, I'm fairly happy, even tho I bug this thread all the damn time.  What's the consensus on Powerplay ?  What's the point ?  Is it worth it to start it ?  Why ?  And How ?  And who's everyone allied with ?

Questions, questions, questions....

[Samprimary]

so if you're enjoying trading but are (wisely) displeased by the sluggishness of the freighters, you should do what I did and spend the premium for Multipurpose/Multiroles. You're in kind of a special zone with regards to the cargo capacity, though. Imperial Clipper is essentially superior in all ways to a Type 7 if you're willing to get the ranks out of the way, but that's saying something given the realities of the rank grind.

[Samprimary]

also if haulage gets tedious you can immediately swap out for an Asp Explorer, which has no glaring faults and performs excellently at most E:D tasks (and can have an unengineered 30+ ly jumprange which is holy shit)

[Sir T]

I'm still not entirely sure about how to rank grind for the factions. I found this guide but I might be slow (Ok I'm slow) but I couldn't quite grasp how it works. Still, here is the guide.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/4sguoa/this_imperial_rank_grind_actually_works/

I'll probably Type 7 my way to a Python for the Medium landing pad and then try it. I'll probably buy a Vulture for now though as the looping is pretty boring and I need some pew to break up the tedium.

Anyway, The powerplay is another subject I haven't looked at. But here is the wiki page. Basically you gain benefits for being with the faction and working for it. Obviously the ones with bonuses to bounties are more popular, but the system is set up so the smaller your power the easy it is to maintain its territory. Also you can buy special weapons after being with a power for a month.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Powerplay

[Samprimary]

I actually did something very similar, and this is more efficient. You also get a fair bit of cash from that much mission stacking and it doesn't get slowed down with stuff.

I actually now Highly Recommend the empire grind while engaging in normal progression because if you do that you get some very, very good ships that are best for their monetary tier and have incredibly diverse utlility. You can move from iEagle to iCourier to iClipper. When you have the clipper, you have the sweetest ride all the way to having, like, a python or conda.

[satael]

I have to say I'm losing my interest slightly in the game due to being repeatedly blown up while mining by enemies that kill my type-6 in 5 seconds from first shot despite shields and pd. I guess I could go back to bounty-hunting at nav points or passenger missions but those were getting a bit boring and needed a change. 

[Ironwood]

Are you mining at the designated mining areas ?  Because that's not as safe as you'd think...

[satael]

Are you mining at the designated mining areas ?  Because that's not as safe as you'd think...

I usually go about 50km from RES in a medium security system but it might be a time to increase the distance or just take the extra effort to jump to another part of the ring.

[Sir T]

Well, if you drop into a belt dont go the the Resource Sites. Those are meant for combat and wil have pirates showing up all the time. Find some other area in the ring. 50kms from the RES is WAY too close as you are still in the same instance. Find an area completely away from the RES. You can just fly into the ring anywhere along it and it will drop you into rocks.

Then if you drop in wait a second to see if some pirate will come in. If one does wait a bit and he will come over and scan you. Then he will complain you have nothing on you and sod off. THEN you can start mining. If you have any ore at all in your hold when he scans you you are boned.

Third. A point defence only defends against missiles. You want a chaff launcher. That will screw up his shooting for 20 seconds. Enough to boost away and out of there. That's why I always prioritise having powerful thrusters to get out. Boost defaults to TAB I think, and firing a chaff launcher defaults to O.

And there is a key to set your scanner to a set distance away so it wont show really close distances due to the ore in it. I would do that so you are not blinded by all the things close to you and will have some warning when something comes close so you can packup and get out.

[satael]

The PD is only there against alpha as it's automatic whereas chaffs would require me to manually use them. The last few times I've been killed it has been literally in 5 seconds or so so thrusters etc wouldn't have made much difference especially since the cargo hatch is open preventing it.

(and probably the fact that I tend to lose my focus when mining since it can be rather monotonous which affects my reaction time).

[Sir T]

Well like I said, set your scanner at a wide distance and don't go NEAR a RES site. I think I was only attacked once at a random place along a ring far from a RES. Yes pirates WILL go 50kms away from the beacon to scan anything in the instance. RES's are for combat not mining. I only made that mistake once.

[Samprimary]

RES sites DO have better resources. But that does not compensate for that they are constant pirate spawning combat farming sites.

Go to an isolated empty region with an empty hull. Get scanned by one pirate. Then ... Hide, mine quietly, keep your radar on, and bug out to fsd jump range if you see an approaching ship, especially if you're a glass ship

[palmer_eldritch]

So dumb question but to what extent is this an MMO? Are these pirates you are talking about NPCs, or players?

[Pennilenko]

So dumb question but to what extent is this an MMO? Are these pirates you are talking about NPCs, or players?

In my opinion, it is in no way an MMO. The tools for facilitating social interaction are woefully under developed.

[Samprimary]

So dumb question but to what extent is this an MMO? Are these pirates you are talking about NPCs, or players?

Players elect to play in one of three modes: Open, Solo, or Private Group. In Open you get instanced with a number of other players in the same system as you who are also in Open. In Solo it's just you and never any other player. In Private Group, it's anyone else in the group you've signed in to. So you can just play with a friend or two, or join one of the very large private groups.

Normally, Open Play just means you occasionally come across other players, some of which are intentional gankers who can repeatedly intercept and murder you.

There is a private group called Mobius which is essentially a multi-thousand player open group where pvp is prohibited so you can fly around not worrying about the random pirate murderer humans.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/38362-Dedicated-Player-vs-Environment-Groups-with-over-32-000-Commanders

All in all it's like .02% of an MMO. extremely minimal multiplayer functionality.

[Miguel]

The Empire grind takes a LONG time.  I've been working on it doing that HIP -> Wu Gunangi loop and you can get maybe 25-35% rank increase with each loop.  Each complete rotation (1 system in HIP, and 3 in Wu Gunangi), plus switching from Open to Solo for the mission stacking means each loop take perhaps 20-30 minutes (including jumping).  After about a week of grinding I've made it to Master.  It is immensely boring.

I was grinding rank for the Clipper, but ended up earning enough cash to just outright buy an A-rated Vulture (about 24 mil credits).  Is the Vulture better than a fully decked out Clipper?  I've had some good luck at High RES sites taking on Anaconda's and Python's for 250K (two large pulse lasers is pretty nice for so little cash), but wondering if the Clipper is considered an 'upgrade' from the Vulture.

[Samprimary]

A vulture is great, it's just not an upgrade from the clipper in any real sense. The vulture is hyperfocused on combat, no real cargo or internals room, strictly capped on power supply and loadout variability, low FSD range, slower than average top speed. It's strictly a heavy dogfighter. It does this excruciatingly well, by combining insane pitch rates with two heavy hardpoints. You can use this ship to bounty hunt/merc for days and days. Your 'time on target' will be so high that you have to use the efficient weapons (pulses, MC's) to spew out continuous sustained damage against enemies.

The Clipper is a true multipurpose, has way too much internal space for the price, and handles too well for its size. Its only downsides are low shield caps, large docking size and very laterally distant weapon hardpoints that don't work as fixed weapons and must be gimbals. It and the Courier are just way, way too good compared to what else you can get at those money brackets, and the Clipper will serve you well all the way up to the point where you can afford a Python or Anaconda, so between those two ships I recommend keeping your Empire ranks up as you go so you can have these ships as you progress.

For 24m you can have a basic trade clipper that carries over 200 tons of cargo. By the time you've put 5-10 million in it, pirates don't stand a chance of killing you and you can usually just kill them instead. Then you can just keep upgrading it all the way to about 160/170m.

It is also, it should be noted, a prime candidate for Engineering. Once you have an A-rated clipper and some spare cash you could actually just shelve the money grind and start using it as a universal travel-everywhere do-anything ship to complete all the various Engineering tasks.

[satael]

Seems like my type-6 is going to get an extra second or two of life when attacked today when the patch doubles its hull health. 

[Surlyboi]

Apparently, someone ran afoul of aliens the other day.

[Ironwood]

Also, one page back.

Unless you mean that someone has since got munsoned by them.

[Sir T]

Apparently if you want your own encounter you can try jumping in the area around the Maia system. Anal probes don't hurt that much.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Unknown_Ship

[Ironwood]

Some intense and fun dog fighting there.  One Cobra MkIII I had to salute for managing to get away from me at 1% hull.  Awesome.

And then I found out that the repair unit can't repair a totally fucked canopy and you can't see your HUD when your canopy blows up.  lol.

[01101010]

Since this is said to be coming to PS4, should I keep my eye on this game?

[Ironwood]

This is truly a game you have to have an appetite for.  A real interest.  Otherwise it's flimsy and boring as shit.

I love it.

[01101010]

Follow-up question then, How's it play on a console / controller?

And I was one of the few that actually played and enjoyed No Man's Sky... so I got that going for me.

[Pennilenko]

Follow-up question then, How's it play on a console / controller?

And I was one of the few that actually played and enjoyed No Man's Sky... so I got that going for me.

If you thought NMS was absolute tits and you don't need to walk around then you will love Elite.

[satael]

spoilered for size: 

[Ironwood]

Very true.  I made enough with my Type-7 that the first thing I did was rebuy the Asp Explorer.  I'm fine now using my 7 for going onwards with the trading journey, but the Asp can do everything and it sounds like a motherfucking Spitfire.  What's not to like ?

[Samprimary]

I hate the asp's flight profile so much and its reverse thrusters are weak enough that I now just steer straight into the landing pad to stop. I'm always grumbling about the asp in various ways, like its drony sound and its rusty junk-iron instrument panel and its boxy shape. Why?

Because the asp is so goddamned good that you will find yourself using it all the time. A plus best ship. Engineer yours immediately.

[Samprimary]

"Ugh I wish this ship wasnt so good I was always using it" I say as I travel between destinations in 50+ lightyear jumps

[Viin]

lol. Maybe they will sell you a skin/sound pack for it.