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Author Topic: Elite: Dangerous  (Read 662374 times)
Tale
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Reply #2205 on: March 26, 2019, 08:50:38 PM

So I've headed out into the black.

Welcome. And hello from Lyaisae HA-A e3363. Hope you enjoy this part of the game like I do.
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2206 on: March 27, 2019, 11:21:26 AM

So I've headed out into the black.

Welcome. And hello from Lyaisae HA-A e3363. Hope you enjoy this part of the game like I do.

So far, it's great! Though I'm now aware I'm only really in the medium grey so far, what with all the stations littering the well-worn path between the bubble and Colonia. Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly? That plus my choice of giving myself a deadline by taking on 20 Colonia courier missions has reduced my ability to focus on exploring and enjoying the experience. I had planned to take a more scenic and lesiurely path back after puttering around the Colonia area a bit, but who knows. Maybe I'll just spin the dial and head off thataway wherever it points.

Last night's session I learned how to neutron boost, and made 7k ly to dock at the Saceqawea base for the night.  I also learned how to do field repairs, at least the AFMU part, not the repair drones yet. I've read they repair hull, do they also repair that hidden internal Structural Integrity value that "Repair All" somehow misses?

Halfway to Colonia and with 4 days to go still, I've gone from behind to ahead of schedule!  I turned in a bunch of exploration data at Saceqawea and got my first "First!"s, plus Ranger rank in Exploring and Allied with the Colonia faction.  So far I've been really pleased with the choice of about 1.5 less ly jump range in exchange for cooler temp handling. I'm less sure about the massive  thrusters that give me over 500 boost speed. I've since read they don't help with landing on high G planets at all. Oh well, will they at least help with covering that last 50-100km Gap I all too often have when the glide phase ends?

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
ajax34i
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Reply #2207 on: March 27, 2019, 07:46:32 PM

Yes, but that's not the fastest way to shorten that.  Glide mode cuts off based on altitude, so if you aim your ship above the destination (like, 2x the diameter of the target reticule), and then aim down at the last second, your glide should end at 7 km from the target.

Also, closer to the center, I think after Sacagawea, stars get really dense.  If you have the map configured to fly OBAFGKM (only the fuel stars), you can switch to OBAFG - the bigger stars, and have more of a chance to find water worlds or earth-likes orbiting.  Quick check of the FSS scanner to see if there are any signals in the water world region on the dial, and a quick scan / probe, should give you some 20-50 million per each leg between the highway pit stops.

Structurall Integrity isn't repaired by AFMU's; the damage is accumulated by traveling long distances within a star system in supercruise, and getting your ship down to 1% Structural Integrity just gives it 30% lowered resistances to weapon damage, and that's all it does.  So be careful when you arrive in Colonia and/or at each pit stop; even if you fly in Solo mode, there are NPC pirates who like to interdict, and if they shoot you take a bit more damage than normal.

Anyway, for the return trip, here's a list of sights to see, shamelessly copied from the Distant Worlds II expedition.  The official Frontier forums are down so I can't link to the official Distant Worlds II post, where they have the maps.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2019, 08:09:35 PM by ajax34i »
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2208 on: March 28, 2019, 11:01:39 AM

Thanks, I saw a couple of screenshots of some spectacular stuff from that list, and it's on my To Do list. I haven't decided yet whether to do that first or head out looking for my own.  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

I spent last night refining my skills with neutron boosts. I detoured slightly (700ly) down to the neutron star field to hop onto the neutron superhighway and woohoo! Well, that and*crunch*.  swamp poop Apparently not all neutron stars are created the same, particularly the length of the Jets varies by huge amounts. But there is no sense of scale or easy way to tell where the crunch horizon is or how close you can aim to the base of the jet with the intent of getting a full charge in one dive without having to loop around for a second pass and more importantly without going *crunch*.

So, here's the procedure I developed which gave me 30 consecutive woohoo's with no *crunch*s: Once jumped into hyper towards a neutron star (or white dwarf) set throttle to 0. Then upon dropping out make sure you are stopped and in a safe place, then target the star so you can keep track of your range from it. Honk, look around, maybe FSS or wipe the sweat off your palms or whatever. Then when you are ready to move on aim for somewhere in the jet near where it changes from straight lines into curves and spirals and throttle up just a smidge. You gotta be moving at more than zero throttle in supercruise for this next bit to work but you don't want to slam into the star while you're figuring it out. Now look in the top right corner of your HUD at the info panel. The far right side of the header bar has a space where "IMPACT" may or may not be displayed. If it is, TURN! away from the core of the star until it goes away. Note that you never want to get closer than about .25ls from the star or you'll go *crunch*, and I start sweating at .5ls, but I actually found a couple stars last night where the jets weren't much longer than that so I really had to shave it close and actually work my way around the curve of the exclusion zone to enter the jet with enough length left to fully charge in one pass.  Now you can safely throttle up a little to approach the jet without worrying about going *crunch*.  Be patient, I never approach the jet at over 25% throttle and cut it back to back to about 10 or 15% when it looks like the jet is about to swirl over me. The shorter the jet, the slower and closer to the star you need to enter it to get fully charged in a single pass. And feather your angle out as you get close so you enter the jet moving slowly and aimed out at the center of the circle it's drawing on the stars beyond. Then just hang on for the woohoo, set max throttle when your FSD gets fully charged, hit the "Target Next System" or whatever it's called, align, and jump.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2019, 10:07:25 AM by Count Nerfedalot »

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2209 on: March 28, 2019, 11:57:27 AM

Oh, and I have to say something I've never said before, or even heard said before about any game, ever. The pathfinding in this game is pretty good! Once I'd planted myself in the neutron star field I opened my galactic map and had it plot a course to Colonia with the neutron boost option enabled. And it did! All 12000+ light years. And it included all the necessary fuel stops. Neutron star to neutron star to neutron star to neutron star to fuel star then back to neutron stars again, etc. I'm impressed.

To balance that, I'm pretty annoyed that FDev can't seem to understand the need to see what star type I'm heading towards at 500000c for longer than the three seconds it shows on the info panel message (and vanishing from that even before the jump countdown is complete!). As long as I have a star targeted, whether it's in my current system or my next jump target, whether I'm supercruising or in jump space or parked in a goddamn station, that info needs to be in the target info box on the main HUD, not squirreled away four clicks away on a completely different panel. And not vanish just because I'm jumping either, stupid computer shouldn't forget where the hell it's jumping to! When exploring, star type is more important than the name even!

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2210 on: April 01, 2019, 10:13:09 AM

Made it to Colonia with 2 days to spare on my missions. Spent a few hours running around the various systems turning them in, selling cartographic data till I was ally with the locals, seeing the sights, then moving on to the next. Got to Pioneer rank in Explorer.

Got an invite from an engineer and checked him out, but he wanted bounties to unlock and meh. I know it would be trivial, but I don't even have a weapon on my ship, have still never fired a shot from a ship, and didn't feel like messing with it all at the time so left him for later.

Then I kind of got bored there. Already ally with most everybody that owns a station. Mining would be a waste of time given the prices you get would be half what you can get in the bubble. Didn't feel like scraping together a C-rated ship to start learning combat in. Not interested in power play right now. No imperial or alliance faction to gain. So after less than 5 hours in "civilised" space I was already feeling the call of the great beyond again.

So I was wondering how far "up" can you go? Can you get high enough above the galactic ecliptic to make out the spiral arms and such? The answer is, not really. At least not above Colonia.  But I'm definitely in the black now! Like half my sky is black with only a couple distant galaxies visible. The other half is the beautiful yellow glow of the Milky Way. Lots of interesting nebulae visible from here, maybe need to check one out.

I discovered my first black hole! And then several more when I started looking for them. Kind of cool but kind of disappointing as well.  It's really too bad the game engine doesn't model gravity. Yeah, mass affects your engines/speed but it doesn't seem to actually pull your ship. And bumping into the black hole exclusion zone at low speed was a non-event. Basically no different from ramming a planet with an atmosphere. Dropped out of supercruise, no damage due to the low speed. And that's it. Sad really.

I'm still very pleased with my cool-running Phantom. After several neutron-boosted jumps i can just park it right next to anything but the hottest of stars and slurp up fuel at 859 whatevers per second and my heat sits at 65%. I tossed in a second heat sink launcher in Colonia, and traded some materials to fill up on heat sink replacement materials. But I've only fired off one since, and that was by accident. why so serious?. I plan to swap out the 6A thrusters for 4A, which should get me to 49.8ly range with my current engineering, next time I'm in the bubble. And maybe do what it takes to get the guardian booster. Getting the booster means I'll have to lose the fuel limpet controller, but while I'd love to help someone out, I'm really just playing solo, ya know, so the odds aren't very good I'll never actually be able to use them.   why so serious? I've thought about heading out to catch the DW2 swarm, but I don't think I want to commit to just doing that till July, and the thought of someone else getting back and claiming all my meaningless firsts annoys me for some reason.

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2211 on: April 02, 2019, 02:52:43 PM

Here's the view from the top of the worldgalaxy (sort of):


And just playin:
« Last Edit: April 24, 2019, 09:40:05 AM by Count Nerfedalot »

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Tale
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Reply #2212 on: April 02, 2019, 04:20:26 PM

Been wanting to reply to you but had no time. You should look at the Distant Worlds 2 waypoint thread (both current and archived). It's like doing the journey without actually doing the journey.

Every POI in the thread links to an EDSM description with pictures to enjoy. One of the most recent was (Goliath's Rest, or Swoals IL-Y e0), which features a giant star 2850 ly above the galactic plane, the highest I've been. Above me it was pitch black. Can only jump there using a FSD boost (craftable in synthesis).

If you haven't already, you should register on EDSM and upload the log files from since you began until now. Gives you a public map of where you've flown: here's mine, showing trips to Colonia, Formidine Rift, and the current expedition (although it's still missing the data from another machine I used to play on).

Re your thrusters: I've never outfitted a Krait, but the approach with an Asp is to use D-rated thrusters for minimum mass and engineer them up. I like to retain the ability to boost, but only just (for each ship, there's a minimum mj required on your power distributor in order to boost -- used to be a good reference list on the Frontier forums but their revamp seems to have eaten it). Thrusters have no effect in supercruise, which is handled by the FSD (don't try repairing your FSD while in supercruise! Or do, if you have plenty of hull and want to see what happens...). I also run with just a 2A power generator, because it's engineered up, and you can switch off things that aren't in use (vehicle hangar, AFMU, etc) until you need them, plus you can set power priorities. Quick and dirty tip for engineering when you next have access to it: reduce the mass of your sensors, because they're insanely heavy for some reason. Even if you only have access/materials for class 1 or class 3 engineering for lightweight sensors, it adds a few ly. Here is my ship and its engineering.

Re fueling limpets - do you know about the Fuel Rats? A major player group who can help if you do run out of fuel, and always need more members. It doesn't actually matter if you play Solo most of the time, as you can switch into Open to refuel someone, or to be refuelled. I prefer to play in Private Group mode, in Mobius PvE (Asia-Pacific one for me) which is a massive organised private group where you won't be attacked by gankers, but you will see other real people from time to time (especially in major places or during community goals). It's the same game and the same savegame no matter which mode you play in, so I prefer to be in Mobius rather than completely alone.

I've got just a normal fuel tank on DW2, but I did my first Colonia trip with a half-sized fuel tank to add ly to my jump range, and set the star map to only use KGBFOAM star types which are the scoopable ones. That worked well. A quarter-sized fuel tank can even be manageable if you're going to scoop on every jump. Back then you could only plot 1000 ly at a time, so it was a laborious journey. Apparently there was a time when it was only 100 ly. Agree the new pathfinding in the star map is superb. And I agree Colonia is quickly boring, and like you I was out of there within a few hours after becoming ally to all the important factions.

As for planetary landings, I point down at about 45 degrees to my target on the planet's surface, keeping the nose above where the HUD shows danger (somewhere below 45 degrees). Entry speed shouldn't be too fast, so that you will hit glide, and then you glide down keeping the same trajectory and always finish under 7 km from your target. It becomes instinct after a while, so I might not be describing it perfectly. I have taken to avoiding high-gravity planets however, since smacking my Asp's belly on the ground and limping home from an expedition with 17% hull (before repair limpets, and I don't even carry those anyway). It's 0.1g to 0.5g for me :)
« Last Edit: April 02, 2019, 07:21:05 PM by Tale »
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2213 on: April 02, 2019, 05:46:06 PM

I've got E:D Market Connector running and post the updates each time I dock after being out and about, but I haven't actually checked to see my travel logs which sounds pretty cool. I've gotten kind of confused with all the interconnected 3rd party stuff. I'll have to put some time into actually reading and stuff soonish.

My highest system so far was at +2772, so not quite as high, but it's above Colonia. I imagine closer to the core should be able to get a good deal higher above the central bulge. I sadly wont get first discovery on it, but I should on mapping the terraformable worlds in it.  I've been leary of jumping farther out than I can get back from, to the point I haven't been using neutron boost at all while going up.  I'd forgotten about the FSD synthesis boost, I've seen it but never used it.  Will have to tick the box in the route selector and see if any new options show up. I actually haven't seen anything I needed more range for, other than speed. No gaps I couldn't cross, though I've heard the inter-arm gaps get pretty sparse in places as did the top fringe.

Switching the thrusters from A to D is a great tip. I keep trying to do too many things with one ship, and was trying for >500 m/s boost for in the bubble evasion. Which is silly and useless out in deep space.  And I already did the class 3 lightweight mod on the sensors. Makes a huge difference!

I was about to ask about Mobius and if it was still active and any good or if there were other more active PVE groups. Would be cool to see someone else sometimes. I'm playing in private group with my stepson but we've only gotten together once so far.  Space is a big place!



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ajax34i
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Reply #2214 on: April 02, 2019, 07:03:02 PM

Guilds.  Mobius is still active AFAIK.
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Reply #2215 on: April 02, 2019, 07:11:19 PM

I have no 3rd party stuff running. I think you can automate EDSM, but I just upload the journal files that the game automatically writes to your hard drive... C:\Users\YourName\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\

Just drag and drop all the journal items at once (it accepts multiple files): https://www.edsm.net/en/settings/import/journal

When I first did it, I had two years of journal entries and it took a full day to process, but it worked!
Tale
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Reply #2216 on: April 04, 2019, 01:03:46 AM

Screenshots from recent DW2 travels.













The Great Annihilator looks like it wants to annihilate me.




Sagittarius A* out the side of the cockpit.





2850 ly above the galactic plane at Goliath's Rest.




« Last Edit: April 04, 2019, 01:05:24 AM by Tale »
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2217 on: April 05, 2019, 06:05:31 PM

Just been playing around the last couple nights exploring everything in this system above the galaxy.  3 stars including a neutron, 35 objects, 18 landable, several of them with geological features.

« Last Edit: April 24, 2019, 09:41:36 AM by Count Nerfedalot »

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Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2218 on: April 07, 2019, 09:18:49 PM

laws (Roche limit) being broken I suspect:
« Last Edit: April 24, 2019, 09:38:47 AM by Count Nerfedalot »

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2219 on: April 11, 2019, 09:16:48 PM

I'm thinking I might head back to the bubble for a bit. Maybe grind some more engineering. Get Guardian FSD booster. Do some more core mining. Get a Python and try laser mining. Or combat. Or both. Finish ranking up Imperial and get a Cutter or something outrageous.

But there's so many cool things to investigate between here and there!

Up close and personal with a small black hole (<3 solar masses):




I drove right up to this one at 25% speed, taking pics in free camera mode, till it kicked me out of supercruise with a panicked "WARNING!!! TEMPERATURE LEVELS CRITICAL!!!!111one!!"
Heat was at 51%.  Ohhhhh, I see.  Got all the way up to 72% I think when I ramped back up to supercruise from the exclusion zone boundary when I was done playin'.  I *really* like the cool ship build.

System also had a terraformable water world orbiting the black hole. No other stars. Makes you wonder what living there would be like, other than all the X-rays and stuff coming off the BH.  Maybe an undersea colony would be protected from the radiation by the ocean?  Well, radiation would be a lesser worry once it spiralled in to the accretion disk. Which ED doesn't have.  sad

I'm wondering if there will be any paint left on my ship when I get back. Polished stainless steel would be nice, works for Space-X!  Besides, paint adds mass, I should be getting a bit more range these days!   why so serious?
« Last Edit: April 24, 2019, 09:43:50 AM by Count Nerfedalot »

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Falconeer
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Reply #2220 on: April 12, 2019, 02:22:45 AM

Incoming patch with new graphics for black holes, I guess.

ajax34i
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Reply #2221 on: April 13, 2019, 01:14:20 PM

Maybe, someday.

The next patch is just an improved newbie experience, giving them advanced docking computers (not just regular docking computers) so they don't have to figure out how to fly around for a while.  And every ship gets an extra internal slot.

Ironwood
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Reply #2222 on: April 13, 2019, 01:50:32 PM

Hey, they're doing that thing I suggested since day one ! 

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Jeff Kelly
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Reply #2223 on: April 15, 2019, 05:05:09 AM

Maybe, someday.
The next patch is just an improved newbie experience, giving them advanced docking computers (not just regular docking computers) so they don't have to figure out how to fly around for a while.  And every ship gets an extra internal slot.

Cool. So I'll finally be able to use docking computers on all of my ships (or more likely fit more scanners). Once you have it down manually docking becomes such a hassle.
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2224 on: April 17, 2019, 08:47:51 PM

Gradually (very!) working my way back towards the bubble. I keep finding interesting stuff to check out, like this - Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!  2 K class stars orbiting less than their radius apart with an attendant landable planet quite close:


and here a pair of twins  (Swartzenegger/DeVito style  why so serious?)  I'm actually closer to the little Herbig proto star in this pic, with the blue O looming over us.  And it's not even a giant!

« Last Edit: April 24, 2019, 09:44:47 AM by Count Nerfedalot »

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2225 on: April 21, 2019, 09:14:49 PM

Still on my way back to the bubble. Made it over halfway there when I got distracted (squirrel!) by a nebula which I spend a couple days exploring.  Found alien life! Bark Mounds. Then more Bark Mounds. Then dozens more worlds with, you guessed it, Bark Mounds.  And nothing else.  I did discover one cool thing about Bark Mounds though, one of the nodule thingies you can harvest off them glows prettily/eerily in the night!



Apologies if this is turning into a personal travelogue, but I'm having a blast with the internet imaginary astrophotography, so here's some more cool shots.

Drama:


No, THIS is drama!


That's no moon


The Phantom strikes!


Paint is overrated.


Bullseye!


bonus, that one is landable. You can see the rings from the surface AND looking between those rings you can see the ringed gas giant it's orbiting.





« Last Edit: April 24, 2019, 09:47:11 AM by Count Nerfedalot »

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Sir T
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Reply #2226 on: April 23, 2019, 08:29:02 PM

Hey man. I'm really enjoying your pics, but would you mind shrinking them down a little? You do it by do it by {img width=800}your picture url here{/url}. Replace the {} with []. its just it's no fun scrolling your pics to the side all the time.

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Reply #2227 on: April 24, 2019, 05:51:09 AM

I do like this game, but every time I go to fire it up, there's another 5gb patch. Every damn time.
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Reply #2228 on: April 24, 2019, 10:19:04 AM

Loving the changes.

"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2229 on: April 24, 2019, 10:50:25 AM

Hey man. I'm really enjoying your pics, but would you mind shrinking them down a little? You do it by do it by {img width=800}your picture url here{/url}. Replace the {} with []. its just it's no fun scrolling your pics to the side all the time.

Thanks, done, and sorry. I've futzed with trying to adjust the width of pics on this board several times but could never get the syntax right till you spelled it out for me.

Meanwhile I'm still bolting for the bubble, in a leisurely sort of way. I seem to have run out of neutron stars and also finding more systems already explored which I find less interesting. So I'm making shorter jumps but stopping to explore less often.

I'm actually looking forward to getting the new cruise control module. No more dropping in to a system and seeing a bunch of interesting stuff way over around star D 600,000ls away and having to choose between 5-10 minutes of boredom or skipping it. With cruise control I should be able to just aim it and then go take a bio or grab a snack or something and not worry about missing completely or crashing. I hope. Not sure what use that would be in the bubble or Open though, as you'd still be subject to interdiction.

Not sure how big it was but yesterday's patch took about 12 minutes to download, and I think it's the first patch since I started. It took me almost as long to recover from the Discovery Scanner no longer working after the patch. It showed as still configured on my firegroup but didn't show in the HUD and didn't work when I pressed the button until I completely reprogrammed that firegroup. Fortunately I didn't lose any of my keybindings. Which reminds me I need to save that again as I'd hate to lose a month's worth of fine tuning that!

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2230 on: April 29, 2019, 09:17:17 AM

Arrived in the bubble Friday evening, successfully docking at a station in Procyon without smashing to smithereens. My powerplant and AMFU were down to 80%, internal structure was 30%, and paint is at 0%.  why so serious?

Sold my exploration data there and a dozen other systems, unlocking permits to Sirius and some other engineering star, getting ally with the primary minor faction in each station, getting ally with all three superpowers, getting elite rank in Exploration, and netting just over half a billion in credits. My highest paying system was for 15 million.

I felt like a backpacker who's been out roughing it in the wilderness for a couple of weeks then got dumped into the drivers seat in the middle of Atlanta traffic at lunch hour. So many ships zooming about, speed limits (being ignored), people shooting each other, assholes trying to interdict me, having to thread the needle to land on an assigned postage stamp instead of anywhere I want on a planet (although honestly that could often be as frustrating as trying to find a parking space in San Francisco).

I'd forgotten just how beautiful the sky is in the vicinity of Sol. No nebulae but lots of stars of all different colors and brightness. Very much felt like home after weeks of having half or more of the sky totally or nearly black, and the other half a wash or stripe of yellow glow (or blue or purple or green after the recent stupid global tinting patch turned it into No Man's Sky cartoon BS).

I spent the weekend puttering around doing bubble things. I swapped back to my AspX to do some void opal mining and fell in love with it again. Such a wonderful cockpit view, and noticeably more nimble than the Krait, I can't imagine what the comparison to an Anaconda must be like! I may very well take it out on my next trip into the black if I can fit everything I wantneed now with the new slot. And I definitely need Shields, fuel scoop, AFMU, DSS, repair limpets and SRV, and want guardian jump boost and supercruise assist.

I did some courier missions for both empire and Federation, unlocked Sol, bought and sold goods at dozens of stations (working towards an engineering unlock), and collected enough Modular Terminals to unlock Quent which is my first task tonight.

I was thinking it would be pretty cool to land on Earth's Moon on July 30 in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. But FDev has it blocked.  angry  cry

My current plans (in pencil LOL) are to get Quent engineering ranked up, then buy a DBX and do the guardian booster unlock and maybe some smuggling with it. Then maybe a Python for laser mining and unlocking Selene Jean and/or a Vulture for combat missions. I'll certainly do more void opal cracking, I enjoy that a lot. I'm just two VO runs (one evening or less, even with my easily distracted ADD play style) shy of having my second billion in the bank as is so I can pretty much buy anything I want except the faction locked ships which I'm making decent progress towards.

Supercruise assist is a very mixed bag. It runs at 75% throttle so is slower, and does nothing to avoid obstacles along the way like gravity wells or occluding planets or even stars, instead just smacking you right into the exclusion zone at speed. My car's cruise control is smarter than that! That's kind of OK, it's on me to line up my course appropriately. But the worst and unforgivable design stupidity is its behavior on cruising to stations. Target a star, planet, planetary base, signal source or apparently anything but a station and it will drop out of supercruise and safely stop and/or go into orbit upon arrival. Perfect. But target a station and it suddenly goes brain-dead stupid, dropping out of supercruise upon arrival but leaving the throttle at 75% so you WILL slam right into the station it so perfectly targeted you at unless you are there to intervene. I cannot describe the depth of my scorn and contempt for whoever at FDev thought this was a reasonable design or was somehow justified by any gameplay, balance or other consideration. Absolutely asinine.

« Last Edit: April 29, 2019, 11:45:08 AM by Count Nerfedalot »

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2231 on: April 29, 2019, 09:36:40 PM

Yesterday I forgot to mention I had an adventure.  I got trigger happy on the accept button while collecting courier missions and ended up with a couple to places over 500k ls from the drop points. I wasn't interested in supercruising (manual, no assist module) 15 minutes for each while getting interdicted every 5 minutes or so by the magical pirates sent after me for having 15 + active courier missions. So I abandoned them.  And ended up with magical bounty hunters following me everywhere I went right up to the entrance of each station!  Took me a little while to remember I needed to find the right lawyer (Interstellar Factor or some such, not the local dude) to pay off my bounties, but that took care of them.  It's good to be rich.

Got Qwent unlocked and levelled up.

Some pics from the bubble:

pretty stations



pretty rocks


pretty payout for an hour of fun

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Ironwood
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Reply #2232 on: April 30, 2019, 09:35:44 AM

Fuck me, I guess Void Opals are still hugely fucking broken then.

"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2233 on: April 30, 2019, 01:47:41 PM

Oh no, void opals are old hat. passe. Last week's fad. The new hotness is laser mining Painite or Low Temperature Diamonds at overlapping hot spots for 200-400 million per hour.  why so serious?

 I've just been too tired to kit out a new ship and learn another new set of controls and systems the past couple of days. Still relearning everything I forgot during my month out in the black. I may get me a shiny new Python and try it tonight though, depending on how tired I am after work then garden then dinner.

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2234 on: April 30, 2019, 10:20:34 PM

So, I bought a shiny new Python I've named "Failure to Communicate" and outfitted it as a laser miner. Tooled around a bit to get a feel for it. Didn't crash into the mail slot. 30 ly range and 2A fuel scoop, heh, but I've found there's a sweet spot inside scoop range but out of crispy range where i can park and scoop while I FSS the system (assuming I'm not carrying valuables or a mission that would trigger an interdiction). I'm finding a lot of HGE (High Grade Emissions) with G5 engineering mats since the latest patch, so I just scan everything in every system I pass through unless I'm in a big hurry. Sometimes I'll find 3 or 4 HGE's in a single system now. And sometimes they'll all be 15k ls away in different directions so, pass.

Anywho. Shakedown cruise took me I think 8 hops to a ring with overlapping painite hot spots.  2 hours of this:


including futzing with firegroups and learning how to laser mine, this was my first time ever doing laser mining, then 5 hops to a station with high prices yielded this:


which more than paid for the new ship.  And now I see why the current best ship for this is a Type 9, because I still couldn't throw out enough collector limpets to keep up with two medium lasers.  But at least I could continuous fire those two lasers and burn down a whole rock in one go. Then wait and take pictures and get a snack or whatever while the limpets pick up all the pieces.  But to add more/bigger limpet controllers I'd lose cargo space which means less stuff being hauled each trip.


Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Jeff Kelly
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I'm an apathetic, hedonistic, utilitarian, nihilistic existentialist.


Reply #2235 on: May 02, 2019, 03:45:25 AM

Is the limpet AI still trash? Last few times I mined ore those things had a tendency to crash into asteroids while collecting ore or into my ship while depositing it or they tried to throw themselves into my mining lasers.
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2236 on: May 02, 2019, 09:50:32 AM

I've only been playing 2 months, so I don't know if they've changed or not. But they are definitely stupid. The general rule seems to be "limpets are dumb so you have to be smart". Avoid rapidly spinning whirling limpet swatters of doom. Maneuver so you can target your mining lasers at the rock's "pole" to avoid the irregular outcrops swinging around and swatting them. Aim for a single point so all the chunks go of in the same direction, preferably below your ships belly and away from nearby rocks. Don't roll, pitch or move rapidly while limpets are approaching your ship, otherwise you're no better than a spinning rock! Never let a rock get between you and your limpets.  As much as possible keep your belly pointed straight over the chunks they are picking up so they fly straight in instead of doing the stupid zoom up to eye level way in front of you then down again to get underneath you (why do they do that anyway? Half of my limpet Kamikaze deaths are when they swoop up right after picking up the chunks. And why are they so determined to get up to roof level on my ship for the approach when they need to enter at floor level?). Etc. I do have a bad habit of running over my prospector limpets while searching for cores in my AspX. That's only happened once so far in the Python, when I boosted into it.  why so serious?

I have only seen a limpet apparently fly through my laser beam once, but it didn't affect it. So either it actually missed or has no affect, I don't know.

I've only done laser mining twice so far, but following the hints above I lost far fewer limpets than I do when core mining, where I'm often in the middle of the exploded chunks, some spinning, all irregular shaped, and usually other rocks in close proximity as well.

I don't think I like laser mining as much as core mining, but I'll give it some more tries. I made 140 million in 2:10 hours last night, a bit better than my hourly return core mining. But it was tedious and seemed much slower.  I may try the triple LTD hotspot next to see if that's more fun. Although the Python isn't quite as optimal as the Type 9 for this, at least I don't feel helpless against NPC pirates.
« Last Edit: May 02, 2019, 01:57:41 PM by Count Nerfedalot »

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
01101010
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You call it an accident. I call it justice.


Reply #2237 on: May 02, 2019, 12:39:14 PM

Chiming in on the limpet AI thing... I haven't played in a few weeks, but I used to mine prior to the huge changes to mining and the AI was fuckstupid, as in full on faceplanting into the rock/iceberg. AI after the mining update, they seemed better, but they still get hung up if you have a rock that is spinning at a decent rate or if you have a lot of frags after cracking the core. They do seem to traverse around rocks way better than before, but you'll still get times when they decide the best route to take is through something.

Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
ajax34i
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Reply #2238 on: May 05, 2019, 06:15:47 PM

They "improved" the limpet AI so that it paths just like before (stupidly), but when it gets close to an obstruction, it tries to follow the surface around that obstruction.  So now they get stuck trying to travel around the big pieces of asteroid.
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #2239 on: May 07, 2019, 06:57:46 AM

There are specific design choices, "features", in the limpet AI that cause almost all of the stupidity. The first is that for some reason it routes its return trip to a point in space directly in front of the ship, then recalculates the final path into the cargo hatch once it's gotten to that intermediate waypoint. This is just plain a bad/wrong design choice. It should be plotting a course to a point under the ship, where the hatch is.

The second is that, for whatever reason, the intern they assigned to code it implemented the route-finding algorithm in a 3D grid. I guess they must have failed high school geometry and couldn't handle angles, degrees, etc. This is pretty lame in a game simulating anything more complicated than Minecraft, BUT it does at least give us a little window for mitigating the worst of the side effects. This grid is not based on anything inherent in the space simulation or anything, no, it's based on your ship! Rotate your ship, and all new route calculations are made along a grid based on that new alignment.

Finally, we know that, for chunks out in front of us, the first leg of the limpets return route will always be to try to move to a spot level with our ship along this silly grid.

 So to avoid the swoop of death into the asteroid directly above where the chunks are, you know, right in front of our ship where our mining lasers are firing, we can both aim the ship to kick the chunks off the rock at an angle, and ROTATE the ship such that the grid the AI is using lines that first up or down swoop parallel to the rock instead of splattering into it. Lots of work to adapt to lazy coding which I'm starting to suspect was inherited from that first version of Elite written in Basic.

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
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