Elite Dangerous Catch-All

Maq wrote:

As for the weapon combination do you alternate between the weapon groups (lasers until the shields are down then switch to guns), or do you alpha strike the whole lot?

ACs are pretty pathetic against shields, but lasers are ok against hull. So, I'll typically pew pew the shields down then use ACs or ACs and lasers to take out the hull - depends on your thermal load and wep energy. I use beams and burst lasers against the hull often to conserve ammo.

Also, I keep saying autocannons but I mean multi-cannons... sorry for any confusion.

I also saw on Reddit that Voyager 1 was found as well. I didn't read enough as to where, just looked at the pictures.

omni wrote:

Looks like the 'secret' was found already..

twitter wrote:

Elite Dangerous ‏@EliteDangerous 1h1 hour ago

Someone has found Voyager 2 in Elite: Dangerous... in the exact place it will be in the year 3300. http://i.imgur.com/Ktyk9dx.png #EliteDangerous

Maq wrote:

Can anyone recommend good armaments for a a Cobra? I'm doing alright with quad burst lasers as the old beast doesn't have the turn radius to stay on someone's tail and I need to get the big hits in when they show themselves but I can't help thinking I can do better.

I'm seeing a lot of love for 2x C3 gimballed autocannon and 2x C1gimballed burst lasers. I assume the lasers are for shield-stripping and the autocannon for punch.

My favorite Cobra load out is 2x fixed beams in the medium hardpoints and 2xgimballed multicannons in the small hardpoints. With good thrusters she's got the maneuverability to keep the fixed beams on target and since the wing hardpoints are so far out fixed weapons don't converge so running gimbals there solves that issue.

Definitely some bugs in the rare commodities. (I said I've been wrong before! )

Well I nabbed a hefty fine for picking up some tactical blueprints at a USS, something like 8k fine when I just started this save, so I have a whole 100 credits to my name. There's a timer next to the fine. Is that a countdown until it just wears off or until it turns into a proper bounty or something equally horrible? I also can't figure out what to do with them. They're not a commodity. Black market item?

My first mission is to grab a black box... from some debris... somewhere. I have a system but no more detailed info. This is also illegal by the way. I guess I should figure out how to run silent, the coppers scanned me from farther away from the station than they had before. Im out of buttons on my joystick. It might be voice attack time. I've been visiting each USS I run across hoping to find the black box but it sounds like something I should find near a conflict zone. There aren't any that have popped up on sensors in this system.

In one sense I like the ambiguity but in another, I dont really like aimlessly wandering around the system.

Hey guys, our next podcast on Tuesday coincides with Elite's launch day, so we're gonna have an online launch party of sorts. I've created a private group under my name (Veloxi, ovbs), and we're likely gonna meet at Chango Dock in i Bootis to get into some trouble and what not on our Twitch stream while doing a roundtable as to why the game is so great. If y'all wanna join, PM so we can get hooked up on Skype.

2.01 is now out, with, among other things, the longer routefinding some of you wanted. (I don't know how far, yet.)

Gremlin wrote:

2.01 is now out, with, among other things, the longer routefinding some of you wanted. (I don't know how far, yet.)

oohhhhh

- Voice Comms - Forever hanging ringtone on client fixed

YAY! I had this happen to me more than once and GOD DAMN is it annoying.

- Balanced wear values down by a large amount across all sources

Awesome, I hope this means the value of fixing wear and tear isn't astronomical any longer.

polypusher wrote:

My first mission is to grab a black box... from some debris... somewhere. I have a system but no more detailed info.

I took that one too for the payout but ended up dropping it.

Veloxi wrote:

Hey guys, our next podcast on Tuesday coincides with Elite's launch day, so we're gonna have an online launch party of sorts. I've created a private group under my name (Veloxi, ovbs), and we're likely gonna meet at Chango Dock in i Bootis to get into some trouble and what not on our Twitch stream while doing a roundtable as to why the game is so great. If y'all wanna join, PM so we can get hooked up on Skype. :)

Hmmm, I might be in for that, assuming I can get to I Bootis before Tuesday. What time do you guys record? I usually don't get home from work until 8PM EST, although sometimes I can get back by 7PM.

So I just pulled the trigger on the purchase of the Mercenary edition. I hope to actually be pulling the trigger when I get home tonight.

Laarrs wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Hey guys, our next podcast on Tuesday coincides with Elite's launch day, so we're gonna have an online launch party of sorts. I've created a private group under my name (Veloxi, ovbs), and we're likely gonna meet at Chango Dock in i Bootis to get into some trouble and what not on our Twitch stream while doing a roundtable as to why the game is so great. If y'all wanna join, PM so we can get hooked up on Skype. :)

Hmmm, I might be in for that, assuming I can get to I Bootis before Tuesday. What time do you guys record? I usually don't get home from work until 8PM EST, although sometimes I can get back by 7PM.

We record typically at 7 PM Pacific, though I'm thinking we might start streaming before that.

LiquidMantis wrote:
polypusher wrote:

My first mission is to grab a black box... from some debris... somewhere. I have a system but no more detailed info.

I took that one too for the payout but ended up dropping it.

You can find those in "Unidentified Signal Sources" that pop up throughout the system. Also I noticed last night that some of the wanted ships I was bounty hunting at a local Nav Beacon sometimes drop those before you pop them.

doctre wrote:

You can find those in "Unidentified Signal Sources" that pop up throughout the system.

Right, I looked for a bit but the time it was taking was making the reward not as good as it first appeared.

Straight to 2.02. I'm being kicked out of the server every 15-30 minutes at the moment.

I think things are getting a little buggy. Checkout the rearm costs for my Field Repair Unit:

IMAGE(http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/546390293369685266/CDFA6A10A809B50E0FE8556A88E347626B95AB47/1024x576.resizedimage)

LiquidMantis wrote:
doctre wrote:

You can find those in "Unidentified Signal Sources" that pop up throughout the system.

Right, I looked for a bit but the time it was taking was making the reward not as good as it first appeared.

Agreed. If I had flown around looking for other USS missions in the system then maybe, but not on its own as the sole focus of what to do.

Woo. Now I'm stuck in hyperspace. Which is kinda nightmarish when you think about it.

Independence for Lugh

This might be interesting. Be cool if a civil war broke out or something as a result.

Do you think it will be possible to progress in the game using a mercenary combat focused lifestyle? Not super interested in trading to be honest.

HAH! Look what I found at Ridley Scott station. Should have been consumING items.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/7jlvl1i.jpg?1)

Check George Lucas in Leesti too.

That's awesome lol

Hahahaha, that's amazing.

Orphu wrote:

HAH! Look what I found at Ridley Scott station. Should have been consumING items.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/7jlvl1i.jpg?1)

Special Order 937:
Priority one
Insure return of organism for analysis.
All other considerations secondary.
Crew expendable.

I had a fun time in a single system tonight, which is the first time I can say that in this game. I grabbed one of those vague bounty missions, a black box mission and headed out in my Freagle for some USSs and the nav beacon. I actually found the black box but I kept it and headed to the nav beacon. Mistake 1. Every scan by a fed added some to my fines, but I didn't notice until later. At the beacon I was scanning all the ships, looking for Wanted ships and hoping to spot the pirate. Never did see the pirate but I did collect 2 Sideys, an Eagle and an Adder for about 13k in Bounties. Not exactly a huge haul, but it was fun.

Upon return to the home station I was interdicted by police, scanned, fined and released just before I reached the station in Supercruise. Upon arrival I managed to sneak around the side of the station and quickly scoot through the entrance to land without getting scanned again. Turns out the turn in for that quest was broken, so I just had to make do with selling the thing at the black market for about 4k instead of 14k reward. The bounties just about nullify the fines.

In the end I've learned that I probably need a less lawful system, that bounties are fun but not valuable, that cops are avoidable but you have to be fast, and that I'm not bothering with a black box quest again.

Be on the lookout for a bug when shooting at a wanted ship. I got a small bounty for attacking a wanted sidey. I'm not sure if it's because I fired too fast or what, but it nearly got me killed by a PC bounty hunter (he would have been disappointed by the 200 cr reward though)

Lots and lots of disconnection problems still going on. Usually when entering supercruise or hyperspace.

Tamren wrote:

Do you think it will be possible to progress in the game using a mercenary combat focused lifestyle? Not super interested in trading to be honest.

Yes, but it takes longer. I didn't trade at all in Beta and I was worth about 700k by the end, mostly missions (including some small take this to this guy runs) and bounties. With trading I made my first mil in gamma in about 6 hours. Trading is just the most profitable method right now, but it's not the only method, especially if flying a Cobra is appealing to you (it's affordable on a non-trading income).

I think a lot of people are treating trading like "killing rats" in other MMOs - you use it to grind out the money for the ship you want then you go do what you actually want to do. Then there are the "real" traders that actually want to trade.

Money making was all over the place in Beta. I got my first Cobra farming conflict zones in premium beta; later betas through trading; the latest through missions and trading combined.

Gaining money isn't the be all and end all anyway. A skilled pilot in a reasonably kitted out Viper or Cobra will keep themselves in fuel, ammunition, and upgrades just fine. As long as you have the money to keep doing what you find fun the rest doesn't matter.

Shoal07 wrote:
Maq wrote:

I assume the lasers are for shield-stripping and the autocannon for punch.

Pretty much. The ships with low amount of hardpoints are limited in effective combinations, so you'll see autocannons and lasers as a common loadout. I've been using 2xACs (size 2, gimballed) and 2xBeams (size 1, non-gimballed) in a Viper (same wep config as Cobra) with good success.

Maq wrote:

Can anyone recommend good armaments for a a Cobra?

The Cobra benefits well from thruster upgrades. They're more effective the lighter your ship, so if you want a really fast turn radius try to run as light as possible. The best fighters are pretty much stripped down to only what's required for fighting (every ton matters). Some people even use a smaller size fuel tank, or run it half empty, to save tonnage.

Thanks for the tips, btw. I sank some money into improved thrusters and a gimballed MC/BL loadout and, my god she's a monster now. I'm enjoying baiting interdictions and then ripping whatever idiot Eagle shows up to shreds in 2 passes.

I spent the rest of the cash I made trading rares on a class C fuel scoop and a detailed surface scanner so I can make some money on exploration while I'm out and about baiting pirates.

Someone on reddit said that you need to target and lock before firing on a wanted ship. That may or may not help.

Interesting discussion about grinding. I look at it like different characters. I guess it's my different ships. Mine a little, trade a little. Too much of one gets boring. I switch it up to keep it interesting. No other people still.