Elite Dangerous Catch-All

Gremlin wrote:
Tamren wrote:

How big is this dunebuggy thing supposed to be? If a sidewinder can carry one then it would make sense for it to fit down a standard cargo hatch/ramp/scoop like all ships have.

I haven't been able to find a good comparison image, though there's a Cobra in the livestream recording that will give you a loose sense. It looks like they will fit on the standard cargo ramp.

They also talked a bit about the buggy folding up and compressing itself when being stored to help it fit in smaller ships.

And for those without time to watch the video, here's the moment where the new figure of speech "jumping the cobra" was coined:

IMAGE(http://cdn.makeagif.com/media/10-21-2015/o3hHM4.gif)

Veloxi hands out too many mining/extraction missions!

Also, there is a Hazardous RES within 20ls of Tombaugh. Easy way to gather up some bounties and gain some rep with the faction.

Suck them rocks, boy.

Veloxi wrote:

Suck them rocks, boy.

Umm......ok then.

I had a great experience last night. I'd picked up two missions in Tomburgh Station to hunt pirates in Bhodi (sp?). Not with the Double V's, I'm afraid.

Out in Bhodi I found two massive wings of pirates with 8 ships in each! Twice I interdicted a Sidewinder and had the remaining 7 ships drop in really quickly. I was able to polish off the Sidewinder in each case but suffered close calls in each incident. Not wanting to try my luck any further but not having any luck finding lone pirates, I dropped into a Strong Signal Source. Holy Furball! There were around 8 System ships fighting an equal number of pirates. Big ships, too. Anacondas, Pythons - even a Federal Dropship. I started to cherry pick and was able to help out the system ships take out 5 of them, netting me nearly $500K in bounties as well as completing both missions.

Anybody know of a Compromised Nav Point near Orcus? They seem to offer the best in bounty hunting. I need to get my combat rating up before I can accept any Veloxi missions.

There is a Hazardous RES less than 20LS from Tombaugh. Just as target rich as a compromised beacon, but a little less easy because you have to dodge rocks and you can get unlucky and end up on the dark side of the planet. That being said, for me this am the hazardous RES was very near the dark side but based on position and sizes of the planet/star its really more of a dark patch than an entire blacked out section.

More importantly because its actually in Orcus, even without a KWS I believe the bounty you are earning actually contributes towards your VV reputation.

Carlbear95 wrote:

There is a Hazardous RES less than 20LS from Tombaugh. Just as target rich as a compromised beacon, but a little less easy because you have to dodge rocks and you can get unlucky and end up on the dark side of the planet. That being said, for me this am the hazardous RES was very near the dark side but based on position and sizes of the planet/star its really more of a dark patch than an entire blacked out section.

More importantly because its actually in Orcus, even without a KWS I believe the bounty you are earning actually contributes towards your VV reputation.

Isn't Orcus anarchy so attacking without a KWS won't give any bounty?

Moggy: You can also try one of the few conflict zones near Bhoda 4 or 5-- right outside of Harawi Terminal. I was racking up 500-700K in combat bonds before leaving to re-arm, and I found that the enemy faction was Mafia of Bhoda-- who I realized were the pirates I was after for a nearly-identical mission to yours, that I picked up at Tombaugh Station.

JeremyK wrote:
Carlbear95 wrote:

There is a Hazardous RES less than 20LS from Tombaugh. Just as target rich as a compromised beacon, but a little less easy because you have to dodge rocks and you can get unlucky and end up on the dark side of the planet. That being said, for me this am the hazardous RES was very near the dark side but based on position and sizes of the planet/star its really more of a dark patch than an entire blacked out section.

More importantly because its actually in Orcus, even without a KWS I believe the bounty you are earning actually contributes towards your VV reputation.

Isn't Orcus anarchy so attacking without a KWS won't give any bounty?

That's why it was so quiet at a Hazardous RES the other night-- I was waiting around and saw that everyone was Lawless, and none were Wanted until I scanned one on a lark and saw that there was actually a bounty on him. Then I started scanning everyone. Problem was, not everyone turned up Wanted, and scanning each and every ship in the RES got a bit tedious so I went back to the conflict zones I found in Bhoda.

When was "the other night"? The system isn't anarchy anymore.. its run by Veloxi Vixens It was an anarchy system before. Lorezolio and I winged up and took a bunch of bounties.. and I know I didn't scan all of them.

Ships show up wanted. Go check it out today.

Carlbear95 wrote:

When was "the other night"? The system isn't anarchy anymore.. its run by Veloxi Vixens It was an anarchy system before.

Ships show up wanted. Go check it out today.

Oh cool. I didn't know that actually changed that.

Carlbear95 wrote:

More importantly because its actually in Orcus, even without a KWS I believe the bounty you are earning actually contributes towards your VV reputation.

Unless it's a VV I shot down. I think.

Carlbear95 wrote:

When was "the other night"? The system isn't anarchy anymore.. its run by Veloxi Vixens It was an anarchy system before. Lorezolio and I winged up and took a bunch of bounties.. and I know I didn't scan all of them.

Ships show up wanted. Go check it out today.

Ooooh, that's a good point-- this was two nights ago. Didn't the Vixens take over yesterday?

Can confirm that, made about 1.3 million credits in about 20 minutes. Best moment was watching a python destroy itself by ping-ponging between two asteroids. There was an elite Anaconda too. Seems the asteroid field is 'owned' by Veloxi's Vixens, so pretty much all the bounties came from them even though I do use a KWS. Oh and first ever fight with a Fer-de-Lance, worth 250,000 CR - more than the 'conda.

I've recently switched from the Python to the Fer de Lance and have been testing out loadouts. Similar to the Python it has some major power issues. I'm sensing a pattern when it comes to Frontier and fighting ships. I'm also trying out fixed weapons for the first time since I got my HOTAS.

Multi-Cannon's/Plasma Accelerator - This is a fun weapon combo. I was actually at the point where I was actually hitting ships with the PA. That's a good feeling because it's tricky as heck.

All Pulse Lasers - Not a huge fan of this. Without putting 4 pips into Wpns you can't fire that long. Unlike the Python where I was perfectly fine flying it with 4 pips in Wpns and 1 pip in the other two without losing much maneuverability the FDL rotates like a tank.

Multi-Cannon's/Cannon- This worked out pretty well for me but expect lots of trips to fill up ammo. It was nice being able to put 3 pips in both Sys and Eng.

Pulse Laser's/Plasma Accelerator - A good way to cook your ship.

Pulse Lasers/Cannon - I'm going to give this a try tonight.

I tried a PA for about 30 minutes. I just couldn't hit anything, and yes, your temps basically go to 100% after one shot. I guess you need an A-class powerplant in order to run one effectively.

My Python's large hardpoints are 2 pulses and a cannon. Its actually a great combo IMO. If you are running low on power, the cannon will still pretty much fire all of the time. Just don't try hitting anything smaller than an Asp with it.

Yeah, the FDL was a hell of a lot of fun (there really is nothing like one shotting a large ship with a direct hit to the power plant from a size 4 plasma accelerator) but at least for now, I just couldn't put together a build that would even begin to compete with a Python for PvE combat efficiency.

Of course, if they add a few more weapon options for huge hard points -- which supposedly is in the plans for 1.5 -- that could change quite a bit. For example, a size 4 beam laser paired with four multi-cannons would be quite something, I think.

With my Python Ive found an asymmetrical loadout that seems to work great

1x Turreted Beam laser (lg)
1x Gimballed burst laser (lg)
2 x med multi cannon
1 x cannon (med)

The turreted beam laser is in all fire groups, combine with the GBL for shield take downs, and then switch to MC and C(for cruisers) for the take down (while the turreted beam continues to rip in).

Everything is paper mache.

There's a new CG for the first stage of building a station in the Pleiades. For now, they are collecting metals at a station on the outskirts of inhabited space. The end goal is so awesome that I think I'm going to go help out one way or the other, but I'm very tempted to set my Anaconda up for mining and give that a go -- aside from piracy, it's the one major gameplay type I haven't played with yet, and this seems like a good time to try it out.

Anyone else play with mining since the addition of collector and prospector limpets? If so, how does this outfitting look?

- Are 8 collector drones enough to keep pace, or should I consider sacrificing a bit more cargo space in order to have more out simultaneously?

- How much does maneuverability matter when drone mining? Should I consider going out with better than D grade thrusters?

- Anything else I'd be missing with an outfitting along these lines?

I don't think you need that many collector drones. In fact I didn't know you could even put more than one control unit on at a time. if you fire all 8 at a time, they will quickly collect ore, but they'll also expire around the same time. I'm not sure even with all of your mining lasers will you be able to get enough ore, and you'll still be flying around looking for the right rock to mine. Having 8 drones idling that all expire together seems like a waste. Also, in my experience drones tend to spontaneously combust well before the expiration time, and they do it in waves.

You could save a little scratch by dropping your refinery to something that only has 6 or 7 bins, unless you really want to fill your hold with <2000cr/ton minerals. Basically you only care about Silver, Gold, Platinum, Palladium, Painite, Osmium, so if you keep a 7th or 8th bin for the extra ore you want to vent, that's good enough. You'll be venting just as much with 3 extra bins as you would with one since you really don't want to keep anything else.

Why not just let the refinery process a crap piece of coltan and just jettison later? Because your collector drones will go scoop them up after you jettison them, but vented chunks don't get re-collected.

Manueverability doesn't really matter. Since you're often flying with your scoop out and you have drones, you won't be going that fast.

I'm not sold on the prospector drones. Its just as easy to mine a chunk of ore off, look at it and keep going.

Also, don't forget each drone takes up a ton of cargo space, so don't go crazy with loading up on drones. You want to hit the sweet spot where you have enough drones to do what you need them to do, but not so many that they actually block your ability to collect more metal, or so few that you run out of them before you fill your hold. For my ASP I used about 1/3 of my remaining cargo space for drones, but I wasn't running a propector, and I only had 2 out at a time.

Also, if you're not in a pristine metallic ring, you're not mining correctly. You can sometimes get away with whatever the next level below pristine is (Major?), but anything less than that is an exercise in frustration.

Wasn't there an increase in mining fragments when using prospector drones in 1.4?

EDIT: Yep. Mining without a Prospector limpet attached to the rock will yield 8-12 fragments. With a prospector limpet 30-40. Proof from the beta.

Mine with a prospector zero.

didn't see that in the patch notes but would certainly make them somewhat valuable.

Thanks for the quick feedback!

athros wrote:

Wasn't there an increase in mining fragments when using prospector drones in 1.4?

Yeah, prospectors are actually not worthwhile -- before 1.4 they were of questionable utility, as Carlbear says.

I don't think you need that many collector drones. In fact I didn't know you could even put more than one control unit on at a time. if you fire all 8 at a time, they will quickly collect ore, but they'll also expire around the same time. I'm not sure even with all of your mining lasers will you be able to get enough ore, and you'll still be flying around looking for the right rock to mine. Having 8 drones idling that all expire together seems like a waste. Also, in my experience drones tend to spontaneously combust well before the expiration time, and they do it in waves.

Hm, okay. All the sample builds I found were stacking enough controllers for 9 or 10 concurrent drones. Maybe I'll outfit for 8 and see how that goes, then maybe drop the 3A if that feels excessive.

You could save a little scratch by dropping your refinery to something that only has 6 or 7 bins, unless you really want to fill your hold with <2000cr/ton minerals. Basically you only care about Silver, Gold, Platinum, Palladium, Painite, Osmium, so if you keep a 7th or 8th bin for the extra ore you want to vent, that's good enough. You'll be venting just as much with 3 extra bins as you would with one since you really don't want to keep anything else.

Well, not too concerned about the cost of the bigger refinery, really. But, the point about necessity makes good sense for pure profit or mission mining. However, since I'll be mining for a CG, I might be a bit more liberal about taking everything that comes my way to deliver as much tonnage as fast as possible.

Manueverability doesn't really matter. Since you're often flying with your scoop out and you have drones, you won't be going that fast.

Ah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Also, if you're not in a pristine metallic ring, you're not mining correctly. You can sometimes get away with whatever the next level below pristine is, but anything less than that is an exercise in frustration.

Noted.

The good news is, folks on Reddit have already shared a couple pristine locations near the CG. How long they will last is a different question, but still, it should start out well.

--

Thanks again!

Yep. Mining without a Prospector limpet attached to the rock will yield 8-12 fragments. With a prospector limpet 30-40. Proof from the beta.

Mine with a prospector zero.

Also, if you're in a pristine metallic belt, you only need a 9 bin refinery for automatic processing of everything, as there are only 9 types that will spawn.

Pristine rings, listed

http://imgur.com/a/vEqgv/

unforunately distance from Sol or wherever is not clear, but I've used this list before.

As far as the prospector limpet goes.. that's interesting. But if you can only have one prospector out at a time, again, I'm thinking you'll have idle (and expiring) drones. Maybe the difference for this CG is that you don't really care what metal you get whereas when you are actually mining for specific profit the bottleneck isn't drone collection speed, but your ability to find rocks with the correct ore. Also, if you can now get 30-40 chunks, then yeah, more drones are needed. Pre 1.4 when you only got 10-12 chunks, having 8 drones would be kind of a waste.

Also, I assume you know.. once you find your pristine metallic ring.. don't mine in the RES.. head towards a lighted spot on the ring and just let the proximity force you out of supercruise. You'll still find NPC's in non RES's but very few.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Pristine rings, listed

http://imgur.com/a/vEqgv/

unforunately distance from Sol or wherever is not clear, but I've used this list before.

As far as the prospector limpet goes.. that's interesting. But if you can only have one prospector out at a time, again, I'm thinking you'll have idle (and expiring) drones. Maybe the difference for this CG is that you don't really care what metal you get whereas when you are actually mining for specific profit the bottleneck isn't drone collection speed, but your ability to find rocks with the correct ore. Also, if you can now get 30-40 chunks, then yeah, more drones are needed. Pre 1.4 when you only got 10-12 chunks, having 8 drones would be kind of a waste.

I'll play around with it and report back.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Also, I assume you know.. once you find your pristine metallic ring.. don't mine in the RES.. head towards a lighted spot on the ring and just let the proximity force you out of supercruise. You'll still find NPC's in non RES's but very few.

Heh, yeah, I'm aware.

Although, it occurs to me that given the mining boost in RESes, pairing up a honey pot Anaconda miner and a bounty hunter or two in a wing might be quite fun (and profitable) all around.

I'm heading out to 38 Lyncis in an Imperial Clipper. Should be fun

I can confirm that prospector limits are completely worth it now.