Elite Dangerous Catch-All

Wayfarer wrote:

aaaand of course your last post has that very link Will update OP now

Sweet, thanks!

All this talk about mining may make me to refit the Asp to give it a get go. Asp was probably the best mining ship as it was very manueverable, and even though space was limited.. no one in their right mind would want to do mining to fill more than 100t of cargo space or you'd go crazy.

Now that these Elite millennials just have to sit back and let drones (DRONES!!) do all the hard work I'm not sure the Asp has enough holds... I configured one on Coriolis that had just under 100t of cargo holds, 4 simultaneous collectors, and a prospector, but no shields.

Any of you guys tried much of the CQC combat? So far my experience has been thus:

1. I'm stuck in a Condor
2. Some of the people I fight have Eagles
3. It seems to take 5-10 times longer to kill an Eagle than it does to kill a Condor with my stock ship. I have to deplete my weapon energy multiple times just to get to their hulls.

Ergo, every time I get into a fight with an Eagle I just lose. They seem to have more health and shields than I do, even if I can turn a tiny bit faster it doesn't matter because if someone gets on my tail I die before I can rotate my ship 180 degrees to face them. And all of the weapons are gimballed so dodging really doesn't do anything. They should have made all of the weapons fixed, then this might actually take some skill.

PSA: The galaxy map is usually a reliable guide to what sort of star you'll find in a system you haven't been to yet, but not always--yesterday there was a system a jump or two from the Kaushpoos Community Goal system which the galaxy map reported as being a red dwarf system.

Well, it did have a red dwarf in it, but the star you encounter when you jump in is a white dwarf, yikes. The system's name was UVB 9xxx (can't remember the rest of the number--might have been UBV..), and is named after the red dwarf star, but the white dwarf is NN-something.* Just be careful to zero your throttle before jumping, kids.

Anyone else run into this? *Is this a bug or working as intended? I thought systems were named for the star you face when jumping in, and that all stars in the system had the same name+A, B, C etc. I know of course that you always land close to the star with the greatest mass.

Tamren wrote:

Any of you guys tried much of the CQC combat? So far my experience has been thus:

1. I'm stuck in a Condor
2. Some of the people I fight have Eagles
3. It seems to take 5-10 times longer to kill an Eagle than it does to kill a Condor with my stock ship. I have to deplete my weapon energy multiple times just to get to their hulls.

Ergo, every time I get into a fight with an Eagle I just lose. They seem to have more health and shields than I do, even if I can turn a tiny bit faster it doesn't matter because if someone gets on my tail I die before I can rotate my ship 180 degrees to face them. And all of the weapons are gimballed so dodging really doesn't do anything. They should have made all of the weapons fixed, then this might actually take some skill.

I only played up to maybe rank 13 or 14, but the Condor is my favorite of the three ships -- you just have to really, really fly that thing defensively to stay alive. Use your chaff early and often and pick your battles wisely, and you can do just fine in the stock ship.

Papageno wrote:

Anyone else run into this? *Is this a bug or working as intended? I thought systems were named for the star you face when jumping in, and that all stars in the system had the same name+A, B, C etc. I know of course that you always land close to the star with the greatest mass.

I wonder if this is because it was based on a real-world observed system. I'd guess that would be why the two stars have different catalog numbers, at least.

From Elite Dangerous Update email #96:

More than 220,000 pilots have signed a petition calling for an inquiry into the lack of anti-collision lights on starships and emergency lighting on system-authority ships. Jenson Zanetti, chairman of the Pilots Federation Safety Board, stated: "At some point in their careers, most pilots will be struck by an authority or private vessel they did not see, which can be disastrous for both parties. If our proposals are implemented, we predict a massive decrease in the number of fatal collisions in and around space stations."

I decided to read way too far into this comment from their newsletter. I think they will be making it mandatory for ship lights to be on before you can dock without penalty.

If I'm right, it's a great idea to increase immersion. It would also make smuggling a tiny bit harder. Now I'll have to remember to turn my lights off too before sneaking into the station.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Pristine rings, listed

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

K... dumb question: where does the word Pristine come from. Is that the same thing as just "Metallic"?

Pristine/major/common/depleted describe the amount of whatever is there.

Metallic/Metal Rich/Rocky/Icy describe the content. Metallic will tend to favor the metals, I think Metal Rich actually favors the Minerals. Rocky and Icy are generally worthless when it comes to mining.

I'm not sure if there is such thing as a "Pristine Icy" ring, but Pristine Metallic will be what you want to mine to get maximum amount of the high value metals.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Pristine/major/common/depleted describe the amount of whatever is there.

Aha! That's critical info. I never looked at that part of the display where the word Pristine shows up I only saw the Metallic/Rocky/etc stuff before. Thanks.

Well, that was certainly a fun diversion, but yeah, even with drones pure mining doesn't even start to be comparably profitable to trade, or useful for CG material gathering. Might be able to make good money if you hunted down a station with lots of mining missions that was close to a good pristine metallic reserve, but I think I'll still mostly be sticking to professions with more predictably large profit potential.

You've gotta look really hard for metallic rings with major or pristine reserves anymore (well, in inhabited space, of course), I think they've mostly been sucked dry.

Calling it a night here in Portland. Managed to get into the 70% tier of the Kaushpoos CG (so far of course), but metals are getting harder to come by in the surrounding systems. They've gotta work those virtual miners harder!

zeroKFE wrote:

Well, that was certainly a fun diversion, but yeah, even with drones pure mining doesn't even start to be comparably profitable to trade, or useful for CG material gathering. Might be able to make good money if you hunted down a station with lots of mining missions that was close to a good pristine metallic reserve, but I think I'll still mostly be sticking to professions with more predictably large profit potential.

It would be a lot easier if you could stockpile rare elements, but it still wouldn't compare to trading because time spent moving from system to system could make you even more money with a full cargo hold.

I haven't had time to play lately, but I did have a little bit of time to put together an emblem for the faction:
IMAGE(http:///www.isaackarth.com/files/public/vv/VeloxisVixensLogo.png)
SVG File

Oh man, I hope they allow a custom decal for the player factions.

I love that a lot.

That's really good!

Awesome logo! So learn me on these player factions: you don't pledge to them as you do with a power, right? You just take bulletin board missions from them?

Yeah, you basically can trade with them, turn in bounties and do missions, and all that helps our rep.

Oh man-- bounty hunting for Veloxi's Vixens last night in a Hazardous RES, using my new X52 Pro... Things were going so well, had almost 1mil credits in bounties to collect after a half hour of super fun combat, then I decided to pick a fight with an Anaconda in a 3-wing group to round out the night. Figured I could handle him given he was fending off a couple others, but then his wings swooped in on me and I forgot how to retract hardpoints and jump out using my new setup. Needless to say that little outing cost me a hundred thousand and a respawn at Tombaugh.

So bounty hunting for the Vixens is pretty fun. Much more purpose in it now destroying the Orcus Gold Family.

Couple of odd things though, accidentally got a 110cr bounty with the Vixens, but cannot pay it off at Tombaugh station. So now I am listed as wanted by my own peeps

Other weird thing is there is a high intensity conflict zone right outside our base, but we arent on either side.

If you wanted to use that emblem, we could form a wing on Inara.

General question about mining: is the thing to do now to look for planets with pristine metallic rings, then, instead of metallic belts that orbit stars (at least in inhabited space--because it seems that most of those have been tapped out by now)?

Also, it requires a lot more equipment than it did at the beginning, right? I gather that you need prospector drones (and a launcher for them?), collector drones (a separate launcher for them?) as well as the mining laser(s) and of course at least one refinery. Can you outfit a Cobra with all the necessaries and still have shields? Because I'm not going anywhere without shields (that would be crazy).

Friendly with the Vixens! Much nicer coming home to a green station. Still looking for a conflict zone with our faction as one of the sides.

Thanks for hunting and turning in bounties folks!

I'm trying really hard to love this game but it's challenging and lonely in the openness of space.

I'm fairly competent in combat since I come from the world of flight sims but I really don't understand this whole faction thing or why I'm fighting for this Duval person.

Anyone got a suggestion on some good tutorials?

Oh, and how do I get in on the Veloxi Vixens thingy? Thanks

Hey there, Bear, I have yet to go there, but I gather that you have to go to a system called Orcus to take missions from a BB at Tombaugh Station--to quote from a post by Brian (aka Veloxi) on quartertothree.com:

Imperial Federalist Labour Party of Veloxi's Vixens - Located at Tombaugh Station, Orcus

How far have you gotten into the game? If you've gotten into a Hauler (a fairly low level ship) you could start mining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkU-... to take metals (not minerals) to Neville Horizons in a system called Kaushpoos (make sure to sign up for the goal in the BB before selling your first load of metals).

Can't help you on the Power Play stuff because I haven't gotten into it. Maybe the first post in this thread has some links?

You can also trade with the station and turn in bounties as well, every little bit helps!

Veloxi wrote:

You can also trade with the station and turn in bounties as well, every little bit helps!

I've been focusing mainly on combat because mining when I started was incredibly boring.

I've got a fairly well outfitted Cobra but only about 1.5 million in the bank. I'll head over to Tombaugh to see if I can get myself into trouble!

Wayfarer wrote:

Still looking for a conflict zone with our faction as one of the sides.

I don't think there's going to be one -- as of the last time I checked, the civil war is several factions fighting for third place, behind Veloxi's Vixens and the local Imperial faction.