Elite Dangerous Catch-All

UA - Unknown Artifact. Found within about 150 LY of Merope in Unknown Anomaly type signals.
UP - Unknown Probe. Found around some Ammonia based worlds, and around alien crash sites.

athros wrote:

So, they're strong. Really strong.

But not interested in fighting.

They look to me like the scouts sent to find the preretroencabulators* and frabjamulators** that have gone missing near human space.

* "unknown artifacts"
** "unknown probes"

Yeah, I suspect they might not even have combat logic until either 2.2.03 or 2.3 even.

Still, really, really cool.

EDIT:

Also, word on Reddit is that a UA/UP might not be needed to see the event -- just being in the right part of space should be enough (although maybe a UA/UP increases the chance?).

With all the excitement over aliens and my shiny new combat ship...I went mining.

Mostly because I've never done mining before and there's a CG right now. (If you're interested, the ring around HIP 4005 5 A is pristine and only a jump or so away from the CG. Beware of pirates if you visit the RESs, though.)

Scanning the wake gets you "Unidentifiable wake" and "Unknown wake data"

Anyone know when the patch is likely to drop that removes Engineer commodities?

Well that's me buying a new joystick tomorrow so I can get my ship off the planet it's been stuck on the last couple of weeks

A solid hours reading on the Canonn thread in the official forums seems to indicate that:

It's all kicking off in the shell of stars around Merope where UAs and UPd have already been found

It may or may not increase the likelihood you'll be hyper-dicted (as people are calling it) if you have a UA or UP in your cargo hold, but apparently there are plenty of people without either who've been hyper-
Dicted

Scanning the wake just leave you with 'unknown wake' Data. You can't follow the ship - it would appear it's a different technology.

Some debate about whether or not it's the thargoids or someone else, but general consensus is that it is a thargoid ship.

babakotia wrote:

Anyone know when the patch is likely to drop that removes Engineer commodities?

My original guess was that it would be this week or next, but it sounds like most of their staff was still on vacation this week. So, my updated guess would be next week or the week after? Hard to say, but I expect we'll hear more when they are back at work Monday or Tuesday either way.

Engineers so far is a lot easier than I thought it would be. I have three leveled up to rank 4 and all it took me was very basic resources I had in abundance like common scan data and iron/nickle. It takes less than 20 to reach rank 3 using only rank 1 recipes, and then from there it only takes about 50 more rank 1 recipes to reach rank 4. Of course this is a lot more viable for me seeing as I'm attempting this AFTER the patch that tripled all gathering rewards, but still.

Your faction needs you!
Veloxi's Vixens is at war in Negasargun. The reason that this is special is because there is only one station in the system (currently controlled by "Jet Transport"), AND the Vixens have gained the majority influence in the system recently.
In other words, I think we have a chance to be the controlling faction in this system next to Orcus*. Come blow some ships up ! It should be active for a week or so.
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/zRDnuDE.png)

*Note: My understanding of the background sim is tenuous. This might not be true.

What's the difference between War and Civil War? Is it just foreign faction vs local faction?

Yup.

Veloxi's Vixens are offering massacre missions in Negarsargun. For a long time there were none, or missions for Jet Transport but not for the Vixens, but I finally got some.

Well, this mining was getting kind of boring anyway...

As soon as I pick up 3 more Modular Terminals and drop them with Qwent, I might head back over that way.

I had spent a few days there over the holidays before moving on.

Veloxi's Vixens is now the controlling faction at Murray Ring.

Have an itch to drop back in on Xbox One. Last time I played I made enough money to outfit the next upgrade of a ship from the starter, kit it with some fairly decent guns, and do some bounty hunting in mining fields. That's about the extent to which I've experienced this game.

I know there's a ton to do, and I'd like to get back in to do more, but all of the possibilities are quite overwhelming at this point. Re-understanding controls will take long enough, any recommendations for what to do first given whatever the meta is currently in order to make meaningful progress in an area in relatively short order? I feel like I got "stuck" quickly last time, if that is such a thing.

Exploring, mining, fighting - it's all appealing to me, but is one discipline or area clearly more fun/rewarding at this point of the game than something else in terms of making money? My ultimate goal is to get a beast of a fighter ship - I really dig combat - but maybe mining or something else is more beneficial to spend time on in the shorter term?

babakotia wrote:

Veloxi's Vixens is now the controlling faction at Murray Ring.

I was going to say "nevermind", but the System Map still shows a state of "War" for both VV and Negasargun Jet. We're up 47.4% to 27.4%. I guess that means we need to keep helping out?

That's a very nice station, and it orbits a nicer planet than Orcus 1.

I also remember that Negasargun is one of the places where I've actually lost a ship. I think I was interdicted by a highly-ranked Conda or FAS, but it's been a while.

Yeah, the war is still going on, there's a single high-intensity combat zone that gets a little bit hairy! I'm not sure at what stage of proceedings the factions switch out ... when I arrived in the system Murray's Ring was controlled by Jet Transport, I noticed it had flipped to the Vixens when I came back to re-arm and repair.

So have Capital ships disappeared? Or are they just exceedingly rare?

Been having a lot of fun Dune-buggying around Farseer's moon gathering mats to rank up to lvl 5 with her.

babakotia wrote:

when I arrived in the system Murray's Ring was controlled by Jet Transport, I noticed it had flipped to the Vixens when I came back to re-arm and repair.

IMAGE(https://transplantedtatar.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/20120902-dss_8656.jpg)

Wayfarer wrote:

So have Capital ships disappeared? Or are they just exceedingly rare?

With all the happenings in the Pleiades the last 48 hours, the area is crawling with them. Almost every system in that nebula has a cap ship at the moment.

WizardM0de wrote:

Have an itch to drop back in on Xbox One. Last time I played I made enough money to outfit the next upgrade of a ship from the starter, kit it with some fairly decent guns, and do some bounty hunting in mining fields. That's about the extent to which I've experienced this game.

I know there's a ton to do, and I'd like to get back in to do more, but all of the possibilities are quite overwhelming at this point. Re-understanding controls will take long enough, any recommendations for what to do first given whatever the meta is currently in order to make meaningful progress in an area in relatively short order? I feel like I got "stuck" quickly last time, if that is such a thing.

Exploring, mining, fighting - it's all appealing to me, but is one discipline or area clearly more fun/rewarding at this point of the game than something else in terms of making money? My ultimate goal is to get a beast of a fighter ship - I really dig combat - but maybe mining or something else is more beneficial to spend time on in the shorter term?

Mining's not hugely profitable, fighting can be if you don't get blown up a lot (which you will until you get used to it). I just re-bought it on PC in the Steam sale to try it with a joystick, and, wow, is it faster making money the second time around. I got myself to Tun and joined the Federation, and, within probably 10-12 hours, had myself up to a Cobra with its 44 cargo space. Go to the Mission Board, look for booze runs to Bounds Hub in Alrai, pick up multiple ones, and hope for some cargo-free data transfers as well. If there aren't enough of them, save, re-start it in either Open or Solo (whichever you just weren't in), look for missions, and rinse and repeat. I just did one where I had six missions to Bounds Hub at once, one jump away. Very profitable. Doing that also raises your rep, which gets you better missions, which gets you higher-paying missions, and so forth. Basically, try to stack missions to the same spot, get your rep up, get better missions, donate money if you have spare money to speed up the rep process, and it really just begins to add up.

On Xbox, I'm . . . somewhat further along (have a fully loaded AspX, a Vulture I can't fly well enough to justify owning it, a Viper for screwing around, and a Type 7 I wish I hadn't bought), and I'm basically running passenger missions there. Had one yesterday where I had to make two stops, one about 40ly, another I think 100 or so, and it was 4.5 million credits. So, you know, once you get your rep up, the passenger missions pay really well.

Trying to get into a Python, but it's going to take a bit of a grind, and, well, I still have Fallout 4 to play. Have to see how long the hooks stay in me this time.

There's currently a couple of High Intensity Conflict Zones right at the same planet orbited by Murray's Ring in Negasargun.

Whoops.

Wrong thread!

Why doesn't space look this cool all the time? When I'm just flying around a system the sky always feels washed out and I can barely see the stars. But then I land on a planet and the stars magically get brighters. Here's a shot I took from inside the pleiades nebula when I went to get my meta alloys. I was going to look for a barnacle but apparently all of the known sites have been claimed by the military.
IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/167030516895676031/175C03F918B8D96820513D61F36667337B5EA4AA/)

So I headed to towards the Pleiades today in search of Thargoids (?).

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/4GH1s3F.jpg)

My first stop, though, was "crash site 3" to pick up a UA. It might not be necessary, but I have a corrosive resistant cargo rack, so it couldn't hurt.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/oW0hyfH.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/VpIaqgj.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/6jwR6g9.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/dJZRZQ9.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/O6kEdo3.jpg)

Then, I headed off for the border of the Pleiades and the Aries Dark sectors, and jumped around for about an hour and a half, before...

Pretty damn cool in person!

Kind of wish I had been in an Asp, though, with its more open cockpit.

I finally finished collecting enough Modular Terminals for Marco Qwent, then spent a little time getting him up to Rank 4 (and getting invites from Professor Palin and Lori Jameson before I headed out to Negasargun.

I said hello to Grem as I docked at Murray Ring (because I have to head to dinner). Unfortunately I noticed that Murray doesn't sell HRPs, so I'll have to head out to get those before jumping into a CZ...

I also updated INARA so that it shows the correct owners for Murray Ring (and Tombaugh!).

zeroKFE wrote:

Kind of wish I had been in an Asp, though, with its more open cockpit.

I did this in an Asp and VR last night. Whoa.

I made it to Expert!

More massacre missions would be nice, but all the ones I'm getting at Tombaugh and Murray's Ring are for hauling supplies, so I may switch to that for a bit. The Fer de Lance is much better at surviving in combat, but when I screw up it costs an arm and a leg to rebuy...