Elite Dangerous Catch-All

That's gonna be a no from me... I've been playing around 5 years and just passed 1 billion the last time I played. I already have a job that stresses me out, don't need two.

IMAGE(https://preview.redd.it/5dogdm3fyfr41.jpg?width=768&auto=webp&s=ee06713de56f423c0a0476445eb5e92fab56ae42)

That is one hell of a money sink.

I'm just gonna go look at more space corals instead.

It looks like the upkeep is intended to be covered by players using the station services, but the cut the ship owner gets is a premium on top of the standard price of those goods... and people are already willing to travel across the whole bubble for a 5% discount based on power play so i don't see how that will make money for anyone.

Has anyone explained yet why players would want to buy from a random PC carrier outfitter instead of Jameson Memorial?

Here's a video about the fueling for each jump. The estimate was about 20mil worth of fuel needed for each 500ly jump, if you're buying it from the market instead of mining.

Well, it sounds like Frontier listened to the feedback.

  • The upkeep cost for all additional services will be reduced by 80-90%.
  • Core running costs will be reduced by 50%
  • The debt threshold has been updated so a carrier can go 10 weeks (up from 4) without paying upkeep before being issued a final warning.
  • The total upfront activation costs of some of the more expensive services will be reduced by 35-45%.
  • 15 minute spin up for jumps and 5 minutes to cool-down.
  • Universal Cartographics will become available as an optional service. (Pays out 25% less than a station.)

Still not for me but this sounds like some good changes.

Al wrote:

Well, it sounds like Frontier listened to the feedback.

  • The upkeep cost for all additional services will be reduced by 80-90%.
  • Core running costs will be reduced by 50%
  • The debt threshold has been updated so a carrier can go 10 weeks (up from 4) without paying upkeep before being issued a final warning.
  • The total upfront activation costs of some of the more expensive services will be reduced by 35-45%.
  • 15 minute spin up for jumps and 5 minutes to cool-down.
  • Universal Cartographics will become available as an optional service. (Pays out 25% less than a station.)

Still not for me but this sounds like some good changes.

This puts it in my range of "maybe something i will grind some money for"

I do really enjoy mining now, esp with the addition of cores/chunks and night vision mode and it's pretty lucrative.

can you add a cartographer to your carrier then then have them pay you as you are exploring as a way to cover the upkeep of the ship?

thrawn82 wrote:

can you add a cartographer to your carrier then then have them pay you as you are exploring as a way to cover the upkeep of the ship?

Seems so, though you'll lose 12.5% to fdev tax. Still will make it possible to do as an explorer. At least potentially.

I just... don't see any actual functionality these bring. It's a whole lot of work for... what? To lose credits?

The only time you're taking this thing out of the bubble is for exploration, which would then require hours and hours of grinding to fuel the thing to get it where you want it, just to... save you time? Can't be that, because you could explore the entire galaxy at one time and turn in all your data at once, you don't have limited storage so there's no reason to turn in systems piece-meal unless you're a crap pilot that dies a lot.

Every other activity can be done in the bubble, near stations, that will provide more return for whatever activity you're doing and don't require fuel grinding or upkeep. The only slight outlier would be mining, in that it becomes more efficient to load up the carrier then jump it back to sell all at once, but you are still taking a cut of your profits to keep this thing moving, unless you park it in one system and never plan to move it.

Unless I'm missing something massive, this really just feels like a e-peen measuring contest. Which sucks, because I was really looking forward to carriers but don't really see any reason to attempt to get one.

The Deep Space Support Array Initiative

Idea is to keep your privately owned carrier parked in a known spot in the galaxy for a year, to help explorers.
I'd be impressed if this got enough uptake to work.

I just started over from scratch with this on a wild hair last night. Is Veloxi’s group where everyone still goes? (If anyone still goes, that is)

i dunno how active the GWJ crew is. if Veloxi's Vixens aren't active enough for you, i can heartily recommend my squadron, The Fatherhood. Extremely active and there's always a few someones on the discord if you have questions or need some help. Either way, if you want someone to play alongside let me know, it'd be fun to have a reason to go back to small ships for some fun.

Sure thing tycho! I saw you on last night while I was playing. Wanna pm me the info?

sent you a pm via the forums (did you know there are 2 fogrobs on the discord? are they both you?).
also, finally cracked 1,000,000,000 cash on hand. doubt i'll make it to the many billions needed for my own carrier though.

Picked this up for PS4. I did a bunch of simple transport missions and bought the Cobra mkIII ship. I then accepted a few bounty and massacre missions, but it took me forever to kill the first bounty. Hell, he might not have gone down if the police hadn’t shown up. I wasn’t taking damage but clearly wasn’t doing much either.

I went and did the advanced combat tutorial and handled the enemies there easily so it doesn’t seem to be my technique.

What weapons should I be using? And in what slots?

Thanks in advance. I poked around the links in the OP but got lost in terminology over my head. Also seems PC focused in terms.

Combat missions are really difficult, and definitely not worth the reward.
If i remember right the advanced combat tutorial has you flying a vulture. That mounts WAY bigger guns then your cobra. You have maybe half to 2/3rds the firepower and much lower survivability.
Generally though, you want laser weapons for killing shields and multi cannons to kill the hull. Use gimbaled weapons unless you are REALLY good. The higher damage of fixed is sexy but useless if it isn't always on target. Ignore missiles/torpedoes, they aren't worth it outside of very rare corner cases.
If you're gonna do combat go to a resource extraction zone and scan for wanted ships. That way you can choose whether or not to take on a ship after seeing it. Alas unless you are an expert pilot in a highly engineered ship, you just can't take on ships bigger then you reliably.
Drop me a line on the discord sometime and I'll try to help you out a bit.

Hmm. Not sure what gimbaled means so I’ll have to look that up.

Is combat an unrealistic pursuit in the game in general? Not sure I’m up for proceeding if the ultimate goal isn’t to have a badass ship and blow enemies up. I’m willing to put time in doing grunt work to get there, but if it’s always going to be a last resort type option... No disrespect to the traders and explorers, but that’s not what I’m looking for in a space game.

alright, basics first.
weapons come in 3 types:
fixed weapons do more damage for lower energy costs but do not track your enemies at all.
gimballed weapons do less damage and use more energy but they will track your currently targeted opponent if they are close to your crosshairs.
turreted weapons do alot less damage and use alot more energy and they can track enemies (even untargeted ones, though i believe they prefer your current target when possible) anywhere within their arc of fire.

now, generally, combat is certainly a something you can pursue and enjoy in the game, many people do. it is however the lowest payout, highest risk activity in the game.
for example, if i go mining low temperature diamonds (best potential mining payout in the game if you find the right buyer) for an hour in my nice mining ship, i'll finish up an hour session and i'll have profited in the neighborhood of 200 million credits with almost zero risk (maybe i'll have to run away from or kill 1 or 2 random npcs).
If i go bounty hunting for an hour in a combat ship that costs about as much as my mining ship, (combat ships get expensive REALLY fast) i'll profit maybe 20-30 million and there will be the significant risk that i'll get blown out of the sky and end up losing 20-30 million instead.

it should also be noted that except for rare cases, missions from the mission board are almost always lower payout then doing that activity on your own (there are a few types you can only do via the mission board).

none of this to say that combat can't be fun, it certainly can be a great deal of fun. but it requires a ton of credits to do and pays out very poorly, sometimes not at all.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Hmm. Not sure what gimbaled means so I’ll have to look that up.

Is combat an unrealistic pursuit in the game in general? Not sure I’m up for proceeding if the ultimate goal isn’t to have a badass ship and blow enemies up. I’m willing to put time in doing grunt work to get there, but if it’s always going to be a last resort type option... No disrespect to the traders and explorers, but that’s not what I’m looking for in a space game.

My experience (which, granted, is mostly old at this point -- I'm semi-retired ) is that combat missions tend to be annoying but combat outside missions can be quite rewarding and fun.

Get a Kill Warrant Scanner, ignore mission boards, and go bounty hunting. There's a progression from low to high risk and reward through Nav Beacons through Low-Intensity Resource Extraction Sites (RESes), High-Intensity RESes, to Hazardous RESes. All of those will spawn various mixes of pirates, "honest" ships, and police. Scan before firing or the police will open fire on you.

Combat Zones are more intense -- these are actual war zones, so the enemies in them are numerous and capable.

The Cobra is a good "all-rounder" ship, but if you want to focus on combat for a while, consider trading it in for a Viper, which has the same weapon options but trades cargo space for better shielding and maneuverability.

Got a new laptop and can run Elite in its full glory; even VR if I end up "joking" about it enough with my wife that she suggests I just go ahead and get a headset.

I had 30 hours in prior, and docked for a good while. It's rough getting the space legs back in shape, and I popped here to ask what to do. But - that OP is so awesomely curated, I don't really need to! Thanks for having such a well organized resource here.

Bought the game cheap on Xbox One. Three quick beginner questions:
Anyone else plating on Xbox? Can we join up?
How do I find wanted pirates? I went to the beacon at the sun for my starting system and found none. Am I doing it wrong, or did I get unlucky?
What do I do with the data I have collected from randomly scanning signals while in supercruise? I see them listed on the inventory screen. Should I go in for closer looks at these things?

Thanks#

Can't answer #1
#2 go resource extraction zones to find pirates
#3 that data gets used later in the engibeeribg system,don't worry about it for now.

To expand on #2: While the Resource Extraction Sites might sound like they're about mining (which they are good places to mine at now; way back in the day they weren't necessarily) they also spawn a lot of pirates attacking the miners.

The other advantage is that in systems with enough security, the cops will patrol RES, which means that they may occasionally save your ass when you get in over your head, which can easily make up for their occasional killstealing. (If you want to avoid that altogether, go hunting in systems with low security.) High or Hazardous RES have more and bigger ships, but are more dangerous.

You can also stack the bounties with missions that want you to kill X pirates.

Gremlin wrote:

The other advantage is that in systems with enough security, the cops will patrol RES, which means that they may occasionally save your ass when you get in over your head, which can easily make up for their occasional killstealing. (If you want to avoid that altogether, go hunting in systems with low security.) High or Hazardous RES have more and bigger ships, but are more dangerous.

One of the best ways to get your feet wet with combat is to killsteal from the cops.

If you see them shooting at a ship that you have already scanned and know to be WANTED, get in a few shots of your own. If you time it right and start shooting after the cops already have the target's shields down, it helps.

Be careful, though, you can still get killed if the target ship is decent, or if he has buddies. The scan will say something like 1/3 if the target ship is part of a wing. If you attack a ship in a wing, you've essentially attacked the whole wing.

Thanks!

If you want to try out a Fleet Carrier, but know you'll never be able to afford one, this week is your chance!

Starting from 21 May at 10:00 UTC and lasting until the end of the Beta (26 May), Fleet Carriers will cost a mere 1 million credits and ALL Additional Services will be reduced to 100 credits per service!

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/thread...

lorenzolio wrote:

If you want to try out a Fleet Carrier, but know you'll never be able to afford one, this week is your chance!

Starting from 21 May at 10:00 UTC and lasting until the end of the Beta (26 May), Fleet Carriers will cost a mere 1 million credits and ALL Additional Services will be reduced to 100 credits per service!

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/thread...

Woah, you could make a space bridge with all the carriers people are going to get with this promo and cross the galaxy allright. I mean, I haven't played properly in like 2 years and yet I have enough to buy 50 carriers in my account.

I assume that the cheap carriers are restricted to the Beta, though.