Elite Dangerous Catch-All

Nice, I haven't repainted my Asp Explorer from my SagA* trip either, anyone can buy a shiny new paint job on the store but you earn the weathered version!

I agree, the battered paintjob of a ship that's seen the light of the galactic core or the dark of the edge of the galaxy is a badge of honor. It's kinda like wrinkles, you earn those bastards!

This is my Beluga, on its way back home from Beagle Point. This is at Explorer's Anchorage at the core.

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/797631097902349237/C1CBBA23AB66CFAE7A90DAA55FA629DF97D7F243/)

I wonder if I can get it all the way down to bare metal.

Only 1 way to find out!

So with the Humble Racial Justice Bundle providing Elite Keys, I gave one to my 68 year-old Father In-Law, who is just in the last two months getting into some light PC gaming. He played Flight Sims in his younger days, but has been very wary of playing anything modern, for whatever reasons. He got into Terraria with his grandkids (our son/daughter), and I passed over the key to Elite to him.

As such, I went out with a mission to save the 10Mil needed to create a squadron. Space Dads in Space is now up and available to join. I searched hopelessly for a squad that featured the kind of descriptors and public message I would want, so I just went ahead and made it. (I also had no luck finding a GWJ crew).

Anyhow, I'm still a relative rookie pilot, but I'd welcome any to our humble and new squadron, as I seek to teach grandpa what little I know of the game. (I did just today get my SOL permit, and I feel very proud of that!)

My Commander's name is Zoso Ryder, PC, Open play. Please find me - or help me find you; I'm genuinely desperate for some human contact in the cold vastness of space.

I play in a private group with friends but I'd be happy to answer questions I can, or you can join the group if you want to group up sometime.

I'm just getting back into this with the Fleet Carrier update. I really didn't expect to because I can't afford a fleet carrier but whatever, I'm having fun. I hitched a ride on a carrier to Colonia, flew around, did some sightseeing and exploring, and hitched another ride back. Nice place, but I think I'd lose my mind trying to fly there myself.

maverickz wrote:

Turns out this game is a lot more fun when I don't read other people's opinions.

That's true of a lot of games or fandoms.

mudbunny wrote:
maverickz wrote:

Turns out this game is a lot more fun when I don't read other people's opinions.

That's true of a lot of games or fandoms.

Yeah, sorry to be a bummer. The game is awesome, the developers just need more follow through.

I really enjoyed my time wth elite, i managed maybe 500 hours so i definitely got my money's worth and i have no regrets, hell i even bought a second account.
Unfortunately it does seem for me like the more you understand the game, the less fun there is to be had. The grind is just so extreme relative to what you get. i really want to keep going back, but I've done all the activity types and exploring lost it's luster when i really started to understand how few things there are actually discover.
The only thing that brings me back occasionally is when a gwjer needs help getting started. Hit me up on discord if you need help btw.

About that grind...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/JE4h39o.jpg)

That represents about 3 hours of mining, and I wasn't even close to playing 'optimally'. There's still grinding in the game (engineers, ranks, etc) but credits are kind of free right now.

Is there a good guide for mining LTDs? I've been thinking about giving that a try.

Lately the hot thing is an exploit where you mine a rock, fly 30km away or so in a ship launched fighter, then teleport back to your ship and the rock has reset, allowing you to mine it again. I didn't do this trick, felt too cheaty to me, but it's there. I expect that one to get patched.

But basically all you have to do is fly to Col 285 Sector CC-K A38-2, which is a system about 300 ly outside the bubble. The first planet there has pristine icy rings with three overlapping Low Temp Diamonds hotspots. Scan the ring with a DSS to reveal the hotspots, then drop into the ring where the hotspots overlap. Practically every asteroid will be full of diamonds. Scan with a pulse wave analyzer to find rocks that have sub-surface deposits or can be blown up with seismic charges. Laser mining is possible too but it is slower.

Note that you can find LTD hotspots just about anywhere, but flying out to the triple spot makes the mining MUCH faster.

Once your cargo hold is full, just look up where to sell on edtools.ddns.net/miner and cash in.

I have kind of mixed feelings on LTD mining. On the one hand, the game needed some sort of late-game credit making grind. I burned out hard on saving for a Fed Corvette quite a while ago, and now I can finally get one. On the other hand, with minimal effort I can afford five corvettes now, this is clearly kind of crazy.

I have a fully outfitted and engineered Anaconda. But I know nothing about mining. What kind of loadout should I use?

For mining you'll need:

- A refinery (if you're only mining LTDs, it doesn't matter what size)
- Collector limpets (the biggest you can fit, maybe two. A lot of time is spent waiting for your collector limpets to collect bits so the more the better)
- Prospector limpets (you only need one at a time, so a very small controller is ok here)
- A pulse wave analyzer (this is a utility mount)
- A detailed surface scanner (technically only needed the first time you visit a system)
Don't forget to fill at least two thirds of your cargo hold with limpets.

Then for hardpoints you'll need:

- A mining laser if you want to laser mine
- A sub-surface displacement missile if you want to mine sub-surface deposits (and you definitely do, maybe bring two of these)
- A seismic charge launcher if you want to blow asteroids apart
- An abrasion blaster if you want to collect surface deposits

Fly around the mining site and ping your pulse wave analyzer. Some of the rocks will start glowing. Pick one and shoot it with a prospector limpet. When the prospector limpet attaches to the asteroid and you target it, it will display the asteroid's composition for laser mining in the lower left. If the asteroid has LTDs in it, it might be worth laser mining, but a lot of people skip laser mining altogether.

It will also display if the asteroid has a core. If it does (and the core is made of LTDs) you can blow it apart with seismic charges. Target the fissures on the outside of the asteroid (they'll appear in the contacts menu). Hold down the trigger to charge the seismic charge according to the strength of the fissure: Full charge for high strength, no charge for low strength, middle for medium strength. If you hit the fissure, a timer will start counting down (misses do not detonate, don't worry about them). A chart in the top right will tell you how many fissures you need to hit to get the optimal yield. Once you're there, fly at least 2km away and watch it blow up. The explosion will send out a bunch of LTD chunks for your collector limpets to scoop up, and it will reveal a bunch of surface deposits to shoot with your abrasion blaster. This minigame takes a bit of practice.

If the asteroid has subsurface deposits (these will appear on the contacts menu as well), you can shoot them with the sub-surface displacement missile. Shoot the deposit on the outside of the asteroid (they can be a little hard to spot at first) and hold the trigger down. A little window will start scrolling in the bottom left and I don't understand really what the top half indicates, but if you let go of the trigger when the cursor on the bottom half is on a blue part, the missile will spit out several LTD chunks for your limpets to collect. You'll see what I mean, this one takes a little practice too.

Repeat until cargo hold is full. Sub-surface deposits are the quickest, core mining is in the middle, and laser mining is the slowest, if you want to optimize your time.

That was more than I planned to write but I'm grinding Fed ranks right now and I needed something to do while supercruising to planets.

BuzzW wrote:

For mining you'll need:

- A refinery (if you're only mining LTDs, it doesn't matter what size)
- Collector limpets (the biggest you can fit, maybe two. A lot of time is spent waiting for your collector limpets to collect bits so the more the better)
- Prospector limpets (you only need one at a time, so a very small controller is ok here)
- A pulse wave analyzer (this is a utility mount)
- A detailed surface scanner (technically only needed the first time you visit a system)
Don't forget to fill at least two thirds of your cargo hold with limpets.

Then for hardpoints you'll need:

- A mining laser if you want to laser mine
- A sub-surface displacement missile if you want to mine sub-surface deposits (and you definitely do, maybe bring two of these)
- A seismic charge launcher if you want to blow asteroids apart
- An abrasion blaster if you want to collect surface deposits

Holy crap... I haven't played this game for probably 2 years and I have no clue what any of this is.

Thank you, this is SUPER helpful. I had just stored my Anaconda to buy a Python for mining, but now I'm thinking I can just do it in the Anaconda. I've found a couple of Anaconda mining builds.

Edit: Nevermind, I wanted to fly something new anyway, so I'm building this: https://s.orbis.zone/7fzy

Collector limpets and mining laser are the only thing that sounded familiar to me.

Nice write up, but damn do I really want to do all that?

I flew to Borann A 2, which is where everyone was saying to go for LTDs. Did a scan of the rings but didn't see any kind of overlapping areas. I think I'm doing it wrong. Can I reset the instance? Or something.

Apparently the addition of tritium has prompted a minerals reshuffle.

Yeah, the only triple overlap I've heard of discovered since the rerolling of hotspots is in Col 285 Sector CC-K A38-2. Much less convenient.

Stele wrote:

Collector limpets and mining laser are the only thing that sounded familiar to me.

Nice write up, but damn do I really want to do all that?

I actually found it kind of relaxing and fun for a while. Like old-style mining but with some minigames added in. Like anything though it gets boring eventually.

Stele wrote:

Collector limpets and mining laser are the only thing that sounded familiar to me.

Nice write up, but damn do I really want to do all that?

Ditto.

In order to afford all this, I'd either need to grind in order to buy the required gear or trade-in the grear that I've already bought for my Python.

I agree with BuzzW that Low Temp Diamonds seems to be a good mechanism to allow players to bridge the games many dead zones/flat spots (those points in the game where the next new ship, with decent upgrades, seems to be an eternity away and seems to require the sale of the current hard-earned ship).

I do wish the game offered the option of saving a loadout or two. I'm ruing the sale of my fully-loaded Asp Explorer in order to buy and not-quite-adequately equp a Python. I should have kept using the Asp, and simply upgraded they Python as funds allowed.

God! I want to get back in to Elite, but I just can't face the reality of it.

Since the new triple ltd hotspot is a bit away away from the bubble, maybe a joint expedition is in order. I don't need the cash so i could bring something scout/combat oriented to cover against pirates and help find good rocks.
Or i could grab something big with good jump range and transport the haul so y'all don't need a million jumps to get back. Then i can transfer everything to you guys via limpets and you can sell off several loads worth and really boost your bank accounts.
With the latter part, even if you don't have much of a cargo hold you could make a few hundred mill pretty easy.

I was going to mine, then I wasn't going to mine, then I was going to outfit my Anaconda to mine, then I didn't. It seems like a lot of work and threats from pirates. If I load up at the triple LTD in Col 285 Sector CC-K, whose to say I even make it back to sell it all. Plus, seems like a lot of work.

I'd need to login for the first time in a year or more and see what my status is. After the big stacking mission rush I know I finally got an Anaconda. And maybe a couple other ships.

And somewhere in there I finally started the engineer grind after getting the DLC on sale. But I remember hating that and finally quitting. No super extra long engineered jump range for me, sorry.

I'm not sure more credits would matter. But it's a thought.

Well, a long time ago I did the Road to Riches, and then two reputation grinds, which both brought me up to 350M in the bank and a fully outfitted and most engineered Anaconda. I thought about doing the engineer upgrades, which is probably the most realistic "thing to do". But i thought maybe mining could be quick cash, but it's really not.

relevent ot recent mining convos.

there is also This reddit FAQ from the Elite Miners subreddit.

I've been fiddling around again while trying to convince my friend to try it so we could do some wing stuff. Mostly I'm just hanging around high resource areas and attacking wanted ships after the fed ships lay into them. I don't want to only do that even though it's got me up to 2 million in about an hour and a half. What are some good objectives to give myself so I don't burn out on doing the same bounty thing over and over again?

b12n11w00t wrote:

I've been fiddling around again while trying to convince my friend to try it so we could do some wing stuff. Mostly I'm just hanging around high resource areas and attacking wanted ships after the fed ships lay into them. I don't want to only do that even though it's got me up to 2 million in about an hour and a half. What are some good objectives to give myself so I don't burn out on doing the same bounty thing over and over again?

I really enjoyed exploring settlements, guardian ruins and beacons, and Thargoid sites. Even flying around looking at various weird space phenomena was cool. And then there's engineering.

Update on the minor faction Imperial Federalist Labour Party of Veloxi's Vixens:
The faction is in 8 systems now, down from 9, after being recently kicked out of HIP 107936. In better news the Vixens have 5 stations around those systems, up from 4. Only two of those stations are large.
For those new to the game, this faction is named after Veloxi here on the GWJ forums.

There is another player faction named Imperial Grey Wolves in the same area, and when they appear they constantly get themselves ranked to the top of any system they're in, pushing the Vixens further down. I bet they have quite a few players in their group. It made me wonder: do you think a single player can significantly change the influence score of a faction by their lonesome?

In an earlier post I mentioned one day recently when I handed in two very large tourist missions (83 mil combined) and mucho exploration data (175 mil). I took that opportunity to experiment with the Background Simulation (BGS).

I had read somewhere that influence for a faction in a system accrues each 24 hours depending on what players do that day (trading to a faction controlled station, faction missions, etc). I had read there is a daily cap, a maximium the influence can swing per day. That's why, if you really want to change the influence score for one faction, it is recommended that you and your friends put in a medium amount of effort each day over many days instead of a giant amount of effort on one day (the cap would mean some of your giant effort goes to waste). Because of this, I chose to split my missions and exploration data into two different systems.

Asvinici was the system where, on June 10th, I handed in two large tourist missions to the faction "Imperial Federalist Labour Party of Veloxi's Vixens"
One tourist mission with "INF+" (in this case I chose the money reward instead of high influence)
One tourist mission with "INF+++++" (5 plusses!) (In this case I chose the influence reward instead of the highest money).
Influence went from 54.4% to 59.8%.
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/1EZJllV.png)

Mbere was the system where on June 10th I handed in 175 million credits worth of exploration data in a station controlled by "Imperial Federalist Labour Party of Veloxi's Vixens".
Influence went from 14.1% to 27.1%.
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/SGrxvJc.png)
Graphs taken from inara.cz but I drew the nice circles.

Could these be flukes and the increase due to other activity going on? Possibly but I don't think so. These graphs convince me that a single player can significantly affect the BGS and minor factions influence.

Heya
Back in tha day, when you wanted to sell a ship+armaments and get the maximum credits, the technique was to first sell off all your components, and then sell the ship. It had something to do with the % depreciation on your components if you sold them as part of the ship.
Does anybody know if it's still true that you're best off selling the components first?

as far as I am aware, that is still the case. E rate then sell for the lowest loss.