Elite Dangerous Catch-All

I'm someone who has never used the auto-docking computer, however after several times docking the Anaconda, I am now the proud owner of one. Much less stressful, and no more "fishing" for the landing point. On top of that it is kind of cool being able to look around while you land. Frontier has introduced (from what I can tell) some new station types since I last played. The high tech station (Ray for example) looks really cool!

They changed the internal models of the stations a while back. They are now meant to reflect the economy of each station. It is a nice touch I have to admit.

Sorbicol wrote:

They changed the internal models of the stations a while back. They are now meant to reflect the economy of each station. It is a nice touch I have to admit.

Lol I hadn't even noticed as I'm still at the trying not to hit anyone and get fined stage!

LondonLoo wrote:
Sorbicol wrote:

They changed the internal models of the stations a while back. They are now meant to reflect the economy of each station. It is a nice touch I have to admit.

Lol I hadn't even noticed as I'm still at the trying not to hit anyone and get fined stage!

Don't speed (keep the speed at or below 100 m/s) and you won't be fined/killed for running into people.

Not sure if anyone else was considering doing the Distant Stars expedition, but they picked a start date -- January 15.

The way they were talking sounded like they were waiting for 2.3, but I guess they got impatient?

Anyway, I've made my ship, and it's a relatively short trip, so I'll definitely be going. Mostly just need to decide on which paint job to run, although I might also need a bit more Yttrium for the jump boosts.

We've got a bunch of new players, so maybe I should update my new player tips:

Supercruise
- When in supercruise, your max acceleration is dictated by the local gravity. Max speed is also affected, so you can bleed off speed by skimming a planet.

- The time-to-destination estimate is based on your current speed. To not overshoot your target, slow down a bit. 0:07 seconds is the sweet spot: keep it at that estimate and you'll come in fast but not overshoot. (You can go a couple seconds slower if you want a little more time for your reflexes to kick in.)

- The other maneuver you can do is deliberately pass the target and execute a half-loop. This will bleed off speed (a planet's gravity well helps with this). You can also do a full loop before you get to your target.

- Remember, the blue zone on the throttle gives you the maximum turn speed.

Landing
- The small blue circle to the left of your radar is the direction to your current target. This includes landing pads. Can't figure out where to land? Look at the indicator.

- On the larger rotating stations, the entrance usually faces the planet.

- Coriolis stations (the cuboctahedron ones) have arrows on the holograph view, pointing towards the front of the station.

- The numbers are always at the front of the landing pad, where the ship needs to be facing.

Interdiction
- If you want to avoid being intercepted on a long trip through a system, pitch your ship away from the plane of the planet orbits and fly in an arc rather than going directly to your destination. This will avoid other traffic, including most pirates.

- If you get interdicted, you have two choices: try to run by chasing the blue target circle, or throttle down and submit.

- If you run and win the tug of war, your pursuer will get knocked out of supercruise and have to wait for their FSD to reboot. If you lose, your FSD will fail and reboot, and you'll be stuck out of supercruise with the pirate.

- If you throttle down, your FSD cooldown time will be minimized, so one viable strategy is to deliberately submit and then boost away while waiting for your FSD to come online.

- Jumping away to a different star (high wake) is harder to follow and avoids the mass lock versus jumping in-system (low wake).

Upgrading your ship
- You'll probably want to go for a longer jump range first. Either focus on upgrading your FSD (my strategy) or switching to one of the ships that has a better base range (Maq's strategy).

- Fuel scoops will also help, because you won't have to stop along the way.

- Currently, you get 100% of your purchase price when you sell a module back to the station, but only 90% when you sell it as part of a complete ship. (There's historical reasons for this, and it may change down the road.) Strip the big stuff off your ship before you sell it.

- Thrusters and Power Distributors are also universally valuable: thrusters help you move faster and turn faster, and better power distributors let you boost more often.

- Modules have a size number and a class letter. Generally, you want to go for the biggest number that will fit in the slot. Class has more tradeoffs: generally, A is best but most expensive, D is the least mass, and C is the middling compromise.

- Shield boosters are currently very powerful, so consider adding them.

Exploration
- Your starting ship comes with a scanner, but it isn't bound to a trigger. Go into your right-hand panel and add it to one of your firing groups.

- Now, whenever you enter a new system, switch to that firing group and hold down the trigger until you hear The Sound.

- This will get you exploration data, which you can sell at the stations.

- Selecting a planet or star listed as "unknown", pointing your ship at it and waiting will get you surface data, which is worth even more.

- I highly recommend new players do this as they go around the galaxy, because pinging a system doesn't take too much extra time and will get you a steady bonus of additional cash.

Rare Commodities
- Once you can comfortably travel 200 lightyears, you might want to consider trading rare commodities.

- Rare commodities can only be purchased from markets on specific stations, are unique to that station, and exponentially increase in price as you get further away from the source, topping out around 150-170ly away.

- Each station has a limit as to how many they will spawn per player, so only small ships will be able to fill up completely. You won't be able to get more than that number until you sell or jettison your existing ones.

- Travelling in a loop between rare-trading systems and combining the different cargoes can be very lucrative for players up to about a Type-6 or Asp size ship. (Larger than that and you have trouble filling the ship completely.)

Community Goals
- Every week, there are one or two special projects that all the players can contribute to. Contributing anything will get you a cash bonus, contributing enough to get into the higher tiers can get you millions.

- You must sign on to the Community Goal before you turn in your contribution, or it won't count.

- Right now, some of the community goals are in the Colonia bubble, 22,000 lightyears away on the other side of the galaxy, so maybe don't start with those.

Background Simulation
- Each faction in each system is affected by the players' actions, which gets incorporated into the background simulation.

- Becoming friends with factions gets you much better missions and mission payouts.

- Looking around for systems in specific states (civil war, medical crisis, boom, etc.) can help find bigger payouts. The news will often list some of these.

- Our GWJ/Veloxi faction is Veloxi's Vixens, based out of Orcus and recently expanding.

Things in Systems
- You should be aware of some of the places you'll see as you cruise around:

- Nav Beacons: scanning a nav beacon will reveal information about the system. They are also prime sites for hunting pirates, or for doing some piracy yourself.

- Resource Extraction Sites (RES): prime mining sites, but have lots of pirates. Which makes them great bounty hunting sites. Get a Kill Warrant Scanner and snipe at the ships the police are attacking: you'll get the bounty just for helping.

- Combat Zones (CZ): appear when factions are at war. When you jump in, you can pick a side (in function panel, on the right); you'll get combat bonds for every kill. Getting massacre missions will give you a bonus for enough kills, and massacre mission stack.

Powerplay
- There's a number of galactic powerplayer characters, who control different parts of human-settled space.

- Right now I advise newer players to avoid being directly involved, since the payouts are geared more towards highly-involved high-level players.

- However, be aware who controls which areas, because they have effects on trading and equipment prices. Particularly Li Yong Rui, who gives everyone a 15% discount on outfitting prices.

Voice commands
- A lot of people use Voice Attack to do spoken commands; there's some commercial voice packs that have prebuilt command sets and professional voice acting for computer responses.

- I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking plus the open-source Dragonfly plugin plus some Python scripting. Mostly because I use it for other things, so it's trained to my voice better than the default speech recognition.

Other Stuff
- You'll see Unidentified Signal Sources as you cruise around. These have encounters, ranging from salvage sites, to trading ships, to other things. (Weak and Strong signal sources are similar, but avoid the Strong ones when you're starting out unless you like fighting pirate Anacondas.)

- Pirates often leave you alone if you have no cargo, but there are some NPCs flagged as killers that will just attack on sight anyway.

Online Tools
https://eddb.io/
http://inara.cz/
https://www.edsm.net/
https://github.com/jamesremuscat/EDD...
http://elitetradingtool.co.uk/

athros wrote:

Don't speed (keep the speed at or below 100 m/s) and you won't be fined/killed for running into people.

Nah if you get hit in a station you get fined. I was waiting for a Clipper to come through the mail slot a while back, and an NPC ship came up off its pad straight into me. Got fined immediately despite the fact I was just hanging in the middle waiting for the slot to clear.

The game can be extremely arbitrary at times.

zeroKFE wrote:

Not sure if anyone else was considering doing the Distant Stars expedition, but they picked a start date -- January 15.

I'm very tempted, though the engineering requirements would mean I'd really need to get right on it (plus the Anaconda). Not sure I have the time...

Sorbicol wrote:
athros wrote:

Don't speed (keep the speed at or below 100 m/s) and you won't be fined/killed for running into people.

Nah if you get hit in a station you get fined. I was waiting for a Clipper to come through the mail slot a while back, and an NPC ship came up off its pad straight into me. Got fined immediately despite the fact I was just hanging in the middle waiting for the slot to clear.

The game can be extremely arbitrary at times.

Interesting. I've never been fined at a station for hitting a ship, or being hit by another ship, so long as I stay under 100 m/s and the ship doesn't (in general) explode. I've been fined after taking a hit because I ended up on a pad (Pad Loitering) and I've been fined when sitting over pads (More Pad Loitering). You might want to check why you got fined (if you still can).

What an excellent post!

A few extra thoughts to add perhaps:

- On the larger rotating stations, the entrance usually faces the planet.

As such, if you approach a station with the object it orbits at your back, you will be much more likely to drop from super cruise facing (or roughly facing) the entrance.

- Thrusters and Power Distributors are also universally valuable: thrusters help you move faster and turn faster, and better power distributors let you boost more often.

After getting a B or A class FSD, upgrading to an A class power distributor is almost always your best bang-for-buck upgrade. Power distributors are cheaper than any other part, and give you tons of benefit. Aside from being able to boost more frequently, you'll have deeper reserves for shields, and be able to fire your weapons more frequently.

- Modules have a size number and a class letter. Generally, you want to go for the biggest number that will fit in the slot. Class has more tradeoffs: generally, A is best but most expensive, D is the least mass, and C is the middling compromise.

Additionally:

B grade items are the heaviest, but more durable. You might hear that and think they might be good choices for combat ships, but generally speaking you're better off with an A grade item and using that saved weight to improve your ship in other ways. The only part I would ever recommend getting B grade is an FSD if for some reason you can't afford the A grade part yet. Otherwise, stick to A, C, or D depending on what you are doing with your ship.

Oh, and parts with no weight, like fuel scoops or AFMUs -- those you might buy as B grade if the price or power requirements for A grade are too much.

A and C grade parts weigh the same, but A grade gives better performance at the cost of higher power usage. Usually, you'll want the A grade part if you can afford it (especially now that a rank 1 or 2 power plant upgrade can get you the extra power you might need at little cost), but there are cases where you might not. For example, on a trade ship, maybe you don't need top performance from your thrusters or power distributor, but want a bit better than D grade. Generally, you'd go for the A grade since the weight is the same, but maybe the C grade part will let you use a lighter power plant.

I highly recommend new players do this as they go around the galaxy, because pinging a system doesn't take too much extra time and will get you a steady bonus of additional cash.

Also, as of 2.2 a discovery scanner can help you find targets for missions as well without having to stop at the nav beacon. Except where things are super tight, I generally keep a discovery scanner on all my ships. Starting out it will still be a tougher choice, but as your ships get bigger and more spacious, it rarely hurts to keep one on board.

Between these two sites:
https://eddb.io/
http://inara.cz/

you can answer just about any data driven question you have about the game. EDDB is particularly indispensable due to its excellent search tools that allow you to find just about anything you are looking for.

Worth noting, though, that the data is crowdsourced. If you want to be helping that effort out (and yourself in the process, since it will let you easily search data from anywhere you visit) I recommend using a tool like EDMC:

https://github.com/Marginal/EDMarket...

As an added benefit, the window for EDMC will provide you quick links to view data on the system and station you are currently at, as well as a configurable link to load your current ship loadout in one of the two following ship outfitting web tools:

https://coriolis.edcd.io
http://edshipyard.com

I personally prefer Coriolis for most purposes -- the UI is cleaner and more understandable. EDShipyard, however, does a slightly better job of surfacing certain statistics about your ship, and (currently) has better tools for simulating the outcome of using engineers to modify your parts.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/F9UsIRu.jpg)
Is this new? I don't remember seeing it before. Looks like it'll be handy.

Stuff I Forgot To Mention / Intermediate Tips

- You technically have two targets: nav targets and local targets. Selecting different local targets doesn't change your nav target. This distinction is important because...

- ...There's a button to select the next nav target on your route.

- The game doesn't pause when you hit ESC, but you can quit out to the main menu from anywhere without losing progress. (Though people really hate it if you log out during PVP, so maybe don't do that if you're flying in Open.)

- Speaking of which: there are three modes: Open (you see everyone else in multiplayer), Solo (you're by yourself), and Private Group (you just see those in the same group). You can switch between them at will by going back to the main menu.

- Mobius / Mobius PVE is a popular set of Private Groups for people who just want multiplayer PVE. We also have the Veloxi private group.

- There's an ongoing investigation of alien artifacts, which has recently been disrupted by the appearance of actual aliens. The Unknown Artifacts have a weird damaging effect on ships and stations, which sometimes puts stations out of commission until repaired.

- Some missions have known bugs, particularly some of the assassination missions. If you can't seem to complete a mission, double check if it's one of the ones with known issues.

- Binary systems can have stations hundreds of thousands of light seconds from the entry point. Don't go to Alpha Centauri unless you know what you're in for.

- Neutron Stars and White Dwarfs give you a jump boost if you can manage the maneuver. (I have yet to pull this off.)

- Being the first to discover something and bring back the data gets you a huge bonus and bragging rights. To date, less than 0.0001% of the galaxy has been explored. Going a few hundred light years out of the bubble will take you to unvisited territory as long as you're off the main routes.

- Exploration payout is roughly by mass and support for life. Black holes pay a lot, small ice moons don't. Jovians can be scanned from about 1000ls away, making them easy targets. (And get a Detailed Surface Scanner, it'll double your payout.)

- Some stars can't be fuel scooped because they're too small (T Tauri) or too big. Plan accordingly. The galaxy map has filters.

- You can bookmark systems on the galaxy map.

- There's some hidden easter eggs in Sol.

Is this new? I don't remember seeing it before. Looks like it'll be handy.

Yup, just added in 2.2.03. Previously you could only get that info by adding it up yourself, or exporting your data to Coriolis/EDShipyard.

And, they've actually said this display is hopefully temporary until they put together something a bit more functional.

Gremlin wrote:

We've got a bunch of new players, so maybe I should update my new player tips:

Landing
-Boosting at the Mail Slot is part of the initiation into Elite.

In other news, based on player data the human population of the galaxy is approximately 6,612,313,733,791.

Naterstein wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

We've got a bunch of new players, so maybe I should update my new player tips:

Landing
-Boosting at the Mail Slot is part of the initiation into Elite.

You haven't lived until you've boosted into the back of the station and gotten stuck in the mail slot because that TYpe-9 just had to come in.

Gremlin wrote:

In other news, based on player data the human population of the galaxy is approximately 6,612,313,733,791.

Naterstein wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

We've got a bunch of new players, so maybe I should update my new player tips:

Landing
-Boosting at the Mail Slot is part of the initiation into Elite.

You haven't lived until you've boosted into the back of the station and gotten stuck in the mail slot because that TYpe-9 just had to come in.

My favorite one ever was:
1. Fly towards slot.
2. Realize my landing gear wasn't down yet, so try to put it down.
3. Wind up just tapping "B" instead of holding, meaning I boost instead of lowering landing gear.
4. Get warning I forgot to request authorization to dock as I'm blasting towards the slot.
5. Try to pull away in panic and slam head-on into a freighter coming out of the slot, getting a fine.
6. Recover, and fly into the slot, still having not requested landing permission, getting a bigger fine.
7. Turning around, flying back out, waiting, requesting, landing, paying fine, saving the game, and going and doing something else for a bit.

athros wrote:

Interesting. I've never been fined at a station for hitting a ship, or being hit by another ship, so long as I stay under 100 m/s and the ship doesn't (in general) explode. I've been fined after taking a hit because I ended up on a pad (Pad Loitering) and I've been fined when sitting over pads (More Pad Loitering). You might want to check why you got fined (if you still can).

I remember the fine being for dangerous flying, but it occurred during one of the CGs just before Christmas. It wasn't a big fine so I just put it down to the game being the game. I was definitely stationary when the NPC ship hit me. Admittedly the guy in the clipper was making a dogs dinner of getting through the slot but still, it seemed a bit harsh.

Im having issues with updating to 2.2.03 - it seems to get to 99.9% every time and then stalls indefinitely. Have tried switching firewalls off, reinstalling the launcher but to no joy.

Never had upgrading issues before so wondered if anyone had had a similar problem

Thanks in advance

Went smoothly as usual for me.

Have you tried contacting support? They're usually quite responsive and helpful.

Wayfarer wrote:

I'm someone who has never used the auto-docking computer, however after several times docking the Anaconda, I am now the proud owner of one. Much less stressful, and no more "fishing" for the landing point.

I always fit a computer on my large ships, I pilot through the slot but let the computer handle final approach. Docking large ships manually is much harder than small ones because they cover up the indexing point on the landing position indicator. I really wish it was just a standard piece of equipment.

Sorbicol wrote:

They changed the internal models of the stations a while back. They are now meant to reflect the economy of each station. It is a nice touch I have to admit.

Yeah it used to be you had the flat grey aesthetic and the shiny white palm tree one. These days the old plain grey is still around, I think it's for refinery stations now? And the palm trees are for tourist/service stations. My favourite is probably the agricultural stations with the hanging gardens. The industrial stations can get annoying though because the whole station is packed with cranes and other gubbins.

athros wrote:

Don't speed (keep the speed at or below 100 m/s) and you won't be fined/killed for running into people.

I've never once been fined for speeding or hitting people. Not that I do it often...

Do you still get more money from selling all parts before selling a ship? Or did they fix that?

I've realized that if I part with my precious python I can finish tricking out my combat Anaconda. Then I can more easily do massacres in 17 Draconis:)

Aww, the Anaconda isn't THAT bad. I mean, it's well established that I'm a docking computer detractor, but of the five biggest ships (Anaconda, Type 9, Corvette, Cutter, and Beluga) the Anaconda is definitely the easiest to park. The only real trick is that it often feels like your nose should be pitched down 10 or 15 degrees more than it should, so if you remember to pitch up a bit more than feels comfortable, that usually sorts it out.

Now the Cutter... that ship has on occasion made me consider getting a docking computer. Granted, some of the finickiness that I was feeling was due to a bug with the landing gear hit box or something, but even still, it will make you appreciate the (relatively speaking) lithe, nimble handling of the Anaconda.

Wayfarer wrote:

Do you still get more money from selling all parts before selling a ship? Or did they fix that?

I've realized that if I part with my precious python I can finish tricking out my combat Anaconda. Then I can more easily do massacres in 17 Draconis:)

Yes, it is still the case that you get 100% sale value when selling parts individually but only 90% when selling a ship.

About a year ago they beta tested price depreciation on parts as well (since that was the original intended design) but then they pulled it back, saying that at the very least they would wait until giving us functional part storage. So, it could resurface at some point, but at this point who knows.

It pains me to think of you selling your Python when you are inches away from the point where you never have to sell a ship back again -- but, I suppose the 6 million or so you'd lose on the depreciation is kind of small peanuts compared to the earnings from 17 Draconis massacre farming, so...

zeroKFE wrote:
Wayfarer wrote:

Do you still get more money from selling all parts before selling a ship? Or did they fix that?

I've realized that if I part with my precious python I can finish tricking out my combat Anaconda. Then I can more easily do massacres in 17 Draconis:)

Yes, it is still the case that you get 100% sale value when selling parts individually but only 90% when selling a ship.

About a year ago they beta tested price depreciation on parts as well (since that was the original intended design) but then they pulled it back, saying that at the very least they would wait until giving us functional part storage. So, it could resurface at some point, but at this point who knows.

It pains me to think of you selling your Python when you are inches away from the point where you never have to sell a ship back again -- but, I suppose the 6 million or so you'd lose on the depreciation is kind of small peanuts compared to the earnings from 17 Draconis massacre farming, so...

I will buy another python with the (easier) profits I get CZ farming in the conda. Plus I can't wait to take my wingman fighter into battle with me!

QQ, if your fighter dies during a battle, do you lose the pilot? I assume the fighter is just a loss (hence the benefit to two bays)

Maybe we could do a community Google doc to replace the OP? It is in dire need of refreshing and this way the more prolific folks in this thread could all help keep it updated without the need for searching throughout this huge thread.

It boggles my mind in a good way, that a post I made 3 years ago off the cuff is now 400+ pages replied and going strong. So glad Frontier has continued to innovate with this game. Finally reaping the rewards of the rather steep price I paid during their kickstarter. But hey, all expansions for free!

Edit: In the meantime I updated Gremlin's starting tips link in the OP with his latest post.

QQ, if your fighter dies during a battle, do you lose the pilot? I assume the fighter is just a loss (hence the benefit to two bays)

Yeah, the in game explanation is that the fighters are actually being piloted by wire from the ship. You'll even hear dialogue to the effect of "telepresence link established."

You WILL lose your NPC crew if your mothership is destroyed, though, and you'll have to start from scratch training them up again.

Maybe we could do a community Google doc to replace the OP? It is in dire need of refreshing and this way the more prolific folks in this thread could all help keep it updated without the need for searching throughout this huge thread.

I would certainly chip in when I had time, even though I failed miserably to keep my own public google doc of tips and links up to date when I started it last year.

zeroKFE wrote:
Maybe we could do a community Google doc to replace the OP? It is in dire need of refreshing and this way the more prolific folks in this thread could all help keep it updated without the need for searching throughout this huge thread.

I would certainly chip in when I had time, even though I failed miserably to keep my own public google doc of tips and links up to date when I started it last year. :P

I'll redo the OP in a Google doc, and work to setup editing rights for you, Tamren, Gremlin and anyone else that wants to contribute.

It took me a LONG time to realize this but if you jump into a system with a nav beacon you can scan it to get a full map of the system without having to break out the scanner and scan everything manually. The last time I played Elite this wasn't a feature yet, but it works for systems that are "unexplored" to you, but already inhabited by people.

zeroKFE wrote:

Aww, the Anaconda isn't THAT bad. I mean, it's well established that I'm a docking computer detractor, but of the five biggest ships (Anaconda, Type 9, Corvette, Cutter, and Beluga) the Anaconda is definitely the easiest to park. The only real trick is that it often feels like your nose should be pitched down 10 or 15 degrees more than it should, so if you remember to pitch up a bit more than feels comfortable, that usually sorts it out.

The smart way of doing it to come to a stop high above the landing pad and then slowly lowering down onto it. However this is much slower than letting the computer do it because they can handle lateral and vertical motion with perfect accuracy. What I hate most about landing is that if you are even slightly off and touch the landing pad it bounces you way off the side and you have to recenter again.

zeroKFE wrote:
Is this new? I don't remember seeing it before. Looks like it'll be handy.

Yup, just added in 2.2.03. Previously you could only get that info by adding it up yourself, or exporting your data to Coriolis/EDShipyard.

And, they've actually said this display is hopefully temporary until they put together something a bit more functional.

...I guess those numbers relate the numbers I saw this week when upgrading my Shield Generator with an Engineer.

I had an issue last night that was confusing/annoying. I was on a mission where hostile ships were sent after me. One interdicted me, so I submitted and starting beating the tar out of him. His shields were down and hull was down to about 14% when *poof* he was off into hyper. I am pretty sure that there was no "surge detected" message. Maybe I had de-selected him? Not sure.

In any event, I used my nifty Wake Scanner to tail him to the other system. The idiot interdicts me again, despite the fact that his hull was still low (I was impressed with the continuity). I targeted him and fired away, only to be told I had a bounty for assault. WTF? He interdicted me. Then, I thought that he had high-waked again, so I gave up and started to plot my new course. A few seconds later I noticed a bunch of debris around. I don't know whether I killed him, or he was killed by the cops that had just shown up. Then I noticed that my local bounty was 6400, so I guess I had a murder rap. Then I realized that I had a bounty and there were cops nearby, so I made an exit before they decided to scan me despite showing as friendly on my scanner.

zeroKFE wrote:
Maybe we could do a community Google doc to replace the OP? It is in dire need of refreshing and this way the more prolific folks in this thread could all help keep it updated without the need for searching throughout this huge thread.

I would certainly chip in when I had time, even though I failed miserably to keep my own public google doc of tips and links up to date when I started it last year. :P

I was about to say that we already had one of those. I guess that's the one I remembered.