Elite: Dangerous

[Burning Bridges]

yes. it's repetitive in all the wrong ways and for all the wrong reasons, doesn't respect the player's time, and gives next to no agency to the player, leaving him with the feeling that he can only amass resources to get better gear but never exert any kind of influence over the galaxy, even uninhabited systems far away from the bubble. it's worth of a doctoral thesis in "how NOT to design a video game" for a game design course at a university. the saddest part? if they fired the lead designers and hired a couple of dudes who know what the fuck they're doing and some balls (like the previously mentioned duo from Double Damage), i'm pretty confident they could turn it completely around in a year, or maybe two

if it weren't for the superb flight model, the unrealised potential it has, and the pedigree, i'd have abandoned it after a 2 hours and never looked back.

/rant

sorry

Actually there is a joke from East Germany that this reminds me of.

It went like:

The Soviet Union delivers us clay.

We use the clay to turn it into bricks. We take the bricks to build houses, schools, factories and many others.

We use the schools to educate our youth. And in the factories they make machines, automobiles, watches and trains.

With the trains we are finally able to deliver those goods to the Soviet Union.

And what do we receive from the Soviet Union in return?

Clay!

At some point I realized that I just mine asteroids to make enough money to be able to afford a ship that can mine asteroids more efficiently. Same with trading and combat. There is no point in that at all and as soon as I had the biggest ship that could do anything I wanted, I realized that this game is basically becoming just a huge trap.

 

[Stokowski]

I think one rather basic issue with the design is that avoiding combat is next to impossible. You can wrestle back from interdiction attempts sure, but you can potentially still face combat any time you are out of frame shift, and in some cases, face it much more often than your current focus might suggest.

Except if you have a really fast ship, you are practically invulnerable. That means a Cobra, ASP Explorer or to some extent a Diamondback Scout. Maybe even an unarmed Type 6, I did not try that tbh.

Yes, yet that still means picking a fast ship over one that is supposed to be more ideally suited to your current activity. I should have said "no matter what you want to do, you'll need to do it in a ship that can either fight or run". In any case, you primary activity runs the risk of disruption, and as such, certain ships just aren't especially viable. A shame.

I am currently more concerned about the Python which doesn't seem to be able to outrun pirates anymore, and this makes it basically just a poor fighting ship with a lot of cargo.

... and an expensive one to lose. Just a couple of days ago I burned through about 40 Specialised Legacy Firmwares in an attempt to engineer a decent Dirty Drive upgrade on my Python for exactly this reason, but the RNGods were not interested.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Just a couple of days ago I burned through about 40 Specialised Legacy Firmwares in an attempt to engineer a decent Dirty Drive upgrade on my Python for exactly this reason

Good god. Engineers, I have not even tried that stuff Could explain in a few sentences what I have to do, and how much improvement it could achieve on the Python?

 

[Mortmal]

Just a couple of days ago I burned through about 40 Specialised Legacy Firmwares in an attempt to engineer a decent Dirty Drive upgrade on my Python for exactly this reason

Good god. Engineers, I have not even tried that stuff Could explain in a few sentences what I have to do, and how much improvement it could achieve on the Python?

Sure,
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...aN-gXHq6YkS_JAnJKsyQp8P-j0Y/edit#gid=93194749
It's also as fun as reading an excel spreadsheet.

 

[Stokowski]

Could explain in a few sentences what I have to do?

Define, "a few".

1. Meet prerequisite to get invite to meet engineer at their base.
2. Engineer will give you annoying as hell quest to unlock their services.
3. Each engineer handles a few different equipment types, and can tweak them to varying levels.
4. Upgrades require an annoying game of (a) gathering specific components, and (b) even more annoying random game as the engineer burns through the components as you try to get the best possible result (or least negative side-effects).
5. Everything is covered in Mortmal's spreadsheet link, but I find it easier to check a website that happens to be down right now. (Nothing is ever easy.) I'll edit in a working link when I can.

NB: Upgrades are handled as % increases. So a high base value for something (like a ship's speed, or armor, or FSD range) means getting bigger potential final improvements. If your ship is naturally fast (Imp Clipper, for example), the % improvements available from engineering can make it ridiculously fast.

Having said that, engineering is the one way to overcome - as much as possible - a ship's weaknesses. An FDL is never going to have a huge jump range, but enough engineering can at least make it a little more respectable.

EDIT: Newb-friendly link for engineers, blueprints, components: https://inara.cz/galaxy-engineers/

This example is my recent headache. Dirty Drives = faster, 3 engineers offer this, specialised legacy firmware is the component, results vary per attempt within the values shown, so speed improvement is 4~10%, but there are 4 negative side effects that can vary too, like thermal load that can get up to 20% hotter. Roll them virtual dice.

 

[Burning Bridges]

What is this about blueprints?

Let's I am going to Felicity Farseer, bring the Meta Alloy from Maia, and Specialized Legacy Firmware (which I don't have).

But I still need the fucking blueprint? WTF?

 

[Stokowski]

No, blueprint is just a fancy way of saying/showing what upgrades are available. And "Pin Blueprint" is just an ingame way of having a reminder of what you're aiming for at hand. It's not a gettable/useable item in itself.

 

[Burning Bridges]

So I only need to find Specialized Legacy Firmware. In addition to the other annoying things

What can I expect? She upgrades my Class A thrusters so they give 4-10% increase in speed?

 

[Stokowski]

Yep, she'll take a Specialised Legacy Firmware, perform some voodoo magic, and your drives will have random changes made available to them based on the ranges specified in the blueprint. If you get a good roll, say a 9%+ increase in speed with very low negative % traits, you choose to Apply those changes, or you pull another Specialised Legacy Firmware out of your pocket and say, "try again, please".

If all your rolls suck then you can walk away with unchanged drives, and go hunting for more components to try again later.

You can't hurt your gear, unless you choose to apply really bad rolls to it, so there's no downside to trying again and again except the slow erosion of your sanity.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Ah I am beginning to understand.

And the improvements are for the currently installed drive (thrusters) only? Meaning, if I ever sell it, they are gone??

Aaaand I guess I have to use the internet again how to acquire this fucking firmware. Because I dont have time to scour 400 billion stars for them, and I dont expect it to turn up during mining asteroids either.

 

[Stokowski]

Yep. Don't sell them On the bright side, if you get blown up your replacement ship retains any engineered gear improvements. (Don't ask how, it's just magic.)

There are two ways I know of to get the Firmware. Raiding data points on security guarded planetary bases (illegal), and scanning satellites around high population Earth-like worlds (if you have a Sol Permit, obviously the best high population Earth-like world is Earth itself). Satellites show up as ... um ... Something Emmisions Detected USSs. I remember the acronym EED for them, but not sure what the first E stands for.

 

[Mortmal]

Also there's something important about engineers, something you must not do : it's asking yourself why you are doing that, why you are doing those hundreds of jumps to get a 10% upgrade...To do the exact same boring things than before .

 

[Burning Bridges]

I guess we are way past this point.

 

[Perkel]

I think one rather basic issue with the design is that avoiding combat is next to impossible. You can wrestle back from interdiction attempts sure, but you can potentially still face combat any time you are out of frame shift, and in some cases, face it much more often than your current focus might suggest.

If you want to mine, you need a ship that can also fight. If you want to trade, you need a ship that can also fight. If you want to run missions, or ferry passengers, you need a ship that can also fight. I'm oversimplifying things, I know, but crudely put, that's how it plays out. Combat is so central, even when some of the activities on offer should make it much, much more peripheral than it actually is.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Stripped of potential danger "non-combat" activities would probably be (even more?) deathly boring. Yet as it stands it feels like the specialised cargo ships, passenger ferries, etc, are kind of pointless.

solution is like in X games to hire proper AI wing pilots as escort. Thing is for whatever reason Frontier made it as online game and thinks people play it as mmo. They think they made EVE or something.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Dont be me

They say, love and greed make you blind.

Just when I had established a good trade route that gives me 2.5 million cr per run, without much risk. I had spotted an even better cashcow that I calculated would give me up to 10 million in one run.

Nerve agents!

My mission gods went crazy about them, offering me up to 50K per ton.

Woth 264 tons of cargo space, and a profit of up to 40k per ton, who could resist this temptation.

It all went nomal, land on a planet base that wasnt even far away and load the ship with their entire supply of the smelly stuff.

Then be an idiot like me who forgot how to launch from a planet and not enter supercruise before the escape vector! How the fuck could I miss this!!

I dont even know what happened, but during ascent I lost the fucking ship and 3.3 million of cargo that is not easily replaceable.

I repeat, I dont even know how I lost the ship. It was sound effects I never heard before, as if I had been ambushed by Targoids or something like that.I probably went in reverse in panic while looking for a jump point.

Crashed on a planet!

Almost 7 million lost in a few unfortunate seconds. That is a sad new record in my list of trade adventures

I made back most of it afterwards with nerve agents, but it turned out just a 4.5 million profit. And I had to check the mission boards repeatedly, and the 50,000 per ton credit missions never came up again.

Not that good an effort. I came out with nothing after a whole evening. Actually 2 millions less in the bank, the first time ever I made a loss during a whole night.

I even tried slave trade again but it was also a dissapointment. Just a 3000 profit per ton, and almost lost the ship a second time during fuel scooping on the run, not worth it.

I guess it's now back to shlepping Progenitor Cells and Performance Enhancers, for a measly 2.5 million per run. At least this works out without losing the fucking ship every 3rd time.

I have a Python and 37 million spare cash. The bottom is out of the tub. How am I ever supposed to get my billion credits that way. What shall I do. What shall I do.

 

[praetor]

I have a Python and 37 million spare cash. The bottom is out of the tub. How am I ever supposed to get my billion credits that way. What shall I do. What shall I do.

sell pyhton, buy conda, shlepp passengers for ~200mil/hr. bam, a billion in an evening

 

[Suchy]

Nope, you don't get a billion in an evening. Yeah - you can get 200mln per run, but take into account the time spent on board switching to fill up cabins, then 40+ minutes in supercruise.
37mln is not enough to get Conda, however Python is large enough to start hauling passengers. Fill it up with economy cabins then find a system with a station far away from parent star, and by far i mean ~40 minutes in supercruise (1.5mln ls or so) - the farther it is, the better money. Next, check neighbouring systems for passenger missions to said station, when you find one with good spawn rate, grind up your rep to friendly with these factions - will greatly increase payouts. And you're good to go. So yep, I am getting 150-200mln per run in a Conda, but it takes around 2 hours, even when allied with most factions. In a Python you'll gain 40-100mln, depending on your rep with factions. Still, in a couple of runs you'll afford an Anaconda.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Nope, you don't get a billion in an evening. Yeah - you can get 200mln per run, but take into account the time spent on board switching to fill up cabins, then 40+ minutes in supercruise.
37mln is not enough to get Conda, however Python is large enough to start hauling passengers. Fill it up with economy cabins then find a system with a station far away from parent star, and by far i mean ~40 minutes in supercruise (1.5mln ls or so) - the farther it is, the better money. Next, check neighbouring systems for passenger missions to said station, when you find one with good spawn rate, grind up your rep to friendly with these factions - will greatly increase payouts. And you're good to go. So yep, I am getting 150-200mln per run in a Conda, but it takes around 2 hours, even when allied with most factions. In a Python you'll gain 40-100mln, depending on your rep with factions. Still, in a couple of runs you'll afford an Anaconda.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. The high paying passenger mission were not only retarded but right across the galaxy to Sagittarius A and if I do this, it would probably kill me.

No, not one of those expensive ships.

I more and more realized the Python was a trap, a case of of 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. I sure made a lot money with it, about 2 times more per run as with the Asp. But I also lost an insane amount, already over 12 million in insurance and lost cargo. That means probably 10 times more than with all ships before that combined. Plus probably another 4 million lost during module upgrades (I did not realize how much this adds up to and I switched back and forth between class A and class D stuff, until I realized I lost millions that).

Anyway I was thinking of something completely different. I put the Python in a garage, did not sell it though! -- that would lose me another 5 milion!!

Instead I bought myself a Type 6 Transporter. Insurance is cheap, just 200,000 or so even with A-rated parts and it is incredibly fast, >400 boost speed! It's faster than the ASP in fact.

Then I went exploring with it (with an extra fuel tank this transporter has an insane range), concentrating on blue, terraformable workds and I must say it works really well. I already made 10 million with it, of which 7 million are only from exploring. And not a single loss of the ship. With that speed I can simply run away from anything. It even has limited use as a trader, though cargo capacity is not that great, I can put in some stuff that always works like Consumer Technology and sell it at the next station.

So yeah low risk and just concentrating on the best opportunities, so far this works better for me. For some reason the Pything always seemed to attract shit like a magnet. When the big crash happened and saw the 7 million bill, I wanted to throw up

And by the way there are also places that have missions for Samarium for up to 75,000 a ton. That means if you know what and where you can mine, you could sell, Osmium for 90K, Samarium and Painite for 70-75K. That means an extended mining run with 250 tons cargo space could theoretically get in the range of 20 million per run. Of course, mining is hard work, and if you do it properly you feel like Sig Hansen at the helm, completely exhausted and fucked up but unable to stop because you see all the money.

 

[Burning Bridges]

This was the result of scanning ca 10 habitable planets, mostly water worlds. Considering this was actually a bit fun.

It's pretty simple, I scan a system right when I enter it and you can see if the planet is habitable. If it's blue, it is worth 600,000 and more and metal content world are 1/2 as it seems (I scanned a lot planet that look like Mars with white clouds).

You ned to have a surface scanner and fly close enough to get the full premium.

Anyway, after I tried about everything I think I may retire from trading and become a bounty hunter. With what I made so far I can finance limitless Vipers or even a few Vultures.

@Suchy Thanks for the tip about passenger, perhaps I'll try it out. Can you tell me a system where this works?

Though right now rank advancements seems more important than money, I still cant even buy a Federal Assault Ship.

 

[Suchy]

Sure, it's all over the net anyway. Upsilon Aquarii (Allen Hub) -> LTT 9360 (Smeaton Orbital). There might be better places though, 36 Ophiuchi has stations over 4mln ls from the star, but I haven't explored neighbouring systems for mission opportunities yet. Keep in mind that FD capped mission payouts to 30mln, and with current rate they are calculated, they should be paid more for a such distance, so it would be just wasting time in supercruise. With LTT 9360, once you're friendly/allied, missions pay between 20-30mln for a ~20 passengers run. Those with passengers renting a whole cabin are usually not worth it, i think max I got was ~10mln for a 1st class cabin. Better stick to economy and fit as much as you can there.

As for Python - even though I switched to Conda, I still think it's an excellent all-rounder ship. When doing combat community events, I easily ended up in top 10% pretty much every time. Has pretty decent cargo/cabin space for a ship that can land on medium pads. Only jump range could be better, then again it's not that terrible. Fully combat equipped, I could still get ~23 ly jumps (engineered of course). With lv5 dirty drives I could boost to 435 m/s and had very nice turn rate as well. Switching to Conda was like trying to pilot a brick, and once I got it fullly engineered, it's still slow as fuck, however turn rate is comparable to that of Pythons. Gotta love the damage output, but forget about getting a Conda into PvP, it's just too slow for a chase.

 

[Burning Bridges]

According to this this has been hit with the nerf hammer pretty hard. I figure that at least you can still make good money this way.

Fully combat equipped, I could still get ~23 ly jumps (engineered of course). With lv5 dirty drives I could boost to 435 m/s and had very nice turn rate as well.

435 for a Python? That must have been nerfed as well. The maximum without engineers is 345 boost speed with A-rated thrusters (which costs 13 millions or so). Together with an A-rated power plant I pay another 50 million just for this shit, for a ship that is 50ms slower than a type 6, is less agile and has 3 times the cargo space.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Ok I have checked it. Even at the station where I have my fleet and do upgrades not they offer up to 75K per Economy cabin for a short 14,000 LS trip.

So it is as you say, it may be easy to go overboard with the distance.

I also calculated that I could cram up to ca 130 economy cabins in a Python. I will stack the fuckers in like sardines (the space was just recently used for slaves), I swear by me mom and if I have to get people to push them in from outside and close the doors with steel crowbars. That way I could make almost 10 million a run.

Guess I have to check the stations where I have Allies, maybe they offer missions too otherwise I have to go to Upsilon Aquarii or Rhea, though I currently dont have it in me to befriend another faction.

Still not bad, though I guess boring as fuck as everything in this game. Shit that the nerve agent trade did not turn out yesterday and left me empty handed, I'd thought I could make up to 10 million too.

ED have ruined everything that was once my livelihood - slave trade, narcotics, painite, platinum. Now I am to ferry refugees for 75K to like a schmuck.

Ah one more thing, I guess if I take a lot of the passenger missions there will be a mission critical announcement and then 15 others that there is a bounty on my head and then I will have to go through intermission after intermission? I love when 10 of them trigger at the same time.

The way I know my luck probably my Python probably gets destroyed and I lose the entire cargo

 

[Suchy]

It's not nerfed, I did a 180mln run just last week. Anyway it's worth checking Upsilon Aquarii regardless of your rep, even neutral/cordial can get you ~8-10mln per mission. Another good location is Tun, there are two neigbouring systems with stations at around 280k ls from their stars (15 minutes in cuspercruise). I got some nice buck there as well, before discovering Upsilon Aquarii. That said, being friendly/allied there with a Python, i was doing around 30mln per run, so Upsilon Aquarii is definitely more profitable. As for gaining rep quickly - spend a couple of hours bounty hunting in res sites, pretty easy to get friendly with everyone except the local pirate faction.

Of course it's boring as fuck grind, but should get you set for a long time in a couple of evenings. So, having a fully engineered Conda and over 2bln cash, I don't really feel like grinding for the other 2 big ships. I guess time to get a FDL, engineer the fuck out of it and start having some fun in PvP, with shitload of cash left for rebuys.

And yup, there will be enemies sent after your passengers. As much as it's safe to ignore everything for as long as you accelerate in supercruise, halfway through when you start slowing down, you gotta pay at least a little attention not to get interdicted when you're alt tabbed.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Good idea, I wanted to do bounty hunting anyway because I have trading up to here ..

But as Marx said, for 3,000% profit a capitalist will do every crime, even if he risks the gallow.

 

[Country_Gravy]

I'm going to treat myself to some hotas(s) this Christmass and hit this up again. Hope it still sucks.