Elite: Dangerous

[Multi-headed Cow]

Yep, you lose all bounties when you get blown up so that's extra incentive to play it safe and go hit up a station for repairs and to turn them in when you've been bounty hunting for a while. Sucks about the bugged conda since they're usually worth quite good money. Another quick tip which may not be MASSIVELY powerful any more since they nerfed it a little is targeting subsystems, specifically the power plant, on larger ships like condas, clippers, pythons, etc. You can knock out a specific system easier than bringing hull to 0%, and previously (Before the nerf) when you'd take a reactor to 0% the ship would immediately blow up, but now it just struggles to maintain power and it'll randomly cut out on them. That sorta plays to the strengths of you flying a smaller ship and fighting a larger one though, since you generally don't have the firepower to tear through their hull super quick but odds are you DO have the ability to nail the reactor on those larger ships relatively easily, especially if you're using gimbaled guns.

 

[deranged]

Make sure to set your power priorities right. Sniping the power plant does not mean it generates 0% power but something like 40%. So if you put at 1 priority the thrusters and fsd you could still theoretically escape. Having said that I would recommend avoiding Open (especially Engineer and CCG systems) mode until you have unlocked the basic engineers for shields and hull (so you can run away from pvp) and at least all of them if you want to engage in pvp. 'At least' cause now there is another grind tier, the Guardians.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Son of a bitch. Even though the gold rush for mining void opals isn't an exploit, apparently there IS an associated exploit that you insensitive clods didn't tell me about. If you're mining them in a ship with close enough hardpoints that your abrasion blasters can hit the same node after you crack the rock open, each node you shoot spits out a chunk of void opal ore per blaster that hit it. Really artful people have been able to manage 5 chunks by nailing it with 5 blasters, but that's really hard to do. It's also extremely difficult in my normal mining ship of an imperial clipper, apparently pythons can pretty easily get a twofer abrasion blaster going on when they're fitted for mining. I don't really NEED more spacebux but I'm a little tempted to jump on it anyway for the hell of it, even though I'd need to buy and fit a ship for it.

Some of the more productive shit I could do would be building federation/empire rep to get their top of the line ships, and/or building Felicity Farseer rep and getting enough parts to engineer some FSDs.

 

[Fedora Master]

I wasn't too concerned about the requirements for engineering but after trying to unlock the next batch I can see why people said engineering was a retarded grind. Typical FDev design at work again. "Oh you gotta be allied to this particular faction! Oh sorry you gotta bring me three dozen thingies that you can only get from passenger missions as well! Oh you're missing the last bit of fartgas to complete your engineering level, sorry!"

 

[Burning Bridges]

This is all the more astounding if you think that Elite had found the right gameplay. In 1984.

In Elite trading was the heart and soul. In ED trading commodities isn't even a thing, or you would lose money. You just relog and dig through random missions until you have one that pays. You just read read and read until the numbers are high enough.

I don't know what happened to Braben. Maybe Bell was the better guy. Maybe he suffered from brain damage. We'll never know. But if you think what little has been achieved with the most amazing hardware and how the game is hated and ridiculed, it's really hard to understand. They should have just made Elite in HD and then added new features where they make sense, not try to revolutionize something that was already revolutional.

 

[Zibniyat]

Went on a mission to take down a pirate, reduced him to about 37% of hull integrity, he jumped with FSD. I immediately (within 10 s) jumped too, found him cruising on the same spot as before, tried to interdict him and failed, but then he interdicted me and I pretty much allowed him to do that. Went to fight him again only to find out he has 100% of hull integrity and full shields.

I won, but this pretty much confirms that NPCs get full hull integrity and shields should they manage to escape to hyperspace and come back. This is a negative for the game IMO.

 

[Razor]

Yeah, the exploration payouts have definitely been increased both on the FSS scan scale and specially when you probe the planet. Just completed my expedition this weekend that had me going from Bubble-Pleiades-Twin Nebula (formidine rift gateway)-Formidine Rift- Temple district- Colonia. In all the trip netted me about 800-900 mil in payouts. To put it in perspective a previous expedition with the old ADS/DSS system had me going from the bubble to Sag A and back. In total it earned a little bit over 300 mil.

One thing (aside from the buffed payouts) that really boosts the payouts is that its now very easy to find terraformable high metal content planets. Previously you had to guess primarily based on experience of where the habitable zone is based on the star type and the planets distance from it. If anything they havent changed the "terraformable" tag parameter requirements so in practice it means that it sometimes gets really retarded in what the ships mainframe considers "terraformable". It made sense in the old ADS/DSS system because it was actually hard to discover likely candidates so they were rather lenient with the requirements. But right now we have a situation where for example planetoids of like 0.20 EM (earth masses) with a gravity of 0.3g-s are considered viable for terraforming. I consider this retarded because in reality the planets gravity would be far too weak to ever hold on to any atmosphere.

I mean our own Mars is like something of 60% of Earths mass and one of the prime reasons (aside from the magnetosphere) it has such a weak atmo is because its gravity is too weak to hold on to it. If it ever were terraformed its atmo producing machines would need to constantly replenish the atmosphere its constantly losing. Personally its not a big thing and only comes apparent when you have some actual interest in real cosmos and planetary mechanics. After all, this is a game where people have reported earth likes orbiting neutron stars, where in reality anything that wasnt destroyed in the stars violent death would be wiped out by the immense radiation stemming from the neutron core. I just LARP around this problem and refuse to consider anything smaller then 60% or 0.55g as a terraforming candidate.

 

[DDZ]

I'm 49k ly from Sol.

I kinda miss docking.

 

[Fedora Master]

I'm 49k ly from Sol.

I kinda miss docking.

Protip: Don't be like me and crash into the landing pad at 2% hull once you're back in the bubble.

 

[Morkar Left]

This is all the more astounding if you think that Elite had found the right gameplay. In 1984.

In Elite trading was the heart and soul. In ED trading commodities isn't even a thing, or you would lose money. You just relog and dig through random missions until you have one that pays. You just read read and read until the numbers are high enough.

I don't know what happened to Braben. Maybe Bell was the better guy. Maybe he suffered from brain damage. We'll never know. But if you think what little has been achieved with the most amazing hardware and how the game is hated and ridiculed, it's really hard to understand. They should have just made Elite in HD and then added new features where they make sense, not try to revolutionize something that was already revolutional.

The problem is that they went with a multiplayer universe. Then people complained that it's not mp enough. Then they put mp grind into it. The whole gameplay revolves around mp mechanics by now. Unfortunately the game is hopeless. Too bad I spent the money for the kickstarter AND the Horizons expansion. It was really a waste of money and time for me. At least I wasn't dumb enough to buy new gear for it. It stayed only on my HD mainly because I thought it could become interesting for me st some point. Last time I started it up was at the beginning of March 2018. And I just can't bring me up to play it again. Just decided to wipe it from my hd.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I'm 49k ly from Sol.

I kinda miss docking.

Protip: Don't be like me and crash into the landing pad at 2% hull once you're back in the bubble.

Siht, that's even more heartbreaking than my big exploration trip. Back before Horizons I went off on a trek to the supermassive black hole because of course I did, and after months off and on flight I got there, looked at it, and started heading home. Had a huge log of uncharted black holes, earthlikes, neutron stars, a bunch of goodies. Bought Horizons, started buzzing a few rocky planets to admire the views since they are quite pretty, then completely failed to notice that not all planets have the same gravity. Buzzed a high gravity world, noticed I was falling like a rock, pointed straight up and hit my afterburner, noticed I was still falling like a rock, noticed it was high-G, went splat.

In the grand scheme of things it's not all that important but it was a kick in the balls regardless.

 

[Burning Bridges]

This is all the more astounding if you think that Elite had found the right gameplay. In 1984.

In Elite trading was the heart and soul. In ED trading commodities isn't even a thing, or you would lose money. You just relog and dig through random missions until you have one that pays. You just read read and read until the numbers are high enough.

I don't know what happened to Braben. Maybe Bell was the better guy. Maybe he suffered from brain damage. We'll never know. But if you think what little has been achieved with the most amazing hardware and how the game is hated and ridiculed, it's really hard to understand. They should have just made Elite in HD and then added new features where they make sense, not try to revolutionize something that was already revolutional.

The problem is that they went with a multiplayer universe. Then people complained that it's not mp enough. Then they put mp grind into it. The whole gameplay revolves around mp mechanics by now. Unfortunately the game is hopeless. Too bad I spent the money for the kickstarter AND the Horizons expansion. It was really a waste of money and time for me. At least I wasn't dumb enough to buy new gear for it. It stayed only on my HD mainly because I thought it could become interesting for me st some point. Last time I started it up was at the beginning of March 2018. And I just can't bring me up to play it again. Just decided to wipe it from my hd.

As I wrote before as a "break record in credits/hour - simulator" I find it quite enjoyable. It's maybe only that I like sports records and preparing a 20 million mining expedition was a challenge, as was a 100 million passenger trip (with 1 hour spent travelling realtime).

If someone knows a new moneymaking method that breaks the game even more, let me know.

 

[Matalarata]

Hunt npc miners for low temperature diamonds. I tried once in my cutter, made half a billion in less than 2 hours.
Bought 2 dozens of different classes of prism shield, pledged to packhound man and uninstalled. Next year I'll give it another go...

 

[Zibniyat]

So I just had a very tense situation

Basically, I recently purchased an ASP Explorer, and had it outfitted a bit, which reduced my savings to cca 500.000 credits, and the rebuy cost is about he same. And I have been bounty hunting for the past hour, managed to get upwards of 1 million credits.

And then...

My canopy got destroyed in a fight in some asteroid belt . LUCKILY one of the things I upgraded was the life support system, so I had 7.30 min to get to a station. This was the first time something like this happened to me, usually I get blown up completely, and in a confusion I frantically escaped the belt (luckily my opponent got destroyed by other ships) and thinking whether it's even possible and will my ship fall apart I jumped to hyperspace And then I had stuff to NOT see since my canopy was gone and with it a lot of the UI, all the while my oxygen levels were depleting, I had to somehow pick and choose the station and navigate through hyperspace nearly blind, luckily for the compass in the bottom I knew how to orient myself. Long story short, whilst my heart was pounding like it was a matter of life and death for real, by looking at the distance in a side menu and aligning my ship via the compass - as well as watching other ships cruising to presumably the same destination - I reached the destination and disengaged from the hyperspace, and quickly entered the station. Happy ending. :D

If I didn't upgrade that life support system I'd be dead by now, and I may not have been able to repurchase an upgraded ship but only its basic version. Gonna upgrade the life support system even more now.

 

[DDZ]

Finished my trip to Beagle Point.

Actually, it was more like Beggle Pent, since I decided to turn left and visit Erikson's Star, because I felt everyone is always going to Beagle Point and I figured I want to be more SPECIAL! Beagle Point had 1600+ ships passing in the last week, Beggle Pent only 77. Now just 55kly to home.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Hunt npc miners for low temperature diamonds. I tried once in my cutter, made half a billion in less than 2 hours.
Bought 2 dozens of different classes of prism shield, pledged to packhound man and uninstalled. Next year I'll give it another go...

HALF A BILLION??

 

[Data4]

PSA: This game is COMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT when played in VR.

 

[Fedora Master]

PSA: This game is COMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT when played in VR.

What, is there secret VR-only content that actually gives the game some depth?

 

[Data4]

PSA: This game is COMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT when played in VR.

What, is there secret VR-only content that actually gives the game some depth?

No, nothing like that. It's just VR makes the most mundane things in the game seem cool as shit. If you're predisposed to hating the game by default, VR isn't going to win you over, but if you spent a couple of years playing on a monitor and then switched to VR, everything is new again.

 

[Matalarata]

HALF A BILLION??

~483 Millions to be precise. 512T of stolen diamonds, priced around 1,200,000 each, but with a loss of 25% due to having to sell to a black market. The problem is getting all those miners to spawn in a relatively short time. However, considering that a single Type-9 carries 200+ tons, if you're lucky you could manage to pull this off even faster. This is the ship I used:

Link

You need a system with Agricultural economy + Industrial as a secondary. Bonus point if you're in an anarchy system (no bounties for you). Interdict any Keelback/Type#/Krait II/Python carring minig lasers + refinery, strip away their pd* and deploy limpets, hatchbreaker to have its cargo drop and as many collectors as you can fit on your ship.

*the procedure itself needs some minutes for your limpets to siphon all the cargo, in the meantime you need to tank with your shield. As such you could try and also strip some weapons but beware, miners will run away around 50% hull or if you take out its last weapon.

 

[thesheeep]

If you're predisposed to hating the game by default, VR isn't going to win you over, but if you spent a couple of years playing on a monitor and then switched to VR, everything is new again.

For a certain time. Until the gimmick of "Ohhhh, I can turn my head!" wears off.
Took me less than 10 hours total to be more annoyed by the stuff on my head than it giving me any immersion...

I mean, sure, it's nice.
But certainly nothing that would change anything about the game. Because in fact, it doesn't.

 

[J_C]

If you're predisposed to hating the game by default, VR isn't going to win you over, but if you spent a couple of years playing on a monitor and then switched to VR, everything is new again.

For a certain time. Until the gimmick of "Ohhhh, I can turn my head!" wears off.
Took me less than 10 hours total to be more annoyed by the stuff on my head than it giving me any immersion...

I mean, sure, it's nice.
But certainly nothing that would change anything about the game. Because in fact, it doesn't.

Even a simple headtracking (like Track IR or freetrack) makes the game 500% more enjoyable, just because it is more comfortable to track enemies with your head, so VR adds at least that much to the game. Flight sims and space sims like Elite are so much better with headtracking enabled. And VR is a good alternative for that (although a bit expensive).

 

[Data4]

Oculus is less than $400 now. Sure, the image quality isn't as good as a monitor, but I'm loving the hell out of mine right now. This and X-Plane have made it worth the purchase price already.

 

[deranged]

If you're predisposed to hating the game by default, VR isn't going to win you over, but if you spent a couple of years playing on a monitor and then switched to VR, everything is new again.

For a certain time. Until the gimmick of "Ohhhh, I can turn my head!" wears off.
Took me less than 10 hours total to be more annoyed by the stuff on my head than it giving me any immersion...

I mean, sure, it's nice.
But certainly nothing that would change anything about the game. Because in fact, it doesn't.

Even a simple headtracking (like Track IR or freetrack) makes the game 500% more enjoyable, just because it is more comfortable to track enemies with your head, so VR adds at least that much to the game. Flight sims and space sims like Elite are so much better with headtracking enabled. And VR is a good alternative for that (although a bit expensive).

Tried headtracking for a while but just couldn't keep it. Having to keep my head still fucks up my desire to do anything in game. After much experimentation the 'simple' joystick-throttle setup is immersive enough for me.

 

[J_C]

If anyone wants to hop into the game, there is a huge sale on the developer's site:
https://www.frontierstore.net/games/elite-dangerous-cat.html