Elite: Dangerous (Kickstarted Sandbox Space Flight Sim)

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Flight

Molten Core Raider
1,230
288
Anyone know any stations that sell 64T cargo racks ? Using my Google Fu I could only come up with Styx (now changed and only has small stations) and Hepa (been sat there for hours and not seen above 32T.
 

DiddleySquat

Bronze Knight of the Realm
458
17
So far this game only has delivered 2 days of frustrations. Where to start?
1) Chose to launch the Single Player Combat Training, instead of the 'Elite:Dangerous' full game, because.. well it must be there as a tutorial right? Except that the Interdiction tutorial in it was close to impossible. Died 10 times, didn't ever get close to completing it. I played with a game pad and flying went fine, but since I failed so hard at that tutorial, I figured mouse+KB might be an improvement. To the contrary, wasn't even able to get a target in field of view with M+KB, while that was no problem at all with the gamepad. So day 1 I played the game in 30 minute spurts, only to have to put the game down in rage and frustration at regular intervals.
2) Today picked it up again. Said fuck it to the tutorial, so booted the full game. Only to find an expanded tutorial. Gave it another try and finished the Interdiction tutorial with ease. Hi Devs, could you PLEASE remove that 'Single Player Combat Training option' from the launcher, so nobody gets sucked into that crappy version of your game and decides to uninstall before actually playing your game?
3) Started the game for real now. Found the billboard, there's a mission to go kill 7 pirates. Ok sounds a challenge but let's go. The YouTube vids explain how to map a course and jump, so I arrive in the system. 'Supercruising' around apparently, but there's no explanation what that is or does, so I find a wanted ship on my scanner, but no way to engage it because all I do is supercruise around, overshooting everything I want to visit. Exit game.
4) Time to give it another try: let's forget about the pirate mission, it has expired anyway. Let's just start trading. Babysteps. So I dock at the station and look for some good that could give me a decent profit. I start with 1000cr and 4 cargo slots so my options are limited. Hmm, Explosives are only at 230 buy price here, and it also says the galaxy average is 380cr. That's the best ROI available and perfect to fill my 4 cargo slots, so let's invest my starting capital of 1000cr! Ok, off to a neighbouring station that imports 'tech'. Smooth landing (cause I'm an 1980'sEliteveteran right?). Sell price of the explosives is... 180cr. Hmm ok, maybe find another station. 3 stations later, I can only conlude that I bought those explosives on a region high price and all other stations have them cheaper. Ok, so let's just get as far away from here. On the way I try to land on one of those orbital stations (with those exterior landing platforms) but for some reason I keep bouncing off the landing pads. Landing indicator gives a blue circle and all, but no indication why I can't land on it. I have landed on one of those external platforms before though.
5) So now I'm at 20% fuel, time to make 1 last jump as far as possible from where I bought the explosives. With the last drop of fuel I arrive and selling price of the explosives is ... 130cr. Galaxy average? Still 380cr alright. I'm out of fuel and so now I am forced to sell my goods at a 50% loss just to get out of here. Exit game.

I lovedElitewhen I was young, but this has been nothing but frustration.

I'll give it another try later. Maybe I've traveled far enough now to sell my interstellar cartography info...
 

Quineloe

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,978
4,464
Anyone know any stations that sell 64T cargo racks ? Using my Google Fu I could only come up with Styx (now changed and only has small stations) and Hepa (been sat there for hours and not seen above 32T.
High Tech. Where are you?

Diddley, delete your save in options, start over.

use this for trading guidance:

Goods -EliteDangerousWiki

Warning: Not exactly great on systems with multiple economies, but you'll figure that out.
Explosives are wanted exclusively on extraction stations.
 

Pennilenko

Silver Knight of the Realm
90
1
I miss the days when Slopey's tool skimmed data from the game. I fucking suck at manual trade route finding. Combat doesn't pay enough. I haven't tried mining yet. It's a good damn thing that I enjoy playing space trucker, otherwise I would be upset with my purchase.
 

Quineloe

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,978
4,464
Woo finally made Mostly Harmless looking for that stupid fed progression dropship. Already kicked my ass once, can I find it a second time or is the mission a bust now?

Oh my the game trolled me hard. The fed dropship that ripped me to shreds was not actually the General I was after, he was only competent while theEliteFed Dropship was a lot stronger. When I actually found the General, the fight was more than manageable.
 

Faith

Useless lazy bastard.
1,178
857
I'm still pretty confused how trading works.
How I do it (dunno if its "right" or "wrong"):

Select either a High Tech station or a station with gold in a huge amount for sale.

Scout every single station/system in a 15-20 lightyear radius and note the prices ( I use this tool, works for me:New Trading Tool - Cmdr's Log v1.1!saves a lot of note-paper :p and it allows you to compare prices between any station you have entered , a HUGE help )

Once done I compare the prices to and from the system I originaly chose as my "base" and start hauling. This can be a straight back and forth thing between "base" and Another station, or it can be a litle A -> B -> C -> D sort of travelshow.

Just bought my Type 7 transport for 18 million so it is good enough for me, now planning to run a day or two of trading to get this bucket up to speed.

Edit: Word of advice, when you start using a large ship the game still gives you missions for outposts ... which you cant land on anymore. Always check the destination before taking on a transport mission since you will have to eat the fine if you discover that you cant land.... like I did.
 

Faith

Useless lazy bastard.
1,178
857
Another thing about trading, expect prices to go up and down. I have noticed stations totaly changing inventory from one day to the other, prices jump up or down 1000+ cr and so on.

What you generaly want to trade is expensive stuff (2000+ cr) to get better margins. If you have a small ship, then rare trade goods from Lave and such places might be better for you, some rare stuff you buy for 630cr and can sell for 17-20k each 180 lightyears away. They have clamped down on rares tho, you can only buy a certain amount of the item and cant buy more until you have sold off your inventory (Lave brandy, max 7 for example I belive).
 

Faith

Useless lazy bastard.
1,178
857
Sorry for the spam!

When it comes to rares, which are an excellent way for new traders to start out when you have limited cargo hold (or if you like Bounty hunting around nav Points and wanna pick up some extra cash) I suggest this:

Go to Lave system, Lave station, then buy the rare there and continue with

Diso - Shiflnalport
Orrere - Sharon Lee Free Market (found slaves here if someone is looking for them for the missions)
Zaonce - Ridley Scott Station
Leesti - George Lucas Station

After all those stations, head 120-150 Light Years away (Bounty hunt the nav Points as you go maybe? Might be risky with such a valuable cargo tho!) then sell off the rares. Should give you around half a million or something, then go back to Lave and repeat.

You can also search online for rare goods circuts where you go from the Lave area to Another cluster with stations who sell rares, and then go back and forth until you had enough or have the cash you need. People claim they make 1+ million an hour doing this, but I have yet to get that much of a return. Might be that I suck at planning the routes.
 

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
31,219
23,426
I need systems with good small stations that have black markets to sell my stolen shit.
 

Faith

Useless lazy bastard.
1,178
857
I need systems with good small stations that have black markets to sell my stolen shit.
Ah, then I am out of my depth im afraid. Not taken up a pirates Life (or a Bounty hunters for that matter) so not sure how black market stuff works.

Once I looted something one of my kills dropped and promtly got a 6k fine for stolen goods.... so I have been avoiding it and my combat ship dont even have a cargo hold anymore
biggrin.png
 

Running Dog_sl

shitlord
1,199
3
Another thing about trading, expect prices to go up and down. I have noticed stations totaly changing inventory from one day to the other, prices jump up or down 1000+ cr and so on.

What you generaly want to trade is expensive stuff (2000+ cr) to get better margins. If you have a small ship, then rare trade goods from Lave and such places might be better for you, some rare stuff you buy for 630cr and can sell for 17-20k each 180 lightyears away. They have clamped down on rares tho, you can only buy a certain amount of the item and cant buy more until you have sold off your inventory (Lave brandy, max 7 for example I belive).
They made some changes server-side that shook trade prices up just before Christmas, producing high demand items where before pretty much the best you could find was medium. The NPC trade AI steps in when it finds high demand, but not as fast as it used to, so I believe the net effect is decent non-rare trade routes spring up but they also vanish overnight, and I need a new notepad.

Having taken a few days off over Christmas almost my first act was to finger-forget which was the Flight Assist button and which was the Engine Boost button and smear my upgraded Cobra with a full cargo hold and 100k in outstanding bounties over someone's Imperial Clipper.
 

Running Dog_sl

shitlord
1,199
3
I'm still pretty confused how trading works.
Each system has one or more economic "types" that determine what kinds of things it produces or sells, and what kinds of things it consumes or demands. For example. Extraction economies sell minerals like Bauxite, while Refinery economies buy minerals. Different stations and outposts in the same system can buy and sell different types of items, although it's rare that one station in the system will be selling something that another station in the same system buys.

I don't know how accurate this table is but it looks right:
Goods -EliteDangerousWiki

The production or demand for an item can be one of four levels: non-existent (so it's not sold or bought at all), low, medium or high. High production of an item usually means low prices, and likewise high demand means high prices. So you simply buy goods where production is high and take them somewhere where demand is high.

As posted above, just because something was needed yesterday doesn't mean it's needed today, so be prepared for nasty surprises if you've not visited a system in a while. And remember to always have enough cash left after you buy cargo to cover the insurance cost of your ship.
 

Quineloe

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,978
4,464
The problem with the goods wiki page is that it doesn't cover double-economy stations such as refinery - industrial. It also doesn't know Terraforming, Tourism or Service economies. Feels like that page was made in an early phase of beta and never updated.
 

Dandain

Trakanon Raider
2,092
917
I'm consuming this game like I did the eve thread. Reading these posts really makes me want to play it. Sounds pretty sweet - any updates on that civil war status that was posted about a page ago or so?
 

Friday

Lord Nagafen Raider
870
104
I'm enjoying it. I upgraded to an eagle and got a turret on my 3rd hard point. It handles better than the sidewinder and I can keep ships in my reticle longer.

Last night I downed an imperial drop ship for a 60k bounty. Largest yet and it was pretty fuckin sweet.
 

Quineloe

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,978
4,464
I'm consuming this game like I did the eve thread. Reading these posts really makes me want to play it. Sounds pretty sweet - any updates on that civil war status that was posted about a page ago or so?
Fighting and stuff is still ongoing. I think at some point the civil war will end and the system will either switch allegiance or stay independent. Mechanics not clear yet, so far the only finished war zone was a developer created one, not a player created.
 

Friday

Lord Nagafen Raider
870
104
Wow this K Warrant Scanner was a great investment. Now I can collect bounties if they are wanted with multiple factions!