Zero to hero – 1bn Cr in less than 10 hours on a new account.

[HappyMoonMonkey]

Elite is such a grind!

The thargoid war is so inaccessible to new CMDRs!

I must engineer everything to G5 before enjoying the game!



All complaints I’ve heard in various forms here and on other forums.

But since I’d started a new account a little while ago I decided to set out to see what I could do with it in a short amount of time. I didn’t set out to speedrun and this was far from an optimal run but I did achieve my goal, 1 billion credits within 10h playtime (approx. 9h40m according to my codex)

In short form, how did I do this?

Tldr:

Bounty hunted in a res, did a little exobiology and onfoot combat, buy DBX and Vulture, flew to thargoid place and shot some aliens in the face.


Long read:


My basic rules were I could use outside information sources such as inara and well known discords but there was to be no funny credit transfers or help from my main account. Not even carrier rides (from myself or helpful friends).

Upon completing the tutorials (they’re really good and the time didn’t count!) I started out at the Odyssey starting port of Chamberlain’s Rest.

First task – take my starter sidewinder (spending nothing on upgrades yet) to a rez site and earn some credits! 1h later I’m 1.3m credits richer.

Next I need a detailed surface scanner and Artemis suit. Both findable from ports in the same system (surprisingly the DSS not from Chamberlain’s Rest though!). And continuing my journey I set out to scan some plants. In the same system. No hyperspace for me yet!

1 planet, 6 plants and 4 hours later I’m 37m richer and now geared up for my first hyperspace jump.

Oh boy!

Plot course to system where I can buy my target ships. Realise the sidewinder is terrible still. Buy a Cobra mk III and then realise that Chamberlains Rest won’t sell me an upgrade to the Cobra’s FSD. Switch back to Sidewinder and upgrade that FSD. Remember fuel scoop. A rate thrusters for funsies and D rate other bits for range. With a now 17ly jump range this sidewinder is going places!

Next destination! -> Bakaduninka! Vinge Ring!

Why? Because its only 18ly away and there I can buy a Diamondback Explorer and a Vulture and kit them out. Diamondback for travelling. Vulture for AX.

Standard D rate the DBX and A rate the FSD for range. Nothing fancy, I’ve no engineering but it can now jump 36ly and cover 250ly on a full tank which is what I need to get me into thargoid territory!

The Vulture is simple. A rate for combat and fill with hull reinforcement. A couple of heat sinks, pulse neutraliser and enhanced xeno scanner.

At this point I realised that I couldn’t quite afford the 2 class 3 gimbled enhanced AXMCs that I needed. So I sign up for a local war, buy myself a Dominator suit and a couple of guns and 4 medium CZ’s later I’m 5.2m better off and able to afford the AXMC’s that I need and have a few pennies left for about 5 rebuys. The rebuy on the Vulture only being about 200k but my total bank only being 1m left. 6h total spent on this account now.

Next step – AXI discord and private group.

AXI advertise their targets regularly and have carriers that service them advertised on their discord. So hopping into my freshly acquired DBX and a few jumps later I was stowed aboard CMDR Grimscrub’s carrier Invicta. This carrier’s movements are advertised on the discord and I knew it would be serving the AXI spire site targets. I transfer my Vulture, this takes 45 minutes so I log out and return another day.

Fresh day fresh spire fresh meat. My newly acquired AX death machine is going to dominate! Well… no. It’s slow, hot and has no good protection from caustic other than overheating. But even before I get to the next system and the spire I hyperdicted by a glaive!

No problem! I have AXMCs! These will make short work of the glaive! And they do. But not before I learn that I’ve made the mistake of D rating my life support which make my canopy more fragile than paper. 1 thargoid dead I limp back to the carrier with a short amount of oxygen left before trying again. This time I make it to the spire site successfully, although reminded once again how thin my canopy is by a bunch of scouts who almost break it by sneezing hard at it.

Finally the spire site! AXI CMDRs aplenty! To be honest I’m not a great pilot. But in my unengineered Vulture I was able to clean 250m Cr easily in my first session shooting Orthrus. I cash these in to give my rebuy anxiety a rest and upgrade my life support at the same time.

One evening later, and now the balance of 1bn of credits to cash in I self distruct out of the site to get back to the carrier quickly. Into the DBX, a short hop to a neighbouring populated system. Fly to the nearest station, crash into its planet, wait for FSD to reboot and then finally get back up to the station. 9h40m of a new account and 1bn in credits richer.

 

[St0rmFury]

Not to downplay your achievement or anything, it's very impressive, but you're still a seasoned Cmdr who has hundreds maybe thousands of hours of experience.

You can't compare yourself to a fresh player who is still learning how to dock without dock assist.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

Not to put down your achievement or anything, it's very impressive, but you're still a seasoned Cmdr who has hundreds maybe thousands of hours of experience.

You can't compare yourself to a fresh player who is still learning how to dock without flight assist.

I know. All this was done knowing how the game works, how to fly, how to shoot etc. Learning all that takes time. But learning skills shouldn't be considered a grind either. I'm not saying a fresh new CMDR could do this in the same time without experience. I'm just trying to demonstrate that grind isn't necessary.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

Or engineering for that matter.

 

[metatheurgist]

On the players are always right front. The Vulture initially retailed for 20M. Players said "That's too much! It's crap!". Frontier caved and dropped the price. I remember buying one immediately even though I wasn't going to use it in case Frontier woke up. Still sleeping.

 

[Schmack]

Not to pile on, but you reset your acct, not your understanding of the game. 20 systems visited is enough to know you went right for the meta route. I hit elite in 24 hours on my alt account doing the Smeaton runs. The fun was going through the ship types and using ships you maybe overlooked before. I had the most fun in a T6, one I bypassed due to how ugly it was (it's beautiful to me now).

For a new player joining, it's a pretty steep grind. This is why the payouts on foot baffle me. Ships are priced based on Horizons style of play, but EDO is a lot of space legs. I'd think there'd be a steady ramp of offerings based on rank and reputation, but I've seen the same offerings in systems where I am allied with almost all factions as I have in systems where I am only cordial with all factions.

 

[Schmack]

I know. All this was done knowing how the game works, how to fly, how to shoot etc. Learning all that takes time. But learning skills shouldn't be considered a grind either. I'm not saying a fresh new CMDR could do this in the same time without experience. I'm just trying to demonstrate that grind isn't necessary.

If you are demonstrating grind isn't necessary, why did you use the 1bn mark as evidence? You got there through knowledge of the game. I'm sure someone starting today would get 1bn much sooner than many of us who started when the payouts weren't as large. It could still be a grind if what they wanted was to buy something they needed rank for, or to upgrade a weapon or suit, or do any of the other things that might require the engineering or guardian training wheels vs a seasoned commander who can do these in a non-engineered ship.

 

[Jmanis]

If you are demonstrating grind isn't necessary, why did you use the 1bn mark as evidence?

Incidentally, I keep thinking to do a bit of a "you don't need engineering or heaps of credits, the game isn't gated" series with a new character. The truth is though... i can't be bothered.

Those who know, know, those who don't will either just not believe it despite the videos... or just nitpick on technicalities, like "why yes, you did just clear a medium CZ in a vulture sans engineering, now do it again but draw aggro from an entire spec ops wing and solo it away from your allies! " or other inane purple-coin challenges.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

why did you use the 1bn mark as evidence?

Entirely arbitrary to be fair. It feels like a good mark to buy one of the big three ships (but I acknowledge that I don't have the rank for two of them!) and feels meaningfully on the way towards a fleet carrier. Neither of these objectives are truly end game but they often feel like things that new players strive for. And setting your own objectives in this game is what it's about.
"As a seasoned CMDR," I came into engineering quite late in my game play and have always found it to be an enhancement rather than necessary to meet most goals. The FSD booster and light FSD engineering being sufficient quality of life improvements for most purposes. Outside of that it was a fun tree to climb in itself.
I often hear of people continuing to bemoan the grind. But ultimately if you're grinding and hating it then you're doing it wrong and there will always be a better way.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

"why yes, you did just clear a medium CZ in a vulture sans engineering

Also a fair criticism. I did try and stear clear of any big skill traps though. Bounty hunting in a zero rebuy sidewinder. On foot combat with no rebuy consequences. And then thargoid combat in a 200k rebuy vulture (low due to Harmless rank still). Consequences for death were kept low and manageable at each stage.
Thargoids were hard though. Scythe hyperdictions were the worst to be fair. Fighting was an option but that left me with less hull for the spire. Silent running boosting cold with heatsinks ultimately proved effective again here.

(A little) skill rather than grind though.

 

[Factabulous]

OP never said they were doing it without prior knowledge - resetting the account just gives an easy baseline we can all understand. Well, most of us

Nice job OP - restarts and alts are excellent chances to try out new strategies

 

[Jmanis]

OP never said they were doing it without prior knowledge - resetting the account just gives an easy baseline we can all understand. Well, most of us

Nice job OP - restarts and alts are excellent chances to try out new strategies

If nothing else, it shows all the guides that get foisted onto new players to "get rich quick" and "get through the grind as fast as possible" are next to useless.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

resetting the accoun

Alt! I'm not brave enough to reset.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I think the point is it proves the dreaded "grind" can be pretty easily mitigated or substituted by knowledge and skill. A "git gud" post of a different kind, if you will.

That's not to deny that there are thinks locked behind a certain time and effort investment. Want a Corvette or Cutter? Got to put in the work for it. But owning those large ships or not doesn't make or break the game.

The knowledge to "make it" in the game is out there as an alternative to all the grind advisories. Not as good as first hand prior knowledge, but it's out there as a resource for all players to use and peruse.

 

[zimms]

Impressive. You were shooting fish in a barrel with other CMDRs in a private group so you could write up this rant?

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

Impressive. You were shooting fish in a barrel with other CMDRs in a private group so you could write up this rant?

Yes! You want to moan about grinding Robigo solo instead? There are so many good ways to make good money in this game now without resorting to grinding or even needing engineering.

 

[CapitanAceRimmer]

One thing you forgot, a new commander would require a day just to learn to land and take-off. I remember swearing blind at Frontier whilst slamming my sidewinder into the deck trying to get it to land,

 

[Rainbro]

Yes! You want to moan about grinding Robigo solo instead? There are so many good ways to make good money in this game now without resorting to grinding or even needing engineering.

I mean, it does somewhat undermine the point about engineering if the end point of this method is to basically just wing up with heavily engineered ships and let them do the work. At that point, may as well just let them do their thing more efficiently with a full wing and transfer you the excess via carrier.

Overall though, the point is mostly valid, even basic engineering has a major impact and the returns beyond that steadily decrease next to time invested. That doesn't make the problems with accessing high-end engineering feel any better though.

The complaints will continue so long as core issues relating to materials, engineering, and pay balancing remain. Like, the obvious response to the problem of winging up is just to do Exobiology, something with almost no barrier to entry and ludicrous returns...but that doesn't make payouts balanced for the rest of the game. It just plasters over the problem slightly, at least if you paid for the DLC anyway and don't mind taking time away from your preferred activity to click on plants.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The complaints will continue so long as core issues relating to materials, engineering, and pay balancing remain.

Yes, though costs of items are I'd say the more fundamental problem than pay balancing.

I had a quick look at what Frontier First Encounters ships cost (I haven't included the mass of the default hyperdrive in the FFE calculations), and I'm using tonne capacity as the performance metric because trade is the profession which has the highest variation in earning potential depending on your ship (and was pretty much the only high-earning profession in FFE)

FFE Ship	Credit cost (basic outfit)	Cost per tonne capacity	ED equivalent ship	Credit cost (E-rated)	Cost per tonne capacity
Eagle Mk 1	38,000	1,900	Eagle	43,800	2,190
Cobra Mk 3	124,000	1,550	Cobra Mk 3	348,720	5,449
Asp	187,000	1,558	Asp Explorer	6,660,150	51,231
Lion	348,000	1,480	Type 7 Transporter	17,471,260	50,204
Python	575,000	1,438	Python	56,977,180	163,727
Anaconda	1,060,000	1,630	Anaconda	146,968,450	312,698
Imperial Explorer	2,966,000	1,661	Imperial Cutter	208,968,450	263,184

In FFE - and not that it had great balance in credit earnings [1] - the cost of the ship is roughly proportional to what it can do in the most profitable profession. The most expensive ship is about 100x as expensive as the cheapest ship, and also about 100x better at hauling cargo / packing in lots of shields and weapons [2].

In Elite Dangerous, the most expensive ship is about 5,000x as expensive as the cheapest ship ... but is only 40x better at cargo hauling, maybe 8x the raw firepower (plus the "hardness" hack to make it look a bit better, minus the increased difficulty of getting those guns on target), a similar 8x in defensive power (before you start stacking engineered SBs and HRPs, obviously), and let's call it about 1x the exploration potential.

No sensible balance is possible under those terms - either the more expensive ships (say, anything bigger than an Asp) are very definitely NPC only, or the cheaper ships (say, anything cheaper than a Python) are pretty trivial to obtain if you know the routes, depending on what point on the cost-performance curve the balancing is done.

Engineering, in a sense, is a bit more like the FFE balancing, in that the biggest ship has about 2-3x as many modules as the smallest one, so costs about 2-3x as much to engineer, and I'll certainly agree that they're at least 2-3x better at obtaining the materials. But it keeps the "100x the cost for sub-linear performance gains" of the basic ship pricing, so again there's no sensible point to balance at - the higher grades remain mostly "never pay for themselves" luxuries, but any further easing of material acquisition would move the lower grades to the point where they might as well give a free G3 mod with your outfitting.



[1] A similarly low-risk highly-optimised startup strategy in FFE would get a Panther Clipper or other ship of choice, fully equipped, in about four hours. And since you could only own one ship at once, that was very definitely all the money you ever needed. The lack of internet meant people generally didn't realise this until after they'd already played the game for weeks, and got a Panther Clipper the "proper" way.

[2] Where, again, ED piles on the costs. Outfitting a FFE ship to "maximum" generally cost a tiny fraction of its hull costs; outfitting an ED ship to A-rated costs about 4 times as much as the ship itself.

 

[Schmack]

Entirely arbitrary to be fair. It feels like a good mark to buy one of the big three ships (but I acknowledge that I don't have the rank for two of them!) and feels meaningfully on the way towards a fleet carrier. Neither of these objectives are truly end game but they often feel like things that new players strive for. And setting your own objectives in this game is what it's about.
"As a seasoned CMDR," I came into engineering quite late in my game play and have always found it to be an enhancement rather than necessary to meet most goals. The FSD booster and light FSD engineering being sufficient quality of life improvements for most purposes. Outside of that it was a fun tree to climb in itself.
I often hear of people continuing to bemoan the grind. But ultimately if you're grinding and hating it then you're doing it wrong and there will always be a better way.

I actually enjoyed the engineering "grind". I would have been fine without it however, as long as new ships and modules were being introduced regularly.