Newcomer / Intro My Advice for newcomers...

[ImagoX]

for combat a better power distributor is more important than FSD. helps you shoot for longer, boost more often and improves shields.

when you do get a better FSD (and you'll want one for every ship you buy after this, stock FSD's are horrible!) those cul de sac's will vanish, so it is a great upgrade, just doesn't help with combat like a PD does.

Good to know... I'll check out a better jump drive then. Already have a Class C Power Distributor on my Eagle (smeone mentioned one in a video I saw) and YES INDEED it helps a ton! It's my new "first upgrade" on any ship I think, along wth better Thrusters and at least one gimballed weapon.

 

[willowfan]

Power Plant and Power Distributor should always be your first upgrades to a new ship - everything else the ship can do depends on these two components.

 

[ReaperAlex]

I always carry a ton of palladium bars in my cobra, because the pirates can't resist commenting on them. They're useful if I get interdicted by a CMDR, too. I used to vent biowaste and coffee at CMDRs but nowadays the platinum works a lot better. I think of it as a relatively low price for great entertainment.

hmm, i'm not convinced, i think venting biowaste then spooling up the FSD would be more entertaining

being serious, i think NPC pirates will call off the attack if you jettison enough cargo to sate their greed. maybe not so useful for a bounty hunter but if a trader gets caught short by an NPC pirate then it should be a valid way to keep their ship and most of their cargo

 

[ImagoX]

Power Plant and Power Distributor should always be your first upgrades to a new ship - everything else the ship can do depends on these two components.

Yes, totally agree - I upgraded the power plant as well, too. A must-have for more pew-pew as well as when you start adding systems into the reserve hardpoints (which takes you instantly over power budget). Thanks for that reminder.

 

[ReaperAlex]

Good to know... I'll check out a better jump drive then. Already have a Class C Power Distributor on my Eagle (smeone mentioned one in a video I saw) and YES INDEED it helps a ton! It's my new "first upgrade" on any ship I think, along wth better Thrusters and at least one gimballed weapon.

also keep a very close eye on your eagles power needs, that ship more than any other is prone to going well over it's power limits with a few rushed upgrades! 2 of my friends got into combat, deployed hardpoints then found out to their horror that the whole ship had just shut down on them. so besides checking power needs on the outfitting screen it's also worth messing with your module priorities so if you do have a brain fart and run out of power at least you can keep essentials running like the guns while the FSD and cargo scoop turn off.

 

[Alteph Four]

Where would you recommend? I DID notice that the starter area has a lot of "dead end" jump routes, some of which have nothing at the end of the cul de sac (meaning that I need to do 3-4 jumps sometimes just to get back to a system with good stations). I'm personally looking for an area with lots of enemies to fight (for bounties) as well as profitable trade routes (for dropping off the stuff I "find" along the way).

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PS - I've had good luck with this by hanging around Nav Beacons and shooting down Wanted targets. You can go for harder (Deadly and above) targets and/or targets in heavily-armed ships AFTER SYSTEM SECURITY ARRIVES - they will also engage the wanted targets with you and draw off fire that would otherwise be squarely be focused on you. WHen I do this, I shoot their shields away then get distance so MY shields can recharge - the security ships will hammer the un-shielded target while you recharge. Then back in for a rinse/repeat. WHen the target gets to around 10% put all energy into Weapons and hammer them until they drop. My best bounty (in the starter system in my puke lil' Sidewinder) was 54K from a single Elite-level target, with 2 other AI security ships assisting (which, also ups the bounty since he's resisting them... go figure.. total WIN/WIN). =)

Thats what I am doing now. I spent an hour in a nav beacon, had 1 pirate (came up to me and scanned me, then attacked) the rest were just wanted but didnt attack. I got 3 or 4 kills for around 2k each. So in an hour I earned maybe 10k. Still pretty crappy. I guess I jsut have really bad luck. The RNG in this game is cheating me big time ;p

 

[Mysturji]

At first, stick to the basic sidewinder. Don't bother upgrading it for now (except for a bigger cargo rack) when you die, you get a FREE basic sidey. DO NOT sell your Basic Discovery Scanner.
Go to Lave, and also check out the nearby systems. you're looking for Rare Commodities. They're easy to spot in the Market screen: They're a different colour.
Buy as much as you can, then pick any direction and fly 160 LY, scanning unexplored systems as you go. Then sell your cargo for a MASSIVE profit. Also sell your Cartographic data for free money. Rinse and repeat. Find more systems selling Rare Commodities (Hint: There's a thread with a fairly complete list). Find 2 "hubs" with a few Rare Commodities sellers close to each other, over 160LY apart and go back and forth, scanning as you go.
Do some missions, go to some combat zones (with an empty cargo hold!), submit to NPC interdictions (PC's will probably blow you to dust if you fight back in a sidey), stop at USS's.
When you can afford a hauler, earn twice as many credits again before you buy it, upgrade the FSD, thrusters, shields and cargo racks, and carry on with 4 times the cargo space you had in the sidey.
Rinse and repeat. Your next ship should be a Cobra.
Now you're a Player.
At 5 hours a day, if it takes you more than 2 or 3 days, rethink your sterategy/routes.

 

[cmdr lowest]

The first time I cleared my save was because I lost all my money, and had my ship blown up twice. The second time, I managed to maked around 20k on bounties, but same thing, lost my ship a few times and my insurance was running out. I go to nav beacons and RES to find the bounties, and I have never seen anyone come up and scan me, let alone say they were going to take my cargo. And that was twith cargo on hand too, I had a load of hydrogen fuel that I was losing money on, so I jsut carried it everywhere hoping to find a place to sell it for a profit (Ended up making around 150c profit, yes 150 NOT 150k).

It really does sound like I have to leave inhabited territory in order to make money, it sounds to me like none of the habited systems have crap for money making opportunities. I did find a seeking luxuries guy that I sold performance enhancers to, made like 1k profit on it. Most definately NOT like people say it is. You cant make crap off seeking luxuries as it costs the same amount to buy the PE as it does to sell them. I sawe the video where the guy was pulling in 2m per haul, but he didnt say how it cost him 2 milion to buy either. I think I just have to grind 1200c trades up to 350k to get my next ship. that will hold more cargo and I can make 2k per trip!

Just a couple of things.

You don't need to wait to be scanned to engage a pirate. Just scan for wanted ships. If they are wanted you can fire on them without penalty. To scan a ship you need to target it (if it's in front of you hit the 'target ahead' button, default T. If you can't seen them use your contacts pane on the LH screen and target them there). Then you must bring them in front of your ship. It will take a few seconds but it should then show CLEAN or WANTED as their status.

The beginning of the game is quite a slow crawl until you get to your first ship that isn't the free sidewinder. Longer if you save up for a Cobra as your first ship like I did.

I found a decent way to make money was a bit of smuggling in USS points. I'd make my base on the platform starport in the Portriti system, fly out to USS' and look for discarded caninster then scoop them up and fly them back to base. That platform at Potriti has a black market where you can sell them and because it's a platform, no authority presence. Kit your Sidewinder with 6T of cargo space by discarded the discovery scanner, which is of no real benefit to the starting ship, and you can make quite a profit when you're starting out, depending on what stolen cargo you come across...

 

[Starnr]

my bit o advice to a noob, is how i did it. Blind, dumb and patient. I knew that Industrial to Agry world was ok trade, so i filled my Sidey and just took off from my base that I had no idea where it was, and just started to explore and trade and bounty hunt as I went, I did anything that made me a credit while i was practicing shooting landing taking off, finding where the hell I was. Next thing I know is that i am in a Viper and an Adder and I now know were I am relative to SOL,(a long way away). I have now gone on to better things.
Just retract your landing gear and go, and yes it will take you a long time before you will feel comfortable and ready to Kick some buttts good hunting and trading to ya. Oh before I forget join the Alliance ASAP, we will rule