Horizons Advice & Help for a "Mostly Newb" - Many questions for the veterans of ED

harihoudini

harihoudini
Hello All

I apologize for this rather long post. I didn't feel like creating separate threads.... so here goes....

Playing Horizons for about 3 months. 1-2 hours per day more on weekends. play mostly close to my home base/Faction (pristine rings with station for trade in same system)
Ships I have:
Asp-X, - well kitted, used for mining and delivery missions (used enginner Felicity for this but didn't know what the hell i was doing with upgrades. Apparently i have unlocked level 3 but god knows what that means.
Vulture - fairly well kitted mainly for bounty hunting in REs sites and also pirate lord missions. Beam for shields, muti cannon for hull.
Mk IV - used for skimmer and people missions but been collecting dust for a while. Tried ASP-x for skimmer but i can never control it near gravity - i end up upside down or crashed into the planet frequently with the skimmers laughing at me.
Have TM Hotas controls which allowed me to fly the ship better than mouse/KB

Money- $30M in the bank / Competent rating / Recruit Fed ranking - Still consider myself a useless Newb.
I use mining to "fund" my misadventures in missions and bounty hunting. I say this because i frequently end up hitting a fed vessel in combat by accident or undertake a stupid mission resulting in wipeouts and rebuys. The mining grind nets me 1-2M in my 2 hour play which allows me to do something else next time to avoid the ED grind.

Soul searching questions :

The grind is getting to me. I see people discussing FDL and Python purchases with 100M in the bank. How the hell do i get there? At the current level of mining/bounties, I will get bored to last another 6 months. Now that i have built up some REP with local faction, flying somewhere else, finding a brand new area which gives "better paying missions" seems a bit counter productive to my efforts so far. Also since FDevs seem to Nuke stuff willy-nilly, it doesn't seem like a good strategy (maybe short term?)

Q: Should I be upgrading to a Type-7 and find a loop route to get that $$ coming in faster? Asp-x only gives me around 120T cargo at the moment.

Combat in RES

even with a fairly well equipped Vulture, I find myself in "Jousting Land" i.e. you scan wanted guy, deploy Hard points, start tearing through with Beams (and power), he responds by charging and firing at you, you deploy chaff and charge at it with engine boost while firing, you pass each other, you slow down and turn around and he's off in the distance doing the same and you repeat the whole process again. Then its a matter of whose got better shields / chaff/ weapons to last it out. I can never seem to get "aligned" or close to the enemy ships going in the same direction like most of the pros on youtube to do things like power plant sub targeting or anything like that.

Any newb combat flying tips would be really helpful ! how do i practice this stuff?
Am I not using my power/thrusters/boost correctly? In the heat of battle everything goes into panic and find myself frequently with those lovely words "Eject, Eject"
(btw i got my weapons figured out fine for the most part).
Also I use Kill warrant on every target to max my bounty. Is this a waste of time? I never have the time in game/battle to figure out the value of what i am shooting at.

Engineers

So...do i have to go to visit them with every ship? That's 20 jumps each in a Vulture and then fiddle about with upgrades that i have no idea what i am doing. Any shortcuts? e.g. kit out the ASP-X with certain components and get those upgraded by engineer and put them in storage so you can swap between ships?


Thank you all for your help. All responses welcome along with advice on things I haven't asked here. Looking for ways to improve my ED Horizons experience and keep the interest. I love the game - just not the grind so much. Its frustrating to see youtube videos of CMDrs flying in massive ships doing fun stuff, when you're a bottom feeder.
 

Cpt Shadow Wolfe

Cpt Shadow Wolfe
Will try to give you some tips, Engineers, with the ship transfer option now, you can buy a taxi hauler, put A fsd, thruster and PD, put a D pp, life support and sensors, put maybe a chaff and point defense, sell weapons. Put any size scoop and a D size shield, maybe a ADS if you wanna scan, its a taxi, so you ain't gonna use it but to jump somewhere and then call your other small jump range ship to you, will cost you time and cash, but less time if you flew it yourself. A taxi hauler gets around 25 lys jump range unengineered. You ordinarily want to collect enough materials to do 4 or more rolls, you roll first time, apply it to the module, then roll again, if you get better numbers, you apply it, if the numbers are worse, just reroll. If you apply a mod on top of an existing mod, it will overwrite it. Will try to add more info later...

OK, when in combat, if you accidently hit the wrong ship and become wanted, immediately stop firing and run away as quick as you can, jump to another system. If you only fired on him and didn't kill him, you will only receive an 8 min bounty, wait the 8 mins in a different system, jump back, pay the fine and then you are good. But if you kill him, then you get a 6 day bounty and will have to leave unless you want the feds hounding you in that system. Happens to all of us now and then. Dont hunt in your home system unless you are trying to gain rep, but just be careful of your fire. Missions are hinged on a multitude of factors, your system rep and your major ranking as well as your rank with the big 3, fed, empire or alliance. As you increase rank in a system, you start getting paid more for the same missions, the better they like you, the more they offer in mission rewards. So it is good to increase your rep in an area, if you get a mission out of the area, take care of it and maybe look for something to bring you back. Otherwise just go back empty. Missions increase rep with local factions, the more you do, the better it gets. The system state also factors into what mission types are offered.

In combat the Vulture is a good ship, but realize, only 2 sz 3 guns, that's it. Take awhile to take down enemies, gotta keep pecking at them. And it has problems w/ power, depending how you outfit it. Took on 2 cutters in a CG once, one right after the other. Had a pulse and a cannon, took forever to get the shield down, but once I did, 5 cannon rounds into the pp and it was dead in the water, could take my time killing it, because of the maneuverability advantage I had, neither was able to keep sustained fire on me. I used pulse because I can fire indefinitely, beam is good for short blast and heavy damage, but it eats PD too much and you have to wait for recharge. Did 110 million in that CG in a week, 90% was done with the vulture, and that was in a CZ, with the money I was able to buy and fully equip a FDL. You can make money, a lot or a little, doesn't matter, just have fun. Was 2 ranks short of elite in combat when I started that CG, after a week of fighting, I only needed 10% to finish off before elite.

But the thing you might consider also is finding a clan to hang with, I joined with Delta Squadron and have always had wingman to fly with when I want them, for mining BH or whatever, good group to hang with. As a clan was we work together in the BGS to make our control systems stronger, when not needed, we do what we want. We had a member that went on the journey to Beagle point with a couple hundred other commanders last year, our aim is to have fun and help others have fun. If interested check us out on the website, or pop into our Discord channel. We'll answer any questions you have even if you don't wanna join. Until I joined I was aimless, didn't know where to go or what to do, now I am Triple Elite with 15 ships and 1.6 bil bank account, and I do what I want, like exploring and getting first discoveries, only currently have 11,835 so far...yea yea I know most of them are Ice worlds, about 4800 of them, but my name is on them. I am on a pilgrimage to get my name on at least one of every type of object, still have to find a black hole, orange giant, wolf rayette, and a carbon star, I have named everything so far, at least that I know of. Just ran across a new star, Herzig ae/be star. Well it should have my name on it after I turn in the data.,
 
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rrobes

R
I started by bounty hunting almost exclusively. Used a Vulture to good effect in REZ.

Bounty hunting gives you the opportunity to get your flight/fight skills developed in a shorter time frame. Mod your your Vulture to at least level 3 with dirty drives, heavy duty shields, charge enhanced power distributor, an overcharged power plant and heavy duty reinforced alloy armor (save weight). Others may have different builds, so be prepared to change. Use point defense as well. Learn to use flight assist off/on, it allows you to maneuver much more sharply and you can change the jousting effect.

If you use the KWS, scan your target b4 engaging, I sometimes scan several targets before committing to combat. You do get better returns with it.

Once you have combat in hand, you will find other tasks become easier.

As far as a T7, I gave up on transports very quickly and concentrated on banking enough CR to buy a Python. However, it will cost you 140 mill CR +/- and you want to have more that several rebuys in the bank, realistically close to another 100 mill.

I don't mean to put you off, but there is a commitment and grind. If you are doing the Fed rank, be aware that the Fed ships have not been kindly treated with recent changes, as the balance for combat has gone to the FDL and many just won't do the rank for the Corvette, the cost can be staggering (you can build a billion CR Corvette, armor costs as much as the original purchase price). Many are happy with the Anaconda. For apex trading and speed the Imp Cutter is the way to go, so do the Imp rank.

You need to make decisions now because the start is important for the long range.

Be prepared to play for a year to get comfortable with your ships and bank accounts if you're going big.

Just remember, you can just play with the small to mid-size ships and have as much enjoyment. The big ships allow economies of scale to build CR but the enjoyment doesn't scale up the same for some players. Individual results may vary.

And read through the forum posts before you ask questions, you will get better help if you ask more specific questions based on you initial research.

See you in the black,

o7
 
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harihoudini

harihoudini
Cpt Shadow Wolfe said:
Will try to give you some tips, Engineers, with the ship transfer option now, you can buy a taxi hauler, put A fsd, thruster and PD, put a D pp, life support and sensors, put maybe a chaff and point defense, sell weapons. Put any size scoop and a D size shield, maybe a ADS if you wanna scan, its a taxi, so you ain't gonna use it but to jump somewhere and then call your other small jump range ship to you, will cost you time and cash, but less time if you flew it yourself. A taxi hauler gets around 25 lys jump range unengineered. You ordinarily want to collect enough materials to do 4 or more rolls, you roll first time, apply it to the module, then roll again, if you get better numbers, you apply it, if the numbers are worse, just reroll. If you apply a mod on top of an existing mod, it will overwrite it. Will try to add more info later...

OK, when in combat, if you accidently hit the wrong ship and become wanted, immediately stop firing and run away as quick as you can, jump to another system. If you only fired on him and didn't kill him, you will only receive an 8 min bounty, wait the 8 mins in a different system, jump back, pay the fine and then you are good. But if you kill him, then you get a 6 day bounty and will have to leave unless you want the feds hounding you in that system. Happens to all of us now and then. Dont hunt in your home system unless you are trying to gain rep, but just be careful of your fire. Missions are hinged on a multitude of factors, your system rep and your major ranking as well as your rank with the big 3, fed, empire or alliance. As you increase rank in a system, you start getting paid more for the same missions, the better they like you, the more they offer in mission rewards. So it is good to increase your rep in an area, if you get a mission out of the area, take care of it and maybe look for something to bring you back. Otherwise just go back empty. Missions increase rep with local factions, the more you do, the better it gets. The system state also factors into what mission types are offered.

In combat the Vulture is a good ship, but realize, only 2 sz 3 guns, that's it. Take awhile to take down enemies, gotta keep pecking at them. And it has problems w/ power, depending how you outfit it. Took on 2 cutters in a CG once, one right after the other. Had a pulse and a cannon, took forever to get the shield down, but once I did, 5 cannon rounds into the pp and it was dead in the water, could take my time killing it, because of the maneuverability advantage I had, neither was able to keep sustained fire on me. I used pulse because I can fire indefinitely, beam is good for short blast and heavy damage, but it eats PD too much and you have to wait for recharge. Did 110 million in that CG in a week, 90% was done with the vulture, and that was in a CZ, with the money I was able to buy and fully equip a FDL. You can make money, a lot or a little, doesn't matter, just have fun. Was 2 ranks short of elite in combat when I started that CG, after a week of fighting, I only needed 10% to finish off before elite.

But the thing you might consider also is finding a clan to hang with, I joined with Delta Squadron and have always had wingman to fly with when I want them, for mining BH or whatever, good group to hang with. As a clan was we work together in the BGS to make our control systems stronger, when not needed, we do what we want. We had a member that went on the journey to Beagle point with a couple hundred other commanders last year, our aim is to have fun and help others have fun. If interested check us out on the website, or pop into our Discord channel. We'll answer any questions you have even if you don't wanna join. Until I joined I was aimless, didn't know where to go or what to do, now I am Triple Elite with 15 ships and 1.6 bil bank account, and I do what I want, like exploring and getting first discoveries, only currently have 11,835 so far...yea yea I know most of them are Ice worlds, about 4800 of them, but my name is on them. I am on a pilgrimage to get my name on at least one of every type of object, still have to find a black hole, orange giant, wolf rayette, and a carbon star, I have named everything so far, at least that I know of. Just ran across a new star, Herzig ae/be star. Well it should have my name on it after I turn in the data.,
Click to expand...

This is good info. About the Taxi Hauler advice- so i equip it and fly to a station near the engineer base. store all the things i want to engineer. Call your other ship (lets say vulture), once it gets here, change to Vulture, transfer all the stored stuff to it, then head to the engineer base? This makes total sense!

Clan - yes i think i will start looking at joining. Till now been playing solo and I didn't really feel like getting griefed in Open.
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
harihoudini said:
This is good info. About the Taxi Hauler advice- so i equip it and fly to a station near the engineer base. store all the things i want to engineer. Call your other ship (lets say vulture), once it gets here, change to Vulture, transfer all the stored stuff to it, then head to the engineer base? This makes total sense!

Clan - yes i think i will start looking at joining. Till now been playing solo and I didn't really feel like getting griefed in Open.
Click to expand...

A read of this thread might also help you regarding Engineers. I know it helps me ! ;)

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/311795-ASP-Explorer
 
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Nick Sticks

Nick Sticks
rrobes said:
Just remember, you can just play with the small to mid-size ships and have as much enjoyment. The big ships allow economies of scale to build CR but the enjoyment doesn't scale up the same for some players. Individual results may vary.
Click to expand...

This, play to enjoy and ignore the grind or you might burn yourself out.
.
 

Skyfire

Skyfire
These are my thoughts on all these topics. and are not necessarily the 'best' or 'correct' thing to do. However, under the correct circumstances can net you decent returns reasonably quickly.

Mining

For me personally I currently have and Asp Ex equipped for 96 tonnes of cargo, 3A shields, for those pesky NPC's even when mining nowhere near any RES. Oh yes, you don't have to go to a RES to extract the good stuff. It just might take a little longer, but I can't say I've noticed much difference in what I find between a HIGH RES and just going somewhere into the ring. For all the good metals etc (painite, palladium, platinum, gold etc etc) you need to find a PRISTINE system and a METALIC ring, NOT a HIGH METAL CONTENT. Check the mission board before you set off to mine, as there can sometimes be some quite lucrative missions. I'm now getting missions of 1.6mil for 20 to 24 tonnes of Osmium, for example. With everything else, I can usually mine 96 tonnes in about half an hour, and if I have 2 good missions - 1 maybe 1.5 mill and one at 600 k - I can get in around 3 mil for it all, more if I have substantial amount of painite too. Sometimes you can be lucky on returning and also find there's a mission for something you have in your hold. Always check before selling! Also, top sellers such as painite will only get top price of around 70k per tonne if the system is in BOOM, otherwise it's only ~30k ish. If not, finds another place you can sell that is in boom.

Combat

When bounty hunting, best done in a RES, or even a HAZARDOUS RES, and FOLLOW THE SECURITY ships around. Make sure you scan who they're shooting at, then get at least one shot in yourself. You should find some bounties come your way.

Trading

Get something with a big hold and use eddb.io to work out suitable trades from wherever you are to wherever you want to go. Possibly by using a route from 2 or 3 decently paying missions that you may have stacked. Possibly a Type 6 would be a cheap and quite fast hauler. Not much good for much else though.

Passenger missions

Hmmm. You need something kitted out with a sensible number of cabins of a level you want to do. Possibly business class, and of course you can take economy groups too as long as you still have enough cabin spaces. You WILL need some decent shields, and something to shoot back with. These can add a useful extra income with the bounties you can collect, and also the bonuses offered by the passengers for 'getting rid' of certain named NPC's!

Exploring

You CAN make a reasonable amount purely from exploring, but that is much more for the dedicated explorer going off for a week or weeks at a time well beyond the 'bubble'. HOWEVER, particularly while you are getting going, having a Discovery Scanner (advanced would be best) and 'blowing the trumpet' every system you transit through - well, those that you have no information for - will net you quite a reasonable amount of additional income. You will have to determine whether the income you get from it is worth the sacrifice of one (very small) slot.

More to come .....
 
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Skyfire

Skyfire
One thing I find too many people seem to get into is that getting anywhere is a 'grind'. I find it is much more about the journey and finding various different ways to enjoy the Elite experience, rather than just grinding out a trade route all the time. Yes certainly, when going from one place to somewhere else, perhaps doing a mission, perhaps think about the journey as a Trader, and utilise any unused cargo space to buy stuff that you can sell at the other end for a profit.

Blow the 'Star Trumpet' along any route when trading or missioning, or whatever you are doing. I was surprised, especially in the early days how much extra cr that brought in, and it was a bonus of the journey itself.

Run missions, even small ones. If you stick around an area you can run missions, get friendly with the local system and also the main faction. Once you become 'friendly' (or maybe the next level?) with the Federation or the Empire, you should find their naval missions start showing up. Take these, and you can progress your respective Naval Rank. I am currently Viscount in the Empire, and have just started working up in the Federation, and am now at about level 3 (I forget the title).

Bounty hunt occasionally. It's a great stress relief as well! You really need a dedicated ship for this.

Passenger missions can be an interesting diversion too. Just don't get annoyed if they suddenly take a dislike to your method of transport and jump ship!
 

-VR- Max Factor

-VR- Max Factor
I have similar ships to you and similar amounts of cash as well, and I have been playing for over 2 years now. I just won't grind and do what I find fun at the time, infact my bank balance in the last couple of play sessions has gone down by a couple of million.

My advice is to not rush to the big ships, enjoy each ship to the full as they are all unique and should be explored. Do what you enjoy and the credits will come eventually, just don't die too often.

I have tried the bigger ships in beta but I don't like them much to fly, I am much happier in the Vulture, Keelback and Cobra MK4.
 

goemon

goemon
1. " How the hell do i get there?"

short answer: by playing the game. long answer: by playing the game longer.

a. "by playing the game longer"

i found this excellent numbers in another thread:

evoelise said:
Some quick calculations, I posted this some time ago.

CostCost + UpgradeCargo SizeTrip ProfitTrips to UpgradeHours to UpgradeDays to Upgrade (2h/day)
SidewinderFreeFree880001021
Hauler527207908018180002752
Cobra37971856957744440002342
Type-6104594515689171041040002373920
Type-717472252262083782162160002744623
Python5697817985467268284284000103179
Type-9765558421148337635005000002113518
Anaconda1469694512204541765005000001863116
Imperial Cutter208969451313454176800800000n/an/an/a
Total: 179Total: 89

Based on a trade route of Cr2000 for the loop and being able to do 6 loops an hour (each loop takes 10-12 minutes) it takes roughly 180 hours to progress to a well specified Imperial Cutter just using trading.
Click to expand...

i would claim, that you can make 3500-4500 cr/t profit by state depending trading, so you would need 66% to 50% of times above - but this still means 25-30 hours ingame to earn the CR for a trading python in a t7.

b. "by playing the game"

- there is nothing ingame which you can't do and survive in a cobra mkIII. all other ships are sidegrades. you are well beyond a cobra mkIII

- i have flipped (e.g. changed goverment of) some systems with other players, to unblock rare goods. mainly we moved in with a multipurpose ship like cobra or AspE and a combat ship like viper or vulture. with a vulture and an AspE you already own top end tools for almost everything in the game. a python - is nice, because it can combine trading at outposts and combat. but you'll loose jumprange.... same applies for a FDL etc.

- ships above what you already have are nice, some are fun to fly, but they will not change what you can do in the game, nor will they change your enjoyment of the game. don't get me wrong - i love my trading cutter, i enjoy roaming the universe with my explonda, and i adore the handling of my mining corvette. but you'll find me more often piloting my DBS or courier in a CZ, or exploring in my DBE.

2. "Combat in RES"

- i have a really simple advice. buy an eagle.
an eagle teaches you good manner. you can't shieldtank in it. it isn't particulary fast, so you have to think ahead. if you make a mistake, you are dead.once you have mastered high res in an eagle, return to your vulture, und you will fly the vulture much better

- alternatively watch some youtube videos of the pvp league. the very best pilots are piloting the very best builds. on the one hand, it will help you to correct your assumptions ... basically combat in space in fast ships always has the tendency to jousting. but working with the lateral thrusters etc. will greatly reduce the number of hits you take. and if you look at throttle and pips manegement you'll learn a ton.

- vindicator jones also has a lot of very good tutorial videos. it is easier to show certain things then to tell.

3. Engineers

i take an Adder, AspE or my Conda to the engineers - these three ships can fit nearby every modul, which i engineer on them for any other ship. you can have moduls transferred to engineer bases and back ... so i normally engineer3-4 shields, or 15 shieldboosters, or 9 lasers at once.
 

Mysturji

Mysturji
Flying in gravity: Yes, it's different, even tricky. Practice in a stock Sidewinder and take advantage of the free replacements when you faceplant the ground.

Vulture: It has power issues. You need to outfit it carefully. This works for me (YMMV): https://coriolis.io/outfit/vulture/...b2o6625.AwRj4zyA.CwBhEYy6oZgJhEA=?bn=Dafuqz@?!

The Grind: You already have a small fleet of ships, with varying abilities. When the grind gets to you, try something else for a while. Change ships, change activities. Tried exploring yet? Not the most profitable, but it has its attractions. Cobra MkIII makes a good smuggler.

Combat in RES: Have you tried flying backwards? Up/down thrusters at the same time help to avoid NPC projectiles/missiles.

Engineers: Spam them for level 1 mods and keep rejecting them. You'll soon rank up to level 5
http://inara.cz/galaxy-engineers

Edit: I forgot...
Type 7: IMHO, don't bother. It only holds ~200T and that's with undersize shields, and the shields are tissue-paper at the best of times. The hull is wet cardboard, the thrusters are whoopee cushions, and it steers like a house. It's a flying coffin.
 
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shadragon

shadragon
harihoudini said:
Q: Should I be upgrading to a Type-7 and find a loop route to get that $$ coming in faster? Asp-x only gives me around 120T cargo at the moment.
Click to expand...
Maybe. You can do rares trading with your Asp to make a few bucks. Challenging and a change of pace.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/101211-71-Stop-Rare-Trade-Route-*UPDATED*

[video=youtube_share;kAiY213yKwA]https://youtu.be/kAiY213yKwA[/video]

CG's are a good source of income. Here's my T-7 trade build. This made me over 100 mil.
https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/typ...303050505B204040202.Iw18aQ==.EwBjEYxccqrmIA==.

You can also try deep space mining. Good combo of mineral missions, exploration scans and mining income.
 
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harihoudini

harihoudini
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