How are you guys not losing tons of money?
- Thread starter keem85
- Start date
Combat and assassination missions are not really ideal if if you're a casual player. Passengers, exploring, mining and trading are far easier (and safer). If you want to combat there really only is one way. Git gud. Start with a decent combat ship like the Vulture or FAS (more expensive). Upgrade (and Engineer it). Start by hitting wanted targets at a nav beacon to get some skills.
Good luck Commander.
So much this. Elite: Dangerous is becoming so convoluted even the support team doesn't know how the game works.
By not getting killed ?
I’ve never had a problem locating mission targets or understood how anyone else could. As stated, either an ADS scan or Nav beacon scan will point you to where you need to look. After that, make the kill and get out. Stop by a station in that system to claim the local bounty then head back to your mission contact to get paid for the mission.
That’s all there is to it.
Now I get losing a ship can be an expensive proposition and discouraging but it happens. Press on, you’ll recover.
That’s all there is to it.
Now I get losing a ship can be an expensive proposition and discouraging but it happens. Press on, you’ll recover.
Getting money is pretty simple, but it's not fun. I have a foolproof policy for easy money making.
1. Always play solo.
2. Do CG's. Between them, bounty hunt, explore,or do a rank/credit grind.
3. Ignore high risk missions (anything that isn't a delivery) and only do missions to increase rep or rank.
4. When bounty hunting, never go to Haz Res. Only follow the cops in High Res. Log in and out until Larger pirate ships spawn. Never start a fight.
Thats it. I made it from a Sidewinder to a Cutter in 6 months doing this.
1. Always play solo.
2. Do CG's. Between them, bounty hunt, explore,or do a rank/credit grind.
3. Ignore high risk missions (anything that isn't a delivery) and only do missions to increase rep or rank.
4. When bounty hunting, never go to Haz Res. Only follow the cops in High Res. Log in and out until Larger pirate ships spawn. Never start a fight.
Thats it. I made it from a Sidewinder to a Cutter in 6 months doing this.
Stealthie
Banned
To be fair, there are times (fairly rarely) when a mission target will flat-out refuse to appear.
This, however, is stuff that a player should become aware of in week/month 1 of playing - assuming they're not doing that type of mission for the first time.
Which kind of brings us back to whether it's okay that somebody should be flying a Python without knowing how to succeed at interdictions, how to locate a mission target or how to survive at a nav' buoy.
Death happens. Be prepared for it. If you are dying too much, fly something cheaper until you get the skills to die less.
May I recommend the Cobra Mk 3?
May I recommend the Cobra Mk 3?
I know, right? Took me months to get a Python, and have never lost it. But then I didn't try taking on assignation missions until just recently. And I use a highly engineered Corvette or Python to do it.
Wandering into a little understood situation with a rather expensive ship is just asking for it IMO. But then maybe I'm more cautious than most.
If you want a simple and quick haulage trick then using the gal map filters find a system that’s in OUTBREAK and a system as close as possible that sells medicine (basic last time I did it) then just transport the medicines to the outbreak system for a great profit with lower than average risk as its a fairly cheep cargo. Your python is PERFECT for this as you can use outposts as well as the bigger stations.
Dont just plump for the 1st outbreak sector u find, take a little time to check several and find the one with the LEAST distance required to reach it. This is important for several reasons, firstly TIME IS MONEY in the trucking business the quicker your route the more runs you make the more credits you earn. Secondly the less time you spend getting to your destination the less chance there is of a nasty npc trying to Knick your cargo, lessen the danger to yourself lessen the times you will see the rebuy screen. DONT forget to check the SECURITY level of you target destinations too.
Do exactly the same for where your getting your cargo.
Remember the truckers motto NEVER FLY EMPTY always try your hardest to have a cargo for both trips.
Dont just plump for the 1st outbreak sector u find, take a little time to check several and find the one with the LEAST distance required to reach it. This is important for several reasons, firstly TIME IS MONEY in the trucking business the quicker your route the more runs you make the more credits you earn. Secondly the less time you spend getting to your destination the less chance there is of a nasty npc trying to Knick your cargo, lessen the danger to yourself lessen the times you will see the rebuy screen. DONT forget to check the SECURITY level of you target destinations too.
Do exactly the same for where your getting your cargo.
Remember the truckers motto NEVER FLY EMPTY always try your hardest to have a cargo for both trips.
Why not, it probably depends on the chosen career-path.
I started with bounty-hunting, so I had 'surviving at a nav-beacon' covered on day two using a d-rated eagle. I didn't start trading before I had a clipper, and that was after half a year.
But there are people who start with trading and move over to combat when they get bored or have enough money for a big combat ship.
Its might not be very wise to do it that way (and will lead to some pretty big rebuys for a while, like OP), but its 'okay' if you ask me.
As others have suggested, it might be better to park the phyton for a week and buy a viper in that case.
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I won't even read others answers, I pretty much know what they are saying, and I want to reinforce.
OP thread show me he did not understand how to execute the missions. These kind of mission says, scan the nav beacon, or use the ADS to find your target.
If he tried ADS first and it did not work, why not try the nav beacon? For me it works all the time. And he said he was looking for a named pirate, therefore it was assassination mission and the process is:
Scan, Get update with location, flight there, wait, kill.
I am sure, knowing this reduce many frustrations from now on.
However, he will then face another bigger problem. Lets see... he goes to a nav beacon, chooses a ship to shoot, and gets destroyed - which happened other times.
Well, no way he can jump into a wing and complete an assassination mission. Don't even try.
The underline problem here is, not knowing how to do, and not having skills required. First problem is easy, I bet he learned a lot in this thread.
But for the second, no one can help, and he leaving the game after a frustration, and returning long after just to repeat same mistakes won't help.
Consider this a constructive advise. Be patient, and play at your level, improve a bit every day.
OP thread show me he did not understand how to execute the missions. These kind of mission says, scan the nav beacon, or use the ADS to find your target.
If he tried ADS first and it did not work, why not try the nav beacon? For me it works all the time. And he said he was looking for a named pirate, therefore it was assassination mission and the process is:
Scan, Get update with location, flight there, wait, kill.
I am sure, knowing this reduce many frustrations from now on.
However, he will then face another bigger problem. Lets see... he goes to a nav beacon, chooses a ship to shoot, and gets destroyed - which happened other times.
Well, no way he can jump into a wing and complete an assassination mission. Don't even try.
The underline problem here is, not knowing how to do, and not having skills required. First problem is easy, I bet he learned a lot in this thread.
But for the second, no one can help, and he leaving the game after a frustration, and returning long after just to repeat same mistakes won't help.
Consider this a constructive advise. Be patient, and play at your level, improve a bit every day.
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Stealthie
Banned
Wandering into a little understood situation with a rather expensive ship is just asking for it IMO. But then maybe I'm more cautious than most.
Indeed.
One of my "personal nerfs" is that if I ever lose a ship accidentally I don't rebuy it.
If I'm doing something for the first time I deliberately buy a ship I think will be suitable, try whatever it is and see what happens.
First time I ever did a base-scan mission, for example, it turned out to be a high-security base and my ship got pulverised by Goliaths.
Lesson learned.
You can be a newb' at a particular aspect of the game but you should also have the self-awareness to realise that something became a train-wreck because you don't know what you're doing, and then ask for help about that thing, rather than just doing the same thing over and over or rage-quitting.
To be clear, I don't necessarily mean this in a "all the credits but clueless" sort of way.
The point is that it'd be nice if the game was smart enough to know when people are doing stuff for the first time and either provide tips or level the activity to suit the player's experience.
Currently, the only advice anybody can really give is to try everything in your freewinder, where the penalty for failure is minimal, but there's no guarantee that players will be willing or able to do that.
In almost 4 years and numerous bug released, the closest experience I have had with this has been looking for thargoid probes around ammonia worlds. Sometimes they show up, sometimes I’ll make 2 dozen orbits and find nothing. That’s been it for me though. I’ve even joined other commanders who’ve been on the hunt for a mission target for an hour or more, drop into the system, ADS scan or Nav scan, fly to the target planet and find the mission target before completing a full orbit.
Come come now Stealthie. Surely you're not suggesting that passengers, trading, exploring, mining and general faffing about are invalid gameplay choices?
Stealthie
Banned
It definitely happens.
I do wonder if there are explanations though.
For example, I once took 4 assassination missions at the same time, completed the first one, headed for the second one and the target was a no-show.
Eventually, I realised that if I waited much longer I was going to run out of time for the two remaining missions.
Jumped to a different system, honked, headed for the target planet and then got interdicted by my intended target.
That's always a time-saver but then I was even happier because my target for the previous mission jumped-in as well.
I wonder if there are times when, perhaps, your target is supposed to interdict you but if that doesn't happen for some reason they won't be at the designated location?
You're waiting for them at the target location and, meanwhile, your target is hanging around the system's jump-in point which might be 100kls away, well out of range of your sensors.
In my line of work I often tell people: “I believe you when you say ‘this thing happened.’ It’s just not happening when I look for it.” There could be something to stacking these missions causing issues. As a non-stacker that might be why I’ve never had this problem.
As for running out of time... unless you’re actually waiting that half hour before heading to Some system to look for that target that will be there between 3:30 and 4:15 or whatever the flavor text says, there’s no reason to run out of time.
Wish I could figure out how to do that. Best I can do is around 3 million every 15 minutes. I can make more with missions, but that's more hit and miss.
Honking the ADS sometimes fails to work for Assassination missions - sometimes, not always. In those cases, you have to scan the Nav beacon. Most other solo missions work just fine with a honk (e.g. Planetary scan).
OP:
You are out of practise and a bit unfamiliar with the current game idiosyncrasies. Easy to remedy by just playing for awhile.
I'd fly a less expensive ship to reduce risk for awhile, and try to get up to speed on the new stuff. Like a Hauler fitted up for simple passenger transport. Fly it for a couple days, fight some interdictions, and regain your skills at flying, landing and navigating. You can get a jump of about 50 LY with that little ship, and pulling VIPs on sightseeing tours will easily get you back in the black both in your ledger and in the galaxy. Stack up some G5 engineering materials easily that way.
When you are ready to start combat, add on a single fixed multicannon, and mod that with anything plus the Corossive experimental. Then go stalk stuff in High RES, wait for the police to start fights, and jump in at the shallow end.
You are out of practise and a bit unfamiliar with the current game idiosyncrasies. Easy to remedy by just playing for awhile.
I'd fly a less expensive ship to reduce risk for awhile, and try to get up to speed on the new stuff. Like a Hauler fitted up for simple passenger transport. Fly it for a couple days, fight some interdictions, and regain your skills at flying, landing and navigating. You can get a jump of about 50 LY with that little ship, and pulling VIPs on sightseeing tours will easily get you back in the black both in your ledger and in the galaxy. Stack up some G5 engineering materials easily that way.
When you are ready to start combat, add on a single fixed multicannon, and mod that with anything plus the Corossive experimental. Then go stalk stuff in High RES, wait for the police to start fights, and jump in at the shallow end.