Ok, so I wanna "Get good" so I can take part in new things as they come out.

[EmmyV]

Ok, so I for years have only had passing opportunity to play this game. Lifetime pass owner, got a very nice HOTAS setup, and you know the drill. I've got about 200mill in the bank on my commander and I got a little fleet of ships, but only the Krait MKII and my Type 9 which is almost completely stock spare for lots of cargo slots would be considered "Good tier" for anything. I see people having really cool ships, cool fleets of ships, and they're embarking on all these sweet space adventures to get guardian stuff and the like. I always feel like I'm super massively behind. I would like to be able to get to the resource/potential to do all the things. Fighting aliens, exploring space, getting new stuff as it comes out, and generally you know, doing other things than just space trucking (Though, sometimes I really like the space truckin' not going to lie).

So I'm genuinely asking, how would I best set out to try and start building my own superwealth in the game so I can just do things on a whim like the more veteran players? How does one go about getting into a good flow of getting resources, learning what builds are good/bad, and the works? I know there's several people who have the time an capacity to just learn it all, become skilled innately, and just rock it, but what advice can be provided for the rest of us? I'd like to feel less "behind" on so much of the game, and if there's a few ideas/strategies for catching up. I'd really appreciate learning!

Thank you so much in advance, and safe flying!
-Emmy

 

[Lestat]

If you want to make a lot of credits fast. You can get about a Billon credit in a day just by farming Void Opal. Now how to set up your ships. I am still learning. I am also working on a Krait MKII for combat

 

[Riverside]

I'm sure lots of people will offer plenty of advice but I just play the game & try to pay attention

You'll get there

 

[Faded Glory]

Well, the key is probably time...

Getting credits. I'd suggest not making credits the goal, you stand the chance of boring yourself senseless.

That said, you say you enjoy space trucking from time to time, so get yourself allied with a bunch of minor factions (missions pay much better once you are allied) and you'll likely soon find a few high paying delivery missions turning up (4 million a pop for a single jump and not overly long SC is not that unusual). These may be quite high ranking, so expect potential high ranking NPC's to try and stop you from time to time, so if you're not comfortable with fighting them, make sure you can evade the interdiction. If you are willing to fight them, and remember you will get help from system security, and that can turn up very quickly in high security systems so pay attention to system security levels, then they will also be a good source of materials for engineering once they are destroyed.

Also on the subject of missions, planetary scan missions (again with factions that you are allied with) can pay nicely, are quick and easy to complete. You will get wanted with some of them, but no notoriety, so find a few local Interstellar Factors where you can pop in and pay off your bounties once you've done a few.

Exploration also pays well now, so if you feel like it, head out for a couple of weeks and FSS everything in sight, especially previously undiscovered systems. Expect to travel a couple of thousand light years from the bubble and not in the direction of nebulas, and you will find lots of them. Concentrate on class A, F, and G stars, as they tend to have more valuable bodies around them.

Experimenting with different ships and builds is really a fairly personal thing, at least it is for me. That said, make sure you have the credits to at the very least A rate your modules (and rebuy, obviously), and ideally dip into engineering if you haven't already. I'd start with smaller ships initially, as they cost less to rebuy so you might be less risk averse. (Personally I prefer small / medium ships anyway.) Trying different loadouts isn't a problem, as you don't lose credits when you sell modules back. The more you try out, the more you are likely to find loadouts, weapons combinations and engineering mods that work well for you.

And as Riverside says above, play the game and do things you find enjoyable. While it's nice in theory to be at a place where credits are no obstacle to gameplay (and yes, it is), it can be very counterproductive to make credits the goal and not enjoy what you are doing, and much more likely to lead to frustration and burnout.

So good luck, and have fun!

 

[GeoJase]

All depends on what you want out of the game. There are a lot of grindy aspects, some of which can be entertaining, but some are a real drag. Time is your biggest resource. Use it wisely.

I'd suggest in no particular order:

• outfit a core mining vessel and go hunting pretty rocks = cash = new ships & A-rating
• go unlock the Guardian FSD booster = increased jump range = good for expeditions with other CMDRs & just getting around
• unlock a few engineers to enhance whatever you think is important (FSD, shields, guns, thrusters, etc)
• join a squadron or wing up with a few CMDRs = team objectives
• collect any materials you come across = they are more important that credits these days
• enjoy

 

[Lightspeed]

From GeoJase's post above, the Guardian FSD mini-game is well worth doing. It improves your skill with handling pips in the SRV, challenges your mind (or memory) for a while, and yields access to a module that can then be bought for any ship you will ever have, to boost your FSD range. It's an effort, not too huge, and gives a good reward.

 

[DragonIV]

If you managed to get into a Type 9, you definitely have some idea how to make cash. Getting my first T9 was a big milestone to the era of big bucks for my commander.

As others have suggested, mining (either void opals or the much easier but less paying dual painite hotspots) will make hundreds of millions for you--it's my go-to activity when I need gobs of cash.

If you haven't done it before, exploring the Road to Riches path will pay a tidy sum too.

 

[Captain Willard]

I'm sure lots of people will offer plenty of advice but I just play the game & try to pay attention

You'll get there

This
Play the game. Don't grind and make yourself miserable.
Everything you do almost makes credits.
OH Build a DBX for some of the major things in the game where you need a truly long jump range and a small ship..
Guardian stuff, engineering mats,data,ores, engineers, and so on.

 

[DNA-Decay]

Void Opals are a fun challenge.
That solves money.

Exploration “Road to Riches” can be fun too.

Felicity Farseer is the first engineer you NEED.

Then you need Marco Qwent for the introduction to Palin.

By then you should feel less “behind” until you try PvP.

If you get a taste for PvP you will Get Good of your own accord.

 

[Ser Xav]

Expect to travel a couple of thousand light years from the bubble and not in the direction of nebulas

Great post Sir. Regarding the advice on not heading for nebulae, is this because everyone else will have headed for the nebula on their FSS credit hunting exploration spree, thus making chances of first discoveries far less?

 

[Faded Glory]

Great post Sir. Regarding the advice on not heading for nebulae, is this because everyone else will have headed for the nebula on their FSS credit hunting exploration spree, thus making chances of first discoveries far less?

Pretty much, although nebulas were typically scoured clean well before the FSS was introduced.

But just head off the beaten track a few hundred light years and nothing has been discovered. Far less than 1% of the galaxy has been discovered as of this time.

While the posts above recommend road to riches, personally I would recommend just exploring. First discovered bonus is significant, and while ELW's are rare, water worlds and HMC's, many of which are terraformable and will earn you many credits, are really quite commonplace.

I had elite exploration rank before the introduction of the FSS in 3.3. I had earned probably around 380 million credits from exploration. Three short exploration trips since the FSS was introduced netted me an additional 650 million credits.

 

[rekurzion]

My advice...

Pick a ship that will be your main workhorse and engineer it to the max. Do everything in that ship. The multi purpose ships are the best choices here since they can be outfitted as needed for any role in the game. Cobra, Asp, Python, Krait, Anaconda. And because they are multi purpose they will have some shortcomings when outfitted for a specific role, this will help sharpen your skill as you progress.

Next, pick a home system and learn the BGS. Become allied with all of the factions in that system and some in surrounding systems. This will give you a good source of high income missions to choose from without having to scavenge the bubble.

Work on becoming triple Elite. As you progress through the ranks your wonderful human brain will adapt and sharpen to solve each problem you encounter. There is no replacement for experience. Don't skimp in the combat. If you don't like combat that's fine. Take the Kung Fu approach - learn to fight so you don't have to. Once you build an iron azz and are comfortable in your ship nothing is much of a threat. You can become combat elite simply by shooting all the ships that come after your cargo if you prefer trading or the mission targets sent after you.

You will know you have reached a level of 'gud' when you can laugh in the face of any PvE challenge in the puniest of ships and enjoy playing in open without worrying about freebooters.

Lastly, specialize your fleet. Build that ultimate miner, the sturdiest space cow, a killing machine.

 

[Phazon Xenomorph]

I wouldn't worry about new things coming out, reason being, aside from the overly slow content that came out over the years in trickles, and the nothing until 2020 content.... Frontier are yet focused on ANOTHER tycoon-style game they are working on with Planet Zoo. So all their attention is on that. Honestly don't expect to have to worry about doing new things as they come out, cause they aren't coming out. Not until 2020 and I'll honestly be amazed if that isn't further pushed back or at launch has more than a weeks worth of content.

If you want to play this game, just play it, don't feel rushed cause Frontier sure as heck isn't.

 

[Hooplah]

Get good with every play style in the game figuring out what works. The Frontier Devs didn't make this easy but once a player figures it out it seems pretty darn easy. Thus many posts on the Forum saying it is too easy. Experience in the game which accumulates for every other play style should be your goal.. The point is that every player should go for maximum experience then everything in the game becomes so very easy. I have maxed out my main account with all the toys waiting for Frontier to at least give us atmospheric landings. We'll see.

 

[NCFCpaul]

My advice would be to vary your game play, try shooting stuff a bit, build your skills with practice starting in High Res (follow the police around so you have back up) then HazRes and so on.

Do some exploring, lots of stuff to see and a surprising money spinner even if people have already tagged stuff, so long as you haven't you still get a good income stream.

Keep doing some space trucking, having a comfort zone is nice,

Make big bucks mining, I use a Krait 2 for mining because in my opinion its the best so for the job

Use YouTube - ask the question in the search bar and it tends to find a helpful vid for you. I like Down to Earth Astronomy, Obsidian Ant, CMDR Exigious, Vindicator Jones for combat tips but there are loads of others. Yamiks for laughs - not to be played in earshot of children though....

Basically enjoy the game and be prepared to get out of your comfort zone. Also follow YouTube advice on unlocking all the engineers and farm ready materials at Davs Hope and the crashed Anaconda at Orrere (planet 2b)

Oh and use Coriolis.io to plan out any ship ideas to see how much things cost and how good they are. Having said that, when credits become plentiful try out as many different ships as you can - it's a fun exercise on it's own to see what suits you best.

Good luck and fly safe

 

[Shiro Akai]

I see people having really cool ships, cool fleets of ships, and they're embarking on all these sweet space adventures to get guardian stuff and the like.

Sounds like me. Currently over 1B in the bank, 19 ships in the hangar, planning on expanding my fleet a bit. Been trucking, trading, exploring (Sag A* and Colonia), siteseeing, engineer and Guardian unlocking, experimenting and simple dumb flying for the sake of flying (Hutton Orbital). All done while casually playing over the last nearly 3 years.

Sounds impressive? Wait till next part.

I always feel like I'm super massively behind. I would like to be able to get to the resource/potential to do all the things. Fighting aliens, exploring space, getting new stuff as it comes out, and generally you know, doing other things than just space trucking (Though, sometimes I really like the space truckin' not going to lie).

Also sounds like me. First year of my adventures felt exactly like this. I saw "creative use of mechanics" that guaranteed hundreds of millions per hour come and go and i couldn't participate since they required being in certain places (journey longer that 50 LYs was far away, 200+ LYs was unavailable back then) or certain ship/build. That required massive amounts of money I didin't have back then.

So people were having fun, exploring newly found Thagroid structures, experienced skimmer annihilation runs, going to Sag A* and other interesting things while I was grinding delivery missions to afford an AspX.

So I'm genuinely asking, how would I best set out to try and start building my own superwealth

Currently - fastest in terms of return: void opal minig. Get Python, slap mining laser, charge launcher, prospector limpet, refinery, collector limpet, load ~75% of your cargo space with limpets, find pristine metallic reserves ring, search for hot spot, drop there and spend few hours flying and trying to find VO asteroid with fissures. Crack open, gather all and repeat.

After few hours, depending on your luck and skill with finding proper asteroid you are guaranteed nice income. Just find station that buy VO at max price and be prepared to fend off pirates.

When you drop into mining site they will spawn - since you're empty they will leave you alone and go away. But if you log out, change place with supercruise or similar, WHILE having any cargo then they will attack. Mind that.

Other way of making nice money AND fulfilling other goals (aka. hitting two birds with one stone) is exploration. Get ship you can afford and
you like. Small ones that are nice explorers are Adder, DBX. Medium I'd take AspX, Phantom. Few larger are also nice but cost starts bo be an issue.

D-rate everything apart FSD - this A-rated is a must. Power plant take the smallest that can support your build. Biggest fuel scoop, some weak shields, barely enough to protect you from landing bumps. Surface scanner for additional income and you're ready to go. Reserve a week of play time, maybe two. Pick a target, I don't know - Sag A*, Colonia or just make 10k loop around bubble.

When at new system - honk and use scanner to see what's there. TIP:

rading spectrum - below spectrum you have "FILTERED ANALYSIS". When you get the strongest singal at RE in "filteREd" and AL AN AL in "spectrAL ANALysis" you're guaranteed to find high value find: Earth-Likes (ELW), water worlds (WW), ammonia worlds (AW), high metal content (HMC). Add to this gas giants, scan those too. Surface map ELW, WW and AW for even more bonus.

Bubble - Colonia trip with above will net you roughly ~100M in exploration data. So you can explore, see places and get some money in the process. Just be prepared it get boring quickly.

Yet another way is to play smart and pick valuable trade routes. You mentioned T-9, perfect.

Go to gal map, change view to system state. Filter outbreak. Then go to EDDB.io and find system that sell basic medicine, as a reference system put one you found on the map. EDDB will give you the closest one. Go there and fill your T-9 up to the gills with basic medicines. Go to outbreak system, find station that has actual outbreak and simply sell your haul. With full cargo you can expect 3-5M of profit per run. Ideally if you could buy something there and sell at other station, even small profit will do as it will cover you fuel.

Other method is to find currently most profitable trade with EDDB. Pick loop hop route. In options filter:

• max price range: 1 day
• min profit: 9000
• landing pad: L
• your location

Hit "find" and see what came out. 9k profit may not seem much but it's for per one ton of cargo. 700 tons * 9k profit = 6.3M. Currently such profitable routes involve Polymers. You can extend your route to multi-hop. Takes more time to do it but one loop can give you 10-15M, depending on length. Simple loop with 6M income you can do few times per hour. Few game sessions and you will collect nice amount of money plus it counts toward trading ranks.

How does one go about getting into a good flow of getting resources,

Dav's Hope planetary settlement ad nauseum. Go in solo, land, circle and scoop everything what's there. logout to manu, log in in to same mode. Rinse and repeat. When bored, find material trader, trade what you gathered for what you want at a loss.

Alternatively - just do missions and instead of credits pick material reward.

Or blow things up and scoop what was left afterwards. Inara.cz website is good at telling what material is where best to get.

learning what builds are good/bad, and the works?

Experiment, experiment and more experiment. At least this is FDEV designed way that require lots of wasted time and money. Alternatively - use 3rd party tools (coriolis.io, EDShipyard.com) and community knowledge. Site mentioned allow you to dry-build any ship in any configuration and see what you need credit wise and what it will look like armor/shield/cargo capacity/jump range wise.

When I plan on new ship I go to coriolis and build ship there. When I'm happy with final shape I go to eddb.io (another good place to find station that sell all modules I need) and plan an outfitting journey.


Overall - choose what you want to do and commit to that. This is how I came to my current status. Explored for some time, got few hundred millions from it. Mined VO for few hours (in Colonia, poor prices), earned few tens of millions. Been doing casrgo mission, then Basic Medicines and Outbreak trading, then Polymer profit runs. Last method I made over 200M and finally pushed my rank to Elite trader.

True - took me 6 months of very casual play but I can say I earned about 700M in that time. It got boring and tedious at times but changing method and play style helps.

 

[EmmyV]

Ok, so what I am getting (After reading everyone's posts) iiisss...

• There's no right path nor is there a strong way to get it other than mass grinding something. Grind is the only way to get anywhere unless there's a temporary gold rush through a bug that people were able to exploit before a patch.
• Void Opals should be looked into as I've not done that.
• Combat maaayyyy???? be viable again to make money currently? Last time I played Hi-Res sites were junk money compared to other means to play.
• Space Trading in wings with T9, still top dollar
• Exploration via some kind of massive moneymaker might be a great distraction from the mass trade grind.
• I should have posted that I already have max rep with farseer and the FSD drive upgrades were pretty mandatory.

I guess... I should try the void opals when I get bored trading, then maybe grab a good exploration vessel when I want to spend an afternoon or two just... going out into the black? Could be fun, the Pleiades is the farthest I've ever been from the hub.

Would I be right in saying that the current people who have the big bucks, and who can shoot for new things as they launch, just have way more free/space time under their belts and just grinded massively over months and months and now have a giant well of cash and can enjoy the game as they like, and ultimately I must spend even more time grinding to get to this degree of freedom? That's not a slight against anyone btw, I'm asking honestly. Tempering expectations sounds like it's in order to get enjoyment out of the game long term.

 

[Ethaidan]

While VO mining is recognised as the bestest money... Do not follow this advice:

"Currently - fastest in terms of return: void opal minig. Get Python, slap mining laser, charge launcher, prospector limpet, refinery, collector limpet, load ~75% of your cargo space with limpets, find pristine metallic reserves ring, search for hot spot, drop there and spend few hours flying and trying to find VO asteroid with fissures. Crack open, gather all and repeat."

Wrong mining gear, wrong ring type.

Having said that, core mining (any type) is good fun and very profitable. I've gone from sidewinder-Viper-DBX-Phantom in quick order on my alt account. Not doing voids, just the other cores that are far more common (I got 1.1mcr/ton of Bentonite? the other day).

Whatever you choose to do with your time, I would suggest you have a good look at the Engineer progression trees and keep that in the back of your mind. I did all of my core mining close to a Sirius controlled system and sold at the best price at a Sirius controlled station. I'm going to go painite mining as close as I can to Yoru controlled space. That's progress toward unlocking three engineers while earning credits (Zach, Selene, and Marco).

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Grind engineers. There is no need to git gud once you pigged out on all the power creep.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Ok, so I for years have only had passing opportunity to play this game. Lifetime pass owner, got a very nice HOTAS setup, and you know the drill. I've got about 200mill in the bank on my commander and I got a little fleet of ships, but only the Krait MKII and my Type 9 which is almost completely stock spare for lots of cargo slots would be considered "Good tier" for anything. I see people having really cool ships, cool fleets of ships, and they're embarking on all these sweet space adventures to get guardian stuff and the like. I always feel like I'm super massively behind. I would like to be able to get to the resource/potential to do all the things. Fighting aliens, exploring space, getting new stuff as it comes out, and generally you know, doing other things than just space trucking (Though, sometimes I really like the space truckin' not going to lie).

So I'm genuinely asking, how would I best set out to try and start building my own superwealth in the game so I can just do things on a whim like the more veteran players? How does one go about getting into a good flow of getting resources, learning what builds are good/bad, and the works? I know there's several people who have the time an capacity to just learn it all, become skilled innately, and just rock it, but what advice can be provided for the rest of us? I'd like to feel less "behind" on so much of the game, and if there's a few ideas/strategies for catching up. I'd really appreciate learning!

Thank you so much in advance, and safe flying!
-Emmy

For earning credits, I recommend core mining for Void Opals, I personally enjoy it, but it does take some time to be able to effectively spot core asteroids.
I can usually find one within 5 minutes, and mining one takes about 5 minutes (never actually timed that bit!), so you can make about 25-35m per asteroid.
So at maximum speed you're looking at 150-210~m credits per hour*.
And it has very satisfying explosions.
Doing this a few times a month will ensure you never run out of credits, and allow you to focus on other things in game.
*Doesn't include the travel time to sell VOs at maximum profit (roughly 1.6m per unit), as the distance to the best station can change weekly. Use inara.cz to find the best selling price near you.
But be prepared to defend yourself because pirates will be after your haul.

As for materials, I recommend taking a decent collection limpet controller wherever you go, and swing by any HGEs you find, and install a wake scanner, and just scan wakes and ships as you see them.
For elements, just visit geological sites, shoot Needle Crystals (and everything else), and use a raw material trader to trade for the lower grades.