Newcomer / Intro What are you up to?

[KnezBP]

I got an invite from my third engineer, Tod McQuinn due to my recent bounty hunting activities, but it was a bit of an anti-climax. I could only engineer one of my multi-cannons two thirds of the way because apparently mechanical scraps are quite rare. At least in my experience.

ALTHOUGH..I did notice that my A cannon fires for longer than the B cannon during combat. I was actually wondering if it'd work at all so that was both a nice and strange surprise.

I've discovered one mechanical scrap since. I transferred my iEagle all the way up to Wolf 397 in anticipation of engineering both ships and I couldn't even get both cannons partially suped up on the Cobra.

And I haven't even revisited the first engineer in Khun since I don't have the materials to get started.

But I do find NPC pirate smacktalk quite funny before I destroy them.

 

[Spaceman Si]

And I haven't even revisited the first engineer in Khun since I don't have the materials to get started.

But I do find NPC pirate smacktalk quite funny before I destroy them.

If you're punching their ticket with your Cobra, you can fit collector limpets and hoover up all their debris, which will sometimes include mechanical scrap (amongst other things)

You don't need the collector limpets, but manually scooping things up can get a bit tedious when there are showers of debris around.

 

[KnezBP]

If you're punching their ticket with your Cobra, you can fit collector limpets and hoover up all their debris, which will sometimes include mechanical scrap (amongst other things)

You don't need the collector limpets, but manually scooping things up can get a bit tedious when there are showers of debris around.

That is a great point. I hate cargo scooping, and if I'm gonna take very particular missions I should re-equip my ship accordingly.

See, that's what I love about the Elite community. We're like that dark corner of Mos Eisley's cantina exchanging little tips and tricks among fellow travellers.

Thank you, Si.

 

[NorthernDevo]

Holy mackeral, I hit the flippin' MOTHERLODE!!!

NO chance to find this site again, but what a great find!

To be clear, this is two 'roids - a 4-spot one and a 3 spot one. After hitting the 4SSD, I fired a probe at another bright one and missed, hitting a dimly glowing rock instead. THAT one turned out to be a 3SSD within a kilometer of the first - and the other bright one had nothing at all.
Woot!

 

[NorthernDevo]

Update: here's the before and after from one pass of these rocks (with a few misses in there):
Before:

After:

Schweet!

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

That is a great point. I hate cargo scooping, and if I'm gonna take very particular missions I should re-equip my ship accordingly.

See, that's what I love about the Elite community. We're like that dark corner of Mos Eisley's cantina exchanging little tips and tricks among fellow travellers.

Thank you, Si.

Not sure if it has been mentioned but check out material traders.

They deal exclusively in one type of ‘material’.

Scans/data. So when you scan ships or wakes you collect data from them.

Manufactured materials, such as mechanical scraps.

Materials, carbon, nickel, arsenic.

Each group has rare and common types.

Carbon is 10 a penny, arsenic is not. The trader will give you one arsenic for (making this up) 36 carbon.

So collect everything you can when killing pirates. Some of your bins will fill quicker than others. Then find the trader you need.

Data traders can be found in high tech systems, Materials (carbon etc), can be found in extraction systems and manufactured material traders can be found in industrial systems.

Not every system has one.

Some of the above may be wrong but the principle is right. My mind is not what it once was. Sorry if you already knew this.

Edited to add: There is a Manufactured Material trader in Jafnhau, in the bubble, if that’s any help.

 

[KnezBP]

Schweet!

Am I reading this right and you just found 394 diamonds sellable at 233 grand a piece? I have 20 million in the bank. Although I'm taking massive cuts on missions because I'm hunting for materials. That's still the most I've had in my account.

Let's open Windows calculator.

131.2 million creds.

Nice.

 

[KnezBP]

Not sure if it has been mentioned but check out material traders.

They deal exclusively in one type of ‘material’.

Scans/data. So when you scan ships or wakes you collect data from them.

Manufactured materials, such as mechanical scraps.

Materials, carbon, nickel, arsenic.

Each group has rare and common types.

Carbon is 10 a penny, arsenic is not. The trader will give you one arsenic for (making this up) 36 carbon.

So collect everything you can when killing pirates. Some of your bins will fill quicker than others. Then find the trader you need.

Data traders can be found in high tech systems, Materials (carbon etc), can be found in extraction systems and manufactured material traders can be found in industrial systems.

Not every system has one.

Some of the above may be wrong but the principle is right. My mind is not what it once was. Sorry if you already knew this.

Edited to add: There is a Manufactured Material trader in Jafnhau, in the bubble, if that’s any help.

I literally just found out about material traders but I've had no luck with them so far. I think I've already given up trying. Even after checking Inara. It feels too grindy. I'll still check contacts when I'm at a station though since I'm usually cashing in bounties anyway.

The scan thing is a good idea. That's another thing I only really noticed this weekend for some reason. Probably because I've just started using the FSD interdictor to grab pirates.

Funny that you say carbon is quite common since that's something I've needed since Khun and I've not found a single drop.

Thanks for the other tips, Xloube. Particularly the Jafnhau thing. I'll check that out.

 

[NorthernDevo]

Am I reading this right and you just found 394 diamonds sellable at 233 grand a piece? I have 20 million in the bank. Although I'm taking massive cuts on missions because I'm hunting for materials. That's still the most I've had in my account.

Let's open Windows calculator.

131.2 million creds.

Nice.

No actually - that's the Galactic Average. I currently have over 4000 LTD's at 1,731,578 best sell right now.

 

[KnezBP]

No actually - that's the Galactic Average. I currently have over 4000 LTD's at 1,731,578 best sell right now.

No one likes a braggard, Devo.

But nice.

 

[NorthernDevo]

No one likes a braggard, Devo.

But nice.

Chuckle

 

[Banger_uk]

i find that cargo scooping can be a bit of a hit/miss affair....

but now i found the solutions is not to shoot forward using the 25% key. but to use under 10 makes it perfected all the time.
just get within the 100 kms of cargo to scoop and Slow the hell down throttle up to 10 and rick and roll

 

[Chris Simon]

i find that cargo scooping can be a bit of a hit/miss affair....

but now i found the solutions is not to shoot forward using the 25% key. but to use under 10 makes it perfected all the time.
just get within the 100 kms of cargo to scoop and Slow the hell down throttle up to 10 and rick and roll

It also depends on what you're flying.
Some ships are quite hard to scoop in. Well, hard in a sense that it works differently and you have to get used to it.

For example, some ships have the cargo scoop quite far back. What that means is that if you're "too low" for scooping (i.e. the scoopable chunk is too high on your scooping radar) and so you pitch up, the back of your ship and the cargo scoop with it pitches down so you just bump the chunk out of the way.
Anaconda in infamous for this and you will quickly learn to use vertical thrusters instead of pitch control.

Some ships also have various pieces of the hull sticking down in front of the scoop so you have to be higher to the last moment and then get down towards the chunk.

I quite enjoy scooping with F/A off. It's one of the few more challenging things to do it Elite.

 

[KnezBP]

For some reason I launched from a station and bounced around like a pinball this week because FA was turned off. I thought 'What in the E to the double F is going on here?' (I think that will get past the mods). I thought the game had crashed until I checked the right panel probably close to a minute later and realised my flight settings were arbitralily changed.

It wasn't fun since it could've got me killed by station security.

 

[Chris Simon]

For some reason I launched from a station and bounced around like a pinball this week because FA was turned off. I thought 'What in the E to the double F is going on here?' (I think that will get past the mods). I thought the game had crashed until I checked the right panel probably close to a minute later and realised my flight settings were arbitralily changed.

It wasn't fun since it could've got me killed by station security.

The F/A is always on by default. Check which key or button you have bound it to. I'm pretty sure it must have been a miss-click.

As an F/S off pilot, this is actually one of my major gripes with the game - the F/A keeps being switched back on in every new instance and you can't set it to "default off" like in the SRV. It drives me mad.

 

[aRJay]

It also depends on what you're flying.
Some ships are quite hard to scoop in. Well, hard in a sense that it works differently and you have to get used to it.

For example, some ships have the cargo scoop quite far back. What that means is that if you're "too low" for scooping (i.e. the scoopable chunk is too high on your scooping radar) and so you pitch up, the back of your ship and the cargo scoop with it pitches down so you just bump the chunk out of the way.
Anaconda in infamous for this and you will quickly learn to use vertical thrusters instead of pitch control.

Some ships also have various pieces of the hull sticking down in front of the scoop so you have to be higher to the last moment and then get down towards the chunk.

I quite enjoy scooping with F/A off. It's one of the few more challenging things to do it Elite.

Then there are the Saud Kruger ships where the light of the holo display of the scoop targeting screen gets reflected by a shiny bit of cockpit and makes that targeting screen extremely difficult to see which again causes issues with scooping.

 

[Chris Simon]

Then there are the Saud Kruger ships where the light of the holo display of the scoop targeting screen gets reflected by a shiny bit of cockpit and makes that targeting screen extremely difficult to see which again causes issues with scooping.

Exactly.
Basically every bigger ship has something that screws up the scooping. I think they're doing it on purpose.

Must be the collector limpets lobby

 

[the100thmonkey]

the F/A keeps being switched back on in every new instance and you can't set it to "default off" like in the SRV. It drives me mad.

Something's going on there - when I switch it off, it stays off until I either switch ships or restart the game client.

 

[Chris Simon]

Something's going on there - when I switch it off, it stays off until I either switch ships or restart the game client.

Mine comes back on every time I jump, come out of SC or land and then launch. And naturally when I restart the game.
It's always done that, I kind of got used to pressing the F/A switch every time automatically, but I'd still appreciate if I didn't have to do that.

 

[KnezBP]

The F/A is always on by default. Check which key or button you have bound it to. I'm pretty sure it must have been a miss-click.

As an F/S off pilot, this is actually one of my major gripes with the game - the F/A keeps being switched back on in every new instance and you can't set it to "default off" like in the SRV. It drives me mad.

I can't imagine playing with FA off since I find dogfighting with competent pirates very dragged out and yawnworthy enough without that extra hassle. Obviously I have a lot to learn.

Although my hud always starts in analysis mode, which is kind've irritating.