Newcomer / Intro New guy. Don't shoot.

MishaTX

MishaTX
Welcome, CMDR! o7

Just one little thing, my personal little thing so feel free to disregard. Many, myself included once upon a long ago, will feel tempted to leave out the shield generator when tinkering with their ship. Extra slot, lower weight, greater range... It IS tempting. One unfortunate bump into something big and heavy (most things are out there) and you'll find yourself regretting that decision. I know I did.

Put a shield on, even if it's just a small "bumper" one. You WILL, no matter how good you get, occasionally bump into something, don't let anybody tell you otherwise, or something/somebody will bump into you. Let the shield soak that up and you can laugh all the way to port. Shields regenerate and the recharge is free. Hulls don't, and the repair is anything but free (and that's if you survive the bump).

Nothing bites worse than being about to land after weeks in the black, ready to sell all that juicy exploration data, only to be bumped by an idiot AI while entering and BOOM, ship and explo data, all of your hours in the black, gone forever. Just because of that extra half a light year of range that you got for not fitting a shield.

Ask me how I know how bad that feels. :)
 

withnail67

withnail67
Welcome - I'm a new PS4 player, also in his 50's and loved the original game on my good old 'speccy. The learning curve is pretty steep, but well worth the climb. There's a wealth of information out there others have linked to and I've found this forum incredibly helpful. Some of the "old hands" keep an eye on the newbie forum and are ready to share their knowledge.

One PS4 specific tip - you'll read about people on all platforms cutting the throttle to 75% as they approach a Station etc to avoid overshooting. You can press the "Options" button, choose "Controls", scroll down to "Throttle" and expand the options. Then bind a key group to set throttle to 75% - I use O+R1. If you decide to follow this advice, make sure you choose "set throttle to 75%" and not "set throttle to -75%" (which is above +75% in the list)! If you cut the throttle to 75% when you are 6 or 7 seconds away from the Station you're flying too, the fly-by-wire slows you down perfectly. Don't worry, it'll make sense after your first hour or two.

Oh, and Enjoy!
 

[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos

[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos
As well as the oft quoted (with good reason) don't fly without rebuy (essentially, make sure you have insurance to cover the cost of your ship), ignore the auto docking computer for a while. Master the art of docking/landing your ship manually. Yes, eventually you can use them to land at stations and in the right ships the space they take up is really negligible but you cannot use docking computers to land on a planet surface (planet bases yes, surface no). So if you think you might be interested in landing on planets and driving around in an SRV (Moon buggy), learn how to land your ship, otherwise you'll probably be thankful that you did not fly without rebuy a few times.
 

GreySix

GreySix
SAS_Bombsaway said:
As for the age, I apparently misjudged. Most games I've played have a much younger group in their forums. It is nice to see there are those my age and older here. Thank you all for your advice.
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Yeah, at 50 I'm just a whipper-snapper, wet-behind-the-ears shave-tail lieutenant. :D

I'll echo what others wrote: Open can be dangerous, especially to those new to the game. There are folks out there in AAA, highly-engineered murder boats who just looks for other CMDRs to pop. I and others avoid those by playing solo, at least until we get to a level where we're not just ready fodder for those types.

That stated, the worst you'll see is a rebuy screen (I've seen one, based off my own stupidity), which is but a fraction of your vessel's cost.

My recommendation would be to stick to solo, until you're comfortable in the game. But if you're the gambling type, take a face-dive into open.
 
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KnezBP

KnezBP
Firstly, welcome, SAS. <o

I remember before I started this game, I watched a vid where someone recommended starting in solo play. If you like the idea of playing the game with other human players, then simply discount this opinion. The galaxy can seem sparse of human players at the best of times so don't erase them early on. If your ships gets destroyed by some jerk you'll only lose mission cargo or data and can replace your little Sidewinder for free. There's almost zero risk. I meant to start in solo but accidentally started in open and I'm glad of it. Some people prefer it the other way and that's totally cool.

DANGER: If heading to an engineer system with cargo or data, you might want to switch to solo for a while in case you get ganked by another player looking to cause human suffering and misery. They're the people who give you seemingly random invites and leave a little purple bookmark to go find them (engineers, that is. Gankers just kill you).

Here's what I would do if I started the game from fresh:

1) Take simple courier missions to build up cash. You won't have much cargo space anyway and it might just attract pirates.
2) Buy your preferred cheapo ship. I'd go with a Cobra but you might like an Eagle. It's fast and agile but the cargo space is trash. I find the Cobra to be a much better jack of all trades type of ship.
3) Upgrade your modules as best you can. Also get a fuel scoop, go to the second tab in the galaxy map and switch from 'economical routes' to 'fastest routes'. I didn't notice this option till maybe a few weeks in and it saved me time.
4) Start taking materials as part of your mission reward rather than taking the full cash amount. This is important because you'll need them for engineering your ship. Unless you have your eye on a very particular expensive ship and can't wait, there's no need to build up cash at this point.
5) This last one is a little more subjective. If you explore 300 light years from your start point, you'll get an invite from the old chick at Deciat and you can increase your FSD range there. That will really cut down your travelling time. She's kind've east and up (I think) so maybe explore in that direction when you're ready. Assuming you're lining up the galaxy core with your start position.
6) This is my actual last one because it completely slipped my mind. Try to settle in bases where there are people on the mission board who align with the three major factions. There's a little symbol to the right of their name. Take their missions where possible, build up your reputation and you'll get better ones. This is a strategy which completely went over my head early on.

But again, these last two pieces of advice are particularly subjective and some may disagree.

Also, on the console thing, I've been trying to acquire some old systems and bagged myself a Sega Genesis earlier in the year so I could play Sonic in full NTSC glory. There was a bit of hassle trying to find a converter plug but it was worth it.

Ashnak said:
Open vs. Private Group vs. Solo is the endless debate. Just don't ask that question over in Dangerous Discussions. For starters, the three platforms are still seperate - but from what I read, PS4 also has its fair share of gankers.
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Well that sucks. I thought we all shared the same galaxy.
Para Handy said:
I believe the console versions require you to have a subscription to their manufacturers anyway to play in Open. - Is that also true for private groups?

There is a specialised PS4 sub-forum too.
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I always picture you as Alex Jones because that guy in the bowler hat looks like him.
 
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Ashnak

Ashnak
KnezBP said:
...
Well that sucks. I thought we all shared the same galaxy.
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Ok, that might have been badly formulated on my part. Yes, we share the same galaxy - but you still can't see any CMDRs from a different platform. At the most, you will see (and can use) a fleet carrier belonging to a CMDR on a different platform, but never their ships.
 

KnezBP

KnezBP
Para Handy said:
That is a killing insult. :mad:
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Well that'll teach you to never cross me again, Mr Para. Let that be a lesson to everyone. I have the most epic burns.
Ashnak said:
Ok, that might have been badly formulated on my part. Yes, we share the same galaxy - but you still can't see any CMDRs from a different platform. At the most, you will see (and can use) a fleet carrier belonging to a CMDR on a different platform, but never their ships.
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Well that's better. At least we share the same universe type malarkey.

They need to fix things so us players can all see each other though.
 

SAS_Bombsaway

SAS_Bombsaway
Well the game arrived today and I'm letting the update download. A couple hours then I'm going to check it out. I'll probably start out in solo until I get used to the controls and objectives. Then I might search for a private group to get my feet wet online. Thanks everyone for all links and advice. See you up there!
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Krieger said:
After an introduction exercise the game will put you in the Pilots Federation starter area. Its totally safe for new commanders there even in open because players with a rank higher than harmless can't access that area.
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I would hesitate to call it "totally safe", because even with griefers out of the picture, the game itself is very inventive in getting newbies killed. :LOL:
 

SAS_Bombsaway

SAS_Bombsaway
I finally have started the game. Yesterday we had bad thunder storms here so I had to wait until today to start. I made a Frontier account, redeemed the extra stuff with the code that came in the game and fired it up. I looked at the Extras option in the menu and saw ARX. I saw several different prices on this. What is ARX and what does it do?
Do many people use this here?
 

SAS_Bombsaway

SAS_Bombsaway
Thank you. The PS4 game came with Horizons Season pass and 1000 Frontier Points. Not sure what the Season pass is for either. I'm still trying to pass my flight checks. LOL! Doing combat now.
 
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