Newcomer / Intro Cargo makes no sense at all.

[Marvin the Martian]

So I'm trying to make a few bucks for some upgrades by being a courier. I have 4 units (tons I guess) of cargo space. I'm asked to move 3 units of mineral oil. I put one unit in the hold and it's full.

How on earth does that make any sense?

 

[Chris Simon]

Screenshot would help here. I suspect you're misunderstanding something.

The UI isn't the most intuitive thing in the world, but stuff like one unit of cargo = one unit of storage space should hold true, just like in real life.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

I figured it out. Apparently, the car took up the space. Even though the ship says it has 4 units of cargo space, it doesn't because most of it was taken up by the car. So I put that into storage and bought a cargo hold module to replace it and now it actually has 4 units of cargo space.

They really should have a readout to tells you how full your cargo area is. That would eliminate the confusion.

 

[Sunyavadin]

Cargo space is its own thing. Was it perhaps telling you your ship had space for four modules? Because only cargo can take up space within cargo racks.

 

[ruifo]

I figured it out. Apparently, the car took up the space. Even though the ship says it has 4 units of cargo space, it doesn't because most of it was taken up by the car. So I put that into storage and bought a cargo hold module to replace it and now it actually has 4 units of cargo space.

They really should have a readout to tells you how full your cargo area is. That would eliminate the confusion.

Not that, for sure

 

[Codger]

They really should have a readout to tells you how full your cargo area is. That would eliminate the confusion.

You can see this in your right panel under Inventory. Also in Outfitting.

 

[Factabulous]

They really should have a readout to tells you how full your cargo area is. That would eliminate the confusion.

 

[Ashnak]

They really should have a readout to tells you how full your cargo area is. That would eliminate the confusion.

There is. You have a few auxillary screens ("HUD"s) in your cockpit, they're (in the default layout - IIRC) reachable either through the keys 1-4 or by looking at them. I just don't know any more which key opens which panel, but you have:

• comms panel, top left. Shows communication, wing status that kind of stuff
• external panel, left. Shows mission status, jumpable stars, route status,...
• crew panel (or crotch panel), center down. Shows crew status, SRV, fighter...
• status panel, top right. Shows messages from your ship status. Stuff like jump target,... Can't be opened or focussed at will
• internal panel- right. Shows.. everything about your ship. Among other things cargo status, available materials, ship status and settings, codex access,... That's the one you want to use if you want to know how much of what type of cargo you have, if you want to drop (jettison) cargo, synthesize ammunition or FSD jump boosters,...

---
Edit: or just see Factabulous' screenshot right above...

 

[d8veh]

I figured it out. Apparently, the car took up the space. Even though the ship says it has 4 units of cargo space, it doesn't because most of it was taken up by the car. So I put that into storage and bought a cargo hold module to replace it and now it actually has 4 units of cargo space.

They really should have a readout to tells you how full your cargo area is. That would eliminate the confusion.

If you'tr just hauling stuff in the Sidewinder. you can downgrade the shields to a class 1C bi-weave one. that would give you 8T cargo capacity.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

I figured it out. Apparently, the car took up the space. Even though the ship says it has 4 units of cargo space, it doesn't because most of it was taken up by the car. So I put that into storage and bought a cargo hold module to replace it and now it actually has 4 units of cargo space.

They really should have a readout to tells you how full your cargo area is. That would eliminate the confusion.

Was this confusion arising because the Sidewinder (which I assume you have as a new player) has two class 2 internal slots, one with a shield generator (unless you changed it) and one with a cargo rack that can carry 4t of cargo. An SRV (car) hanger can also been installed in a class 2 internal slot. So I guess you had the SRV hanger fitted. There are also four class 1 internal slots that could be fitted with cargo racks with 2t capacity, but most people use them for modules like docking computers and supercruise assist.
Coriolis is very useful for planning ship outfitting:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

 

[Marvin the Martian]

I'm not sure why people never got this.

When you look at missions available, and you see "Courier three units of ________ to this location" and you look at your ship's stats and it says you have a cargo of 4 available, you assume you can carry the three units.

But it doesn't display on that screen that you have two of those units taken up by a car. So you accept the mission thinking it's an easy one and then you find you have to make two trips to pull it off.

That is where it's confusing. In the beginning you don't even know about panel 4. You just look at your ships stats and assume if it says 4 you have 4.

Anyway, I'm way past that now. I've bought a Cobra Mk III and have outfitted it for mining. That's another thing the tutorials and thousands of videos never properly covers, but I managed to figure that out as well.

This game assumes you know about it already and even the tutorials are written with tons of acronyms that you spend hours looking up just to understand what's going on. It's a very, very steep learning curve not because of the game itself, but because so much of it is simply left for people to figure out on their own. Even that beginners guide leaves out a whole lot. For example, it tells you "Use this" but it says nothing about where you get that or how to actually use it like which button do you press, how to set that up, when to do it, etc.

It took me an entire day to figure out limpets.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

I'm not sure why people never got this.

When you look at missions available, and you see "Courier three units of ________ to this location" and you look at your ship's stats and it says you have a cargo of 4 available, you assume you can carry the three units.

But it doesn't display on that screen that you have two of those units taken up by a car. So you accept the mission thinking it's an easy one and then you find you have to make two trips to pull it off.

That is where it's confusing. In the beginning you don't even know about panel 4. You just look at your ships stats and assume if it says 4 you have 4.

Anyway, I'm way past that now. I've bought a Cobra Mk III and have outfitted it for mining. That's another thing the tutorials and thousands of videos never properly covers, but I managed to figure that out as well.

This game assumes you know about it already and even the tutorials are written with tons of acronyms that you spend hours looking up just to understand what's going on. It's a very, very steep learning curve not because of the game itself, but because so much of it is simply left for people to figure out on their own. Even that beginners guide leaves out a whole lot. For example, it tells you "Use this" but it says nothing about where you get that or how to actually use it like which button do you press, how to set that up, when to do it, etc.

It took me an entire day to figure out limpets.

The game does demand a lot of patience and requires other tools to help you play. Setting up key bindings each time you try a new activity - well you have been there with SRV driving already.
A couple of key tools in addition to Coriolis:
https://eddb.io/station space station search. You can put in search criterial such as 3A Limpet Controller in "Stations Sells Modules" for example and it tells you where to find it.
https://inara.cz/nearest/ is similar and allows you to synchronise your commander data with the website. Inara is especially helpful if you get into engineering improvements for your ship modules, but that's a good few 10s of game playing hours away.
Both of these tools have many features, including finding the best place to sell any Platinum you might be laser mining. Laser mining Platinum is the most profitable considering ease of finding and mining it and market price.
If you want to know where to find Platinum, this helps for finding hotspots and overlapping hotspots: https://edtools.cc/miner

There are "beginners" guides on the internet "get an Anaconda in 8 hours" etc, but they are not always serving you well. Using these guides, you could well skipped right past ships like the Cobra MK III which you have now. That would be a shame - it's a great ship. I have many ships fully engineered and over 6 billion credits. I still frequently use a "fully engineered" Cobra MK III as it is one the of the fastest small ships in the game that has enough carrying capacity for things that allow me to complete missions for reputation and influence rewards to support my chosen in game political faction - a side of the game you could get into much later to put all the ships you bought and engineered to good use.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

...you have two of those units taken up by a car. ...

I'm pretty slow so bear with me. When you say, taken up by a car, do you mean you have a 2-slot SRV bay fitted? This is not cargo... I'm pretty sure I'm missing the bleeding obvious

 

[Rock Hunter]

I assumed OP meant module slots when referring to cargo. Sidewinder has six module slots, two size 2 and four size 1. With a SRV/Car fitted (which can only fit in a size 2 or higher module slot ) that leaves one size two cargo module fitted by default in a newly purchased Sidewinder bought with SRV module included (if I remember correctly) which wouldn't be enough to carry three tonnes/units of cargo without purchasing at least one size 1 cargo module. That's without talking about shield size or running without shields...

Sorry, that was more me working it out than explaining to you Tyres. I must admit I'm a bit confused by this now.

I thought @CMDRQuainMarln had summed it up pretty well.

 

[Neilski]

When you look at missions available, and you see "Courier three units of ________ to this location" and you look at your ship's stats and it says you have a cargo of 4 available, you assume you can carry the three units.

But it doesn't display on that screen that you have two of those units taken up by a car. So you accept the mission thinking it's an easy one and then you find you have to make two trips to pull it off.

Do you have (or can you make) any screenshots to illustrate this? It's not making any sense to me.
If it says you have 4 cargo available, that's what you have. The car (SRV) is stored separately and does not use cargo space as such. (Installing an SRV bay does use up one of your ship's optional internal slots that you could instead have used for a cargo rack, and cargo racks provide space to store cargo.)

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Folks, it's over. It's done. It's in the past. I don't even have the ship anymore. Let's review:

Anyway, I'm way past that now. I've bought a Cobra Mk III and have outfitted it for mining.

We can all let that go now. The horse is dead. Let's stop beating it.

 

[Neilski]

We can all let that go now. The horse is dead. Let's stop beating it.

Speaking for myself, I wasn't trying to beat a dead horse. I was trying to help you get to the bottom of a misunderstanding that may come back and bite you again in your new ship.

and you look at your ship's stats and it says you have a cargo of 4 available

This comment from you is strongly suggesting that you are mis-reading something, somewhere.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

I

This game assumes you know about it already and even the tutorials are written with tons of acronyms that you spend hours looking up just to understand what's going on. It's a very, very steep learning curve not because of the game itself, but because so much of it is simply left for people to figure out on their own. Even that beginners guide leaves out a whole lot. For example, it tells you "Use this" but it says nothing about where you get that or how to actually use it like which button do you press, how to set that up, when to do it, etc.

It took me an entire day to figure out limpets.

On a side note...

You're not the only one who get's confused - took me an absolute age. Have a funny video that sort addresses that

Beware: lot's of swearing.

Source: https://youtu.be/Fa0b2Kd2xhU

 

[Rock Hunter]

Folks, it's over. It's done. It's in the past. I don't even have the ship anymore. Let's review:


We can all let that go now. The horse is dead. Let's stop beating it.

Fair point, flogging dead horses is best done in the Dangerous Discussions forums anyway

 

[Neilski]

You're not the only one who get's confused - took me an absolute age. Have a funny video that sort addresses that

LOL, nice video. And yeah, the learning curve in this game is probably the most extreme I've ever experienced in 40 years of gaming.