Newcomer / Intro First game if Elite in 25 years.

[Chris Simon]

Thanks for all advice as ever, but I want to put it on record that I have been playing the game for well over 40h now in open play and have had no issue with other players. Despite being a sitting duck. Despite carrying 500,000cr of cargo on a regular basis. Despite a Harmless rank. Despite defenceless ships. Despite being within 20-30 ly of my point of origin. I don't doubt the risk, and I am tempting fate but I don't think it should bother people. Please don't insert horrible stories here. I don't doubt it happens, or that it can be upsetting.
Also I play on a below spec laptop, a 400 euro hp special, an AMD cpu with a booster on the main cpu. It runs in roughly 1200 by 700 resolution. I don't doubt this isn't the best experience. I would love to play VR. HD would be an improvement. But it works as it is.
I played this when the graphics were wireframe and I was obsessed. I guess I'm interested in the possibilities where I am. At least for now. I say this as an encouragement to others in the same situation, not because I wouldn't like a VR headset and 2-3000 euros of gaming PC.

Yes, It's one of the the strong suits of this game. Although the graphics are pretty nice, the optimization is, also, which means it can run on almost anything.

As for other players etc. etc. I think guys here just wanted to be cautious. We've seen too many newbies being discouraged by their first bad PvP experience, but as you say - these occurences are rare. It doesn't hurt to know about them, though.

I hope you're having fun! o7

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Actually I was playing in VR just fine with an i5-3570k overclocked and a GTX 1070. It wasn't the best experience available, but it was good enough with HTC Vive. So basically if and when you decide to upgrade, you can do a Ryzen 3600 build on x450 platform, and buy meaniest and baddest GPU you can afford. I was building a new rig recently on intel but was examining AMD new offering too. The price I was seeing for a gaming ryzen 3600 build with 16GB of 3.6GHz RAM and a 1TB NVMe drive was around 730€ without graphics card and case. So faaar off the 2-3k€ mark. At least here in Poland. And for a graphics card you have either nvidia super cards (or 1660), or surprise surprise, AMD Radeon 5700XT which is almost on par with a 1080Ti I currently have while being cheaper.

As for Open, as Chris Simon said. I also am not familiar with the "noob sector" size introduced in recent update, but I applaud that choice of the developers. Just... make sure you have comfortable rebuy when visiting engineers in Open.

 

[Ant hill]

The starting nurseries are only a handful of stars. I left it accidentally and had to abandon a mission because I couldn't get back in. I think realistically most commanders will have had a few combat experiences and navigated 10 or so trips before leaving. Unless they are really clever about the missions they take, I wasn't. So any noob you meet in open play is going to be pretty helpless.

 

[Ant hill]

When using probes on the surface scanner sometimes the area covered by each probe appears, but only on some planets. What's up?

Also I'm looking for a good suggestion on a sorry exploration trip for an Adder 2-3 kly max. Any suggestions?

 

[Para Handy]

When using probes on the surface scanner sometimes the area covered by each probe appears, but only on some planets. What's up?
..........

Distance...

.... If you are far enough away (but close enough to be "in range") then the overlay doesn't "show". Just try moving towards the body after mapping it the next time you see this and the overlay should come into view.

P.S. What are you intending with your exploration trip?

 

[Krieger]

Have a look in the Passenger Lounge for good suggestions for an exploration trip. There are missions there where some famous explorer wants to go to a particular system. The destinations of those missions were recommended by commanders to the devs when passenger missions were developed. Usually they are places of beauty or have a rare type of star/planet, etc. The mission description should give you an idea. Distances range from a few hundred ly to the other side of the galaxy. If you're lucky the explorer asks for modest accommodation that fits into your Adder (e.g. 4 pax in economy class cabin) so you can earn extra credits. If not you can still click the galaxy map option on the lower right and set a bookmark so you can travel there by yourself.

 

[Para Handy]

Have a look in the Passenger Lounge for good suggestions for an exploration trip. There are missions there where some famous explorer wants to go to a particular system. The destinations of those missions were recommended by commanders to the devs when passenger missions were developed. Usually they are places of beauty or have a rare type of star/planet, etc. The mission description should give you an idea. Distances range from a few hundred ly to the other side of the galaxy. If you're lucky the explorer asks for modest accommodation that fits into your Adder (e.g. 4 pax in economy class cabin) so you can earn extra credits. If not you can still click the galaxy map option on the lower right and set a bookmark so you can travel there by yourself.

I suppose I should try one of these passenger thingies. I have only ever done a couple back in the day when they were the only source of modular terminals.

 

[Krieger]

I suppose I should try one of these passenger thingies. I have only ever done a couple back in the day when they were the only source of modular terminals.

I did a lot of them and all destinations were worth it. Don't forget to scan the tourist beacon for extra info and the name of the commander.

 

[Ant hill]

I have made 30 MCr trading. My next target is to make 30 MCr in exploration. It seems to take more real time to make the credits so I'm looking for more fun and/or efficiency in the operation. Thanks for the suggestions, I'm not confident with the unengineered Adder as a vehicle, so I have been limiting the risks. I had been hoping to hold on to it for a bit longer. After all the effort exploring for the credits/rank it would be a shame to blow up before you sell the data.

 

[Ashnak]

Small hint: the Hauler gets a little bit more jump range (unengineered and without Guardian modules) in minimal configuration.

If you want to start(?) Engineering, you might have the 30 MCr. already - in order to get Felicity's Meta Alloy, you need to fly out to the Pleiades. That trip (there and back again) should get you safely quite a large step towards that 30 M mark, if you map interesting planets.
If you want to go for efficiency, there are the "road to riches" route plotters that will tell you exactly where to go and which planet to scan on your trip.
On the other hand, for fun, you'll have to decide what you want - there are a couple of threads active right now with interesting exploration targets. Right here are Guru-951's Constellation tours, and over in the "What are you up to" thread there are some amazing pictures from (one of) our resident astrophotographers you could check out.

 

[Krieger]

It just occurred to me the in-game Codex is also a good source for interesting exploration destinations.

 

[Ant hill]

Why should i have a notice of legal issues when looking at modules in the outfitting menus? I just got a150 cr bounty while flying an illegal passenger into this destination. I can't see how to pay this of anywhere or any other note of the bounty. I carelessly didn't notice my illegal passengers status when i picked him up and didn't really know how to avoid being scan at his orbital destination. Then the swine was unhappy for my illegal acts and cut my bonus!

 

[Para Handy]

Why should i have a notice of legal issues when looking at modules in the outfitting menus? I just got a150 cr bounty while flying an illegal passenger into this destination. I can't see how to pay this of anywhere or any other note of the bounty. I carelessly didn't notice my illegal passengers status when i picked him up and didn't really know how to avoid being scan at his orbital destination. Then the swine was unhappy for my illegal acts and cut my bonus!

Presumably you have a notice because modules on your ship are "hot" and stay hot unless you clear your ship's bounty with them fitted.

Go to an Interstellar Factor and pay the bounty / fine off.

You should see the bounty / fine listed in your transactions tab of the Left-hand UI panel.

 

[rootsrat]

WOW! How deep is this game? Returning to Elite after Acorn Archimedes and BBC B days I find myself getting sucked in very quickly. The amazing richness of the environment you find yourself in is intense. I do not know 5% of what I think I need to know and that's probably only 5% of what I actually need to know. It is exploration in a very real way. I'm finding out how to do what I am doing as I do it and I'm okay with that. I've not changed so much over 35 years apparently.
Ant

Welcome to the galactic community, Commander!

 

[Ant hill]

Finished my first serious void opal session. I was in a sequence of exploring mining, trying to make it pay, starting with an Adder laser mining ice. I was quite frustrated to start with the credit return given the amount of game time. Then I moved to laser mining a pristine metal rich ring, in a keelback, which was more fun but still financially not what I was looking for. Less lucrative than space trucking. Void opals in the keelback was a pain, don't think the ship was manoeuvrable enough. An asp explorer later and one session in, I have made 80 MCr compared too my 60 MCr balance.
So the mining itself was frustrating, most of my time was spent not finding the right yellow asteroids. My crazy human brain then is frustrated again about the poor return because it has some 100 MCr per hour youtube target in it. Human problems aside, I have now effecticely unlocked every ship in the game. This is why there is much said a about void opal mining. I used to measure all returns against trucking in a T6, now it will be against this so, no missions will have a real financial incentive anymore . No A rated modules now look like an extravagance. Perhaps I'll buy a bigger ship and go back to laser mining. I'm in no hurry to buy a carrier.

 

[Frank]

If you want to make laser mining pay you really want a big ship so you've got plenty limpets for your prospectors. I don't know how far you've progressed but if you do go for a T9 then make sure you've at least gotten Felicity Farseer unlocked... Either that or just build up a strong boredom tolerance for the slow journey from asteroid to asteroid. I don't think I'd be able to cope with my T9 if it weren't for its level 5 dirty drag drive thrusters

 

[Gobin Splat]

Yes and LAVE is still in the universe and if you head there you'll recognise all the old BBC systems from 35 years ago

 

[KRU BARANKI]

what sucks the most?

Well the moment when you're noob and fly a tiny ship and you are ganked without a warning by experienced anaconda... or few anacondas.
Then all you can do is to wait for this screen where you pay insurance for the ship.
And start over from the station you just left few minutes ago...
ED is great as a single player experience, but terrible as an open MMO.
Hope your experiences will be better .

I better hail the brave roars , cmdr tinvanno and tesladriver the proud killers of the noobs, I salute you...

Whining mode off.

 

[Para Handy]

what sucks the most?

Well the moment when you're noob and fly a tiny ship and you are ganked without a warning by experienced anaconda... or few anacondas.
Then all you can do is to wait for this screen where you pay insurance for the ship.
And start over from the station you just left few minutes ago...
ED is great as a single player experience, but terrible as an open MMO.
Hope your experiences will be better .

I better hail the brave roars , cmdr ................. the proud killers of the noobs, I salute you...




Whining mode off.

You had better edit that as naming and shaming on the forum is not allowed and will bring you grief.

 

[Fenwe]

en Trading, RES Combat, Exploring and helping new Players in Starter Space (and there are a whole lot MORE in the way of things to do!).

Awesome advice boss! I just turned a person onto the game. I thought once we left the starter area, we couldn't go back?