Newcomer / Intro Help for my next stage of game

[RobAxe5]

Hello all! What a great game here. I really like the difficulty and open ended nature, I’ve been a comfortable grind bounty hunting and doing missions but it’s always fun to switch it up and do something planetary, scan some signals or just collect other materials. I have got as much playtime as I can and have fully dedicated myself to working towards a federal assault ship. I’m currently flying a viper four. I skipped buying the federal dropship that I just unlocked because I want to focus on the agility of the FAS and I will go back and get the dropship later.

my viper four does not hold much cargo, I get offered some interesting mission rewards including nano breakers and other materials that can only be obtained from missions, at least I read that when searching some of them online. For now I have had to hold off on getting them and saving them up because it seems item storage at a base is not possible. However I read another post that people somehow store items within hauler ships?

I am currently playing out of the Chambo system.

my current plan is to take all of the credits I have saved, travel to the Sol system both to visit it and to purchase the FAS, And to outfit it. Although I really enjoy the CQC game, I haven’t played it much since I started my adventure in the full open world so I don’t think I will be reaching prestige rank anytime soon even though it sounds like there’s a nice discount on modules you get from that station.

I am unsure how I should best fit my first FAS. I was thinking of adding some cargo space so I could save up some of those rare materials but if I’m taking on challenging missions I could get blown up and lose them anyways so perhaps that is not a great idea. So perhaps a dedicated combat fit is best, although I am unsure how I will ever obtain these otherwise unobtainable items.

My first step would be to get the basic necessities on my ship, The top rank for a power plant, power distributor, etc. I am unsure if I need a top frameshift drive since I mostly do short travels and want to prioritize combat and don’t mind taking a little extra time to jump when needed. I am unsure if I should use a buy we’ve shield module, some thing I have read a bit about that sounds good for PVE shield recharge, or if I should focus on resistance in my armor tank , Stopping off at stations and repairing my armor when I turn in my missions. Right now I am using pulse laser and multi Cannons, but I plan on experimenting with different weapons in the FAS.

Once I buy my core modules I was going to embark on my first engineering journey. I don’t mind if it takes a long time to jump the FAS there since that’s a ship I want to upgrade. Unless I’m confused about that. Does it make sense for me to follow the path I have laid out and then begin jumping to the Farseer engineer and upgrading my ships modules and seeing what other engineers I can unlock. Is there anything in particular I need to do so that I am able to obtain modded internals that will be replaced by insurance upon ship loss. Are there any tips and tricks I should know to make this first trip as efficient as possible?

so does this path make sense? Is it possible for me to store items somehow? Should I abandon aiming for the FAS this early, and instead get the dropship which has more cargo, upgrade that? I was hoping to take on more and more difficult missions to obtain more credits and better materials.

thanks for any advice, i’m trying to enjoy the game and the mystique of learning the complicated world as much as possible but I am researching online as well to make my play time efficient.

 

[the100thmonkey]

You can store cargo on a friendly fleet carrier, provided the owner of the carrier sets up a buy order for that cargo. In effect, you sell it to them and they don't sell it on. You buy it back later. However, there's no way to guarantee this. The cargo belongs to the carrier owner once sold.

Very few of those commodities are necessary though - only modular terminals spring to mind as necessary to unlock Marco Qwent. For Farseer, you'll need 1 unit of meta-alloys, which can be obtained from Danielle's Progress in Maia. That's quite a trip though (the upside of which is that it will unlock Farseer if you scan as you go).

Other things for engineering, such as focus crystals, are materials and do not occupy cargo space. Think of them as stored in magic pockets on your flight suit.

Things like nanobreakers or microweave cooling hoses are sometimes used for tech broker modules, but most of those are not important for your purposes right now.

Get thee to Maia, then get thee to Farseer. You may wish to make the last part of the trip in solo. Sharks patrol the waters of Deciat.

 

[Ashnak]

o does this path make sense? Is it possible for me to store items somehow? Should I abandon aiming for the FAS this early, and instead get the dropship which has more cargo, upgrade that? I was hoping to take on more and more difficult missions to obtain more credits and better materials.

As much or as little sense as any other long term plan in ED. Like someone famous once said - no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy.

Sol and FAS: for both you need Federation rank. Sol is nothing special. The FAS is a decent combat ship with a niche as a hull tank. Neither the FAS nor the Dropship make any especially good general mision runner. Money is easy enough to come by, so a Krait Mk.II won't be much harder to pay for than a FAS/Dropship, but make a much better general mission runner.

Item storage: nope. There once was the East India Company, who bought and sold specific items, but I have no idea whether they're still active. At least, they still have a website: https://eicgaming.com/ .

Getting the Meta Alloy for Felicity: you can buy it (two maximum) in Maia, or you can collect them (as much as you want) from alive and ripe Barnacle sites. In either case, you'll have to travel out a few hundred ly (~400 ly to Maia - no idea where decent Barnacle sites are nowadays, but probably not any closer). Not something I would specifically recommend the FAS for . A Hauler would do the job cheap and easy (as long as you remember to not try and fight anything - and take care of your cargo hatch. The Hauler tends to run a little hot while scooping, and the cargo hatch is usually the first module to fail, dropping your MA into space...). Asp Explorer or Diamondback Explorer would give you more internals, I prefer the Dolphin for its handling, either of the Kraits would also be very good for these kinds of trip. You could also contact CMDR LeKeno and pick one up at his carrier in Deciat (or drop any surplus you hauled from a Barnacle site there).

Missions for credits and materials: your reputation with the mission giving faction matters. Get your reputation up to "allied", and you can get mission payments in the seven figure range. I usually have multiple ships around for mission running, though:

• a Viper for those usually illegal planetary scan missions (or the planetary scan part of assassination missions)
• a Krait Mk.II for low volume cargo missions (up to 64 tons), assassinations and black box (or similar) retrieval missions
• a Krait Phantom for passenger missions
• a DBX for space robbery ("Liberation") missions
• a Mamba for combat zones (not something I'm especially good at, though)

The most versatile (and heaviest hitting) of those is the Krait Mk.II, so if I am restricted to a single ship, that's the one I use.

 

[RobAxe5]

Thanks for the replies, is it a bad idea for me to equip a fuel scoop on the FAS and try find the barnacles myself? Can i buy an exploration ship, find barnacles, swap them over and return to FAS, go to farseer? I was going to go for it in online play so even if I die I at least contribute some glorious content for somebody.

the Krait is a good suggestion. But at that base price tier I was aiming for the FDL. Bad choice? My gameplay is 98% space combat thus far. Any shared modules I should upgrade or any suggestions on FAS modules to fit and engineer for bounty and possible pvp focus?

 

[Ashnak]

Bad idea? Depends. The jump range of the FAS is bad, and the barnacles are far out. So you will need a lot of jumps to get there. On the plus side, if you FSS (Full Spectrum Scanner, that one is built into every ship) all the systems you cross on your search and DSS (Detailed Surface Scanner, a module you need to buy) all worthwhile planets, you can collect more money and experience from exploration. Unless you explode before you can cash in all that data at a Universal Cartographics office (like bounties and combat bonds, carto data is lost on ship loss). In either case, you will need a 5A FSD and one or two SRVs.
Later in the game, if you can engineer the FSD (or unlock the double engineered FSD) and have unlocked the Guardian FSD booster, you can even get a FAS to a whopping 35...40 ly jump range.

FdL vs. Krait Mk.II - tough choice. FdL (I prefer the Mamba just for the look) is a purebred heavy fighter. Excels at killing other ships, fails at everything else. The Krait Mk.II is a general purpose hull. Can use more internal modules and can be built into a combat ship. In PvE, either will eat enemy wings for breakfast. In PvP, FdL is (apparently) the meta. But if you want tips specifically for PvP ship selection or loadout, you'll need to get into Dangerous Discussions (or one of the PvP discords) and ask there. For me, PvP fights in open usually consist in trying to keep alive long enough to wake out .

 

[aRJay]

.... I was going to go for it in online play so even if I die I at least contribute some glorious content for somebody.

....

There is only online play but there are 3 ways to play online on any of the 3 platforms. All 3 ways to play use the one model of the galaxy so anything that happens to the galaxy in one mode happens in all modes.
Solo just limits the number of players to one.
Private Group (PG) limits the players to signed up members of that group (a maximum of 20,000 in one group) group rules apply
Open no limit to the number of players
Players on a different platform cannot meet each other.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Thanks for the replies, is it a bad idea for me to equip a fuel scoop on the FAS and try find the barnacles myself?

Personally, I'd say yes - you're looking at about 18LY theoretical max and 15LY average jump range. Maia is some 320LY, so you're going to be making a lot of jumps. How long do you want it to take?

Can i buy an exploration ship, find barnacles, swap them over and return to FAS, go to farseer?

A Hauler will max out at about 35LY theoretical and 32 average jump range. It makes an excellent - and cheap - taxi.

I was going to go for it in online play so even if I die I at least contribute some glorious content for somebody.

Whatver floats your boat. You'll be annoyed if you get all the way to Deciat only to die in seconds - the power differential between an engineered and unengineered ship is so large that you won't pose any threat whatsoever to your opponent. The most likely outcome is you getting insta-gibbed and losing your meta-alloy.

the Krait is a good suggestion. But at that base price tier I was aiming for the FDL. Bad choice? My gameplay is 98% space combat thus far. Any shared modules I should upgrade or any suggestions on FAS modules to fit and engineer for bounty and possible pvp focus?

The FdL and the FAS share the same size power plant (class 6), distributor (class 6), largest optional for a shield (class 5), utility mounts (although the FdL has 2 more) and 2 medium hardpoints (although the FdL has 2 more).