helpful advice for a new guy please

i got help some great tips on my last post so im going to ask for help again.my starter ship has next to no cargo capacity so i cant really trade,i cant mine,i have very little range and run out of gas frequently so i cant explore,on the lowest combat settings im hit twice and im reloading another ship so i cant fight about the only thing i can do is courier missions.i have to say so far its not much fun.upgrading my ships weapon to a canon and laser has only made me die faster.i was hoping space combat would be better.then this.im firing at unseeable floating dots that hit me far harder then i can hit them.this is at the low intensity training area.i cant imagine the medium intensity area
 
i got help some great tips on my last post so im going to ask for help again.my starter ship has next to no cargo capacity so i cant really trade,i cant mine,i have very little range and run out of gas frequently so i cant explore,on the lowest combat settings im hit twice and im reloading another ship so i cant fight about the only thing i can do is courier missions.i have to say so far its not much fun.upgrading my ships weapon to a canon and laser has only made me die faster.i was hoping space combat would be better.then this.im firing at unseeable floating dots that hit me far harder then i can hit them.this is at the low intensity training area.i cant imagine the medium intensity area

Stay out of the "combat training" zones in the starter area - they just teach you how to use the rebuy screen. ;)

Go to a "Resource Extraction Site" (you find them in planetary rings) - follow the security forces and join-in on shooting what they are firing at (remember to check that you see "wanted" in the target panel for the ship you are going to shoot) - you will soon make lots of money and learn about fighting in the game.

When you leave the starter area you can buy better ships and equipment - these are kept low level in the starter area.
 
I would respectfully disagree. I would recommend going to a high res and follow Para Handy’s advice there.

follow the anaconda cops around and let the soften up them wanted ships. So long as you get shots landed on the bad guys shortly before they die, you will get the bounty.

High res sites will have bigger bad guys that are worth more than those in low res sites.
 
I would respectfully disagree. I would recommend going to a high res and follow Para Handy’s advice there.

follow the anaconda cops around and let the soften up them wanted ships. So long as you get shots landed on the bad guys shortly before they die, you will get the bounty.

High res sites will have bigger bad guys that are worth more than those in low res sites.

of course he should go there as soon as he can, but i got the impression he needs a few bouts fighting something very starter
 
I would respectfully disagree. I would recommend going to a high res and follow Para Handy’s advice there.

follow the anaconda cops around and let the soften up them wanted ships. So long as you get shots landed on the bad guys shortly before they die, you will get the bounty.

High res sites will have bigger bad guys that are worth more than those in low res sites.
This I agree to a point but there is an increased chance of Enemy Wings in high res. I think the OP would be better off in low res until they are more ExP'd at dodging enemy fire.
 
I would respectfully disagree. I would recommend going to a high res and follow Para Handy’s advice there.

follow the anaconda cops around and let the soften up them wanted ships. So long as you get shots landed on the bad guys shortly before they die, you will get the bounty.

High res sites will have bigger bad guys that are worth more than those in low res sites.

Good for earning some quick money, not so good for learning how to fight.
 
Nav Beacon is even safer for getting used to the combat thing.

think standard build is 1 x Pulse Laser and 1 x Multi-Cannon for taking on ships without big brother.

The 'shooting dots' thing. Yeah they are set as enemies so they attack from distance, in the NB and Res sites you can get closer before attacking and making them enemies in the first place. A lot of it is practice but I dont know how the current builds balance for really new players v the NPCs you 'should' be meeting is. As a beginner try and initiate combat on your terms.

Some of it is build you can make your ship stronger with shield or hull boosters or both. But you lose the flexibility to trade or jump. you can buy extra Modules for Cargo etc but you may lose extra hull or shield strength so its all a balance.

If you run out of fuel, look up the Fuel Rats, well worth it for the experience alone. Then youll know what to do next time, much better than just reading it here I guarantee you.

Missions, yeah Courier Missions are the easiest to complete. try a Harmless or Mostly Harmless Pirate assassination one maybe, youll get a signal to drop into close to them and a few seconds usually before they open fire.

Most people will advise grinding or taking advantage of the game payout system to skip vast sections of the early game where you slowly improve and gain lots of knowledge....up to you its your game blaze your own trail
 
Best advice: get out of that rust bucket they call Sidewinder as soon as you can. Literally any other ship is better. If you really want to fight, get Eagle. It's dirty cheap and packs serious punch. Otherwise get either Cobra III or Viper IV. They are multipurpose with decent cargo and fuel capacity. Hauler ad Adder are good choices too btw. Recently found out Hauler can actually jump 55+ Ly, that's crazy...
 
Best advice: get out of that rust bucket they call Sidewinder as soon as you can. Literally any other ship is better. If you really want to fight, get Eagle. It's dirty cheap and packs serious punch. Otherwise get either Cobra III or Viper IV. They are multipurpose with decent cargo and fuel capacity. Hauler ad Adder are good choices too btw. Recently found out Hauler can actually jump 55+ Ly, that's crazy...

Just so he knows.... hauler cannot jump like that without a lot of work on it. engineers etc
 
Your basic ship is a Sidewinder, right? That means you can at least explore or mine with some basic equipment. Or you could upgrade to a Hauler, if you got the money.

Some minimal equipment should be available at Mawson Dock in Dromi - with a Sidewinder like this, you could make a start for example at a Road To Riches trip (visiting and scanning known high-value worlds just for the money). Keep in mind, though, that once you sell your exploration data, you will (likely) gain a rank in exploration, which will rescind your permit for the starter area if you dock anywhere outside.

For mining, try this. You'll need to manually scoop the fragments - and you don't need the 2D refinery, the cheaper models will also work, but require even more manual interaction. But one mining session in this piece of junk can set you up with enough funds to upgrade to a Hauler or an Adder, which will get you to the Cobra Mk.III.

Trading - similar to mining, just replace the refinery with whatever you like. Shields might not be a bad idea, but on a Sidey, armor (Hull Reinforcement Package) gives you more bang for the buck, albeit single use.
 
If you are still in the starter area and ready to leave you can pick up more than one of those special courier missions (the ones that lead you outside the area). That should bring in enough to get a few upgrades. A Fuel Scoop will allow you to refuel for free on the go at certain stars (the acronym KGB FOAM denotes all the valid star classes for this). A cheap one will do for now. Add some cargo racks, maybe a better FSD and you're got to go for some low volume trading.
Some commodities are designated as rare, these are only available in a single system and in small quantities, but increase in value the further away they are sold. The current Community Goal makes use of some as well.
Exploration is also possible once you have a Fuel Scoop and can be done at the same time as trading. You'll probably not discover anything new in the beginning but you do get paid some money still.
 
Best advice: get out of that rust bucket they call Sidewinder as soon as you can. Literally any other ship is better. If you really want to fight, get Eagle. It's dirty cheap and packs serious punch. Otherwise get either Cobra III or Viper IV. They are multipurpose with decent cargo and fuel capacity. Hauler ad Adder are good choices too btw. Recently found out Hauler can actually jump 55+ Ly, that's crazy...
You think so? Only until you unlock Engineers and Powerplay weapons.

 
Best advice: get out of that rust bucket they call Sidewinder as soon as you can. Literally any other ship is better. If you really want to fight, get Eagle. It's dirty cheap and packs serious punch. Otherwise get either Cobra III or Viper IV. They are multipurpose with decent cargo and fuel capacity. Hauler ad Adder are good choices too btw. Recently found out Hauler can actually jump 55+ Ly, that's crazy...
Feel I have to butt in here.

People always underestimate the Sidewinder. However, ironically, I believe the Sidewinder comes into its own when you are more advanced.

With just a bit of low level engineering, offered by the first engineer you access (Farseer), the humble sidey turns into a nimble beast.

Equip it with heatseeking missiles and a gimbal beam and just follow system authority vehicles as mentioned above.

That said,
I think the best and safest way to practice is using the training missions.
 
i got help some great tips on my last post so im going to ask for help again.my starter ship has next to no cargo capacity so i cant really trade,i cant mine,i have very little range and run out of gas frequently so i cant explore,on the lowest combat settings im hit twice and im reloading another ship so i cant fight about the only thing i can do is courier missions.i have to say so far its not much fun.upgrading my ships weapon to a canon and laser has only made me die faster.i was hoping space combat would be better.then this.im firing at unseeable floating dots that hit me far harder then i can hit them.this is at the low intensity training area.i cant imagine the medium intensity area
Just to add.

Please can I point out my 'Eliminate the Grind' series of videos?


It is a set of videos of what I believe to be engaging and fun and staged careers for starter ships.

They take you through a range of ships, from Hauler and then erm... back to a minimally engineered Sidewinder for running canyons. Different 'careers' for each.
 
If it is about early money making, a sidewinder is good enough. With some extra fuel tanks, a fuel scoop and minimal cargo space those trips to Deciat, Maia and back are already a couple of millions just from selling the maps acquired on the way. I haven't even equipped any weapons in that sidewinder I use for this purpose - it can jump up to 21ly with no cargo and has 4-times the normal fuel tank - so it is unlikely to get stuck somewhere there.

So that triangle in between Deciat, Maia and Khun is a gold mine for the early game, just by flying around and selling the maps acquired there. And one has to go there anyway for the first 2 engineers. It's roughly 400 ly across or 30 average jumps (if that sidewinder can do at least 15ly).

So don't discard that sidewinder just yet - it is a money making machine for the early game.
 
i got help some great tips on my last post so im going to ask for help again.my starter ship has next to no cargo capacity so i cant really trade,i cant mine,i have very little range and run out of gas frequently so i cant explore,on the lowest combat settings im hit twice and im reloading another ship so i cant fight about the only thing i can do is courier missions.i have to say so far its not much fun.upgrading my ships weapon to a canon and laser has only made me die faster.i was hoping space combat would be better.then this.im firing at unseeable floating dots that hit me far harder then i can hit them.this is at the low intensity training area.i cant imagine the medium intensity area
As a noob, my first and most important tip is do not sell any of your ships at this stage!

My next major tip is, that as stupid a design decision as I think it is, ships shields in crease in resilience the more pips you have in them on your power distributor, so when fighting always try and run 4 pips shields, and you will find your ship significantly more robust. Similarly agility and speed is also increased the more pips you throw at it. Weapons, however, do not increase in effectiveness just because you put more pips at them.

With those not so obvious tips out of the way, I'm now going to quickly talk you through getting some combat experience, making some money, acquiring a couple of ships, and setting them up for different roles:

Trading CAN be done with any cargo capacity, it just takes longer and is a lot slower, courier missions are lucrative, it shouldn't take you long before you can put the sidewinder starter ship into storage and get something decent. An old suggestion for noobs, that got you some credits and combat experience was to go to a low, medium, or high intensity Resource Extraction Site, and shadow the NPC cops, target the ship they are shooting, and make sure you see the wanted display on your screen, then land a couple of shots to get the ship's bounty. Don't go to a Hazardous RES yet as there will be no cops to shadow / hide behind. Doing this can be lucrative, like a million an hour if I remember correctly? It may also be more than that now as there has been a massive balancing pass on the game since those days. I definitely recommend this as a starter activity because it gets you some quick cash, you get to see some pretty 'sploashuns', and will healp teach you some basic ship to ship combat. (not PvP) A good guid is available from the ever so helpful CMDR Exegious:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0hRHnqYeX0


I'd suggest you get out of the sidey as soon as possible, but remember not to sell it, and the first ship I'd suggest for you to progress through would be an eagle, just buy an eagle, and upgrade modules as you can afford them. You'll know that a 3A thrusters is better than a 3B etc, and I'd recommend biweave shields rather than A rated shields as they draw less power, and recharge much quicker. If you are upgrading the bulkheads, effectively armour, military grade composites is the best of both worlds, and nowhere as expensive as mirrored or reactive armour, and more versatile to boot.

Here's a build to consider with your "police salary" 😹 it's a 3 million credit maxed out combat viper:

Bonus activity, when you land some shots on a ship that is destroyed, it will leave some scopable materials that you can collect, represented by white dots on your scanner, target them and deploy cargo scoop, then using the little targetting reticule on the left of the scanner, scoop them up. You won't need them straight away, but they are a going to stand you well later on once you start to dabble in engineering and or tech brokers, but thats an intermediate course that will talk you through later on.

So if you do that for a couple of hours, you'll get some combat experience and start to hone your skills, and make some bank. Whatever you earn from "augmenting the police patrols", it's going to be significant credits for a noob, this money will let you quickly buy an eagle / viper / cobra and start to throw some decent modules on them. The cobra, and to an extent the viper, are decent beginner trade ships, although the daddy for beginning trade is the Type 6, fully outfitted like this one will cost you ~4.5million:

To make that build work, I've had to tweak the power priorities:
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You do that in the modules tab from your right hand panel in the cockpit. Basically what's happening there is the ships powerplant doen't generate enough power to power all the ships systems and the guns at the same time, so you set the power priorities to disable non essential systems, the higher numbers = lower priority. So in this build when you deploy your guns, the fuel scoop, the docking computer and the cargo hatch are switched off. Then when the guns get put away, "rectracting hardpoints", those systems get powered back up.

Such a ship will let you run normal trading at a half decent volume, but adding the 2A fuelscoop, you can travel further, and do some rares trading. Rares are cool, they are only available in limited quantities, from certain stations, and the further you take them away from their point of origin, up to a limit, the more money they are worth. The "rares loop" allows you a chance to off load goods bought at stop 1 when you are at say, station 4, on the loop, and you'll make some coin. Because of the small quantities involved, a Cobra is also good at this role.

As you will be running around with some valuable cargo in your hold, you will draw attention from NPC pirates who will be interdicting you and will fight you to try and get you to jettison your cargo to give it to them. So you'll get a chance to test how much you learned when you were shadowing the cops. If you find you are still getting thrashed by NPC pirates, you will be able to go back to the starport you left the Sidey / Eagle / Viper / Cobra in and do some more Lo/Med/High RES "patrols", and or just buy bigger/better ships, although IIRC the better the ship you are flying, the better the ship the NPC's will fly, so try to "git gud" before you "go big".

You also mentioned mining, but rather than post a silly long(er) post here, I'm going to suggest you look at some of the guides Exegious has posted. If you think mining asteroids / "iceteroids" could be something you enjoy, maybe set up a type 6 as a mining ship with a refinery, prospector and collector limpets, and mining lasers. FYI - mining lasers do not do any damage to ships so don't even try and fight in this configuration.

Another relatively stress free money maker would be passenger missions, this can be done in most ships, but from the starter fleet it would be best done in the type 6 by swapping out the cargo racks for passenger cabins. Or you could also buy a dolphin, which is slightly more expensive to buy and outfit, totalling around 6Million fully done, but it is a little hunny of a thing to fly and can pay for itself many many times over. Have a look at this suggested build:
 
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