Helping a friend get started... tips?

[GunnerBill]

Wing up in PG's for some Bounty Hunting fun!

Improves combat skills and boosts cash. Let's them play about with outfitting and shipyard as the cash rolls in.

 

[Arvel Yael]

Elite Dangerous is to VR what Tetris was to the Game Boy .

 

[Deleted member 115407]

A good way to teach them about pips is to shoot at them. No, seriously.

Have them stand still with 0 pips to SYS and fire C1 pulses at them, tell them to observe how rapidly their shields go down.
Then repeat with 2 pips to SYS
Then with 4 pips.

Once they've learned about that, you can teach them how pips in ENG affects speed and maneuverability, and how they affect fire and heat in WEP.

............................

Teach them how to mine. Teach them about Limpets, refineries, etc. Take them into a low RES and protect them while they mine. Lots of fun for the beginner.

 

[Crank Larson]

And on that question - how did I convince someone to play the game.... "VR". Anyone who is even remotely interested in space flight gaming who can try Elite in VR and not want a piece of that doesn't have a heart...

Yes. The game sells itself once seen in VR.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Hi folks,

I have convinced a pal to give the game a try, and now wondering - what's the best/simplest way to help them get some credits together, experience some bits and bobs along with me?

What's best? wings? multi-crew?

They are trying to avoid combat for now, whilst they work on getting better ship control/used to keybinds etc. The goal isn't to short circuit the learning experience, but rather to put enough credits in the bank to avoid early stage grind a bit.

I'm mainly an explorer, but am okay in combat and have dabbled in trading, but I play solo - never used multi-crew or wings at all, so it's a learning experience for me as well.

I had a wee look on the forum, but nothing obvious jumped out; so, any tips?

tj.

Focus on what they want to do. Waiting with combat until they are better reminds me of kids who want to play the guitar but have to start with the recorder: I get the general idea but its bad all the same. I suggest you wing up with your mate, and use a ship comparable to his. Still in a sidey, grab one yourself. Dragging a mate around while you fly a corvette is a great way to implicitly 'pressure' them to grind. Show them you can do all main gameplay activities from the start and just have fun.

 

[Crank Larson]

Remember you can have great fun learning to fly the SRV, and that requires very little money. Can also collect some materials in the process. Personally, I've spent hours just randomly driving around planets.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Mining is one (non combat) thing in the game that can benefit hugely in a wing. You can both get full benefit from an asteroid, so two players prospecting will find the good stuff twice as fast.

 

[sollisb]

Do NOT go to a HAzRez, the ships have been coded to purposely ram you every chance they can. Stic to a high res, expliain the whole wait for federales to attack, make sure he can see 'wanted' and only then to fire on the ship.

Explain pip management

Explain simple trading

Explain shield tanking vs hull tanking (this in itself explains pips, hulls, shields and their relevant benefits)

Give him/her space to learn things. Too much knowledge is dangerous.

Explain Exploration, fueld scoops and how to.

Kill warrant Scanner, Detailed Surface scanner.

If you have one of the big 3 well kitted then MultiCrew, and as you do stuff explain over comms what your doing and why.

 

[relayer]

Agree with many other posters: have him do the training missions. I spent a couple days just practicing docking & taking off and it really helped.

my route:

1. sold the guns on the Sidey for a better class FSD.
2. Did some rare runs til I could afford a [weaponless] Hauler.
3. Did rares in the Hauler until I could afford a Cobra MkIII and equip it with A-rated modules and guns.

This also served to get me aquainted with supercruise, piloting, escaping via high wake, route planning & etc.

I decided to do trading first because it would keep me from having to repair combat damage right off which is a big drain on a beginning pilot.

 

[Schmack]

A. You cannot start them off by having them grind. There's no obvious reason for it, so places far far away like Quince and Ceos should be out until they get that "need" for better stuff.
B. Get them into some action, a RES site. Ships fighting ships, and try to find a system with a capital ship.
C. Be there with them. When I first started, I played in a group of about 5 people and there was always at least a couple of us on at any given time, so if I joined up I could find these others and see what they are up to. More people means more discoveries and "hey come check this out" which triggers travel. Travel is good.
D. One really good aspect of this game is that it forces you to travel to get things you want. That makes you explore things. We traveled to get better modules and ships, and when one of us found a system that had a Vulture, everyone had to get up enough Cr to go get one.
E. I would avoid the youtube/forum crash course at first. The game appears so much bigger if you don't saturate yourself with the cream of the crop concepts and results right away. You'll feel less like a loser if you think your exploits meant something.

 

[Alec Turner]

Nice thread - added under "Handy tips and tricks" in "Stuff for new players" section of my "Best of forum" thread (where you'll also find a whole bunch of similar threads from the past).

 

[Siranui]

QUINCE

Yeah, i know that when I start playing a really complicated game, I want to spend three hours travelling to the best place to start exploiting the game; destroying my perspective and skewing my regard for resource accumulation in the first evening of play.

 

[Mostly Hamless]

Just enjoy those amazing first 40 odd hours. Things start going down hill after that.

I also bought a £30ish HOTAS that was a lot of fun.

 

[5 Puppis]

OP is mainly an explorer and his friend is not combat oriented right? Seems to me a good thing to do would be to load him up in a cheap exploration hauler and take him around for a bit of sight seeing. The California nebula is not far from the bubble and he can check out the astroid bases. Veil west would also be cool with its cotton candy clouds. Not a long trip of course, just in case he hates exploration.