Newcomer / Intro How did you guys learn Elite Dangerous?

[evert67]

In the ’80s Elite was my favourite game and I was pretty good at it: I even managed to obtain the “Elite” status. So I was very excited to see that a new, good, Elite game was coming again (I mean Elite Dangerous, of course) and I’ve been trying to play it off-and-on for a few weeks now. I have the “basic” version of the game and a Thrustmaster joystick with a speed controller.

However, I’m having major problems learning the game. I’ve of course watched the videos and played the training missions (at least the relevant ones – in my case only up to level 2). And I’ve watched a good amount of other YouTube videos. I also have the PDF game manual which I read large parts of. However, this is more about the user interface than about achieving things in the game.

As I wrote, I’m having problems learning the game and my progress is very, very slow. For example, I’ve never been able to finish training mission 2. I’ve managed to sort of reach Azerban City (after many hurdles) and now I seem stuck again. I sometimes get error messages about the dropout zone of which I don’t know what they mean (I'm doing something wrong, but what?) and sometimes I manage to get close to Azerban City, but then the city seems to fly away from my screen at an enormous speed (it is probably my ship flying away, but this is the way it appears). Often I just try do what I’m told to do in the training mission, but I have no real idea of what I’m really doing or trying to achieve.

Hence my question: how did you guys learn Elite Dangerous? What I think I really need is something that tells me what I’m trying to achieve and how I should do it in pretty much detail. I’m missing much of that in the videos/training missions.

 

[Zieman]

Learned by playing.

Had a fresh reminders though, played Oolite for a couple of years before E: D became reality.

1st step was to configure controls to my liking and practise, practise, until the basic flying & stuff felt natural.

 

[Gator Country]

You're approaching the station too fast and overshooting it.

When approaching a station in supercruise, keep an eye on the ETA timer in the center of your view - when it reaches 10 seconds, immediately throttle back to 75% (it's very helpful to bind a key for this). The actual "sweet spot" for this is 7 seconds, but by going 75% at 10 seconds you give yourself a bit of a cushion.

Your ship will start slowing down as it approaches the gravity well - if you do it right you shouldn't have to adjust the throttle again. On the left side of your HUD a new indicator will pop up, with bars labeled "Speed" and "Distance", and a slider moving down the bars. When both the Speed and Distance sliders are in the blue part of the bars, you've entered the "dropout zone", where it's safe to disengage supercruise and drop into normal space. You should drop out at about 8 - 10 km from the station; from here, just close to within 7.5 km and request permission to dock.

It took me a while to get the hang of this, too, and even today I still sometimes overshoot myself. The tutorials don't really explain this well, and the best way to learn is to just do it.

 

[Jon flint]

Same as Zieman, learned by playing. I've got nearly 3000hours in this game and yet I've never done the tutorials yet.. I may try them one day

Anything specific you need help with, just come to the forum and ask.. we're a helpful bunch.

 

[Hell Razor5543]

Evert67, I am guessing that you are new to Elite: Dangerous. Do work through those training missions, but be aware that some are very hard and can defeat experienced Players. The best way to learn the game (once you have mastered the basics) is to play it. You will make mistakes, but the important thing is to learn from then now, rather than later (when they can be far more costly). The REBUY on your Sidewinder is minimal (0cr at first), but on my Anaconda it is over 20Mcr (so you can see why you should make your mistakes early!). Anyway, here is my normal Welcome spiel;

First, let me welcome you to the Elite: Dangerous Galaxy. My rule 2 is; Have Fun (it is just a game, but WHAT a GAME!).

The learning curve is so steep (it has an overhang!) that the mountain goats go around in teams, roped together (and even then they may fall off, but that means the Vultures get to eat!). However, when you master something, and do it well, the buzz is worth the effort. To my mind the most important skill to master is landing your ship. Until you can do this nothing else matters (how can you complete a mission, for example, if you killed yourself on landing?).

Now, Golden Rule 1, which is; Never Fly if you cannot cover the REBUY. REBUY is the insurance excess on your ship, and is 5% of the value of your ship (including all upgrades, but not the cargo). Any changes you make to a ship will affect the REBUY. You can see what your REBUY is on the Status screen (normally accessed by pressing key 4 when in cockpit view), bottom left, below Balance. If you get killed, and you can cover the REBUY, you will get a replacement ship identical to the one you lost (although the cargo bay will be empty). However, if you cannot cover the REBUY you may well end up back in a basic Sidewinder. Please do not let this happen to you, as the forum is littered with tales of woe when other Players have ignored Rule 1, and then got killed. This links to the latest I have seen;

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/324391-1-5-years-to-get-Anaconda-1-day-to-lose-it

You will, at various stages, upgrade your ship (buying is covered in the next paragraph). Be aware that all internal equipment has numbers and letters associated with them. The number is the Class, while the letter is the Rating. Until you have a good understanding of the Class make sure (when upgrading) to fit the same Class as the unit coming out. There are stories of Players who fitted a 1A FSD to their Sidewinder, thinking it would help increase the jump range, only to find that (as the FSD that came out was a 2 Class) they had REDUCED the jump range. The letter is for Rating, with E being the weakest and A being the strongest. However, there are two that confuse this somewhat. All D Rated equipment are very light (and are preferred by Explorers for this reason), while B Rated has heavy armour (which is great for combat specialists). I do not (at this time) intend to explain weaponry, as this is definitely a matter of personal preference.

When you decide to buy a new ship, try to have 200% of the purchase price first. That way you have enough for the ship, some basic outfitting, a couple of loads of cargo, and a couple of REBUYs (just in case). If you are trading in a ship, take it back to factory spec first. When you sell any ship you will always take a 10% hit on the value of the ship at the time of selling. However, if you take it back to factory spec first you get back the full amount that you paid for the upgrades (at this time, at least). Then, when you sell the ship, your losses will be reduced. For example, I have an A Rated Cobra MkIII worth 10Mcr. If I were to sell her now I would take a loss of 1Mcr. However, if I take her back to factory spec and then sell her my loss will be about 35Kcr.

Have fun, fly safely, and see you out amongst the stars. Feel free to ask any questions, we all had to learn somewhere, and those that care will answer all they can.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

By playing and trying not to make the same mistake too many times.
Reading this forum can help as well, there's a whole lot of good information here.

Reading your post it sounds like you are approaching the drop point for the station too fast and over shooting. This is very easy to do but there's a couple of things that can help. Keeping your throttle in the blue zone all the time as you fly from the star to station; this is about 75% throttle - which you can set a key for - press that key and you'll be golden for approach. If you over shoot cut your throttle to 0 and loop round 180°, you can now accelerate to the station at up to 75%. Watch the distance indicator, when it drops to below 1000 km you can drop out of supercruse and the station will be there.

O and don't forget how hard it was at first to dock in '84, but that after a while you were whistling the blue Danube whilst accelerating from way out

 

[wrmiller]

Bought the Mac (non Horizons) version when I heard about this game. Just started playing and got to about 250 hours when I 'discovered' this website. Started reading the threads. Got my PC up and running, bought horizons, and reset my pilot. Probably somewhere around 600-700 hours now and still can't find the forest for the trees, but I'm still poking at it.

 

[Frank]

If you played the game back in the day then you know the game. It still has that same "blaze your own trail" ethos. It is you yourself who has to decide what are your goals and how you want to achieve them. You can choose to haul cargo, hack at rocks, attack merchants, or fight those attacking merchants. When you ask "what do I do" we can only shrug our shoulders and reply "donno... what do you wanna do?"

You do have a lot of people here that are more than happy to answer your questions, and also understand that sometimes it's difficult to ask questions because it is difficult to know what questions you should be asking.

So I'll say the same thing everyone else here is saying. Get stuck in! Get a cheap ship and try to learn from the experience of being blown up.

My answer to the question you raised in the OP is that I've been here since the Kickstarter. Before anything was released. I did the same as Zieman and practised my piloting skills using Oolite. When the Beta was released the only gameplay we had were the training missions. I spent a lot of time getting my control system just the way I like it, and I would time the barrel mission, to set the button positions and thumbstick sensitivities so that I could get through the mission as fast as I could manage.

I learned each bit of the game in manageable chunks as each upgrade to the game brought more things to manage, but the truth is that I've not completely learnt Elite. There's still a lot I need to learn, especially where the missions are concerned, and the Background Sim, and Powerplay, and fighting in Wings, and a few other things that have slipped my mind or I've not come across yet. I'm still learning the game, and that's part of the fun of playing the game.

If you want to practise fighting with someone who will stay in one place when you yell "Stay in one place for a minute!" then you are more than welcome to join me outside George Lucas on Wednesday night... 7pm. Just friend me and message me to say that you are coming.

 

[d8veh]

After playing for 3500 hrs, I made a video series for guys like you - basically, a walkthrough with just about everything done with no editing, so you can see what happens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQJZMW33KCQ

 

[Chris Simon]

I also just learned most of what I know by simply playing hundreds and thousands of hours. The rest from other people on forums and Youtube.
Most of the veterans, here, play from the early Betas. That mean that we had the opportunity to learn the basics (the game was much simpler, back then, in terms of features) and then had the advantage to just add new things to our skill sets as the new features were coming in later patches.
A person who tries to start now has much more stuff to learn at once.

As for what you should do in the game, well, setting your own goals and finding ways to achieve them is one of the most important parts of the Elite, I'd say. Just do whatever.

 

[MrGreen13]

man.....this game is tough!!! I have played for 190 hours (which to me...is a lot!). This game has the steepest learning curve of any game I have come across. I have been on xbox live for 11 years and have always played games (obviously I'm playing ED on Xbox one). Since 1978 I have been gaming and this game.....is......tough. I almost quit early on, but kept on going and realized how wonderful this game/experience really is. Sometimes a grind, but other times remarkable. I have never played a game with so much depth and hugeness!!! (is hugeness a word???) Elite is pretty bawler....steep learning....leads to awesome moments of realization (where you're like "holy *$#@!). Enjoy it! I have learned a ton from this forum and tons of you tube videos. The game changes based on what you want to achieve. Fly safe CMDR!

 

[pipo zelvelder]

man.....this game is tough!!! I have played for 190 hours (which to me...is a lot!). This game has the steepest learning curve of any game I have come across. I have been on xbox live for 11 years and have always played games (obviously I'm playing ED on Xbox one). Since 1978 I have been gaming and this game.....is......tough. I almost quit early on, but kept on going and realized how wonderful this game/experience really is. Sometimes a grind, but other times remarkable. I have never played a game with so much depth and hugeness!!! (is hugeness a word???) Elite is pretty bawler....steep learning....leads to awesome moments of realization (where you're like "holy *$#@!). Enjoy it! I have learned a ton from this forum and tons of you tube videos. The game changes based on what you want to achieve. Fly safe CMDR!

Totally true! And I might add to it that the game is tough! and did someone else already mentioned it is tough? In fact, i am one of these guys that think it is very odd to produce such a game and not even mention in the manuals that this game has the steepest learning curve ever and is meant to be...

really! The reward is tremendous and I love the game, but i am convinced that I would have had 300% better times when the learning curve would have been less tough. I switched back to other games more than was necessary, just because the game was too tough on several occasions. The being said, i am still playing it and hope to earn my own anaconda in the next two months, making it a year since I joined to get myself one of the best ships in the game; and boy, did that take a while and cost a lot of patience, five computer screens, two marriages and still in rehab for swearing my lungs out...

But still on the game and loving it (sometimes, when it is not too tough)


Oh, and did I mention that the game is tough?

The manual should start with: You think you have bought an star flight simulating and trading game, but in fact you did not. This game is soo tough, that only the best and bravest of all commanders can keep op with it. And all tohers on the forum promiss you the game will be better along the road, but it won't. But you DO get used-to this learning curve and when you are totally numb, you will love the game. After all, only the real masochists play this game and therefore are always happy in the end....

But the current manual is also ok, probably... if you are a truly addicted masochist

 

[bookmite]

Totally true! And I might add to it that the game is tough! and did someone else already mentioned it is tough? In fact, i am one of these guys that think it is very odd to produce such a game and not even mention in the manuals that this game has the steepest learning curve ever and is meant to be...

really! The reward is tremendous and I love the game, but i am convinced that I would have had 300% better times when the learning curve would have been less tough. I switched back to other games more than was necessary, just because the game was too tough on several occasions. The being said, i am still playing it and hope to earn my own anaconda in the next two months, making it a year since I joined to get myself one of the best ships in the game; and boy, did that take a while and cost a lot of patience, five computer screens, two marriages and still in rehab for swearing my lungs out...

But still on the game and loving it (sometimes, when it is not too tough)


Oh, and did I mention that the game is tough?

The manual should start with: You think you have bought an star flight simulating and trading game, but in fact you did not. This game is soo tough, that only the best and bravest of all commanders can keep op with it. And all tohers on the forum promiss you the game will be better along the road, but it won't. But you DO get used-to this learning curve and when you are totally numb, you will love the game. After all, only the real masochists play this game and therefore are always happy in the end....

But the current manual is also ok, probably... if you are a truly addicted masochist

Great post Pipo ...for me it's one of the things that I find grips me...it's the not knowing, it's a feature that puts Elite in the echelons of game producers. constant trying and learning until you can do it...One early but vital lesson I learned about is consequences...do something wrong and you die...do something wrong and you're fined...There are no short cuts in ED, no one can do it for you. I really struggled with getting data scans from bases, the higher the security, the harder I found it..but for practice and using the wealth of information on this forum , posted by players who have all been exactly where the op is today.

To play this game you need to embrace that philosophy, it's hardcore and it's not a game you can apply the same approach as with the more recent online games such as cod or battlefield and it's why I love it

 

[Rob_the_Sparky]

Just as an FYI to the OP, 75% throttle is the centre of the blue zone.

 

[SeaFireliv]

Been at it 4 months... still learning. This game is like a WW2 flight sim, there is always something you don`t know.

 

[Alec Turner]

Without reading a lot of these replies in detail (which look great) I guess the main thing for me is that the slow learning experience is something to be savoured. My favourite tutorial when I first started (way back in Nov 2014) was the travel tutorial. Just learning (and ultimately mastering) how to get my ship from A to B (undocking, leaving the station, figuring out how to target a destination, learning about routes and jumping and where to get fuel en route, and supercruise and destination station and approach loops of shame and landing - oh yesss, landing) was all such a thrill. I just didn't worry about combat or mining or outfitting or any of that until later. If you're trying to pick up everything (and since I started playing SO MUCH MORE has been added to the game), all at once, I can see how totally overwhelming that would be. So yeah - take it slow, don't be in a rush to learn it all. Personally, as someone looking back from the other end of the "journey", I envy the experiences you still have in front of you.

As to how I learned it all - before I even bought the game I'd consumed hours of on-line video (mostly from Isinona who's "Flight Assist Off" Youtube series was (and still is) a complete inspiration to me). Other than that, I guess I just picked it up, bit by bit.

I can thoroughly recommend this video series ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRTC5XcRgdw&list=PLfWbIi9YGRbdxeiOWS9Pkxnxp4FboSQm6

It's from a fairly experienced player who's cleared his save, started out from scratch and is documenting his "leisurely" but steady progression through the game. Full of great tips and ideas, it's a very enjoyable watch if you like this kind of thing.

I've also got a thread here on the forum which has all sorts of great stuff in it (IMHO) ...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/321074-Alec-s-best-of-the-forum-(and-elsewhere)-thread

Good luck commander!

 

[evert67]

Thanks all! I've managed to enter a space station twice already now, partly due to your tips. However, landing... no, I haven't been able to do that, in spite of watching the video multiple times. Any tips?

 

[Alec Turner]

Thanks all! I've managed to enter a space station twice already now, partly due to your tips. However, landing... no, I haven't been able to do that, in spite of watching the video multiple times. Any tips?

What control method are you using? (i.e. mouse/keyboard or joystick)

One quick tip, you might find landing on the outside of an Outpost easier than landing inside a massive station (then again, you might not). It's exactly the same type of landing pad and technique but it's somehow less daunting, doesn't have the added challenge of flying through a rotating mailslot and it helps (psychologically) not having to wrap your head around the idea that the entire station is rotating in space (with you in it).

Outposts look like this ...

Spoiler

 

[Chris Simon]

Thanks all! I've managed to enter a space station twice already now, partly due to your tips. However, landing... no, I haven't been able to do that, in spite of watching the video multiple times. Any tips?

Don't forget that you have lateral thrusters!
Your ship can move up and down and strafe left and right. Be sure to have these functions bound (By default on the keyboard they are bound to the Q and E keys for strafing and R and F keys for up and down)

 

[StiTch]

Hence my question: how did you guys learn Elite Dangerous? What I think I really need is something that tells me what I’m trying to achieve and how I should do it in pretty much detail. I’m missing much of that in the videos/training missions.

Shot a lot of things, died a few times, laughed more than a few times.