How to insure, and how to make money

[mattig89ch]

Hidy ho all,

So, I've made some posts around here recently, as I started getting back into this game. I did so, because of a community goal, giving players in my playtime bracket a free Viper Mk IV. I asked if I should sell it off, and used those new funds to pickup a new ship. And I got alot of feedback from the community saying I should pickup a new Cobra Mk3. So, I took that advice, and am now sitting in a new Cobra Mk 3. With 2 gimbling pulse lasers replacing the old strait pointing lasers, and a shiny new fuel scoop (had a fuel scoop on the starting sidewinder, and found it so useful it might become a feature on all my future ships).

Now, as I understand it, ship insurance can make the loss of a ship much easier to bear. Trouble is, I couldn't find a place to purchase ship insurance in general. So my first question is, where do I find ship insurance?


After that, I'm curious how exactly making money is supposed to work in this game. I've tried trading in the past, and found it so tedious and boring that I put the game down for a couple of years. I heard tell of missions of some kind, in this game. And I've watched a couple of youtube videos about folks going into deep space, and bringing back scans to sell. But that's all I know. So, where do I find out more info about missions? And is there some trick to trading besides buying low and selling high?

 

[Aine]

You pay for insurance right after your ship got destroyed.
You can see the required insurance payment in your stats (4)

That means you will always need at least the amount of credits in your pocket in order to cover the insurance.

 

[Sapyx]

Ship insurance is included in the cost of buying a new ship - it's automatically added to the sale price.

When you're destroyed, you pay the premium of 5% of your ship's total value (including all modules), and they buy you a new ship. But they want the premium in immediate cash - if you don't have it, and they won't give you a loan, then you get nothing back from your destroyed ship and you're given a new loaned Sidewinder like the one you started the game with.

On your "Finances" tab in the status screen, you're told your "rebuy cost". TO play it safe, never leave port with a bank balance below this.

 

[shadragon]

The rebuy amount is located on the left hand screen near the bottom.
I personally like to have enough to cover two full rebuys in the bank, minimum.
Making money is rather simple in-game. You can click on the YouTube link below for a beginner series on how to start out in Elite. Shows the missions you can do and what to look out for (pro and con).

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr0ohBrfo3ImP7gOhvY2gL0tlVD1J0ti-

Cheers.

 

[mattig89ch]

Thanks all! I apreciate the help.

Now, regarding means of making money. Besides trading, and exploring (not sure I'm ready to explore just yet), how else can you make money?

 

[goemon]

Thanks all! I apreciate the help.

Now, regarding means of making money. Besides trading, and exploring (not sure I'm ready to explore just yet), how else can you make money?

bounty hunting. fit a kill warrant scanner, go to a RES (ressource extraction site), shoot wanted ships, claim bounties via contacts tab in stations. after you get used to it, go to high intesity RES. help system sec taking out the big boys! one of the best early on money makers, if you are not into rare trading, or smuggling missions. fly safe!

 

[Cmdr Wullfen]

When I first started I began with combat at standard nav beacons, easiest targets IMO

simply jump 1 jump away from your home system and then jump back. Go to the nav beacon and kill WANTED targets (always make sure your sensors have finished scanning the target in full before firing ie. Hud left target display).

You will get bounties and rep for your local factions and once you have enough skill/equipment. You can find resource extraction site (low/high/hazardous) for a bigger challenge

 

[Bariel]

Thanks all! I apreciate the help.

Now, regarding means of making money. Besides trading, and exploring (not sure I'm ready to explore just yet), how else can you make money?

Other ways of making money are mining (I have zero experience with that but I am guessing that one might need to wait until you can outfit a decent ship for the job), and running missions from the bulletin board - these run from simple take this from here to there, to multi part missions requiring you to meet with contacts in space.

 

[mattig89ch]

Where can I find nav beacons?

Also, is the bulletin board in the stations? I'm not sure if I've seen them or not.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Bounty Hunting is a great way to make some money, you can do it quite good already in a Eagle and for sure in a Viper so rebuy cost is low. I'm currently spending some time in a Hazres with a Viper and its great fun and makes me good money, alltough Highres maybe better depending on how good you do against the bigger prey, since there you can fight alongside Systemsecurity.

But I find in a Viper as longs I don't attack Wings everything goes well no matter the target.

 

[Bariel]

Also, is the bulletin board in the stations? I'm not sure if I've seen them or not.

Yes, bulletin boards are in stations - the missions can be very lucrative and may well be a good way to build your starting capital. Note that missions can be pilot's federation rank dependent (combat, trade, exploring) and, sometimes on your rep with the faction offering the mission. Doing missions, trading, turning in bounty vouchers, etc can all help your rep with the faction controlling the station and potentially open up more mission options. To gain pilot's federation rank, you need to kill wanted ships, sell exploration data and/or trade.

 

[CMDR Ellegon]

Early on, missions are the easiest way to build up some cash. The Bulletin Board is in the Station Menu.

Community Goals sometimes help as well, especially if you can get a decent payout (for a cash-strapped beginner) buy delivering as little as 1 tone of something.

 

[Drink!]

Nav beacons are near the star you jump to. Once you jump into a system, check yous contacts list.
The fastest why to make money with your ship at your level is to bounty hunt at hazardous resource extraction sites or compromised Nav beacons.

 

[d8veh]

Don't waste your time with nav beacons. The action there is very slow. Go straight to a high intensity RES. Wait for the Feds or anybody else to start shooting the bad guys, then tag them with your lasers just before they die. It's easy money and as safe as anything. If there's not much action at the RES after 10 minutes, fly out into super-cruise and then back in again. there's different numbers of Feds there each time. Eventually, you'll get an instance where there's loads of them cleaning up every bad guy as soon as they arrive.

 

[tagos]

Thanks all! I apreciate the help.

Now, regarding means of making money. Besides trading, and exploring (not sure I'm ready to explore just yet), how else can you make money?

Finding that out is part of the fun. I ran missions early on but with a cobra spent a little time doing Rare runs.

 

[mattig89ch]

Whelp, I don't have enough for my insurance. So, I need some fairly easy ones to start with. I probably overpaid on the parts I picked up.

I'm in the gunovole system atm (if that makes a difference or not, idk).

I'm not that great at combat atm. On the way to sell of my free ship, and pickup this viper, I was interdicted by an npc. I figured I'd try to kill him, because he stopped me, not the other way around. And I found that combat to eb the most frustrating thing I've ever experienced. Maybe the npc was really good, or I'm really bad, idk. But it seemed like, every time I brought my nose in on him, he was able to keep himself just off of my targeting reticules. It was a hour before I gave up, ran to a station, and rage quit. Thats why I added the gimbling guns to the cobra, just to avoid situations like that again.

Is there a trick to finding hazardous resource extraction sites, and compromised nav beacons?

 

[d8veh]

Bounty hunting in a RES is not nearly as bad as that because you're letting the Feds do all the work. The bad guys won't be trying to avoid your fire. Often, they're surrounded by ships firing at them, so they just sit there and spin, waiting to die.

You find RESs in planets with rings that have some metal content. When you look at your galaxy map, you'll see some systems with these Saturn-like planets. when you click on them, the information tells you what the rings are made of. If you're still in the starter system, then LTT 15574 is the place to go, or Aphra. You should go to a RES and just watch what happens. Nobody will shoot you unless you shoot them first, so it's very safe.

 

[terrycloth]

Whelp, I don't have enough for my insurance. So, I need some fairly easy ones to start with. I probably overpaid on the parts I picked up.

Then sell one of them back for a cheaper version. There's no loss in credits unless you sell the entire ship.

And yeah, NPCs are magic, and Elite's controls are really bad for aiming fixed weapons. They're only useful if you're insanely good or if you're fighting something really big and slow and close.

 

[goemon]

Whelp, I don't have enough for my insurance. So, I need some fairly easy ones to start with. I probably overpaid on the parts I picked up.

I'm in the gunovole system atm (if that makes a difference or not, idk).

I'm not that great at combat atm. On the way to sell of my free ship, and pickup this viper, I was interdicted by an npc. I figured I'd try to kill him, because he stopped me, not the other way around. And I found that combat to eb the most frustrating thing I've ever experienced. Maybe the npc was really good, or I'm really bad, idk. But it seemed like, every time I brought my nose in on him, he was able to keep himself just off of my targeting reticules. It was a hour before I gave up, ran to a station, and rage quit. Thats why I added the gimbling guns to the cobra, just to avoid situations like that again.

Is there a trick to finding hazardous resource extraction sites, and compromised nav beacons?

most players will shout me down, but ... at the very beginning of my combat experience i used not even gimbals, but turretts... at least one beam turrett, so i could focus on flying in the general direction of my target (and that focus was necessary...) - and till today i only use fixed weapons of types which don't have gimbals, like railguns or plasma accelerator.

don't go to a haz res or comp nav first! start slowly with a normal res, than a high res, till you have learned the basics.

 

[pryzm]

Don't waste your time with nav beacons. The action there is very slow. Go straight to a high intensity RES. Wait for the Feds or anybody else to start shooting the bad guys, then tag them with your lasers just before they die. It's easy money and as safe as anything. If there's not much action at the RES after 10 minutes, fly out into super-cruise and then back in again. there's different numbers of Feds there each time. Eventually, you'll get an instance where there's loads of them cleaning up every bad guy as soon as they arrive.

If you want to have above quoted relative safeness, never go to these RES places with anything in your cargo hold- pirates will attack you. Likewise dont scoop up any cargo while there.