An important question is what do you want to do? Inara is great for finding trade routes you might find one which trades polymers. Buy cheap and sell high for 5k profit per unit, rinse and repeat. You'll be an expert Type 6 pilot in no time. Other tools are great for finding has res for bounty hunting.
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Newcomer / Intro I'm kinda lost, the galaxy is a huge place.
- Thread starter Old Rusty
- Start date
Exploration and some trading are my goals.
Well that's a good start. Learn how to use the Full Spectrum Scanner to scan systems and the DSS to scan surfaces. But you can start exploring now with a Hauler, or trade a little more and work to a Diamond Back Explorer. A-rate the FSD, D-rate the rest and explore the Plaedies, visit the Thargoids. Keep your distance and they will keep theirs. You can scan the Listening Posts there and they will set you on many treasure hunts (Take a Scarab). When you find an active Barnacle site (High Metal Content world Pleidies) you can take the metalloy to Fasreer. Engineer the drive then you're off to visit the Guardian sites. The more you trade, the fancier the ship you can do it in.
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Get a hauler, it has great jump range making it the cheapest explorer. D-rate everything except the FSD, that needs an A-rate.
Get a DSS and a fuel scoop and start exploring.
Here's how you do that.
Welcome CMDR Old Rusty - I am glad you are enjoying this wonderful game (and community).
coriolis.io
Coriolis is a great website for planning and testing your ship builds. It will allow you to play around with modules to maximise the cargo space on your shiny new Type 6 and any other future ship builds.
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
coriolis.io
As others have said, the Hauler is the best entry level exploration ship in the game and selling exploration data you collect with it is the most lucrative activity when you don't have funds for a bigger ship that can carry more cargo.
Here is a specification of Hauler I would recommend:
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone
3C fuel scoop because anything under 40 seconds to fill the tank from empty is good and the 3A is too expensive and not worth it on a Hauler. Fuel scoops have no mass. Your future exploration ships should be fitted with the largest A rated fuel scoop you can fit with the possible exception of 7A on an Anaconda as a 6A or 7B/7C is enough and 7A is stupid expensive.
I will suggest 2C power plant as it is more efficient and almost as light as the 2D. Efficiency matters at it will reduce the heat the ship generates, and keeping the heat levels down while fuel scooping with a Hauler is hard. It's a ship that naturally runs hot. When you get comfortable fuel scooping with a Hauler, you can call yourself Elite at fuel scooping as it's one of the hardest ships in the game to fuel scoop with.
You need about 600,000 credits to buy this ship. So do data courier missions or sit in a Low Res Extract site in a planet ring, wait for system authority ships to get a wanted ship down to 20% hull and then finish them off and cash in the bounty at the system authority contact in the space station.
When collecting exploration data by using DSS to surface map planets, know that water worlds, amonia worlds and ELWs (Earth Like Worlds) are worth 700,000 to 1 million+ credits. You can play the game properly and plot a course into a nearby nebula or other POI (see edsm.net for interesting places) and see what you find on the way, or cheat a bit and use "Road to Riches" to find the high value planets to go and scan. https://www.spansh.co.uk/riches
If your ship is destroyed before you sell your exploration data, you lose it.
Probably worth being in a Type 6 or better before trading.
And the best part about the Hauler is, it takes every module from the Sidey. So you can gradually upgrade the Sidey, then transplant everything to it.
And if you're strapped for cash, you can sell all the optionals and replace them with the free ones you got with the Sidey.
And if you're strapped for cash, you can sell all the optionals and replace them with the free ones you got with the Sidey.
In addition to the other replies to that:
Don't overlook the Type-6 as an early exploration ship - it jumps really well, has good range of internal bays and the visibility from the cockpit is really good. (Obviously it is a good cargo ship too.)
Type 6 is also great for making a profit on Robigo Mines to Sothis Sirius Atmospherics passenger runs until you can afford a Python.
A lot of passenger cabins fit in a Type 6 for the price.