Newcomer / Intro Initial findings and mission difficulty?

[Mortom]

Hi all,

I've just got ED and I've been playing for around 5 hours now. I'm not doing that well as I still have the starting Sidewinder which unfortunately only has 4t of cargo space making it a bit of grind to make money early on. I'm up to 10,000 so far. Not sure if this is very good, but it feels like I'm doing something wrong and maybe trading is not something that a new pilot should do. I hoping this will improve over time and I'm sticking with it.

However to make more money I've been looking at the bulletin boards. I've done a few simple delivery missions for a few thousands credits. There was a kill contract worth over 100,000 and named the pilot to kill. I didn't take it as I really don't know if my ship is good enough. There is now a pirate kill mission to take out 3 pirates worth 13,000. However these missions don't list the type of ships they are flying or their ratings so how do I know if this mission is beyond my current level?

Does the bulletin board balance the available missions for the player?

The game seems to be more of an open-world simulation, rather than something that targets the newbie player and helps them through the beginnings of the game. I don't want to take a mission and find out I get killed and then it costs me all the money I've managed to make over the last 5 hours on getting a replacement ship. The game seems to be a free-for-all and if it was up to me I would have balanced it out so a new player is not quite so overwhelmed by it all. I'm sticking with it, but I'm worried the game will just suddenly punish me and ruined the experience. Games should be fun and I'm yet to find that.

Some of us are old enough to remember the original and all the time we sank it that, but back then there was no wife or kids to deal with. Progression in this game early on seems far to slow and I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere.

This is still early days for ED so I suspect there will be a lot of balancing issues but currently the same is too much of a simulation and personally I would find it more fun if it move towards a space shooter and borrowed ideas from RPGs where the initial part of the game is quick to level up and it becomes more of a grind at latter levels.

Anyway what can I do about this kill mission? Is there a way to tell is the pirates are flying sidewinders like mine or in something far more powerful? What happens if they destroy my ship? How much will I lose?

Sorry about the rant but I'm really struggling to find the fun.

Cheers

Mort

 

[InfiniteGremlins]

If you lose your basic, un-upgraded Sidewinder...you get back your basic, un-upgraded Sidewinder for free. If you've added any modules or are flying a different ship, the replacement cost is listed in the systems panel, on the right-hand side of the cockpit.

The bulletin board missions are gated by your relation with the faction and your ship's cargo capacity, so combat missions are a bit risky at the start: but if you're in your starter ship, you aren't risking much other than your time.

The easiest missions to take when starting out are the hauling missions (icon: a cargo container with an arrow) that just want you to take some stuff to another station. You will only be able to take 4 tons with your starter ship, but that should give you the credits to get started on trading or to buy some better guns.

 

[Muthax]

"This is still early days for ED so I suspect there will be a lot of balancing issues but currently the same is too much of a simulation and personally I would find it more fun if it move towards a space shooter and borrowed ideas from RPGs where the initial part of the game is quick to level up and it becomes more of a grind at latter levels."

Ed isn't one of those games, I am afraid
I think if you get ou tof the "Level/xp/progress" from other games, you'll enjoy more the game, even with your limited time (I have the same "problems" as you)

And yea, it's a galaxy simulator, not a 'game'

Have fun

 

[technophebe]

There's a new players guide here that fills in a lot of the blanks left by the official manual, and covers a lot of what you're asking about. Hope it helps!