Lost ships due to life support running out

A suggestion that MIGHT help get more credits is to wing up with a friend, if you can (especially if they have a large ship capable of carrying a lot of cargo). Then, when they sell their cargo (provided you are at the same Station they are at when they sell) you will get a Trade Dividend from the Station worth 5% of their profit margin. 5% may not sound a lot, but when I pop into Starter Space with 384 tonnes of Performance Enhancers each new Player who is in my Wing typically gets 24Kcr Trade Dividend. That is enough to get them a 2C FSD. The biggest TD I have seen is when I was working a Community Goal, and the Station was paying well above the odds for the materials required, and then the TDs were 80Kcr per Wingman.

I would also suggest that, in future, you make sure to have 200% (at least) of the purchase price of a ship before you buy it. That way you should have enough for the ship, some basic outfitting, a couple of cargo loads, and a couple of REBUYs (just in case). If you are planning on selling a ship make sure to take it back to factory standard first. You will always take a 10% hit on the value of the ship at the time of selling. However, if you sell the modules first (replacing a 2A FSD with a 2E FSD) you will get back the price you paid for it (currently, at least, although this may change in the future). Then, when you sell the ship, your losses will be reduced. For example, I have a fully A Rated Cobra MkIII worth 10Mcr. If I were to sell her as is my losses would be 1Mcr. If, however, I take her back to factory standard and then sell her my losses would be 35Kcr.
 
And, keep a hold of your old ships it might be tempting when you are within reach of your goal just by trading them in.

But if all else goes wrong again, wouldn't you rather have a cobra or type 6 handy to put you back on track?

^^Great advice. Keep earning till you can buy a new ship (and a few rebuys) with cash . Keep the old ship. :) You've spent time outfitting a ship. Keep it, then if you decide later you want to fly that model again for some reason you dont have to buy it all over again and re-outfit it.
 
That's fine and all to say that it's easy but your telling that to someone who just spent 3 weeks grinding 8 mil.. so I don't know what you're talking about. I can't afford a 160k FSD!!! I have LOANED STOCK components an 1,000 credits. What are you expecting me to do?

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Missions are giving me MAX 20k per mission, I'm supposed to grind that for hours again? No thanks..


Don't do the source missions solely this will hamper your progress. The thing with Elite Dangerous is to fly smart.

If you have cargo space and going from one system to another with an empty cargo hold then you are not flying smart. Also look for systems in a boom state these will tend to payout more credits for the same kind of missions and more over time. As you gain reputation the mission payout will increase so work with the smaller factions that live in the stations and systems.

When I started I picked missions that delivered data and used my cargo hold to trade commodities between the systems even if it was scrap or biowaste. You are still making money. Keep the basic discovery scanner and scan every unknown system as you pass and sell the data you collect.

The first thing you should look to upgrade is a power plant and then the FSD. Honestly making money in the game is fairly easy when compared to other online games.

Always make sure you can afford to rebuy your ship at least 3 times over before you head out into the black. Never, ever fly anything more than you can afford or you will regret it.

Also look at the Unknown Signal Sites and look for the threat 0 ones mainly. Drop into those and salvage what you find, for a new player these can be gold mines. Beware of illegal or stolen salvage though and sell at outposts with blackmarkets if they are. But before you sell salvage look in the missions for anyone looking for the stuff you find. If anyone is looking for it accept the mission and then come out of the mission screen and reload it to hand in the mission. Also do this when transporting trade commodities, I do this and have made anywhere from 50k to 300k for a few tonnes of the cargo I had in my hold. I can then still sell the remaining commodities at a profit on the markets.

Or if you find someone with a trade ship like a Type 6/keelback or above join their wing and get trade tickets to hand in at stations for working together.

My final advice is to fully upgrade the Sidewinder first before moving onto a more powerful ship. Try different aspects of the game in the Sidewinder and see which way you wish to go. Combat, trade or explorer/ miner. The ship is cheap and easy to replace even when upgraded fully, and while you figure out your place in the galaxy you are saving money for the Cobra MKIII or Eagle MKIII. When you do upgrade keep that Sidewinder in storage because if you ever loose the new ship and can't afford the rebuy you won't have to start all over again from scratch, at least you will have a upgraded Sidewinder.

I started over a few times during Alpha from flying ships I couldn't afford to rebuy and server resets, each time I got quicker at regaining the money to buy upgrades and new ships, consider it a learning curve and not a grind.
 
How would the ship power a warning message about insufficient power, when there isn't enough power?

lol. I would bet that Life Support wasn't getting enough power.

If you're inside a station, your atmosphere is restored. Although it's pretty stupid that a ship like an Anaconda has so much space on the bridge, that it only lasts 5 minutes if you have E class Life Support that isn't powered. Pretty sure the amount of Oxygen stored on an Anaconda would last a few weeks. (excluding screen blowing out)
 
It takes literally 4 hours to get to the cobra...

As for bounty hunting, follow authority ships about on larger ships in nav beacons / res sites get the last couple of hits in and you are golden (but make sure they have the wanted tag first)
Using that method, assuming you've already found a good Resource Extraction Site (High), you could get a million credits in a half an hour, more than enough to buy a Cobra and mod it a bit. But if my goal were to get 15 million as fast as possible, I'd buy a Viper III instead because it's cheaper to buy/mod, put decent shields and distributor on, and head back to the RES for another million. In a couple hours you'll theoretically be able to start fights in Hi RES and do all right, instead of just help finish them.

In other words, just because it took you weeks to make your first 15 million doesn't mean you can't make your second 15 today.
 
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I had the best power distributer and generator money could buy.

Pay more attention to class and grade. The station that sold you the Asp probably only carried like a grade C in the class you needed, but maybe they sold a teensy Tiny grade A. If you sorted the outfitter by price, you'd end up with that small generator, which doesn't give you nearly enough power- but happens to be more expensive than your stock module just because it's a high quality part
 
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