Hello, I've had the game for a few days now. I started in the new area and was doing courier jobs mostly to earn credits. I accidentally ventured outside that area and now am finding most outposts and stations I visit have missions beyond my rank and/or capabilities. I'm looking for some guidance on what I can do next.
-
Greetings Commander, want a more instant approach to your questions and need for help? Check out the Galactic Academy Discord server!
Feel free to join the Galactic Academy Discord server by clicking here!
Newcomer / Intro Making credits outside start area
- Thread starter Nevalin
- Start date
You can take a mission which is recommended for any rank - even Elite ranked ones - just be aware that any mission-specific AI attackers will be scaled to the mission rank so don't think about fighting them.
If you want to go back into the starter area you can start again - at the game main menu / options you can select to "Clear Save" - you start afresh, you can skip the initial training (menu - "skip this training") - you will be surprised how quickly you progress when you restart.
If you just want to continue outside the start zone then there are many ways to make credits fast, not just missions. One way is to go to a High Resource Extraction Site, wait for security to turn up then follow them around shooting at the ships they are engaging - as long as you get some hits on the pirate before it blows up (but when it is more than 10% I think) then you get the bounty credit for that ship. You can earn a lot of credits quick that way - then you can buy a ship and equip it for mining and go core-mining or laser mining Painite and you will be elite trading in no time.
Good luck.
If you want to go back into the starter area you can start again - at the game main menu / options you can select to "Clear Save" - you start afresh, you can skip the initial training (menu - "skip this training") - you will be surprised how quickly you progress when you restart.
If you just want to continue outside the start zone then there are many ways to make credits fast, not just missions. One way is to go to a High Resource Extraction Site, wait for security to turn up then follow them around shooting at the ships they are engaging - as long as you get some hits on the pirate before it blows up (but when it is more than 10% I think) then you get the bounty credit for that ship. You can earn a lot of credits quick that way - then you can buy a ship and equip it for mining and go core-mining or laser mining Painite and you will be elite trading in no time.
Good luck.
As Para Handy stated, you can do the missions at other stations even if they are above your pay grade so to speak. Look through the mission listings while keeping in mind the following;
1) What is the mission asking me to do? Is it saying haul 80 Widgets to a station that is 15 LY away?
- If so, how much cargo space do you have? If you don't have 80 units of space, you will have to make multiple trips. With this, they might tell you a bad guy may come after you to try and interdict you and take your cargo. Say you have to make 10 round-trips (that would be 20 total, One there, One back). That means that the bad guy will have approximately 20 chances to try and interdict you. I know this because I decided one time to haul over 2000 units from one station to another in the same system. After the third trip, I started getting interdiction attempts by some bad guy (call him Snydely Whiplash). Every time I left the station, ol' Snydely was there when I entered Supercruise, and Every time, he tried to interdict me. I put up with it for approx 24 round trips (or 48 trips total). I couldn't wait to finish that mission. It had an 11 Million credit pay out! But had I failed, it had a 52 Million credit Fine. At the time I had 53 million in the bank. Always read what the mission is asking you to do before you take it.
2) Where is the mission sending me? How far do I have to go to get to the end stop?
- When I was first starting out, I had a mission to take some widgets from one system to another. No Problem! So I picked up the cargo, headed off into Hyperspace, got to the system, and realized that I had to travel over 300,000 ls to get to the base. 300K Light Seconds, while not the farthest by any means (Hutton Orbital is 6 Million+) is still a fair bit of time traveling....While the payout was like 1 million credits (which when you are starting out seems like a HUGE payout) the time involved doing the mission doesn't really make the payout seem worth it.
- Another one, I had to take some widgets from one system to another. I get there, drop off the widgets and look for another mission. I find one that is going back to the original system! Nice! I pick it up and launch. Lock onto the system, fire up the FSD, and it tells me basically..."You Can't Get There From Here". Huh?? What do you mean, I just came from there...What happened was I had picked up just enough cargo that it cut my max jump range to below the distance to the star system. I was short by 0.2 LYs. I had to go back, land, drop off a module to lose Mass, and then I was able to complete the mission. But otherwise, I was Stranded because my Jump Legs were just a bit too short. As you get bigger and more capable ships you might not have to worry about this, but it is something to keep in the back of your mind if you decide to go out exploring...You can jump yourself into a Roach Motel...You can Jump In, but can't Jump Out.
3) What is the level of the mission? Is there anything that may affect me if I don't make it?
- All mission have various levels of toughness so to speak. The higher the level, the harder the mission may be. You might come up against a VERY tough pirate in an Assassination mission, or have a high level pirate try to interdict you during a hauling mission. Look at the levels of difficulty, but don't let them scare you off. You can do Elite recommended mission, just know that you may face someone who isn't a push over if it comes to it. Also, as I mentioned, Check the Fines/Penalties that can occur should you not finish the mission. As I experienced, I had the big haul mission (these are generally Wing Missions, meaning you get together with others to complete them) that had a payout of 11 million, but a penalty of 52 million should I not complete it. Weigh your choices against what you are willing to gamble.
4) GO HAVE FUN!!! This game can (and does) have a steep learning curve. They don't give you much in the way of a manual that you can hold while you are trying to figure out what is what. I printed out various pages showing the button commands and when I got the HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) I made my own sheet of what did what and taped it to my computer stand. There are lots of informative videos on YouTube about the game, and many Commanders have put a lot of time and effort into them to make it easier for those who follow in their footsteps.
Hope this helps, or at least didn't put you to sleep.
Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7
1) What is the mission asking me to do? Is it saying haul 80 Widgets to a station that is 15 LY away?
- If so, how much cargo space do you have? If you don't have 80 units of space, you will have to make multiple trips. With this, they might tell you a bad guy may come after you to try and interdict you and take your cargo. Say you have to make 10 round-trips (that would be 20 total, One there, One back). That means that the bad guy will have approximately 20 chances to try and interdict you. I know this because I decided one time to haul over 2000 units from one station to another in the same system. After the third trip, I started getting interdiction attempts by some bad guy (call him Snydely Whiplash). Every time I left the station, ol' Snydely was there when I entered Supercruise, and Every time, he tried to interdict me. I put up with it for approx 24 round trips (or 48 trips total). I couldn't wait to finish that mission. It had an 11 Million credit pay out! But had I failed, it had a 52 Million credit Fine. At the time I had 53 million in the bank. Always read what the mission is asking you to do before you take it.
2) Where is the mission sending me? How far do I have to go to get to the end stop?
- When I was first starting out, I had a mission to take some widgets from one system to another. No Problem! So I picked up the cargo, headed off into Hyperspace, got to the system, and realized that I had to travel over 300,000 ls to get to the base. 300K Light Seconds, while not the farthest by any means (Hutton Orbital is 6 Million+) is still a fair bit of time traveling....While the payout was like 1 million credits (which when you are starting out seems like a HUGE payout) the time involved doing the mission doesn't really make the payout seem worth it.
- Another one, I had to take some widgets from one system to another. I get there, drop off the widgets and look for another mission. I find one that is going back to the original system! Nice! I pick it up and launch. Lock onto the system, fire up the FSD, and it tells me basically..."You Can't Get There From Here". Huh?? What do you mean, I just came from there...What happened was I had picked up just enough cargo that it cut my max jump range to below the distance to the star system. I was short by 0.2 LYs. I had to go back, land, drop off a module to lose Mass, and then I was able to complete the mission. But otherwise, I was Stranded because my Jump Legs were just a bit too short. As you get bigger and more capable ships you might not have to worry about this, but it is something to keep in the back of your mind if you decide to go out exploring...You can jump yourself into a Roach Motel...You can Jump In, but can't Jump Out.
3) What is the level of the mission? Is there anything that may affect me if I don't make it?
- All mission have various levels of toughness so to speak. The higher the level, the harder the mission may be. You might come up against a VERY tough pirate in an Assassination mission, or have a high level pirate try to interdict you during a hauling mission. Look at the levels of difficulty, but don't let them scare you off. You can do Elite recommended mission, just know that you may face someone who isn't a push over if it comes to it. Also, as I mentioned, Check the Fines/Penalties that can occur should you not finish the mission. As I experienced, I had the big haul mission (these are generally Wing Missions, meaning you get together with others to complete them) that had a payout of 11 million, but a penalty of 52 million should I not complete it. Weigh your choices against what you are willing to gamble.
4) GO HAVE FUN!!! This game can (and does) have a steep learning curve. They don't give you much in the way of a manual that you can hold while you are trying to figure out what is what. I printed out various pages showing the button commands and when I got the HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) I made my own sheet of what did what and taped it to my computer stand. There are lots of informative videos on YouTube about the game, and many Commanders have put a lot of time and effort into them to make it easier for those who follow in their footsteps.
Hope this helps, or at least didn't put you to sleep.
Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7
Good deal. The sooner you move into the real galaxy the better. There are plenty of ways to make your living out there. Years ago I started with my Sidewinder as a bounty hunter, I figured it was the fastest way to make money on the small ship. Got Cobra with more firepower, then once I got enough cash for my first trader started trading business. I wanted those Gutamaya ships so I moved into the Imperial space (if you want federal ships you better move into the federal space) because you have to build your relationship with superpower of your choice. I was trading, making money and buying bigger trader as soon as I could afford it, taking occasional missions and earned myself Imperial Naval ranks to unlock those ships. While making your progress you might have to switch roles several times. Any properly outfitted ship is expensive and to make money for it you might have to become a trader or miner at some point. Don't bother with multicrew from the get go, multicrew will take too much money out of your pocket and unless used to pilot your SLF doesn't make much sense anyway. I haven't used any multicrew until recently. Just got one NPC to fly one of my two fighters that I have on board of my Cutter, mostly for fun.
One other way to earn money is to sell exploration data. Use your FSS scanner to "honk" any system you fly through, and then to scan any planets that aren't resolved already. A simple rocky body may only give you 20k, but an Earthlike World can give you a couple of Million. More if you're the first person to make a surface scan - but that's highly unlikely unless you venture out of the bubble off the beaten paths. Even so, those duds accumulate, and collecting half a million as additional bonus after a few missions doesn't hurt.
Para has made a couple of nice videos for that: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/how-to-use-the-fss.521572/post-7999041
Para has made a couple of nice videos for that: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/how-to-use-the-fss.521572/post-7999041
To get credits fast:
- Buy a hauler (remove everything except shields, add a fuel scoop , DSS, and A grade the FSD - cheap and long jump range)
- Go to spansh (https://www.spansh.co.uk/riches) and create a 'road to riches' route that will net you 60M credits or thereabouts. Follow the route scanning the planets indicated.
- Cash in the data and then buy an ASP explorer and kit it for mining Void opals.
- Make 60-100M per hr until you have enough credits not to have to worry about them anymore.
The rank reccomendations are just that, reccomendations. All you need to do is think about whether or not it is within your capabilities. For example, a mission for transferring 24 units of Biowatse? just ask yourself whether you have that cargo space, and whether you will be able to jump to the system.
There are tons of other things to do that don't require missions, so its ultimately up to you.
Probably the easiest thing to do when you're just starting out is short-range exploration. Just jump-honk for maybe 500Ly outside the bubble, should get you a few million. Just remember to be properly outfitted.