Newcomer / Intro My problems as a beginner with ED.

[trigun539]

Full respect, but I wouldn't recommend rare trading as a way of making good money. It was once a very good earner indeed but over time it seems to have fallen down the rankings of profitable activities. I tried the big rares' circuit, the one with about 30 stops, twice last summer. Once in a Cobra, the limited cargo capacity of which meant I had to choose which commodities to buy, and once in a T6, where I was able to buy every rare on offer. Yes, I made a few million on each occasion but for the time invested I would have made more with normal trading and much more running medicines into an outbreak system or food into a system suffering famine.

However, I suspect that for Cmdr Trigun539, trading of any sort would be too slow and, perhaps, require too much thought. Independent trading does require research, reconnaissance, planning and effort to identify the profitable routes and more work to make the actual dosh, as well as knowing when to give up on a route (usually because it has been discovered on EDDB) and start again elsewhere. It is not an activity to everyone's taste. For some us though, sad muppets that we may be, trading/trucking is what the game is about and has been since its first incarnation back in 1984. Each to their own.

I probably sounded a bit harsher than I intended. I actually do like games that require good strategy and deep thought like Starcraft. That’s a game that you are fully involved/challenging/fun. I think people are very lenient with gameplay for this game. I had a mission where for around 15-20 mins did “nothing”. I actually got up and did other stuff while the game was just going. Also, a good portion of the game is docking/undocking. This game really needs a fast travel option for people that don’t like to explore or repeat a lot of same actions. If This game is a true space sim, all navigation stuff would clearly be automated, unless you wanted manual control.

I still like the game and think it has great potential! Probably just needs some easier but interesting things to do that don’t require a big ship or a lot of ranking.

 

[Ashnak]

I still like the game and think it has great potential! Probably just needs some easier but interesting things to do that don’t require a big ship or a lot of ranking.

The only thing that really requires a big ship is anything to do with shuffling large amounts of cargo around. Almost the same goes for ranking, since the biggest cargo ships are rank locked (with the pending buff for the T-9, that advantage of the Cutter/Corvette also shrinks drastically). PvP in open with the "big boys" - yes-ish, but the current meta goes for a FdL. Slightly expensive, but neither big nor rank locked.

Otherwise, it depends on where you draw the line for "expensive".
Passengers, smuggling, exploration (anything really that doesn't require shooting): Dolphin
PvE shooting: Vulture
PvP: iCourier (ok, it's hard to actually kill anyone, but neither can they kill you, once you have it suitably engineered)
Everything that doesn't involve cargo: Sidewinder (don't laugh - suitably upgraded and engineered, a Sidey can do ~660 m/s boost, and is rather hard to hit due to its size and agility. Get some powerplay weapons for it, and it can actually do a bit more than just suicide ramming.)

Racing: in the current Buckyball race, the default ship is a stripped down Dolphin, but any other small ship is permissable for the experimental class. I'm flying a (ok, engineered to the gills...) Hauler: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-The-Medevac-Memorial-Challenge-(27JAN-04FEB)

 

[trigun539]

I have tried doing skimmer missions with ViperMKIII and get killed instantly... tried assassination missions and get killed. Tried mining and didn’t like it and also doesn’t pay much either. Also tried exploring and didn’t like it much and so far pay is really low. Tried some planetary missions and were ok but pay for time done is pretty bad.

I’ll probably try some other harder missions that are available but not really sure I can do them from what I have seen.

So from my experience the only stuff to do is carrier/data missions and some careful bounty hunting.

As I see it, you have to get better ships to do harder or missions that pay more. But those ships are like 50mil and up. Right now I am around like 800K/hr. So it is a grind... because data/carrier missions are boring. Bounty hunting is ok trying to improve my flying skills to be able to take on better targets by myself.

Another option is to start engineering my ship and see if I can get it to be good enough to take on harder missions. Also, don’t want to travel far away since I like to switch ships for different things (have absolutely no idea why people didn’t want to have their ships available at every station...).

 

[Ashnak]

Ok, now I'm on the right PC (the one with my ship builds stored).

Vulture. Ok, that one is 25 Million (replace the Pacifiers with MCs if you don't want to do 4 weeks of PowerPlay and pay another few millions for all those propaganda leaflets, and a Type-7 to carry them...). But with the Pacifiers, it can take on any single NPC ship, just be wary of wings.

Skimmer missions: never did them, or any of the other missions that are "illegal in most jurisdictions" - those will get you into more trouble than they're worth.

Assasinations: check the level. You'll get a warning if the mission level is above your own level. There's a reason for that warning....

Engineering: definitely. One way to hit multiple birds with one stone (some may call it exploit or cheating, so you choose whether you want to do it) is to start with Felicity Farseer. She can get you the full range of FSD upgrades, thrusters to level 3, enhanced thrusters for the small ships (up to iCourier) and some other useful stuff. The multiple birds: in order to get access to Felicity, you need to get a minimum exploration rank and bring her one (IIRC - better check beforehand) Meta Alloy. Meta Alloys you can either buy (at an outrageous price) at Darnielle's Progress in Maia, or harvest yourself from the alien Barnacle structures (and make a tidy bit of money from that, as they sell quite well basically everywhere). Flying out to the Pleiades and scanning on the way will get you that basic exploration rank, second bird. Now comes the exploiting part: assuming you start at Deciat (doesn't really matter - change your starting point to wherever you want to set off), equip your ship with a fuel scoop, an advanced discovery scanner and a detailed surface scanner (ok, slightly expensive - around 2 million for the bunch), then go to http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php?a=v&f=Deciat&t=Maia&r=30&ap=on. That list shows 31 systems with, in sum, 81 planets (ok, personally, I'd skip those 8 orbiting more than 100,000 ls from the jump point) worth scanning on the route from Deciat to Maia. Each of those planets, when scanned with the DSS, is worth between 250,000 and one million credits. If you can hang onto the data (i.e. do not die before selling it), that'll also buy you instant allied status with half a dozen minor factions. Third bird - ~30 million credits for roughly two to three hours flight.

Missions that make money:
Passengers. Especially those that don't like to get scanned. Just make sure they don't want to visit a planetary base - avoiding scans there can be a bit tricky. Make sure to read the full description.
Planetary scans. If you're friendly or allied with the faction, easy one million credits per mission. Just don't shoot anything - fast in, fast out, and you'll be fine. If you can avoid trespassing zones (or can scan fast enough to not trigger the defense), all the better. A big ship won't give you any advantage here, since you'll do the mission itself in your SRV. Big ships are just harder to land (and, once 3.0 goes live, much more expensive to get rid of a bounty...).
Generator take-out. Someone discovered a nasty little trick to that. If the generator you are to destroy is not inside a trespass zone, well... ramming is not recognized as hostile act . You may have to repair your SRV about halfway through, though.

 

[Rob_the_Sparky]

Find a location with a system or two near by with ports a long way from the entry star (try Lalande 20??? - not at my game machine to be more accurate I'm afraid) and get allied with the local factions. They offer data delivery missions to these remote star ports of up to 800k per mission. The trip can take 40 mins to compete but if you take a few missions then you can absolutely rake in the cash with a small ship. What I do (did) is a few other missions and collect these long range data delivery missions every time I get to port, once I have enough (whatever that is) I make the long trip and make 10+ million doing it.
.
If you are at a low earning rate with missions like this I suspect you are not allied with the local factions, payouts improve dramatically when you are. Look for high REP missions to raise reputation quickly.

 

[HurstLlama]

...

I still like the game and think it has great potential! Probably just needs some easier but interesting things to do that don’t require a big ship or a lot of ranking.

When you get your big(ger) ships I fear you are going to be dreadfully disappointed. As others have said there is no activity in the game that actually requires one. What bigger ships enable you to do is make larger sums of money in the same time period by doing the same things as one can in a small(er) ship, but to what end? What is there to spend the money on? Even bigger ships? Grafting to make money to buy bigger ships so you can graft even harder so as to buy even bigger ships? That way madness lies or at least a deep frustration with the game.

My strategy is to do the things I actually enjoy doing and take my pleasure from the activity itself. The money is just one way of keeping score.

 

[Kefhyr]

It all depends on your goals. I am complete noob in Elite, stats showing that my total playtime is 107 hours. And i am still flying around starting systems. I am doing missions, trying different jobs, bounty hunting, pirating, smuggling, salvaging, trading, exploring. And i have only 2-3 hours per day only to do it all, so i guess it will take me months to buy some bigger ships, but i am not sure why i need them right now. I can do combat in eagle, viper or cobra, trading in T6, mining again in T6 or cobra, exploring in hauler. And well, you can buy those ships after one evening playing Elite. Of course you need buy upgrade for you ship, and well, it is normal that new thruster or FSD or shield costs you more than ship you're flying right now, heh.

Money is not big problem really. There are many different ways to farm them. Yes, it looks grindy When i started my game, i was shocked, ship for 500k or 100 millions and mission rewards were only 10k max. But hours later i improved my reputation with factions and now i have missions for 100k-900k and some even 1mil+. My friend played almost 500 hours and he can farm more than 20million in one hours, haha. Just play more, do missions and prices will go up.

 

[Chris Simon]

It all depends on your goals. I am complete noob in Elite, stats showing that my total playtime is 107 hours. And i am still flying around starting systems. I am doing missions, trying different jobs, bounty hunting, pirating, smuggling, salvaging, trading, exploring. And i have only 2-3 hours per day only to do it all, so i guess it will take me months to buy some bigger ships, but i am not sure why i need them right now. I can do combat in eagle, viper or cobra, trading in T6, mining again in T6 or cobra, exploring in hauler. And well, you can buy those ships after one evening playing Elite. Of course you need buy upgrade for you ship, and well, it is normal that new thruster or FSD or shield costs you more than ship you're flying right now, heh.

Money is not big problem really. There are many different ways to farm them. Yes, it looks grindy When i started my game, i was shocked, ship for 500k or 100 millions and mission rewards were only 10k max. But hours later i improved my reputation with factions and now i have missions for 100k-900k and some even 1mil+. My friend played almost 500 hours and he can farm more than 20million in one hours, haha. Just play more, do missions and prices will go up.

Amen to that!

 

[IVAN__V]

You are definitely in need of a different game and not one which simulates life as a freelance space-ship pilot in the galaxy of the future.

That's absolutely hilarious !!!

Galaxy of the future ???? Really ????????????????????

In the future when we will actually be a space faring civilisation in real life, i have no doubt it will happen within 100 or maybe even 40-50 years, and in sure other species are actively visiting us right now, no joke, then any such space faring species, and us too, will not go around pew pewing stupid lasers at other people as is the case in PvP in open play.
No such civilisation achieves interstellar travel only to kill others for fun or petty reasons.
It seems you 5%ers have totally missed the plot on this item.
There won't be any such destruction and needles fighting in space given the actual size of space. There's just no way!
So much for your "galaxy of the future"...
It's only the petty human mind that thinks of destruction... Case in point... Turning open play into a toxic dump that everyone avoid.
Great job devs!
Wanna fix it ? Put a 1 mil to 50 million bounty on any aggressor(minimum 50% of attack ship value) and that's "wanted" and see them hunted down every single time they start acting like bullies... Best anaconda hunted down by 10 cheap sidewinders piloted by newbs...50 mil.. That's 5 mil each and the wanted pilot mind its own business next time.... The only actually business that's fun in a space game: exploring space and trading.
Fighting is for devolved apes stuck on their planets surface due to gravity, with no shield tech and no jump tech.

If this game has any shred of realism to it then cargo ships would be massive slow hard to maneuver behemoths of 1.000 tons to 10.000 tons to 100.000 tons to 1.000.000 tons with a speed of 50m/s and requiring star fuel scoop ever singles me time they jump between stars and very slowly drain that fuel between planets at a max speed of 0.9 c.
And they would have shields that would require 10 anacondas fully loaded with the best weapons pounding at the cargo ship for 10 full minutes just to drop half the shields while having to dodge the 20 point defense gimbaled machine guns and 10 gimbaled lasers.

And fighters would have max 50 ton cargo and be able to carry a fighter, srv rover and full scanners at 450m/s tops.

Scouts would have shields max 0.5 of the best fighter, and be able to do 8-900m/s and only carry one weapon + one shield+ shield disruptor and 1 interdictor + sensors and srv.

There's need to be a far greater divide between ship classes.

Also the weapons... There needs to be non gimbaled single hit per 2 minute rail guns or lasers that can take 50% of an anacondas best shield. Or a cloaking device for scouts.

Seriously starcraft 1 from 20 years ago had better weapons class divide.

 

[Cubbs1]

HI OP.

I'll not ramble much but just give you a little insight from a 3 week old commander.
I started out exactly like you did, I looked on forums to find ways to get space rich.....
Almost all came back with the same ideas, boom data deliveries and bounties.
I made my way into a viper by doing these runs eventually climbing into my first cobra.
Then I decided I wanted to start passenger runs as the credits looked more appealing so I saved for a dolphin which gained me enough credits in 2 nights play to buy an asp explorer and fit it out with 32 economy class passenger bays.
Now 3 weeks yes 3 weeks in I'm sitting just shy of 30 Mil and my play hours aren't massive. I realised credits isn't everything but sure is a nice reward for doing these runs I honestly enjoy (especially planet landings)
My point is I bet if you tried a bit more than giving up at the first hurdle you too will find something that appeals.
Stick around buddy give it a good whirl and I bet you reap the rewards

 

[Deleted member 38366]

As a beginner you are extremely screwed, no way to make any money to do fun stuff. Every decent money making tactic has been nerfed... I have no idea why would they nerf this ways of making money, it is just a way to make the game less fun and have players just spend time doing tedious boring missions. Instead of saying, well if money was easy everybody would have an Anaconda (This is a short-sighted vision). There should be a ton more ships that each have their unique strengths.

The game should be very generous with money, doing a 20 min mission for like 100K is just outright frustrating. It is totally the opposite, donation missions (only ok, if you have nice ship and can get money easy), paying for your ship when it gets destroyed, and very low paying missions.

Just some of my thoughts as a beginner with the game and as somebody that doesn't have hundreds of hours to play a game...

1) as a Beginner, you never had it easier than today. Trust me on this, I began playing with V1.0... You wouldn't even believe how things looked like back then.

2) Credits are so incredibly easy to come by, the Game had almost hit Hyperinflation at times. Only some huge outliers have been corrected.

3) see 1) and 2) . The Game has become extraordinarily generous with Credits. The only way to extend that even further would be some "free base income" scheme or something.
There's still a whole bunch of Credit-earning schemes around, for Small Ships, for Medium Ships and for Large Ships.

If you need or want something - work for it. And if you think you're doing something wrong or suspect your income is ineffective / has room for improvement... You'll find the Forums are always full of good hints where and what to look for.

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

I don't think this game is for you. I think you need a game that is going to tell you what to do and Elite isn't that. ED is a different type of game that requires you to use a little thought and imagination. There's plenty to do.

 

[Cubbs1]

I don't think this game is for you. I think you need a game that is going to tell you what to do and Elite isn't that. ED is a different type of game that requires you to use a little thought and imagination. There's plenty to do.

I'll be honest ......it took me 3 or 4 attempts to get into it but then again I played Eve for years so my expectations will have been totally different to the op. ......I love ED now and look forward to its development and I'm finding my own little niche within , pretty much like the op should if he/she can be patient to learn.

 

[ChiefRedCloud]

You received a wealth of tips and incouragment towards ED. What you do with it is entirely up to you. Yes you were harsh towards the game but your entitled to your opinion. Whether you finally settle down and enjoy ED is doubtful to me but I could be wrong.

I do wish you the best with it though and if you have specific questions, these forums and these folks are the one to ask. Check out the newbie section for tons of tips.

Chief

 

[Chaparral]

Hi OP.

Though it's a bit clunky, I'd recommend you multicrew on bounty hunting for a little bit of time. You can ask questions, get tips, make a bit of credits and have fun in an expendable fighter.

I would then graduate to an eagle, kit it out and do some bounty hunting in a res zone. Let the cops attack someone first, then scan who they are shooting at, then get your licks in. You'll score some credits, and then you can gear a bounty hunting viper.

I would then look at the lowest level assassination missions. They pay fairly well, and in no time you've be in cobra and very soon vulture territory.

If you happen to be in the neighborhood of a bounty hunting community goal, grind the res zones in PG or solo. You can score a nice payout and you'll be in shape to explore other features of the game.

Good luck!

 

[Sweet&Dandy]

Am on holiday at the moment and reset my character whilst listening to "Tales from the golden age of the Solar Clipper". I was a lot more mindful of each trade and each move I made - upgrade this or buy this? - I used all of my knowledge gained from all these years to fly medicine to outbreak statIons, piggy back and "wing up" with security forces to hunt bounties in rez sites, haul rares from one place to another, stocking up and then flying back.

It was really fun and challenging. After a few hours of different styles of play I was in an A rated Cobra and thinking about engineers.

There is so much to this game that gets lost once you get sucked into the credit / rank grind that you easily can easily lose perspective on what you are doing and how / why you are doing it.