Thank you for this. But I can agree with you - I don't know where I am either
. The game started, I did tutorials, now I am milling about doing data runs wherever it logged me in. I certainly don't know where Federation space is. My ED goals are fairly humble, I just want to get a ASP and get a feel for the galaxy. I hear the ASP is the best experience for VR. So yes, I do want to make money to get there, but I don't want to do anything that implies a grind. Your 35 jump screnio actually sounds fun - once
, but not back and forth.
Home system? Is that just something I decide?
Thanks!
First of all, it's Asp, not ASP. The name of the snake, like Adder, Sidewinder or Anaconda. Sorry about that.
I assume you're in your starter Sidewinder and still more or less in the starter area (the game dumps everyone in one of two starter systems, depending on whether you have Horizons and chose the planetary base for starters or not, and with the jump range of that ship, you're unlikely to leave the general area until you've made some upgrades). If you don't want to grind, that Asp is still a long way away.
Federation space: go to your GalMap, and, on the top, tab over to the display mode, then select "Powerplay". The map will show lots of coloured blobs, like a heap of soap bubbles. Those are the influence spheres of the powers. The powers again are associated to one of the superpowers: Federation, Empire or Alliance. In addition to that, there are Independent systems and Anarchies.
As for VR: if you want the Asp just for the cockpit, any of the Lakon ships will do, they look pretty much all the same from the inside: Type-6, Type-7, Type-9, Keelback and Asp. The T-6 makes a good (and cheaper) alternative for the Asp for everything except combat. But personally, I don't like the Asp in VR. At the moment, I like to use a couple of upgraded Sidewinders for fun and a couple of Krait Mk.II's for making money. Come Tuesday, I'm thinking about getting a Mamba for the fun part.
So, getting that Asp... or indeed enough money to get out of that Sidey in the first place. Depends on what you want to do. Trying the different mission types is a good start. And in any case, you'll need something like your first million to buy a
Hauler and D-rate it. You can skip the fuel scoop and the surface scanner at first if you stick to local missions, that brings you down to maybe 400 kCr. for the ship and backup (a.k.a. Rebuy). But if you play in VR, you want to get out of that Hauler fast - it has the charm of a Korean small van
. But it can carry some cargo and get an impressive jump rage, even without engineering.
I'm not going to set you onto the "Road To Riches" (Google it in ED context, if you want to), because you'll still need a million or so to set up a ship for that (the scanners are expensive), and it'll change completely next Tuesday. Just so you know: scanning planets that you haven't scanned before yields sellable data - up to several hundred K in the case of inhabitable worlds. But you can only sell that data at least 20 ly off.
Home System: wherever you decide to hang your hat. If you want to store your fleet and spares in a single system, then it's that. I don't have that kind of discipline, so my ships are stored wherever I used them last - I still (I think...) have a Dolphin sitting in the Pencil sector....
