Newcomer / Intro Noob Questions I can't seem to find answers to....

[draktok]

I have a few questions I can't find answers to;

How do i upgrade my ship / buy other ships? I don't see any options to do that at the 4 docks i've docked at. I don't know what to do with my money!

How do you know if a dock has a black market, outside of docking there? Any other outside indicator?

if a dock won't let you dock... how long before it does? I assume it's because it's full... is there a set time it kicks people out er?

How do i know if a zone is "hard" or easy or not, or is there no way, and all the zones are the same?

Thanks!

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

if you have a look at the stations in a system via the system map it will tell you what facilities it provides (apart from the black market) to buy another ship you need a starport with a shipyard (not an outpost). to upgrade a ship you need somewhere with outfitting.

docking is the only way of finding out if a station has a black market, check the contacts tab when you dock.

 

[DragonIV]

I have a few questions I can't find answers to;

How do i upgrade my ship / buy other ships? I don't see any options to do that at the 4 docks i've docked at. I don't know what to do with my money!

How do you know if a dock has a black market, outside of docking there? Any other outside indicator?

if a dock won't let you dock... how long before it does? I assume it's because it's full... is there a set time it kicks people out er?

How do i know if a zone is "hard" or easy or not, or is there no way, and all the zones are the same?

Thanks!

To buy ships, find a station with a shipyard. For ship parts, find one that has Outfitting. Different stations will have different items in stock for both ships and ship parts.

Black market: nope. But CMDR Thrudd's site http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk/ does have this information, as well as lots of other user-reported data.

Dock denial: be sure you're within 7500 km of the station, first. Next, if all the slots are taken, then disconnect from open play and go into solo play. Presto, problem solved. Then go back to Open play.

Anarchy Zones tend to be more dangerous than others, but not by much. Danger can be found anywhere, but more likely at a Unidentified Signal Source (USS) spot.

 

[Kagadar]

The system map (in the left panel, navigation tab) will show the facilities offered at various stations. Just select the station and see what it has available.

Shipyard and Outfitting are the facilities you're interested in when it comes to upgrading, and not all docks have these.

As far as I know there is no easy way to see which stations have black markets, you just have to know. If you check which faction owns the station (again from the system map), stations that are owned by "pirate" factions are more likely to have a black market (maybe even exclusively, I haven't tested smuggling yet).

If a platform won't let you dock, wait for one of the landing pads to lose the number above it. It may be faster to simply return to the main menu and then go back to open, or even try using solo/private to land at particularly busy stations.

The government type indicates how "hard" a zone is. Anarchy is what you would consider hard, and I'm not entirely sure what the ordering for other types is.

 

[InfiniteGremlins]

I have a few questions I can't find answers to;

How do i upgrade my ship / buy other ships? I don't see any options to do that at the 4 docks i've docked at. I don't know what to do with my money!

How do you know if a dock has a black market, outside of docking there? Any other outside indicator?

if a dock won't let you dock... how long before it does? I assume it's because it's full... is there a set time it kicks people out er?

How do i know if a zone is "hard" or easy or not, or is there no way, and all the zones are the same?

Thanks!

Difficulty is, as far as I've found, mostly based on the system government: an Anarchy has little to no security force presence. That said, there isn't a huge difference in safety right now for just passing through to the station, at least as far as I can tell. If you go looking for trouble at a resource site or an Unidentified Signal Source, that's a different story.

Docks that won't let you dock are mostly down to either being full, which usually means that it's a small outpost and there are too many players right there. Or possibly you're too far away; you have to be within 7.5 km to request docking successfully.

Right now there are a handful of systems that are over-saturated (like LHS 3447) and a bunch that are practically empty, so if it keeps being a problem in a particular system, you might want to hop next door and see if there's a little less traffic.

 

[robnewman]

Regarding new ships and upgrades, it has already been mentioned that you need to find a shipyard and/or an outfitting centre... these are usually found in Orbital stations (some small outposts have outfitting, but rarely a shipyard).

In addition to that, try and find a station orbiting a high population, rich, high tech world (best) or a high population, rich, industrial world... that's where they make the best ships and upgrades, so that's the places you'll find the best selections...