Newcomer / Intro old questions from a *new* player ( sorta late to the pilot party here ) ...

[K Olley]

The 'Military Grade Alloy' and the 'Classified Scan Databank' are two of what are known as engineering materials (mats), these are the mats that are used for both engineering ship modules and synthesis of ammo, etc. These mats cannot be brought or sold and can only be traded in a very limited way by using Material Traders.

The mats that are used for the "on foot" (hand weapons and suit) upgrades can be swapped brought and sold.

 

[aRJay]

Sell where? Like, to player Carrier ships? Or just within normal 'local services' Commodities Markets ?

i must be honest: I'm still a bit perplexed by the way EliteD handles buying & selling of items , only because it doesn't feel very MMO-ish. But this also might be because i don't have my own Carrier ship yet. Plus, considering how insanely vast the galaxy is , having some type of "centralized" grand marketplace wouldn't be very realistic.

It is probably best to not expect normal MMO practices in Elite Dangerous as has been said it started from a very different place.

i'm having the hardest time finding ANY Hull upgrades at all for Python mk2, no matter where System i check. ( mostly trying the big Space Stations in 'High Tech' economy systems )

Also, regarding your 1st sentence about 'hardpoints' ... I switched around some fire-groups and still i don't see any changes to %'s displayed on that panel #4 modules tab. I'm wondering if maybe it's because i still haven't gone over ( RED lined ) my 'wattage' meter shown at bottom of the Outfitting/Purchasing new parts ui yet?

Switching the fire groups around won’t change power requirements just what happens when you pull the triggers depending on the groups selected. All hard points deploy at the same time whether they are empty or not and regardless of Combat or Analysis mode.

If you are not going over the red line yet then you don’t need to worry about stuff switching off when you start the fight, it is a good idea to set the priorities anyway for if you do take damage.

yep i hear ya , but i've just sorta been hyprid-ing my ship for now just because it's my 1st starter ship and i like the way it looks cool ( lol pilot vanity , i admit ) . I'm sure i'll focus more properly once i start building up my true 2nd role-specific type ship ( already bought it last nite finally , the amazing 'Diamondback Explorer' !! ) .

Also , regaring your 1st sentence, see above ^^ reply because again i'm still not seeing ANY "warnings" in the upper right 'Info' panel screen at all. Maybe i'm doing something wrong though i dunno.

Not seeing those messages or hearing the noise of things shutting down means you are doing things right.

okay yeah i must've gotten confused with another item , because i double-checked my ship Inventory tab and i think instead what i scooped up ( i def. 100% scooped , because i remember afterwards i couldn't shoot the pirate "massacre" ships since i forgot to re-store my Cargo Hold again lol newb move ) was something called 'Military Grade Alloy' .

A useful material when you get to engineering.

i also have only ONE 'Classified Scan Databank' , which is why i originally thought maybe that was the supposed "rare" item i picked up. But i guess i must've picked that up someplace else somehow, without noticing it.

okay cool yeah i've already unlocked around 5 or 6 Engineers , just thru my normal everyday playing the game and exploring and such ( organically ) , which is pretty neat actually because it reminds me of SWG in the sense that the ever present "mystical universe is watching" my character's progress , so to speak.

ahhhh ok, so basically those ^ are the various places to SELL in this game? ( other than "junk" items to Bartender NPCs ? )

haha indeed i shall ! ( someday ) --- And, as you can see, i did at least post here with a few follow-up questions yep.

Also, regarding your 1st sentence: Great TIP, thanks! Always appreciate anything to save valuable pilot money....and time.

If you sell a module in outfitting you get paid what you bought it for in credits, if you sell a ship you get 90% of what you paid for that ship and any modules on board at the time.
If you sell something you engineered you lose all the time and materials used to do the engineering.

You make an excellent point and of course i would hope other CMDRs , old & new, can read our now 10+ page Q&A session and could maybe benefit the proverbial 'greater good'.

Which reminds me.... Last nite i actually created my 1st ( and only ) EliteD guild 'Squadron' with a good buddy from SWTOR, who also happens to be a fine pilot in his own right. But anyways, during that squadron creation process in-game , i remember there was one screen pop-up ( after i hit "confirm" ) that read something like "Congratulations and now be sure to head over to our guild WEBSITE link database to announce your new squadron with a brief note description" , but for the life of me i cannot remember which website/link it said to goto??

i know it's not this---> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forums/elite-dangerous-groups-squadrons-factions/ ...which of course i will use later whenever we start recruiting in earnest.

And i already tried going to this--> https://www.elitedangerous.com/community ....scrolling down to that "Squadrons LOGIN" section , but a) i got some "500 error" when i tried to login there and b) when it finally worked , some prompt was asking for my RL email , name , & other personal details that would be "shared to the PUBLIC" , which seemed rather odd ?

* EDIT: i just found this other possibly related thread?? --> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/some-noob-questions-about-squadrons.507617/​

I have no knowledge of squadrons but some of Frontiers websites are very fussy about the browser and often don’t work fully without all cookies.

 

[Neestar]

I realize I am marching to my own drum on this, but have you considered not installing armor? Use Heavy Duty engineering on the stock lightweight bulkheads, which adds no mass, keeps costs down, and most importantly keeps the ship light so it is faster, more agile and jumps farther.

interesting and i always appreciate new methods to the ship-building "madness" , but tbh i haven't considered that ^ yet mainly because i'm still working to unlock ( and deliver ) for my Engineers

However, i was able to find this recent related thread--> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/where-to-buy-python-mk2-hull-core-internal.625230/ ....which has set me on a path toward hopefully finding my HULL ! --- Afer that, it's time for the next fun.... Learning to build & fly the great Diamondback Explorer

If you aren't over 100% power anyway even with hardpoints deployed - and with a biweave shield and C-rated thrusters, that's quite possible as those are both pretty power-efficient modules for the two (usually) biggest draws on your ship - then you don't need to worry about priorities anywhere near as much.

So long as nothing you need in a fight embarrasingly shuts down when you deploy hardpoints you can probably worry about the rest later.

yep last nite i actually had soooo much fun tweaking my ship's RED wattage meter bar ( in the 'Outfitter' window) by swapping & shuffling parts around ( including a Plasma Accelerator and some much needed 6A thrusters! ) to the point where i'm now perfectly at the cusp of power consumption below-the-red-bar-limit by a factor of only 0.03 lol

It's more accurate to say "Elite Dangerous is a MMO" than it is to say "Elite Dangerous isn't a MMO". But certainly there are a lot of typical MMO conventions that for one reason or another - some of them even good reasons -- it doesn't follow. It's very much "the old Elite games, with the minimal changes needed to put a persistent multiplayer universe on top of that" than something designed to be a MMO first. Making inter-player interactions easy was quite a way down the list of priorities, in practice.

No worries yeah i def. accept/enjoy EliteD for what it is and certainly wasn't complaining so much as just wondering ( and dreaming ) .

imho , even after 10 years , if this game sprinkled upon it's starfield just a few more traditional MMO-ish aspects ( to better promote PLAYER interactions ) it could be the greatest Space sim/sandbox game ever behind only my beloved SWG/JTL.

Regardless, it still feels like an MMO to me, because the chat system is great AND i'm really enjoying the 'teleproject' function. Plus, so far, teaming up with friends ( blue ) and the whole guild/squadron thing ( green ) feels really well done and totally seamless too no matter whether i'm in Open mode or Solo mode.

The 'Military Grade Alloy' and the 'Classified Scan Databank' are two of what are known as engineering materials (mats), these are the mats that are used for both engineering ship modules and synthesis of ammo, etc. These mats cannot be brought or sold and can only be traded in a very limited way by using Material Traders.

ahhhh ok , cool good info to know , thanks!

If you are not going over the red line yet then you don’t need to worry about stuff switching off when you start the fight, it is a good idea to set the priorities anyway for if you do take damage.

Not seeing those messages or hearing the noise of things shutting down means you are doing things right.

Excellent! Yeah i still have a lot to learn of course, but thanks in great part to everyone in this thread , i think i'm really starting to find my 1st-footing a bit better now.

Next step: Becoming more ELITE ! Then who knows maybe someday....more dangerous.

p.s. Just curious , at what point should i even consider delving into endgame Event stuff like this--> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-thargoid-war-changes-6th-june-2024.625949/ ....?? (* i'm guessing only after a fully Engineered combat ship with enough Credits banked to not even blink an eye at any subsequent insurance costs x infinity? )

 

[aRJay]

Endgame isn't all that meaningful a term in ED.

Actually a normal fully engineered combat ship isn't a lot of use for the Thargoid/AX stuff that is a much more niche build which I haven't bothered with much though I have dabbled in some of the non combat stuff where specialist builds and skills aren't needed.

 

[BetaToaster]

p.s. Just curious , at what point should i even consider delving into endgame Event stuff like this--> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-thargoid-war-changes-6th-june-2024.625949/ ....??

If you want to dip your toe in, equip your ship with AX multicannons, a caustic sink or three, and fill your optional internals with hull and module reinforcement packages. (The former two items are available at Rescue Megaships, the latter two almost everywhere.) Then go shoot some Thargoid Scouts, they are fairly harmless.
Once you're no longer scared by Scouts, next step up is Hunters (Glaive/Scythe).
Eventually, dealing with Interceptors will require a Shutdown Field Neutralizer and an (Enhanced) AX Xeno Scanner (Rescue Megaships again). And a more sophisticated weapon setup, or some wing mates.

(* i'm guessing only after a fully Engineered combat ship with enough Credits banked to not even blink an eye at any subsequent insurance costs x infinity? )

When going towards any kind of combat activity, you should be prepared to lose a few rebuys. If you die more than a few times in a row, you should stop and figure out what you're doing wrong, rather than continue and collect infinitely many more respawns.
Killing Interceptors pays very well, so you don't need to farm lots of credits before starting AX combat. Once you get the hang of things, you'll recoup any initial learning rebuys in no time.

 

[Neestar]

Endgame isn't all that meaningful a term in ED.

Well, maybe that will change with upcoming 'PowerPlay 2.0' . Plus i mean, call me crazy but i'm sorta considering THIS as a possible "endgame" aspect --> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-quest-to-find-raxxla.168253/

If you want to dip your toe in, equip your ship with AX multicannons, a caustic sink or three, and fill your optional internals with hull and module reinforcement packages. (The former two items are available at Rescue Megaships,

ahhh yes, i been pondering & wondering about what those little green icons for 'Rescue Megaships' meant within the Galaxy Map.

Now i have another reason to go check 'em out!

-----------------

Lastly, i'd like to once again THANK everyone who has helped make these past few weeks a little less newbie-ish for me! Heck, i've even boldly gone so far as to form our own SQUADRON already--> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...squadron-looking-for-a-few-cool-cmdrs.625985/

Anyways, much appreciated and i shall see you all in the next thread! ... o7 x infinity

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

There are other mini bubbles out in the 400,000,000 systems out there.

Sorry for this, but it is "400,000,000,000", not 400,000,000...

 

[Neestar]

Sorry for this, but it is "400,000,000,000" [systems] , not 400,000,000...

Maybe with the new Mandalay "exploration" ship arriving soon , we will finally search ALL systems ! Roughly how many players currently in EliteD ? 40k ? So that's around 10mil systems per player. Seems do-able.

 

[Lhorndra]

Maybe with the new Mandalay "exploration" ship arriving soon , we will finally search ALL systems ! Roughly how many players currently in EliteD ? 40k ? So that's around 10mil systems per player. Seems do-able.

He he. Just so you know: over the last 10 years, all players combined discovered 0.02% to 0.03% of the galaxy (depending on who you ask). According to EDSM, it will take another 43932 years at the current rate to discover/visit all systems. So yeah, do-able.

 

[Neestar]

Just so you know: over the last 10 years, all players combined discovered 0.02% to 0.03% of the galaxy (depending on who you ask). According to EDSM, it will take another 43932 years at the current rate to discover/visit all systems. So yeah, do-able.

Well CMDR , and to everyone else within this thread who helped me initially with my newb-ness around 8+ months ago ....
At long last , in an effort to finally unlock Professor Palin engineer, as well as to do my part contributing toward the umm "0.05%" , i have finally returned from my very 1st long-range EXPLORATION mission of going over 5000 LY's travelled from SOL system start-point ( or , in my case, 'Chamberlain's Rest' station ) .

And what a truly incredible, and often times quite harrowing, space journey it was....

...including more 1st Footfalls & 1st Systems ^ than i can count , plus quite a few of THESE Exobiologies....

...one of which even earned me a whopping 70mil BONUS credits upon station turn-in! -- Then of course all the Geologicals i also stumbled upon, including ONE random magical moment where somehow i detected a "nonhuman signature" ( THARGOID probe! ) alllllllll the way out in middle of nowhere....

...Not to mention all the Exploration DATA turn-ins too, with such wonderous SIGHTS ( space RING "rainbow" ? ) witnessed along the way...

... followed by some truly amazing ( and tantalizing ) NEBULA toward venturing sometime in the future...

.... and obviously with many lessons learned along the way:

1. this new 'Cobra mk5' ship was an absolutely superb vessel for which to traverse the cosmos ( i tried & hated the Anaconda ship, sorry vets! )
2. despite turning-in over 100mil credits worth of scans & FIRST-to-discovers, my Exploration Rank progress bar barely moved a milimeter ( ugh stuck on 'Pioneer' still )
3. my final Pilots Federation 'Codex discoveres voucher' from Transactions tab was only 820k
4. there's a whole lotta nothin' out there in SPACE ( at least, so far as i've seen )
5. sort of a bummer i wasn't able to place any 'bases' or infrastructure or whatever on some of the majestic ( and nearly habitable ) planets i found
6. i am now addicted to the 'FSS' !!
7. really wish my onboard Nav Computer 'Celeste' would do/say something more than just "frameshift drive charging...3, 2, 1" ( space is so dark & lonely jeez c'mon computer have a few more functions & phrases at least! )
8. took basic Mining laser & modules , but of course barely ever used it ( except a few times i dropped into 'Asteroid belts' in case maybe RAXXLA was hiding there lol ) since i was able to pretty regularly acquire plenty of raw materials with my SRV on planets
9. almost ran out of fuel many times ( ugh so many 'brown dwarfs' and 'T Tauri' stars in certain sections ) but still never needed to use FSD synthesis , nor have i tried using 'neutron boosting' YET ! ( maybe for next trip though )
10. only wished i had my Fleet Carrier tagging along with me a couple times tbh , but that was really only out of sheer terror of accidentally crashing/dying somehow on my way back home to 'the bubble' ( fear of losing soooooooo much DATA yipes i prolly would've ragequit broke my keyboard! )

*Also freaked out for a minute upon returning to FC, because of this codex "missing" discoveries "bug" ... https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/lost-all-my-discoveries-in-the-codex.509569/ ....which i then realized here isn't really a bug after all ... https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...ological-discoveries-have-disappeared.632815/ ...PHEW !

Anyways THANKS and next up on my To Do List: hitting the 20,000 LYs mark by going to finally see what this 'Colonia' place is all about ! o7 all , regards, Nee

 

[the100thmonkey]

• I really wish my onboard Nav Computer 'Celeste' would do/say something more than just "frameshift drive charging...3, 2, 1" ( space is so dark & lonely jeez c'mon computer have a few more functions & phrases at least! )

There's always COVAS: Next for that - it's 3rd party app that grabs the game's log files and passes them to a large language model. You'll need an API token for the service, but it has speech-to-text (STT) and text-to-speech (TTS) functionality, meaning that you can converse with an AI that knows what's going on in your game as you play it. You can customise the prompt to your tastes to influence the conversation style of the bot.

It's great, but it will cost you money if you use OpenAI's ChatGPT models (and others, such as Anthropic's models). The paid models are really very good, provided you understand what they can actually do, and the STT/TTS endpoints offer quite natural voice interactions, with a bit of latency. Free options using Windows speech services will not be as good, but if all you want is to interact with a ship-based-AI-that-definitely-sounds-like-machine-speech and don't want it to act on voice commands, they might be worthwhile.

For instance, on hitting an unexplored system, you could FSS it, then ask your COVAS about the system. You could ask it to tell you about the current state-of-the-art knowledge (in 2025 terms) of the bodies you have indentified in the FSS. You could prompt the bot to be sarcastic or even caustic - to say things like "this system is a hole in the universe no one would be interested in" when you find a boring system full of boring balls of ice. This would depend on how you prompt it and how much time you are prepared to spend tweaking those prompts.

 

[Lhorndra]

Well CMDR , and to everyone else within this thread who helped me initially with my newb-ness around 8+ months ago ....
At long last , in an effort to finally unlock Professor Palin engineer, as well as to do my part contributing toward the umm "0.05%" , i have finally returned from my very 1st long-range EXPLORATION mission of going over 5000 LY's travelled from SOL system start-point ( or , in my case, 'Chamberlain's Rest' station ) .

Welcome back, CMDR. You are now ready for the real game to begin.

there's a whole lotta nothin' out there in SPACE ( at least, so far as i've seen )

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”

really wish my onboard Nav Computer 'Celeste' would do/say something more than just "frameshift drive charging...3, 2, 1" ( space is so dark & lonely jeez c'mon computer have a few more functions & phrases at least! )

There are third party voices, and one particularly famous one.

almost ran out of fuel many times ( ugh so many 'brown dwarfs' and 'T Tauri' stars in certain sections ) but still never needed to use FSD synthesis , nor have i tried using 'neutron boosting' YET ! ( maybe for next trip though )

only wished i had my Fleet Carrier tagging along with me a couple times tbh , but that was really only out of sheer terror of accidentally crashing/dying somehow on my way back home to 'the bubble' ( fear of losing soooooooo much DATA yipes i prolly would've ragequit broke my keyboard! )

But isn't the sheer satisfaction of returning in a tiny space ship incredibly rewarding?

Anyways THANKS and next up on my To Do List: hitting the 20,000 LYs mark by going to finally see what this 'Colonia' place is all about ! o7 all , regards, Nee

o7.

 

[Fnord Velkor]

I really wish my onboard Nav Computer 'Celeste' would do/say something more than just "frameshift drive charging...3, 2, 1" ( space is so dark & lonely jeez c'mon computer have a few more functions & phrases at least! )
...

As intimated by @Lhorndra, HCS Voicepacks offers you a great variety of responses from many different characters (especially some from SF progs). Thanks to various sales over the years I have rather a lot of these characters and they provide me with a varied crew on my forays. (I also have their Ship's Cat and a rather rude Ship's Parrot which is very amusing.)

Some of the HCS Voicepack characters are incorporated within Elite as Covas addons - Celeste and Eden being my favourites.

I'm not sure I would pay the current prices for the HCS voicepacks even though it is fun to have Holly, Spock, Kirk, Troi, Data, Delenn * and many others accompany me in the dark but it might be worth looking out for a sale event which they have from time to time.


* N.B. It is the respective voice actor in the packs, they are not presented as the characters from those franchises, but are named differently.

 

[Neestar]

There's always COVAS: Next for that - it's 3rd party app that grabs the game's log files and passes them to a large language model.

Other than supporting 'Inara' and referencing 'Cannon', i don't use any 3rd party apps/mods when it comes to Elite Dangerous. Just not my thing.
imho, FDevelopers themselves should make the onboard ship NavComputer functionality way more interactive & expansive , but i know better than to bother posting anything into the futile bottomless-pit Suggestions section.

Welcome back, CMDR. You are now ready for the real game to begin.

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”

Indeed and case-in-point: Recently, whilst trying to follow what i thought might be David Braben''s ship ( aka the originator of Elite Dangerous game! ) i unfortunately didn't have a wake-scanner outfitted on my new Python mk1 /facepalm ...

... So i continued on, eventually stumbled upon something incredible that i've never seen ( nor heard ) of before in my casual yet thrilling year+ playing this "game" ...

...Yeah, as i'm just jumping system to system lah-dee-dah i see THAT ^ within FSS and then on my Nav-panel-1 and i literally jumped outta my chair with excitement!

So i slow down and try to remain calm, taking as many screenshots as i can ( for documentation just in case ) without accidentally crashing my game from alt-tabbing too much ( aka de-sync ) . And eventually, i drop into the 'instance' and....you guessed it...i see THESE...

...Which of course, at least to me, is still EPIC sights to see for my very 1st time ever! Especially with all the mysterious whizzing SOUNDS i heard in there too.

Heck, this 'Notable Stellar Phenomena' didn't even appear as yellow-targettable UNTIL i saw/selected it first within Nav panel-1 listing. Which means if i wasn't paying attention, or wasn't checking FSS routine, then i darn sure could've missed it completely.

Consequently, it makes me wonder: What else could be hiding out there amongst the remaining 99% of stars & systems as yet unknown?

And that's how a newbie like me gets hooked and then starts to really appreciate not only this game, but also all of the COMMUNITY pioneers who paved the space path over last 10 years. --- i'll say it again: If it wasn't for the many nice players who helped me last year in this newbie thread to learn the ropes, i never would've reached such new heights & new ventures. o7

Some of the HCS Voicepack characters are incorporated within Elite as Covas addons - Celeste and Eden being my favourites.

imo , Frontier is missing out on a potential ARX goldmine themselves , but i'm guessing they can't do much with copyright laws + paying for other IP character's voice u$age. Whereas the Modding Community perhaps isn't as confined by such strict rules?
---- But anyways, yes agreed i've had 'Celeste' too as my personal selection on all ships/SRVs since day 1 jump!
Just really wish there was more coded interactions between onboard computer as well as NPC crewmates , but oh well we take whatever we get here i've noticed yep.

 

[Lhorndra]

...Which of course, at least to me, is still EPIC sights to see for my very 1st time ever! Especially with all the mysterious whizzing SOUNDS i heard in there too.

Yep. I do love the sound design.

Consequently, it makes me wonder: What else could be hiding out there amongst the remaining 99% of stars & systems as yet unknown?

You can find out about all the known stuff that's out there in your Codex. You might consider browsing through the Codex a bit spoilery, so beware. On the other hand, it shows you all the things that you have yet to see with your own eyes.

And that's how a newbie like me gets hooked and then starts to really appreciate not only this game, but also all of the COMMUNITY pioneers who paved the space path over last 10 years. --- i'll say it again: If it wasn't for the many nice players who helped me last year in this newbie thread to learn the ropes, i never would've reached such new heights & new ventures. o7

I agree 100%.

Just really wish there was more coded interactions between onboard computer as well as NPC crewmates , but oh well we take whatever we get here i've noticed yep.

Just a FYI: machine sentience was outlawed in the world of Elite Dangerous, which is very convenient for the devs, who now don't have to come up with clever COVAS conversations.