Newcomer / Intro Questions: Navigation Symbols (Shield, Plus symbols) & Enlisting to a battle (any effects on the war?)

Caballus · Mar 8, 2023

Hello CMDRs,
I have a few questions. Elite has been quite a painful entry in terms of all the missing info on various details...
I'm in the navigation tab on my ship and there is a war between to minor factions in my home system.
I chose to fight on the side of one faction. The nav tab has symbols:
A full shield, a half shield and an empty shield beside the name of the moon base, all with one plus-symbol or two plusses.
What do they mean? I went on foot to the enlistment office and had a few battles. The same can be fought again for ever or do I somehow succeed on this specific moon base after fighting 2 times (is that what this shield stuff means?)? Does this make any difference fighting there? I don't see anything happening in favor of the side I'm fighting for.
For some reason... I can't hit two enters here and it sandwiches every line of text, I'm sorry for this.
Greetings,
Caballus

Northpin · Mar 8, 2023

Caballus said:
A full shield, a half shield and an empty shield beside the name of the moon base, all with one plus-symbol or two plusses.
What do they mean? I went on foot to the enlistment office and had a few battles.

the plusses reflect the settlement size and the shields represent the security ratings

edit: they dont make any difference per se during a war- except maybe that you may want to fight in small settlement to finish it faster.
If you want to have a better influence over the war, make sure you pick High CZ to fight in - more cash rewards and more influence gained

Caballus · Mar 8, 2023

Thanks for helping me out!
Too bad that these kind of fights don't really make a difference.
I have a Viper MK3 (two pulse; two multicannons) and was popped quickly in a low intensity CZ by a bigger ship. Couldn't get through it's shields. It was my first time in a CZ...

Northpin · Mar 8, 2023

Caballus said:
Thanks for helping me out!
Too bad that these kind of fights don't really make a difference.
I have a Viper MK3 (two pulse; two multicannons) and was popped quickly in a low intensity CZ by a bigger ship. Couldn't get through it's shields. It was my first time in a CZ...

In a Space CZ the ships are heavily modified for Combat - you need good flying skills and good team work to win them.
My advice, if you dont have much engineering, is yo fit that Viper with multicannons only and attack only ships that are already under attack and already damaged by your team and, MOST importantly, use sub-targeting to target their PowerPlants (once a PowerPlant reaches 0 integrity any subsequent hit will have the chance to blow up the ship - which means no need to go through their full hulls)
If you get under attack pop chaff (hopefully you do have chaff) and disengage from combat

So, stay in the green pack and attack only their targets and make sure you target exclusively their powerplants.

aRJay · Mar 8, 2023

Caballus said:
Thanks for helping me out!
Too bad that these kind of fights don't really make a difference.
I have a Viper MK3 (two pulse; two multicannons) and was popped quickly in a low intensity CZ by a bigger ship. Couldn't get through it's shields. It was my first time in a CZ...

Just emphasising @Northpin comment about NPC ships in a CZ.

Those ships have almost nothing in common with wanted ships of the same type and rating you might find in a HazRES there will be nothing on board them that isn’t for attack or defence.

Caballus · Mar 8, 2023

Yeah thought so that these are not the type of ships i fight against when bounty hunting.
So reg. the ground battles via enlist office, which brings me over there via dropship: I only get money and have exactly 0 effects on the war?

Northpin · Mar 8, 2023

Caballus said:
I only get money and have exactly 0 effects on the war?

no no, they have effect, but apparently the effect less than a Space CZ

Caballus · Mar 8, 2023

Ah ok.

Can I ask you for another opinion?
I'm on a illegal hack-mission. Landed, drove there with my SRV and got swarmed with dozens of drones incl. a navy vessel which is firing rockets at my SRV.
How in gods name am I to accomplish this mission? I lost my ship and recalled it... boarded it and got destroyed. It was threat level 0. Stuff like this seems to happen all the time.
Now I'm several jumps in a detention center.....

Northpin · Mar 8, 2023

Caballus said:
Ah ok.

Can I ask you for another opinion?
I'm on a illegal hack-mission. Landed, drove there with my SRV and got swarmed with dozens of drones incl. a navy vessel which is firing rockets at my SRV.
How in gods name am I to accomplish this mission? I lost my ship and recalled it... boarded it and got destroyed. It was threat level 0. Stuff like this seems to happen all the time.
Now I'm several jumps in a detention center.....

No idea what happened there.
Were you wanted by them? Were they pre-alarmed (did you get some notification in this regard)?

Caballus · Mar 8, 2023

Landed outside of this base which I was supposed to illegally hack.
Then, I entered my SRV and drove there. I didn't know what else to do. Then I saw lots of drones taking off.... (because of me) before I even entered the base. Tried to shoot them down from distance, a navy ship came and now I can spend half an hour of my time just flying back to my home system.
It really got the rest of my brain-power... need a break.

CMDR thefezzer · Mar 8, 2023

Caballus said:
Landed outside of this base which I was supposed to illegally hack.

That mission is actually really hard. You're expected to sneak around in the SRV and avoid getting caught.

Northpin said:
no no, they have effect, but apparently the effect less than a Space CZ

I have definitely used ground CZ to great effect in BGS, but I would like to remind OP that just like CZ ships vs pirates, the footie CZs have actual professional soldiers and not pirates/scavengers, and they pack heat accordingly.

Caballus · Mar 8, 2023

How to sneak around in the SRV when I absolutely have no clue reg. their systems (drones, defence turrets) line of sights and their distance in which they spot me? I mean... logically speaking: these drones etc. can spot me from dozens of km's while approaching. The worst thing is: I did learn nothing on my first try and this:
When I try to search for the illegal hack mission like mine on a moon base in google, I get no results. Maybe I'm searching for the wrong mission?
I'm totally confused.
Coming to the point where I am right now was a big effort as a long time gamer since the end of the 80s. ED has idled exactly for these reasons since 2015 till I finally got myself to go through all this pain in the beginning.

Those professional soldiers are no problem to me

Thank you for mentioning this!

Hopefully you won't abandon me guys... everytime I want to do something in Elite I end up having more question than I had before.

Jack Winter · Mar 8, 2023

That's what has kept some of us spellbound for many thousands of hours.

CMDR thefezzer · Mar 8, 2023

Caballus said:
How to sneak around in the SRV when I absolutely have no clue reg. their systems (drones, defence turrets) line of sights and their distance in which they spot me? I mean... logically speaking: these drones etc. can spot me from dozens of km's while approaching. The worst thing is: I did learn nothing on my first try and this:
When I try to search for the illegal hack mission like mine on a moon base in google, I get no results. Maybe I'm searching for the wrong mission?
I'm totally confused.
Coming to the point where I am right now was a big effort as a long time gamer since the end of the 80s. ED has idled exactly for these reasons since 2015 till I finally got myself to go through all this pain in the beginning.

Those professional soldiers are no problem to me Thank you for mentioning this!

Hopefully you won't abandon me guys... everytime I want to do something in Elite I end up having more question than I had before.

Yeah it's a lot like BotW where you can go pick any fight you want and the only guidance the game gives is that if it ended that quick, try something else. Don't feel bad, we all went through that and it's why so much of what you see on reddit about Elite is just speedrun stuff.

Caballus · Mar 9, 2023

Ok folks.

1.) My systems war is like this. My fav minor faction 0; enemy faction 1 victory.
No clue why they got one victory so far after me doing dozens of missions through the enlistment office, which brings me to a battle via dropship. It had 0 effects. Both the minor factions influence values went from 32,8% to 33%. I'm clueless.

2.) Reg. the illegal Hacking mission... i tried my yesterdays still active mission again and this is how it went:
I drove to the settlement with the SRV, drones started taking off without aggro. Ignored them. I data-linked the terminal and hell started: I drove away but.... a federal ship came & chased me endlessly around till it stopped shooting for some reason. I recalled my ship, thinking the federal ship went out of ammo, boarded it with the SRV and almost was destroyed in my get-away.
I don't understand how I'm going to evade a federal ship with an SRV....

3.) Next: Bounty hunting. Whenever I come to a pirate, the scene is always the same: 3 small ships besides 1 big ship not moving at all. I shoot the pirate and dozens of times, he could shoot back, but didn't. Why.. I don't know...

I think I'm going to create a ticket for gameplay support for more clarity.

Ashnak · Mar 9, 2023

1) The NPCs are also battling - in addition to any other players that decided to join one or another combat zone in your system. And the daily result (which you seem to be reporting) is decided on the results of all the battles taking place. As for the INF - IIRC the INF of factions at war is frozen, those 0.2% may have other reasons (i.e. the INF in a system has to add up to 100%, so if any other faction lost INF, this might explain it).

2) In the SRV: with difficulty

. But you don't have to be in the SRV to access the terminal, the datalink scanner in your ship will work as well (if you can get close enough to the terminal, i.e. a small ship is recommended). In which case it helps a lot with the getaway if you can boost to >700 m/s.

3) Could you post a screenshot of your mission panel (left side in the cockpit) with that mission? This sounds very strange, never seen this before.

CMDR thefezzer · Mar 9, 2023

Congratulations on progressing on the SRV mission.

The idea is that you would find some number (3-4) public data ports, and by accessing each of those, you would disable base security for a period. This would in turn allow you to access the private data port without triggering the alarm.