Newcomer / Intro What are you up to?

[]M[]

This mercenary rank really is grindy. There must be a better way of doing this other than fighting in CZ's over and over...

Well i've not played many CZ's - more keep going back to play the board missions, especially the settlement massacres, now the stealthier ones too - then again, it has taken me almost 2 years just to reach Warrior ...so i may not have the best advice on "ranking up" - but it still all feels less grindy this way, even though the progress is slower... ;]

 

[]M[]

Maybe their watching this thread.

Sometimes i actually wish my paranoia was real

*i mean, really... i could swear the organics distribution system does this sort of thing just to drive otherwise sane/sentient beings completely nutz... 799m and it won't scan... /o\ ;p

...anyway, probably shouldn't complain about the job too much if the pay is this good :]

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

Decided to try a settlement massacre as I've not done one before. It was very easy, except... the last person was nowhere to be found. Searched every nook and cranny, drove around the perimeter, and even carpet bombed the entire area from my ship. Nothing.

In the end, I just shut the settlement down and stole the PR. Now I'm not only wanted in the system but I've failed another mission.

Ho hum.

 

[Jack Winter]

I've come across another bug with the bios lately as well, that I never used to get - sometimes you get the "Different species will be discarded" message when the last plant you scanned was a complete set of three. Seems to happen only after you've just been back up into orbit and come down again in a different area. (But doesn't ALWAYS happen.)

I think that happens if you put away the scanner too quickly after the third scan. Wait until the entire animation has finished before putting it away.

 

[]M[]

Decided to try a settlement massacre as I've not done one before. It was very easy, except... the last person was nowhere to be found. Searched every nook and cranny, drove around the perimeter, and even carpet bombed the entire area from my ship. Nothing.

In the end, I just shut the settlement down and stole the PR. Now I'm not only wanted in the system but I've failed another mission.

Ho hum.

Really hate it when there's one of those "invisible" targets - though i recall some mention of this being made early on, ie: that if you are successfully decimating a settlement, some occupants might take themselves off the security system for safety - still not sure whether this was genuine or a bit of cover story for an unresolved bug tbh...

I tend to do the "legal" massacres, ie: raids on pirate settlements basically - so even if the mission bombs, one has collected stuff, gotten some mercenary credit (always do scans for bounties - this is also a bit of extended gameplay challenge for the extra credit - only learned that a few months ago tbh) and it doesn't screw with your ability to play further / take on more missions... :]

I think that happens if you put away the scanner too quickly after the third scan. Wait until the entire animation has finished before putting it away.

Yep if the animations don't complete, especially the final complete scan animation where the current sample is "burned" i think, it can trigger mismatched scan messages - eg: the "incomplete/different species" warning...

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

Yeah, none of the "exploration" CGs make a lot of sense. It just gives folks something to do.

The only one that seemed reasonable was hunting for ELWs to put new tourist beacons at. The prize was a special yellow Dolphin. I would quite like to have participated in that one, but I was somewhere between Colonia and Beagle Point at the time.

 

[bugbait42]

I think that happens if you put away the scanner too quickly after the third scan. Wait until the entire animation has finished before putting it away.

Yes, I guess it could be that. Even though something seems to get discarded though it doesn't affect the payment from Vista as far as I can tell - still sees the original three samples.

Anyway, I've done all I can now in the 70 bio system and got 56 of them. Got very nearly a billion CR from Vista just from this one system. The system is in the "WHAMBIO" sector so maybe I'll check out one or two more local Whambios before my next carrier jump.

 

[aRJay]

I just double-checked and there is another CG I wasn't aware of. For this one, the rewards are increased payouts for all Cartographics, for 1-4 weeks depending on how far the CG gets.

But those payouts won't take effect until the CG ends. Interesting reward, though.

Scans meeting the requirements of the CG handed in at the destination will get an increased payment while the CG is running, then as you say there will be increased payouts whose level and duration are determined by how well the CG did.

When did that one start? I agree, interesting.

Maybe their watching this thread.

The exploration CG started last Thursday and will run for a maximum of two weeks.

 

[]M[]

Right, spent the afternoon at the salad bar - now for some mining... found a pair of pristine reserve ringed HMC's earlier while scanning this system, one of which has a metal rich ring with plenty of hotspots - think i'm going to focus on the 2 platinum spots with the big ship & lasers... and see how well the 7A "universal" limpet swarm controller performs here :]

From the sublime to the rediculous - the T-10's firegroup setup:



Even remembering to pack enough limpets... ;]

 

[0threeleven]

I've been playing too much, 158 hours in the last two weeks, phew. I'm still working part time, maybe a couple times a month, since my two boys took over I help out sometimes driving a pilot car or in this case I fired up my 96 Peterbilt and picked up a Cat 925C, cuts into my playing time a bit.

Edit: 325C, jeez a 925 would need a double drop 12 axle Cozad.

 

[]M[]

I've been playing too much, 158 hours in the last two weeks, phew. I'm still working part time, maybe a couple times a month, since my two boys took over I help out sometimes driving a pilot car or in this case I fired up my 96 Peterbilt and picked up a Cat 925C, cuts into my playing time a bit.View attachment 347532

That looks like a fleet carrier with mining ship on board? :]

...there was a time when we played 80+hrs per 2 weeks - @40hrs a week that's basically an [unpaid] full time job?

See i'm down to less than 40 in the past two weeks and generally it's around that these days, ie: basically half time... it's still quite a chunk out of one's life, but doesn't compromise the rest of it too drastically... ;]

 

[0threeleven]

That looks like a fleet carrier with mining ship on board? :]

...there was a time when we played 80+hrs per 2 weeks - @40hrs a week that's basically an [unpaid] full time job?

See i'm down to less than 40 in the past two weeks and generally it's around that these days, ie: basically half time... it's still quite a chunk out of one's life, but doesn't compromise the rest of it too drastically... ;]

I was admiring the mining 'tank' you put together there, looks very impressive, please make a video of it in action if you don't mind, should be entertaining. Yes, I missed out on the early days of ED, I was working up to 65 hours a week back then anyway. In California, we didn't have to run a logbook if we were within 100 miles of our home base, the US department of Agriculture governs logging and they are pretty casual. Still subject to DOT also.

 

[bugbait42]

Well I did check out a few more Whambios and the first one I went to had a body with just two, which were Bacterium and Stratum Tectonicas.

I'd really quite like to move on with my carrier, but checked a couple more with zero bios, then thought I'd just check one more before going back and it had 25...

So I won't be doing that next carrier jump just yet!

 

[]M[]

I was admiring the mining 'tank' you put together there, looks very impressive, please make a video of it in action if you don't mind, should be entertaining.

Thank you - "Monstah Miner" is quite nice for chillled slow-gaming, mucking about in hotspots - all i'm up to atm tbh, after a week of coughing & spluttering... made this recording before - posting again at the risk of seeming repetitive - it's a bit of core mining, though unedited and lags a while on the limpets while i was trying to get some good external shots of them at work - and they kept failing on a chip of Alexandrite that had somehow snuck inside an asteroid fragment:

...and there's also this bit of an edit to music - which is meant to be the beginning of a more properly worked/edited video about mining... eventually :]

Yes, I missed out on the early days of ED, I was working up to 65 hours a week back then anyway. In California, we didn't have to run a logbook if we were within 100 miles of our home base, the US department of Agriculture governs logging and they are pretty casual. Still subject to DOT also.

I only started end 2017 / beginning 2018 - got the base game in time for xmas and Horizons sometime during the next year iirc - mostly played solo until a few friends from other games joined... then we had many long nights of pirate hunting, working our way towards FC's ;]

 

[Codger]

metal rich ring

You won’t find anything much to laser in a metal-rich ring. That’s more for core mining. You want a metallic ring for laser mining. Just in case you didn’t know. Ignore me otherwise

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

You won’t find anything much to laser in a metal-rich ring. That’s more for core mining. You want a metallic ring for laser mining. Just in case you didn’t know. Ignore me otherwise

It's a bit of a shame core mining is slightly broken. That pulse wave scanner needs looking into and there needs be a greater percentage of roids with viable cores "

Is sub-surface extraction actually practiced that much? Was it ever? I'm not sure it ever was.

If it's purely profit you're after and not just a fun diversion, lasering platinum, painite and osmium is where it's at.

Mined (sic - arf arf) you, if you are running low on raw mats, laser mining can be effective at recouping certain items.

* All just my opinion of course.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

It's a bit of a shame core mining is slightly broken. That pulse wave scanner needs looking into and there needs be a greater percentage of roids with viable cores

I agree. Even in the museum, there are way too few minable cores out there.

 

[]M[]

You won’t find anything much to laser in a metal-rich ring. That’s more for core mining. You want a metallic ring for laser mining. Just in case you didn’t know. Ignore me otherwise

Found a few laserable minerals, and indeed a couple of cores, but not much metal... just 3T of Gold and no Platinum at all in that “Platinum Hotspot” - then again, it was a slow-gaming day and I wasn’t looking very hard - still would probably have been better in a metallic ring proper indeed

...the pickings from a bit over an hour of not-too-serious mining - an 84T lucky packet - the Coltan was subsurface, with Serendibite & Rhodplumsite from cores:

 

[]M[]

It's a bit of a shame core mining is slightly broken. That pulse wave scanner needs looking into and there needs be a greater percentage of roids with viable cores "

It does seem to be broken-ish, but not as horribly broked as some say - important to look for pristine hotspots, as I think quite a lot of complaints stem from mining somewhere that someone sometime posted pics of ...and has since been mined to exhaustion ;]

Got quite a few good targets quite quickly with the pulse wave yesterday...



...though strange things still happen with that scanner at closer range:

 

[]M[]

Anyway, I always enjoy a good BOOM or two...