Newcomer / Intro What are you up to?

... I've got my trusty old Cobra MkIII ready as it has a mining laser fitted, so I'm off to try to plunder a few asteroids for arsenic ...

You do realise that this activity is possibly the absolute worst way to try to find arsenic?

Before your brain melts and drips out of your ears doing that, maybe take a SRV onto the surface of a body that has arsenic* in it's makeup and go shoot meteorites and outcrops.

Failing that, go collect G4 elements and G4 and G5 encoded data at the Bug Killer in your SRV and trade tellurium, ruthenium or antimony for arsenic.

* Insert name of your current system in the "reference system" field, select arsenic in the "material finder" field and click "find bodies":

 
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I've just looked at the rank requirements to come. That's a long haul up to Elite. I need to do everything I've done so far all again just for the next rank 😳

Think that's the same for deadly to elite in ship combat.
All the Elite rank structures work like this, the next rank you are going for needs the same number of ‘points’ as you earned from the start to where you are now. So as Tyres said when you reach the last rank before Elite you are halfway there.
 
I use a DbX as a hopping-about-the-place vessel - the jump range makes transiting the bubble really quick and the fact it is small-pad friendly makes it less prone to delays at outposts. I have used it in exploration activities but it just feels wrong when you are 10s of kylies out for some reason, the larger AspX feels much more in-tune with the zeitgeist of exploration. On the other hand, I did a long trip in an exploraconda and I would never do so again - it was heart-breaking to wallow about in supercruise. I might try a Phantom at some point.
I remember trying an Anaconda back before the FSS was brought in so we had to visit each planet to get the information, the way you couldn’t get it to turn tight enough to visit all the moons of a gas giant in a reasonable time was depressing.

The Phantom is an excellent explorer, room for the goodies, jump range a little better than the AspX, pretty good view from the cockpit. Downside it needs more space to land than the DBX.
 
I am uploading some old trips on edsm.net. It's very slowly lapping up bunches of discoveries and making up a pretty graph of the travels

And, been riding Apex to random stations in a mostly fruitless Pioneer Supplies shakedown. The pilots are so patient. I forget about it and sit in the hangar for an hour sometimes then dash into the station, shop, and set out out on the next fanciful booking, switch monitors and back to work.

So sedentary. Now I think I'm ready for some real action - maybe rock collecting tonight!

there simply are not enough buttons on this thing

"Well that's just like, your opinion, man!"

I like playing with the XBox controller! The button mappings can be fairly sophisticated. You can bind a bunch of odd ones like other combos, for example, hold select + push a button, (not just the four lettered buttons). Those combos open up some possibilities.

You're right it's awkward. Of course. I'm starting to imagine a comfy cockpit setup too.

But while I'm ranting about it - one notable change I really really like, while yer stuck with it, is swapping triggers and shoulder buttons (more like how it is in the SRV). Especially in combat. This concludes the unsolicited advice
 
I am uploading some old trips on edsm.net. It's very slowly lapping up bunches of discoveries and making up a pretty graph of the travels

And, been riding Apex to random stations in a mostly fruitless Pioneer Supplies shakedown. The pilots are so patient. I forget about it and sit in the hangar for an hour sometimes then dash into the station, shop, and set out out on the next fanciful booking, switch monitors and back to work.

So sedentary. Now I think I'm ready for some real action - maybe rock collecting tonight!



"Well that's just like, your opinion, man!"

I like playing with the XBox controller! The button mappings can be fairly sophisticated. You can bind a bunch of odd ones like other combos, for example, hold select + push a button, (not just the four lettered buttons). Those combos open up some possibilities.

You're right it's awkward. Of course. I'm starting to imagine a comfy cockpit setup too.

But while I'm ranting about it - one notable change I really really like, while yer stuck with it, is swapping triggers and shoulder buttons (more like how it is in the SRV). Especially in combat. This concludes the unsolicited advice
Wow.

I can't imagine not having a keyboard! My keys are all illogically placed and I should really remap to make it make sense...

... but that means undoing and redoing muscle memory and that's not a thing I'd relish.

How CMDRs cope with so few buttons on controllers is a mystery to me :D
 
"Well that's just like, your opinion, man!"

I like playing with the XBox controller! The button mappings can be fairly sophisticated. You can bind a bunch of odd ones like other combos, for example, hold select + push a button, (not just the four lettered buttons). Those combos open up some possibilities.

You're right it's awkward. Of course. I'm starting to imagine a comfy cockpit setup too.

But while I'm ranting about it - one notable change I really really like, while yer stuck with it, is swapping triggers and shoulder buttons (more like how it is in the SRV). Especially in combat. This concludes the unsolicited advice
Yeah, it is a little awkward at times. Still beats mouse and keyboard for me.

Select? Uh, select, select... Hrm. "Back", that big X and "Start"... I sometimes wish they would keep their labeling of buttons consistent... But I take it the "back" or "start" buttons would do it as well. I hope.

You mean, use the triggers for thrust and the buttons to fire? Sounds like an idea. Could even help me to get along with flight assist off... 🤔
 
How CMDRs cope with so few buttons on controllers is a mystery to me :D
Combos. "Y" plus digpad left opens Galmap, if you press digipad right instead, you get the system map. For example.

And I do it out of necessity.
Keyboard is not really an option for me, as I use my left paw to shove the mouse around and do not have enough room on my desk to position my keyboard in a way that I could use it in an effective manner. Besides trying to fly with the arrow keys would over time cause me physical pain due to the awkward positioning of these buttons.
 
You do realise that this activity is possibly the absolute worst way to try to find arsenic?

Before your brain melts and drips out of your ears doing that, maybe take a SRV onto the surface of a body that has arsenic* in it's makeup and go shoot meteorites and outcrops.

Failing that, go collect G4 elements and G4 and G5 encoded data at the Bug Killer in your SRV and trade tellurium, ruthenium or antimony for arsenic.

* Insert name of your current system in the "reference system" field, select arsenic in the "material finder" field and click "find bodies":

Cheers bro and oddly enough It's a bit of a coincidence you telling me that as I've since found out the hard way. I keep on mining, hoping to get arsenic and other mats but the vast majority of what comes out are fragments full of "useless" silver and whatnot that I've just left floating in space as atm I don't have a refinery. (I'm about to get one when I get a chance.) I thought the fragments go in the cargo hold but apparently that doesn't happen until there's enough of them in the refinery. I don't want anything in the cargo hold, especially when I'm flying ships with no weapons as I don't want to keep on being bothered and attacked by NPC pirates when I'm trying to do other things.

They seem to a habit of asking "carrying anything nice?" and so on but when they find I have nothing they say "waste of time" etc, then get on their bikes and fly off to bother somebody else. This is fine if I'm in the Mamba that has super-duper weapons on it and I will then shoot them if I can, but not when I'm in the Asp X or the Dolphin that have no weapons at all.

I bought an Adder yesterday, to add to my growing fleet as I thought I'd put one of those blaster things on it for mining, but I think I'll stick with my Cobra MkIII, which does have some basic weapons, but not the all singing and dancing ones like I have on the Mamba.

Anyway I've now arrived in the Dolphin at a place in the bubble called Upsilon Phoenicis, which has a planet with a tourist beacon on it near some lava spouts and crystalline
fragments, where hopefully I can finally get some arsenic. (The raw mat traders I've tried so far have all been nil stock...)

 
The raw mat traders I've tried so far have all been nil stock...
The (raw) mat traders always have full stock - the numbers you see listed is what you have in your magic suit pockets.

Procedure is:
  • select what you want (highlights)
  • then select what you want to trade for it (numbers on the upper left IIRC show the exchange rate)
  • then select how many you want to exchange
 
The (raw) mat traders always have full stock - the numbers you see listed is what you have in your magic suit pockets.

Procedure is:
  • select what you want (highlights)
  • then select what you want to trade for it (numbers on the upper left IIRC show the exchange rate)
  • then select how many you want to exchange
Ah ok thanks, I didn't realise that. I did watch a video about how to use those traders but misunderstood it, so if I get no joy from this planet I'm about to land on I'll go back to one of those raw mat traders.

It's a bit of a mystery to me why I can carry all that junk round inside my suit - a bit like Gordon Freeman in the Half-Life games lugging a ginormous great arsenal including grenades and gravity gun and whatnot around. :oops:
 
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I've just looked at the rank requirements to come. That's a long haul up to Elite. I need to do everything I've done so far all again just for the next rank 😳
Yeah. That doubling of the XP every level is a real gut punch, isn't it?

The XP I have right now on Taxonomist would take you all the way from new player starting at zero to Cataloguer. It's mind boggling.

The other issue is that the only really valuable biologic I've ever come across is Stratum. It can run in the mid 800 thousands. I've never come across anything else even close.
 
Wow.

I can't imagine not having a keyboard! My keys are all illogically placed and I should really remap to make it make sense...

... but that means undoing and redoing muscle memory and that's not a thing I'd relish.

How CMDRs cope with so few buttons on controllers is a mystery to me :D
I don’t really like doing 3 or more button/key combinations for binding things so at times it feels like I am running out of options even with a HOTAS and keyboard.

Actually it is that like Tyres my initial key choices aren’t that ergonomic now but I don’t want to start over while using the same kit.

Yeah. That doubling of the XP every level is a real gut punch, isn't it?

The XP I have right now on Taxonomist would take you all the way from new player starting at zero to Cataloguer. It's mind boggling.

The other issue is that the only really valuable biologic I've ever come across is Stratum. It can run in the mid 800 thousands. I've never come across anything else even close.
I am at the wrong computer but I have seen something up in the mid 700k region and another possibly a Tussock in the mid to high 600k area. But yes Stratum Techtonicas? is the highest I have sampled.
 
This would require to be in possession of such a device.
I was more thinking about your comment that you can't/don't want to fly your ship via the arrow keys. You can map the flight/thrust controls to anywhere on the keyboard (ok, anywhere that sends a code to the PC; shift or ctrl only probably would not work). I admit, though, that a keyboard remap is a lot of work, since just when you're selecting the last key of your careful layout, you'll get a popup saying "key ... is already used for .... Are you sure you want to change that?".

Here is one that might work: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?l=german&id=478686362
 
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